Mystic, CT Trip

Sunshine. Warm sand. Icy Ocean. Giggling. Wind. Freedom. Family. Friends. Picknicking. Lobster Rolls. Pizza. Exploring. Climbing. Running. Cuddling. Smiling. Shining. No whining. Spying. Ooohing & Ahhhing. Thankfulness.

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Paint Makes Everything Better

I love to paint and since the weather starting warming up I've got the paint bug. Months ago, we picked up this piece for $25 in Newburgh off Craigslist. I'm a sucker for bookcases with glass doors and this piece was a steal. I lived with this the way it was for a while and then I got inspired to paint (after a LOT of sanding, of course)

Royal blue and true while are the colors I decided on. De-cluttered the shelving, bought a cute lamp from target, and displayed one of Ellie's paintings helped make this brighter. I'm already happier with the dining room. Now if only I could have a new table...:)

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Lynette's NYC half

A while back I applied for the lottery to run the NYC half marathon. I didn't get in, but a couple of my friends did. Meghan & Sean got in and had a fantastic race. However, I'm mostly proud of Lynette who had never run more than 3 miles before December, and after only 3 months of training finished her 1st half marathon yesterday!!! For the past 3 months Lynette trained hard and changed her eating habits to more of a primal/paleo lifestyle and I've so enjoyed being with her thru this journey. Once I didn't get in the race I told her I'd do all I could to run it with her, and thankfully I was able to I run up to mile 12 with her without much notice.

We took the train into Harlem on St Patricks Day with was crazy. The train was packed with crazies but it was a fun ride. Ben met us at the Harlem station and he walked us to his place where we dropped our bags and then headed out for packet pick-up, lunch, browsing, etc. It's so wonderful having friends in the city who know their way around! We spent the rest of the evening gearing up for the race, eating dinner on Ben's apartment room, and watching movies. Perfect!

Up early the next morning and taxied out to Central Park to begin the 6 mile loop. Ben & Lynette doing some exaggerated stretching before the race.

Daffodils! Ben assured us that Lynette needed two coaches and ended up running the entire half with us as well. We ended up finding a few shirts that people discarded along the way so we used Ben to wear/carry the gear for us :)

Times Square section- loved the girl in the purple tutu.

A little entertainment

Battery Park. Almost to Lincoln Tunnel. Great view of Brooklyn Bridge. Almost done. Goooo Lynette!

My camera died from taking too many pics so I didn't get any of Lynette at the finishing line. Steven met us at the finish and got a lot of fantastic pics and Ben made videos documenting her progress throughout. What a fun first race for her!
Lunch at IHOP after with a delicious caramel hot chocolate.

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Glimpse Into Adoption

My Friend Leigh at Prime Pursuit started a fantastic blog recently, but really it's much more then that. Check it out and you'll see a glimpse of our adoption story.

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Saedi Alexandra

I love my sweet Saedi and we rarely get time for just the two of us. Last weekend Ellie had a birthday party to go to, so I told Saedi she and I were going on a date. She wanted to go to a restaurant (that served pizza, banana bread and donuts) and when I suggested getting her nails painted at a real shop (as opposed to our kitchen table) she was ecstatic.

We got our nails painted first and she knew exactly what she wanted. She is going to be a famous artist, you know. At least that's what she tells us. She chose two shades of purple and asked for a pattern of every other nail. Then she got designs painted on top in green. Sweet! I went for a sassy read that the pretty lady next to me assured me would look fabulous on my nails as "short red nails are in this Spring."

Since I didn't know of any restaurants that served pizza, banana bread & donuts we compromised and walked to Dunkin Donuts where she picked out a coffee roll for after lunch. Next, we drove to Prima Pizza in Cornwall where we each ate a slice of cheese and she picked Spumoni for dessert (because it was colorful. She doesn't even like ice cream because it's cold. I cheated on not eating sugar and had a few bites...delicious!). And the highlight of the restaurant? The old jukebox. I gave her a quarter and let the box sing Happy Birthday to her (her birthday is January) and she thought she was the best thing happening. Adorable! Refreshing morning with the most amazing 4-year old I know!

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Sunburst Mirror

Last Tuesday when we heard we were going to be getting snow Meghan and I made a last-minute decision to make our own sunburst mirrors during our "snow day." Meghan did all the dirty work- choosing This tutorial to follow, running out to Michaels, Home Depot, & the PX to pick up the bags of supplies. I just showed up and she served me wine, yummy lara balls & we glued & chatted til midnight.

Piles of glued shims wrapped in rubber bands

My final product wasn't as symmetrical as I had hoped. Obviously when I glued the mirror on, I was off. I didn't realize how off until I checked my final product the next morning. Meghan painted her sunburst gold, so you'll have to wait for her to blog about this fun experience.

Oh, and that snow day? We got it! (which is hard to believe since it was 70 out today!)

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inseparable

These boys are inseparable.

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