Our Weekends....Lately

Pin It now! Driving under gorgeous skies to NJ to celebrate Pete's 40th birthday. His sister added a few signs on his lawn to make sure everyone knew it was his birthday.

The dumpling eating contest was in our hood this year.  The men's winner ate 74 and the women's 46.  Gross!

Bellydancing with neighbors.  Neighbors opening a new Italian cafe with coffee and delicious pastries.  It was a soft opening this weekend and the official opening day is coming really soon.

Spending a beautiful afternoon brunching and shopping with my sister.

Our Weekends....Lately

Pin It now! Driving under gorgeous skies to NJ to celebrate Pete's 40th birthday. His sister added a few signs on his lawn to make sure everyone knew it was his birthday.

The dumpling eating contest was in our hood this year.  The men's winner ate 74 and the women's 46.  Gross!

Bellydancing with neighbors.  Neighbors opening a new Italian cafe with coffee and delicious pastries.  It was a soft opening this weekend and the official opening day is coming really soon.

Spending a beautiful afternoon brunching and shopping with my sister.

Labor Day Eats

Pin It now! What else is new?  We ate and drank this weekend.  There might have been pickle back shots, carnitas tacos, pork buns,

There was a blue moon this weekend too.  It got lost in all the lights in the photo below but believe me, it was fabulous. 

Last Weekend of August

Pin It now! As we wait for Isaac to become a full blown hurricane in a day or two, all everyone talked about this weekend was about Hurricane Irene and how fast the last year passed by.  I still can't believe it's a full year ago that we filled our bathtubs, refused to evacuate Zone A, and watched how the storm hit our area during a homemade brunch at our friend's apartment the next morning.  Ok, fast forward to a year later... our last weekend of August.  One of Michael's friends came to visit.  His girlfriend, who is the perfect Southern gal, didn't make it with him this weekend, but he's trying to convince her to move up to NYC.  She should have been up this weekend and would have had a much better experience than her last time in NYC during New Year's.  No drunk people puking in the streets, just lots of good food, drinking, friendly neighbors, a baseball game and great bbq. 



Our first stop was happy hour at Mole and then the Wythe Hotel rooftop where we listened to a (free!) Cypress Hill and Sublime concert (and watched all the other suckers who paid $75 to get into the concert venue).  The view and music didn't disappoint.  You could see all of Brooklyn and the Manhattan skyline (with a gorgeous sunset) and since the hotel roof looks over the Williamsburg Waterfront venue, we heard the concert perfectly.  The guys couldn't get the lyrics "I Ain't Goin Out Like That" out of their heads and sang it all night long.  Does anyone believe that song was from 1995?!  Feeling a bit old...

On Saturday, we headed to our annual La Mela dinner to celebrate all of our friends' August birthdays.  Seven courses of Italian food and unlimited drinks and somehow we ended our dinner conversation talking about 50 Shades of Grey (no I haven't read it!).  We planned on going for karaoke after dinner but our food coma sent us straight home.

And two random notes...Michael found this bug repellent last week and it's been a lifesaveer.  The two of us are notorious for getting bit wherever we go and for some reason the mosquito bites this year have left scars on my leg which look like bruises (ok, fine I can't resist scratching, I even wake myself up at night scratching those darn bites).  The spray is odor free and deet free, both of which I love.  It's heaven.

Second random...Do you have friends that you don't see for awhile and when you finally get together, it's still comfortable  and discussion flows freely, most about nothing and everything?  I hope you do, those are the best ones.

The Last Few Weekends

Pin It now! A couple of weekends ago (yes, I'm still catching up from a few weeks ago!), we caught Grand Street Walks where they closed Grand Street off for a block party.  Allison and I really wanted to get our face painted but the line (with other children) was too long.  Next time.  We celebrated Bastille Day with bottles of champagne, macaroons, and lots of photos with berets (yeah, not sterotypical at all).

Michael and I also ventured out with Annie and Pauly B to South Williamsburg.  After a wardrobe malfunction delayed us, we began our ad-hoc crawl at Crown Victoria.  It's hilarious and amazing discovering random places - who knew there was a huge backyard lot in the middle of no where and where hipsters come early to drink and play cornhole?  We eventually made it to our original destination, Bia Bar & Grill, and pleasantly stuffed ourselves with Vietnamese food (minus the bahn mi, not on the menu, strange).  We did manage to shoot a Cowboy Mimosa though.  Because we apparently have a food addiction and find friends who suffer from the same ailment, we ended our night with late night eats at La Esquina.

Rockaway Beach, Queens

Pin It now! Yes, we actually left Brooklyn on a weekend and yes, we actually went to Queens.  Have you been to Rockaway Beach?  I've always heard about it, and recently it's been dubbed the Hipster Hamptons, but I imagined it as being grimy like Coney Island (sorry it's true), but it's beautiful.  The beach is clean and gorgeous.  It's not too crowded and you can get there by public transportation.  It reminded me a lot of the nice Jersey Shore.  I hope we can get back there once more before the end of the summer.

The Weekend

Pin It now! On Friday, the rain spoiled our start-of-the-weekend drinks at Beekman Beer Garden and to escape another downpour of the night, we slipped into Cubana Social for dinner and drinks.  Thank goodness for having a cool spot so close to home to dodge the rain.  I have to say though, I love being inside when it pours and the thunder is booming.  Later that night, while the guys watched UFC, a few of us ladies joined them in the lounge but drank wine and played 90's edition of Trivial Pursuit.  Haha, much more civilized.  I was pretty terrible at the game - it seems I know a lot more 90's pop culture than politics. Sad.

On Saturday, I headed over to McCarren Park to donate some clothes.  Although they closed the Salvation Army down the street from us, I was lucky to find GrowNY's clothing and textile recycling stand at the park's farmer's market and made my way there for a second time to donate.  I also picked up some goodies at the farmer's market - can't go wrong with fresh cherries, blue potatoes and baby carrots - and took a stroll back home admiring the neighborhood.  That afternoon we also headed to Staten Island for Michael's niece and nephew's 5th grade graduation dinner.  Lots of stuffed clams, seafood salad and pasta macaroni.  Lots of catching up and pictures.  Lots of iced tea with frozen lemonade.  Although we weren't sure if we were going to make it in time, I was so happy we made it home to catch our neighbors' apartment crawl through our building.  We travelled to four different apartments in our building, each having a different theme of food and drinks.  This is why I love our building so much - a top night without leaving your home!  Plus I get to spy how others design and decorate their homes.  I definitely had apartment envy from some of the apartments (a piano and record player! a cb2 mini bar, a red-orange accent wall).

On Sunday was supposed to be sepnt at CitiField enjoying the subway series, but we didn't realize until we arrived at the stadium that ESPN picked up the game as game of the week and switched it from a 1pm to a 8pm game.  After taking the bus and subway to Queens, we headed back on the subway and bus again a little defeated.  We made it up by laying by the pool to soak up the sun.  Overall, a weekend of fun and unexpected adventures.

The Weekend

Pin It now! How was your weekend?  We watched our neighbor's dog for the weekend and this adorable cutie was the perfect house guest.  He's so easy going and it was fun to play doggie parents for a few days.  His tongue doesn't seem to ever fit in his mouth and is always stick out a bit. 

June also came to visit on Saturday and we did a food tour at the Smorgasburg.  I love my friends because they love to eat.  We made our way to the Lumpia Shack, Piggies in a Blanket, brisket at Mighty Quinn and of course donuts at Dough.  The weather held out a bit for us to lounge out by the pool and the we met up with some others for dinner at the Roebling Tea House.  It was our first time at the Tea House and it was fabulous.  I've heard about it from others and have read the reviews, but was absolutely surprised by how delicious the food was.  The menu changes all the time so we had to order most of the appetizers on the menu.  I could have had a meal with just their appetizers - don't you love to do that?  I could have also had ten of their strawberry rhubarb crumbles - delicious.  We walked home and caught the end of the first of three Williamsburg Walks.  10 blocks of Bedford Ave were closed to make the neighborhood car-free for a few hours.  It was so nice to walk through the streets at night, be able to sit on the grass they laid out, listen to a crazy hillbilly band, and we found an old-school candy store - Handsome Dan's - inside the Williamsburg Mini Mall.  Charlie and Jason went crazy with the button candy, wax bottle candies and candy cigarettes.  The store even had Razzles!

The Weekend

Pin It now! I'm still in the honeymoon phase of my Instagram crush.  I'm still wondering whether it's worth the $1B, but someone said it was about the user base.  I don't know what that means.  I just know that someone paid $1B for a company that makes my cellphone pictures look like the ones my parents were taking the year I was born...and I like it.  So this weekend, I ran my first 5K of the season with Alysse and Matt in Prospect Park.  There were a lot less runners for this race than the Lincoln Tunnel 5K I did last year and it was just one loop around the park, so there weren't markers indicating how far we had run and the race seemed to go a lot faster than expected.  By the time I thought I needed a break, we were done!  I hardly head out to Prospect Park or Park Slope so it was nice to walk around the neighborhood after the race.  We were loving the brownstones and the quietness of the neighborhood.  That night, Michael and I made our way to Best Pizza.  Anything that says it's the best better be good (and always reminds me of the scene in Elf when Buddy finds the World's Best Cup of Coffee..."You did it! Congratulations! Great job everybody!...")  It wasn't the BEST pizza but it was pretty close.  Their meatball sub is to die for and we couldn't go wrong by adding bacon and caramelized onions to the pizza.  For the rest of the weekend, I purged more clothes from the closet and storage, had my first Dough donut of the season (my favorite) and we went to Long Island for a wedding.  I'll post more photos of the wedding soon, but in the meantime, here's the weekend Instagram-style.