whirlwind

Friends, we just had one of the most packed weekends ever...and we have a lot of contenders in that field.  After work on Friday we drove up to NYC, getting in about when bed was starting to sound good to me. Our friend Ben immediately whisked us off to the most amazing dinner at Balthazar - the food was impressive, and the cocktails and creme brûlée especially delicious.  The next morning we got up (eventually - thank goodness the whole city takes so long to recover from the night before) and went to the Blue Ribbon Restaurant for brunch.  I love bread, this place is known for its bread...a very promising combination. In fact, I had to walk around for the rest of the day window shopping (and some real shopping) to walk off breakfast.

I completely dropped the ball on picture taking and basically ignored my camera.  The one exception was when we went to the Palmer Trading Company so that the boys could poke around.  I was obsessed.  Holy goodness, the interior decorating was fantastic.  After chatting up the store owners, I even asked if I could take pictures.  They seemed skeptical, but acquiesced.

[They also had a dog, and candles that smelled so cedar-y and amazing that "log cabin" has taken first place on my list of spaces to live...again.]

We had a wonderful rest of the day hanging out with Ben, watching football at a pub, getting dinner, going to a movie...and then at 1:00 in the morning, we decided that we should just drive back home that night [it seemed like a good idea at the time].  And since New York can still somehow have traffic jams at 2:00 a.m., we didn't get home until 6:00.  The bright side?  Daylight savings couldn't have come on a better weekend.  Total bonus!  

Today included mass, brunch with friends, and hanging out all day with Michael (future brother-in-law...but I already just yell "BROTHER!!" whenever I see him.  I pretty excited to finally have a brother.)  He's at Quantico doing TBS, and I can't even express how happy it makes me to have family only forty minutes away.  I'm starting a petition for everyone to move to the east coast!