Last day in NY March 26, 2010

We started our day a little earlier than usual and ate breakfast at European Cafe, we both had bacon, eggs, potatoes and coffee. We are gonna miss the little café we have eaten at for the whole time we have been here.

After breakfast we headed to MOMA so that we would be there right when it opened at 10:30am. We walked through the whole museum and we really enjoyed the Tim Burton exhibit, it was full of his sketches, drawings, animations, and stuff from the movies he has made. Sadly we couldn’t take pics in the exhibit. When we went to Europe on our honeymoon we vistited Amsterdam which is the home of the Vincent Van Gogh museum and I was soo super excited to see Starry Night. Much to my surprise the freakin painting wasn’t there, I was so disappointed. Even more to my surprise I found out that the painting was at MOMA in New York! Yep..here it is!

We went to a grocery store near central park to get groceries for our gourmet picnic (that’s what we called it because the stinkin groceries cost so much)! We had a great time eating and laughing and enjoying our last day in Central Park.

After our lovely picnic we went to the hotel to shower, relax and start packing. We had reservations at an amazing steakhouse called the Strip House at 5:30 so we got all dressed and ready to go! The restaurant was amazing and a little too classy to get out our camera and take pictures of our first so I will describe it for you as best I can.

First, compliments of the chef we got a plate with mac and cheese like I have never seen it done before. It was a mound of macaroni that was crisp on the outside and season delicious on the inside. Mmmm

Next for an appetizer we had a lobster and avocado salad with micro greens and a creamy chipolte sauce. It was to die for!

After we finished our salad it was onto the main course. A bone in ribeye for Marc and a 10oz filet mignon for me. The steaks were incredible, juicy, melt in your mouth good! On the side we had mashed potatoes and creamed spinach with a black truffle sauce. We both finished our steaks (because it’s not too often we splurge on steaks this great) and moved onto my favorite part of the meal…dessert!

For dessert we (mostly I) had Tahitan Vanilla Creme Brulee. It was the perfect end to a perfect meal!

We headed to Times Square just to see the bright lights one more time and get some last minute souvenier shopping done. Now we are back at the hotel packing and relaxing and getting ready to head home tomorrow. Our flight leaves here at 7:30am (the shuttle to the airport is coming at 4am ugh) and we arrive in LA at 10:53am. It has been an incredible vacation but we are ready to come home and see our family, friends, and PUPPY!

NY March 22-24 March 25, 2010

Monday morning woke up pretty late around 10am (which is like 3 hours later then we usually sleep till). Even though we are on vacation in NY we are still getting some much needed rest and sleeping for 8 hours or more a night is a really nice change for us!  We went to breakfast at the café down the street  and then we headed to the American Museum of Natural History! This was the museum that we were most excited to see and it did not disappoint. We saw HUGE dinosaur fossils, the 94 foot blue whale replica and tons of animals, insects and artifacts. It was truly incredible and we spent hours and hours there wandering around and enjoying the exhibits. We stayed almost until closing and then we headed to the Time’s Square area to meet a friend for dinner at John’s Pizzeria. We had a great evening full of good pizza and good conversation, it was great to catch up with Sarah! Just so you know the way a true New Yorker eats pizza is folded lengthwise (hot dog style) like a sandwich. After dinner Marc and I headed to the famous Serendipity for dessert and we ordered their famous frozen hot chocolate and a hot fudge Sunday! It totally lived up to the hype and we headed back to our hotel full and happy. And I should also mention that it was pouring rain the whole night and we were soaked because we pretty much had to walk everywhere, somehow we always get caught in the rain!

Marc looking scared because of the rats…eww

Tuesday we woke up late again (I love it) and went to the same café for breakfast. This time Marc had a NY specialty, a bagel with lox and cream cheese and he loved it! We headed out on the subway to go to MOMA  and when we arrived we found out that it was closed on Tuesday’s. So we decided to walk down 5^th and 6^th avenue which is where the diamond district is! After I admired all the beautiful jewelry we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and spent the entire afternoon there. I especially loved the Greek and Roman sculptures and the Egyptian artifacts. The reconstructed Temple of Dendur is on display there and it was super amazing. We went back to the hotel to change to see Mary Poppins! We got to the New Amsterdam Theatre and headed waaay up to our balcony seats. The show was incredible and we both loved it. We ate dinner at Gray’s Papaya near the Lincoln Center and we had hot dogs and fresh fruit juice! Then back to the hotel and off to sleep.

admiring the diamonds

I want this in my house!

Temple of Dendur

such an amazing show!

After breakfast Wednesday morning we took the subway downtown to the financial district. We got off at Wall Street and we got to see the NY Stock Exchange which Marc was really excited about. We walked all around the area and saw the Federal Reserve Building and lots of men in nice suits. We went to ground zero and it was all blocked off for the construction of the new monument but there were still monuments to the fallen firefighters. We went to city hall and to the courthouse (the steps they always show on law & order SVU, for all my fellow SVU fans). After people watching for a little while we walked through the historic Seaport district and then walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and enjoyed the beautiful view. We walked around downtown Brooklyn and the historic district for a while and then headed to the famous Grimaldi’s Pizza under the Brooklyn Bridge. The line was out the door but the pizza was SO worth the wait and it was nothing like the pizza we have in CA. I, being the ice cream lover that I am, saved some room in my tummy for a scoop of vanilla ice cream with hot fudge at the Brooklyn Ice Cream factory. We took the subway back to the hotel and took a nap and then headed out to the East Village to walk around and eat. We got Belgian fries served in a paper cone at Pommes Frites and they were delicious. We walked all around the area and headed back to the hotel and watched Criminal Minds until we fell asleep.

Marc in front of the NY stock exchange

Construction at Ground Zero

Do these steps look familiar…dun dun

walking across the brooklyn bridge

oh so incredible!

freezing…I pretty much wore my hood all day (but I still wore my rainbows)

P.S. I always said that when we have little kids we will leave them at home with my parents while we go on vacation but….we miss Daphne so much and she is a stinkin dog!! So I have officially changed my stance on ditching my future kids while I go on vacation with my hubby! And just for your viewing pleasure…2 of the girls I’ve missed the most while I’ve been gone

And speaking of girls I miss…I can’t wait to kiss her sweet face!

NY March 20-21 March 22, 2010

Here’s a post with a few words but a lot of pictures!

wake up. bagel (mine: cream cheese, marc: lox spread). walk all around the west village. washington square park. watched dogs at the dog park. missed daph. ate food from a street vendor (see pics below). watched an a capella singing group from oregon. it’s hot outside. walked through Soho. window shopped. back to the hotel to change. grand central station!!!  late dinner in little Italy (very fun since we are both Italian). ate pasta. walked around. PINKBERRY! bedtime.

My food Marc’s food

,Grand Central Station

Me inside Grand Central(thanks for the cute boots mom)

Dinner in Little Italy

wake up. eat at usual café (eggs potatoes and coffee for both of us). metro to the empire state building. elevator 86 stories up. the most incredible view EVER! wait in line for ferry to liberty and ellis island. see lady liberty up close and personal (wow her arms are buff)!  ferry to ellis island. possibly find my great grandpa’s family when I searched Vizzini’s who came through ellis island. enjoyed the great weather. back to hotel. church @ forefront.  great message and worship. eat dinner (me: grilled cheese marc: chicken fiesta panini). go to movies and see green zone at 10pm. really good. go to sleep.

At the top of the Empire State Building

Lady Liberty

My ancestors (maybe)

Ellis Island

Oh the things you see on the subway

NY Day 1 & 2 March 20, 2010

Our flight left LAX at 6 am (ahh so early), we had a short layover in Denver and we arrived at LaGuardia airport in Queens at 4pm. We gathered our bags, bought our unlimited 7 day metro card for $27 which gives us unlimited access to the buses and subways the whole time we are here, and I am pretty sure that it has already paid for itself! We hopped on a bus toward Manhattan during rush hour carrying our fairly huge suitcases (mine, which Marc was carrying was 48.5lbs) then got a connection to the subway and carried our bags up what seemed like 10 flights of stairs and finally arrived at Hotel Alexander in the Upper West Side. There was a little mix up with our room (somehow it was under construction and no one knew about it) so we got upgraded to a bigger room but still with a shared bathroom. This is the view from our room!

We went to Big Nick’s Burgers and Pizza for dinner and ate a really huge hamburger! Mmmm, we were so hungry since we hadn’t eaten since 6am at the airport. We decided to walk back to our hotel to kind of check out our neighborhood. We went back to our room fairly early because we were pretty tired and we got back just in time to watch the new Office!

Day 2: We got up around 7:30am and were out of our hotel room and on our way to Central Park around 8:15. We walked around Central Park for 2 hours and still only saw about half of it! Central Park is just as amazing as it looks on tv and we could have stayed there all day just walking around and people/dog watching (it seems like everyone has dogs here). We ate some Turkish food, which was super yummy!

We hurried back to our hotel to get dressed to go to the New York Philharmonic and see a concert. When we were getting closer we realized that most of the group we were walking with were senior citizens and we had a good laugh haha. We had really good seats and it was really amazing to see the entire orchestra playing. At one point we decided to try counting all the people who were asleep and we totally got the giggles and we could not stop laughing because there were so many people sleeping, including the guy in the row with us!  Overall the concert was really good but we had to go by Starbucks because we were pretty sleepy.

We walked back through central park and headed to the Guggenheim but we sadly found out that it closed right when we got there due to the construction of a new exhibit. Oh well, we did get a hotdog (for Marc) and a pretzel (for me) at a nearby street vendor. We decided to go look around Bloomingdale’s which was so huge and so expensive. It was fun to look for we definitely could not afford to buy anything there.  We went by Dylan’s Candy Store and Serendipity (hour and a half wait, holy moly) and we are planning to go back on a weekday when it isn’t so busy.

We headed to the Rockefeller Center  to buy our NY passes and use our ticket for The Top of the Rock. We took an elevator 67 stories to the top and got to have an amazing view of the NY skyline. Enjoy some pics that Marc took!

We ate dinner at Sapporo, a Japanese restaurant, near Times Square. Marc had Curry Ramen (top ramen on steroids as marc put it) and I had…………Teriyaki chicken! Then we headed to Times Square and oh my gosh it was so incredible. Seeing it on TV does not do it justice, it was so bright and busy and crazy! We walked all around looking at all the sites and all I could think about was watching TRL when I was younger wishing I could be in Times Square, haha

We got back home and I had some Tasti D Lite yogurt before going to bed! We slept in this morning and now we are deciding what we are going to do today! I’ll leave you with this photo to put a smile on your face!

New York! March 17, 2010

I am sitting at school studying for my last final (which is in 6 hours) and all I can think about is NEW YORK! Marc and I are so excited to leave tomorrow morning at 6am, we will arrive in NY at 4pm and we can’t wait! I’m bringing my laptop so hopefully I will find some time to update the blog. Since  I never blog and my brain is relatively friend from studying I’ll leave you with a few brief thoughts..

~I feel like I have learned so much this quarter and I have grown so much as a person and a professional

~Daph is getting so big and I am gonna miss her so much while we are in NY but I think she will enjoying staying with my parents

~My brain hurts from studying

~I got the cutest new boots from nordstrom (my mom got them for me as an early bday present)

~I can’t want to spend 8 whole days with my hubby

~I miss so many of my friends who I don’t see as much as I’d like to (you girls know who you are).

~I am loving this weather

TIme to study then final from 6-8, pack, cuddle with Daph, sleep for a little while, and leave for NY!

4 months. February 9, 2010

Daphne May turned 4 months old yesterday on Feb. 8!

She is the sweetest

cutest

smartest

puppy ever!

and we love her so much!

An update of sorts January 12, 2010

Well since its been forever since I’ve blogged I’ll do a quick update of what I’ve been up to for the last month. Life has been busy but great and I am trying to enjoy every second of it.

Our Christmas was incredible! It brought me so much joy to come home to our apartment everyday and smell our christmas tree and look at all of our decorations, I love Christmas! I got all my shopping done early so I got to slow down and enjoy the season while I was out of school. We spent Christmas eve afternoon at my parents with lots of family and friends and that night we went to church and then to Marc’s parents to open gifts. Jenna slept over at our apartment on xmas eve (we have this weird tradition of sleeping together every xmas eve so poor Marc slept on the couch, he’s awesome)! We spent Christmas with my Mom’s family and then the evening with Marc’s Nana and his parents and sister. The day after we went to to San Diego to see the rest of Marc’s family and we had a great time hanging out with all his cousins.

We have been busy being mommy and daddy to a very busy, adorable, hyper, sweet puppy! Daphne May is growing so fast, she is almost 13 weeks old. She loves to play with her wubba, chew her bone, sleep on her red pillow, eat freeze dried liver treats, cuddle with me and wrestle with Marc. She is totally potty trained and she sits, lays down, and speaks on command. She is so smart and we are SO in love with her!

Marc is working more hours at his internship and is really enjoying learning about the financial planning business( and I am really enjoying seeing him getting dressed up everyday). The company will most likely sponsor him to get his license and go through all the training he needs to reach his career goals. He is also still working nights at church so he is usually at work Mon-Thurs from 9am until 10pm, Friday’s at the internship and the weekends at the church. I am so proud to be his wife and I really value his hard work (even though I miss him while he is at work).

I am still at the YMCA getting up early every morning to open our childcare site and working nights at the office. I truly love my job and the people that I work with. I am blessed to work for an organization that I really believe in and that does great things for the community.

I started school on Jan 4! My break went by way too fast but I got back into the swing of things pretty quickly. This quarter I am taking Family Life Cycle Development, Ethical Issues in Counseling and Family Therapy, and Psychopathology I. I LOVE the program I am in and my classmates and instructors are so amazing. This September I will start seeing clients in my internship and I think I am like 50% excited and 50% so so anxious and scared.

My beautiful goddaughter/niece/cutest little girl ever turned 1 on Decemeber 23! We went to her Nana’s house for pizza and cake and on Jan 2 her parents threw her a candy themed party which was so fun! Gracie was happy the whole time, it was awesome. Then on Jan 3 we took her to build a bear and then went to dinner with her mommy and daddy at BJ’s. It was so fun to celebrate her life and how much everyone loves her!

I think I covered everything. I promise pictures from christmas, Gracie’s birthday and updated pics of Daph in my next post!

Kitchen December 10, 2009

So, since many of you who read my blog have probably never been to my apartment I am going to try and post some pics of every room in our house for you to see! I’ll start with the kitchen because it is one of my favorite places to be (only if it doesn’t involve doing dishes). I love to cook and eat and especially drink coffee in my kitchen. So here we go!

Our beautiful stove given to us by an amazing family!

Fridge and GIANT cabinets and pantry

Mmmmm..French Press Coffee

Inside of my cabinet

I’ve grown to love my green & yellow tile

This just seemed like the right place for Nanny to be in our home, oh how I miss her!

I hope you enjoyed a peek at my kitchen! Come over for dinner and see it for yourself

coming next…The Dining Room!

Daphne May December 10, 2009

Here are some pictures of our newest family member

Daphne May Murano

Born: October 8, 2009

Came Home: December 6, 2009

Oh My Goodness.. December 4, 2009

WE ARE GETTING A PUPPY!!!!!!!

A little girl sheltie!

More news and pictures to follow!