Basketball, Broadway & Bunnies

Our weekend started early - thanks to Good Friday (though I didn't technically have the day off, my good boss told me coming in was "up to me"...so of course I slept in, had breakfast with the other half, strolled into work around 11:30, stayed for 2 hours to get one or two things done, and took off to shop for the afternoon...I mean really, who wouldn't?). Brett got off on Thursday early - his half day allowed him to leave at 5:30pm!! I unfortunately didn't have a half day and headed straight from work to R.S. I came home to a husband on the couch, with feet up on the ottomon and some of this:

Yes, we do have an HD antenna, but we've never been able to get CBS with it. Brett would not stand for that during March Madness, so he went straight to Best Buy to take care of it. Now we have TWO antennas...we get CBS with this one, but not ABC or the CW. I guess between the two of them, we've got the main networks covered. I must admit, I wasn't so thrilled with the idea, but after strongly voicing my opinion, I came to grips with it and I'm sure glad that Brett has been able to enjoy his weekend off with lots and lots of basketball. And of course I didn't leave anything for dinner, so I should have guessed. All that remained was a pizza box lying on the floor with a couple of strings of cheese stuck to the inside. All Brett could say was, "What? Pizza and basketball." Too cute! I was just upset that he didn't even save me one slice...that's right, he ate the ENTIRE pizza by himself. I brought him home some desserts from R.S., but when he looked at them he said, "My stomach hurts a little." You think? After downing an entire pizza :)

Basketball really devoured our weekend...I wasn't as much into the games as how I was doing on my picks. In my family there are first, second and third place prizes for picks and I'm ALWAYS at the bottom of the todem pole. This year though, I'm holding my own and I root for whatever teams I picked.

Saturday we went out to look for apartment with a broker (yes, we've resorted to a broker so they can do some of the work for us). What a drag! We just want to find the perfect apartment - no more looking!!!! Soon enough, but in the meantime we'll keep chugging along.

After a morning trekking through the Upper East Side, we continued to celebrate Brett's birthday with a matinee performance of Phantom of the Opera. I saw it when I was little, so I don't remember much of it. We enjoyed it, though we wished that we had gone in knowing the story a bit better. The music and cast were phenomenal. Yes, my childhood dream of being a Broadway star lives on! I brought my camera to document the occasion, but much to my chagrin (and much to Brett's joy), the battery was exhausted.

Sunday morning the Easter bunny found us - mmm, some tasty treats landed in our basket (but not too many so as not to "blow up like my Aunt Roberta" - name that movie)! We enjoyed a good block of church meetings and then a bit of basketball before heading over to have Easter dinner with some friends. We were in charge of bringing dessert, so I put my Martha Stewart skills to the test. I realized very quickly that I am no Martha Stewart - it didn't quite look like this:

Ok, so it looked nothing like that. But supposedly they tasted good - though everyone may have just been obligated to say that. I thought they were fine, but of course the cooks opinion really doesn't count!

All in all, a good Easter weekend. The only thing that would have made it better - pictures! I can't believe I slacked on some serious scrapbooking opportunities!

I'm so excited! I just can't hide it!

There are some indescribable moments of joy in life and today provided one of them. Congratulations to my sister for matching in York, PA!!!! She matched for her ER residency at her top pick! Of course, I'm not surprised because she's just so incredible and is always on top - everyone loves her and the York ER Residency program is so lucky to have her! We've all been waiting for this moment for a long time now and as I opened the text message, I felt as if I was opening a mission call again! Truth be told, I cried at the news and then again at the email her husband sent out with pictures. It's great news, but what makes it even greater is the fact that now she'll be a mere 177 miles from NYC (3 short hours by car)! Brett and I have been trying to convince any of our siblings to move out east and join us. We made a valiant effort with Becky and Ben, but to no avail. At long last, we'll actually have family we can visit more than once or twice a year. Kirsten and I have already had a conversation this afternoon about our monthly visits. Now there will be family to spend holidays with and we can regularly see their little wee in its first years of life. Just in case you wanted to see how very close they'll be, I mapquested the route!

And here are a couple of pictures documenting the event. That smile on her face is just priceless! Look out York, Kirsten, Kyle and little wee are on their way!
Kirst, I'm so proud of you! You definitely deserve this! And I look forward to all the memories we'll create in the upcoming years!

March 18th

For the past four weeks, March 18th has been branded into my forehead. All I was working for was to make it successfully to this day. As I type, the "mucky mucks" (as my mom would call them) are up in "the penthouse" in an all-day meeting with a very important client (so important she was flown in on a corporate jet and her security is down in the lobby). I've been working like crazy along with my team to put this whole meeting together. We've had many long hours (weekends included) and late nights bringing things to life. The run through yesterday went relatively well, with only minor last minute changes. Leaving at 9:45pm last night was much welcomed considering that we all assumed we'd be here well into the wee hours of the morning. It's my first quiet day in a while and I'm anxious for 5:15pm to roll around so I can hear how it all went (of course, I'm sure it will roll off without a problem) and then head right out the door and get some good sleep. For at least the past week, I've had multiple nightmares each night about all of the reels I've put together for this meeting, etc. I'm looking forward to sweet dreams now!

At about 10:15 this morning as I sat down to catch up on all the work I've neglected, I was pleasantly surprised to find our group admin walk over with a beautiful arrangement of flowers (from my boss' boss' boss) just for me in appreciation of all the work I've done. So sweet! It made the 70+ hour weeks worth it! (Well, the senior exposure I received over the past weeks was also an added bonus to the project). Now all I have to do is clean my house (which has been harshly neglected over the past few weeks) so the flowers have a fitting home for the next few days...maybe tomorrow!

P.S. I'll have to post pictures of the final set-up of the room once I grab them from our admin. It is a sight to behold!

Brett's Birthday Weekend

Last Friday was Brett's birthday. It called for a celebration weekend despite the torrential rain we received. And the party continues on.

Leading up to his birthday I emailed him various times with four options to choose from...little did he know, he was picking out his entire birthday weekend all from the choices. Here are the options given with his choice in bold:

1. Broadway, Sports, Culture, Fun

2. Sight, Sound, Touch, Taste

3. Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

4. Elementary School, High School, College, Beyond

New

We headed from work straight to dinner at a new restaurant we'd never been to, The Palm - a famous steakhouse here in NYC. He's a huge steak fan and since I'm not a huge red meat eater, he definitely doesn't get to enjoy it as much as he would like to. We sat in a table that President Bush Sr. used to sit at when he lived in NY and worked at the UN. He frequented the restaurant.

Chocolate Molten Cake with fresh berries and homemade whipped cream. It was presented to him with candle, birthday song and all. He was only slightly embarrassed as they turned the lights out and the other diners sang along :)

The rest of the plans for the night were postponed due to the rain, but we managed to take care of those on Saturday. So instead we went straight home to talk to family and open presents.

Here's the birthday boy listening to all of the nice messages he received. Thanks to all of you family and friends who sent birthday wishes his way!

Broadway/Beyond

And here he is anxiously waiting to open his gifts. He netted out with some of his favorite girl scout cookies (Samoas), a new shirt and tie from my family, and tickets to see Phantom of the Opera on the 22nd of this month (each of the school options was associated with a different play...beyond was Phantom which he was wanted to see for a long time). One more gift came on Saturday and we still need to pick up the package from his parents at the post office (with work though, we can only make it to the post office that is about 3/4 mile away on Saturdays).

In honor of his 24th birthday, we fittingly watched lots of 24 episodes. Friday night and all day Saturday it rained, so we took advantage of having an excuse to be lazy and watch 5 hours of TV (we never get to do that)! Two more episodes left to watch from the season...guess what we're doing tonight? :)

Sound

Once it stopped raining late Saturday night, we ventured over to the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue (thank goodness it is open 24 hours) to get his other present - a new ipod! We spent some time there perusing the merchandise and playing the games on the imacs in the kids corner...man, those games for 6 and up games were challenging!

Sunday I made him his birthday dinner. He chose chicken roll-ups (a favorite that his mom made for him growing up), white rice, broccoli and salad. I've never had his mom's chicken roll ups, so I had nothing to compare them to, but I think they turned out well.

Brett spent most of Sunday reorganizing his itunes library, downloading fascinating finance podcasts, and just getting acquainted with his new friend.

We finished off his birthday weekend with a homemade cake. I had high hopes of finding a tasty new recipe, buying round cake pans and making him something fancy, but since we didn't really go out on Saturday until 9:30pm, it was too late to go to BBB to get the pans and I hadn't looked up a recipe. So we resorted to a Betty Crocker yellow cake recipe and his family's famous fudge frosting. I unsuccessfully attempted the frosting before Brett had to come in and salvage it. Again, I've never seen it made before, so I was making it blind. We've already made the request for his parents to teach us when they come out in May.

Once Brett took over with the frosting, the kitchen got ugly...he documented his mess as he was cleaning it up.

All in all, good birthday weekend! I sure do love my birthday boy!

The little things!

It's 8:15, still at work and destined to be here for a while yet. I've been running around all day and at 3:45 just needed a little pick-me-up. So, I indulged! I took the quarter from my pocket, walked right over to the candy dispenser and got myself a quarters worth of peanut M&Ms (my favorite...don't even bring the plain ones near me, true M&Ms have peanuts)! After a conversation with a co-worker a while ago about the net yield of M&Ms from one quarter versus paying the 85 cents at the vending machine for a full pack, I started counting. Up until today my record was 11 M&Ms from one quarter (a much better deal than one small pack for 85 cents). Today, a new record was set...12 tasty peanut M&Ms just for me! Mmmm! I savored every last one of them! The new record and the chocolatey, peanuty goodness made my day!

Now back to work...

P.S. Reading back through this post, I realize I sound like a child. Saving my quarters so I can get a little treat when the ice cream man goes by. Though one too many fun dips ruined the ice cream man experience for me. Although, on second thought, those clown popsicles with bubble gum eyes were tasty. Mmm...wish there was an ice cream man in New York...

Random moments to remember

Just found some pictures on my cell phone that prompted this post. Remember my weekend home at the end of January? I forgot about some of the fun pictures we were able to capture on my phone. My mom and I had a fabulous time at the movies...I don't know that I've ever been able to go to a movie just my mom and I. We had to document the moment. Isn't my mom just the cutest thing ever?When I was little I LOVED to play with my sisters' hair and they almost always let me. But I equally LOVED them playing with my hair - but that almost never happened. I guess it's just a younger sister's role. Kari definitely played that role for me! She styled my hair for quite a while and though the styles were a bit odd, I was content with her brushing, running her fingers through and styling my hair. She had quite a blast and documented all of the dos with pictures. Here is a small sampling. I know, attractive, right?

And here is the beautician herself! She also had a blast taking bunches of pictures of herself and pasting them on my wallpaper so I wouldn't forget her as soon as I headed back to New York. She's just precious. I love you Kari!

Living my dream

It is currently 9:15pm. Unfortunately I'm still here at the office and Brett is still working away at his. I'm on my 13th hour of work; he's finishing out his 15th. And, I just got called into a meeting... Talk about the city that never sleeps...because they never stop working! Though, to be fair, this job has actually allowed me to have free-er evenings than at my last agency. Most days I can count on being off by 6:30 (except for the upcoming two weeks). As for Brett, well, that's a different story!

This is the life Brett and I both dreamed of. But somedays, dreams aren't as glamorous as they seem.