Biking the Hudson River Park

SO FUN!!! Wish I could do this every day. It was the perfect day--the weather was ideal, we found parking in 2 seconds (the city was refreshingly uncrowded), met friendly people, my favorite being the woman who sold me a print in Battery Park. There's also lots of fun outdoor restaurants. Absolutely love it.

High School Reunion

I went on a fun trip to Utah for my high school reunion. It was at Snowbird and Lisa and Lori got a room at the Cliff Lodge and Julie and I stayed with them. Such a fun weekend. I love my girls!!!
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I got to go on the zip line and ride a bull, and of course we spent lots of time at the spa. The reunion itself was fun too, great to see a bunch of old people you haven't seen in years :)

I was in Utah for a couple weeks and got to hang out with family (including my uncle Gary who was visiting from Florida), see friends, eat Mexican food and site see.

I survived girls camp...

I even liked it! I'm now a big supporter of girls camp. I got to be the leader for the level two's. Here's a pic of them and our JCs. Amazing people. I really don't think we were so good when I was their age.

What we did couldn't really be called camping tho. We stayed in an air-conditioned lodge with mattresses, bathrooms, showers. We were served our meals in the mess hall, complete with salad bar and dessert trays. But it was beautiful. Here's a picture of our lake:

Bon Jovi live in Central Park

I love Jon! I might have to put his poster up on my wall again. He did a free concert in Central Park for the MLB all-star game, but you had to win tickets to get in. I tried but didn't get any. Luckily Keith had volunteered with the Yankees and one of his assignments was the concert, so I just met him outside the park and got thru all the gates with him. Three of my favorites all rolled into one: Central Park, Bon Jovi, and free. It was so much fun. Impossibly huge crowd.

Something I love about NJ summers is the fun outdoor concerts and movies. I saw Dionne Warwick sing at local Brookdale park the other night. It was the most crowded I've ever seen the park. She sounded great and it was a perfect night to be outside.

Happy Birthday America!

This picture isn't actually from this year, it's from last, but I didn't take any this year, plus I got special permission as a farewell gift from Linds to post this pic. Such a fun day and I miss my friend!!

High Point, NJ

As of last weekend I can now say that I have climbed all the way to the highest point of NJ. This grueling feat can be accomplished by any skilled, or unskilled, hiker. Just be prepared, at 1,806 feet above sea level, the most challenging part of your trek will be locating the "peak" above the trees. Luckily a large obelisk identifies this high point, and can be seen at close distances where there are breaks in the folliage.

Happy Birthday Brooklyn Bridge!

She turned 125 this weekend. My pictures didn't turn out very well, so this is a pro shot. It was a beautiful night and it just happened to be fleet week, which would have been much more exciting had all the sailors not looked like children to me. I wanted to flirt and get a pic with one, for posterity sake, but I couldn't get over the creepy pedophile feeling. I was perfectly content to just eat delicious cannelloni at this restaurant on Mulberry with AnnMarie Miranda, Joann, Suzilla and Brent, none of whom were willing to be featured in my blog.

Nyack, NY

Saturday was a great day-- Keith wanted to go on a 'groovy' drive so we headed north. We stopped in a couple cute towns and ended up in Nyack, and I decided I want to move there. It's a cute historic town like Greenwich but smaller and not touristy. We made friends with everyone (Keith's outgoing and everyone in the town is very kick-back and friendly) and by the time we left it felt like home. I would work in the bakery on the main street and live in a Victorian farmhouse I saw an ad for in the bakery window. Rent would be cheaper for me than it is now, which is good because I'm sure bakery work isn't terribly lucrative. Even tho it's only about 45 min to NYC, fashions are quite different:

There's a little pub called O'Mally's or something with the best home-made dark chocolate creme brulee ever.

Kentucky Derby

Aunt Elinor's Kentucky Derby party was even bigger this year than it was last year. Family came from as far away as Oregon. It was a very fun weekend. This year my horse was in front for more than half the race until Big Brown, Zach's horse, came from behind to win. So Zach was the big winner--$20 for his college fund :)

DC Trip

Kris & Brittany came from Sitka to visit DC with Brittany's school program. So fun to see them! I didn't see Britt much, but she sure has grown up! I'm so old... I just went down for a couple days but we saw EVERYthing! Thanks for playing Krissy!

NY Red Bulls vs New England Revolution

I was really tempted to cheer for the other team just because their name is more clever than ridiculous. Giants Stadium seems really huge to me tho, and soccer is always fun. Great end to a GORGEOUS spring day!

Hard to tell we're at the game, but I like this picture so I'm posting it.

SPRING!!!

I love spring and there's no more beautiful place to be for it than Montclair.

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors,
there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
~Rainer Maria Rilke

This is awesome...

According to snopes this is the real deal. So funny!
(Click to see whole story)

For Easter this year I really outdid myself on cuteness.

Speaking of cuteness, I guess I should post a picture of my pink bathroom. Because I moved. Now I live by the art museum at the top of church street.

Valentine's Day

For V Day Keith took me to see Juno at Clairidge and then to dinner at Table 8, which is one of those fancy NY style Montclair restaurants that I've heard of but never been to, with well known chefs and reservation requirements and such. The food was incredible. I had an appetizer which wouldn't sound very good if I were to describe it, but suffice it to say that it was duck and it was amazing. Keith's shrimps were nearly as delightful, and he also shared his pork tenderloin--perfect. I had fillet mignon for my main dish- heavenly, and we both got coconut tapioca pudding with carmelized bananas and coconut sorbet over peanut brittle. Weird but yummy. I must say it was the best meal I've had in years. And the best Valentine's day.

The next night I made dinner for Keith. And this cool Valentines cake. You can't tell how cute it is from the picture, but the strawberries are shaped like hearts :)

I published this post and realized my blog's background is exactly the same color as my kitchen walls and counters. That's odd.

Catskills

I finally went skiing in NJ. Well, not NJ, NY. Keith & I went to the Windham resort one Monday and it was very fun. So happy to be on skis again! Keith boards, so he is slightly cooler than me, but I was pretty much able to keep up. All my ski gear is in Utah so I got to try out some sweet demos which could have been mine for only $1200. I was pleasantly surprised by the resort--all man-made snow and quite icy, but a lot bigger and better terrain than I anticipated. Reminded me of Deer Valley because of all the beautiful cabins right on the runs.
After skiing we went home thru Woodstock and Keith showed me some places from his growing up years. I could definitely live in Woodstock, I love it. Charming little town square-well triangle, actually-beautiful streets, old wood church, a picturesque little waterfall, fun shops.

Broadway weekend

Jule came to visit this weekend and we had a blast. We went to 2 musicals in one day (Wicked & Chicago), ate a lot of great food (naturally), and she even let me stay with her in her fun hotel room in Times Square (on the 26th floor). We were relieved to find that we are just as cool as we were 22 years ago (when we were 7) and even lovelier :) Here we are with Allison at Rockefeller.

Jule discovered everyone's favorite dish for the weekend: Chocolate pasta at Da Marino's. So good! It's like something you'd eat in Chocolat--spicy and mysterious. Here's their link for future reference: http://www.damarino.com/ I told a Soprano to get out of my way by the bar (having never seen the show I didn't recognize him) and lived to tell about it...

"One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friends are born, not made." -Henry Adams

Trip to Idaho

One day I drove up to Idaho to visit Caitlin, Jared, Noel, Liam, Rory, and Ewan--a great way to start out the new year. Fun activities included Jared's birthday dinner and (naturally) bonfire, good food including funeral cake with cream cheese frosting and some Rachel Ray experiments,


Body Jamming at the gym, pack meeting, and a trip to the cabin. There was a ton of snow, luckily since we needed it for the sledding, snow shoeing, snowmobiling, and igloo-, fort-, giant snowman-making.


We even got snowed in-- at least stuck for a while until a very friendly local in a snow tractor pulled us out.

Absolutely loved it!