ny [day 3]

monday, beginning with coffee at joe, was the day of p.s.1, some random site-seeing, celebrity sightings, dinner at brasserie, and some photos at grand central station. all in all, a busy and extremely fun day. at p.s.1, there was a really great installation called "swimming pool," and also a great installation by olafur eliasson. they were taking down p.f.1 (public farm 1), but it was still cool to see the structure.

first, some beautiful latte art at joe's. i really would like to learn to do this...good party trick....if you're having a coffee party i guess...

at p.s.1




swimming pool, photo courtesy of brandon

the olafur eliasson

fall leaves

cancer center by SOM

view at dusk from our hotel room

view at sunset

grand central station at night

standing still

seagram building

at brasserie brandon and i enjoyed an amazing anniversary dinner. the space was beautiful, and we had a long, relaxing and romantic meal.

skating rink at bryant park

brandon and i had such an amazing day, especially with our fantastic dinner. oh! i almost forgot abut our celebrity sighting. so, we had some time to kill before our dinner reservations and we decided to walk over to the moma to check out the home store. when we arrived, the home store was closed, and we noticed some barricades with a bunch of, a red carpet, and men at the entrance to the moma dressed in beige trench coats. we wait a moment to see what's going on, and pretty soon hugh jackman hops out of a limo. i did take some pictures, but because it was dark and we were across the street, they all turned out blurry and you can't tell who it is. next rachel weisz came, and then anna wintour. at that point we had to leave, but apparently jessica biel was the only other big celebrity that showed up. we thought it might be some promotional event for the movie australia, but it was an event honoring baz luhrmann.

ny [day two]

day two in new york--lots of wandering, including a trip through soho, a few stops at some buildings by famous architects, a random stop in a wholesale market event (brandon got a shirt, will include a picture later), over to the new museum, and then of course, the event that sparked the entire trip, the ben kweller/conor oberst and the mystic valley band concert. the sun came out for us (which also meant the cold came out for us), and we had a great day exploring the streets of new york.

window washer, herzog & de meuron apartment building

herzog & de meuron apartment building

random graffiti

apartment building, SHoP architects

gate

corner in soho

"stranded at bleecker and broadway
looking for something to do"
-myriad harbour, the new pornagraphers

ben kweller

the reason we are even in new york, this very moment--to see ben kweller and conor oberst on stage together

i can't tell you how excited i was to see them play together--i mean, yes, the trip STARTED with this idea to go to this concert and then blossomed into a lot more, but this very moment (in the photo above)...seeing and hearing them play...that is why i wanted to see this concert. i was SO giddy when i saw bk on the side of the stage with his guitar, getting ready to come on...it was a perfect moment.

sfo-->jfk-->nyc

hello from new york! brandon and i are exhausted but extremely happy to be here in nyc--i absolutely love being here, even with the pouring rain we got caught in earlier. i'm going to try and blog at least a few times while we're here, to tell a sort of story about our trip. so, beginning with friday night...

sculpture at the airport--right up my alley. i loved the industrial material used to make something whimsical and slightly girly, especially against the cheery painted wall.

eating dinner/having a drink at the airport

our airplane

sunrise, somewhere over the u.s.

fall colors and rain in cnetral park

american folk art museum

"it's like you took the giant christmas tree
at rockefeller center and
you spread it paper thin
but you were careful not to break a bulb
and then you mirrored it a million fold
to shine
and shine
and shine along"
those lyrics were going through my head non-stop


ny public library

empire state building

tree huts, madison square park

pulse park at madison square park

room service dessert

all in all we had a great day...we did a lot of walking and really enjoyed getting out and seeing the city (especially after the rain stopped). i'm looking forward to tomorrow, especially with the bk/conor oberst concert tomorrow night!

election day/scarf

well, i feel semi-frivolous posting about a scarf on this monumental election day, but i didn't get around to it last night and i had time to take some pictures while watching the returns. anyway, i wanted to finish this scarf in time for new york and am happy with the results. the pattern was found here. i started, and then saw the middle part, which called for ribbing (you can't really tell from the picture on the pattern page). i was a little hesitant at first, wondering how it would look, but i went with it and completed the scarf according to the pattern. upon finishing i was still unsure how i felt about the ribbing until...i put it on. at that moment i realized the genius of the ribbing. in the yarn i used perhaps especially (a soft, 100% cotton worsted weight yarn), the ribbing is very soft on your neck, while the rest of the pattern does not feel quite as soft. it significantly increases the cozy factor of this scarf.
it was difficult to take pictures because stuart (who is currently making it difficult to type) was very interested in the scarf on his personal pedestal.

new york preparation

i forgot to mention yesterday--if anyone has any affordable new york meal options, we'd like to hear those too! we definitely cannot eat fancy meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

thanks!

rainy weekend

this weekend was a perfect time to get cozy and relax. saturday was mostly spent indoors hanging out with brandon until the evening when we ventured out to the sunset to have a carpet picnic with chris and sara. the ride out there was steamy (literally). gotta love taking public transit on rainy days!

waiting for the n at van ness station (this one was going the wrong direction)

sara, frosting her cupcake. she takes her frosting very seriously.

sunday morning started out with some confusion--i thought our phones would auto update--turns out they don't if auto update is turned off. after we got the time figured out, brandon headed into work and i stuck around to do some cleaning.

some shenanigans while i cleaned

after that i went to sugar cafe to have some coffee and take some time to look over my voting information (for the record, san francisco has props a-u) and make my decisions. after some browsing downtown, i went back home to work on my scarf that i'm trying to finish for friday. at one point, i looked over and saw this

of course i couldn't resist a closer look

later in the evening (during dinner), stu decided to be a goofball. we have a clothespin hanging in a doorway (not exactly sure why) and occasionally the boys like to get on their shelves and play with it--from the dining room all you can see is a little head and paw...it's quite cute

and that pretty much sums up my weekend...pretty uneventful, but relaxing. this week is going to be pretty crazy between long hours at work and preparations for new york. anyone have any restaurant suggestions for the big apple? we'd like to have at least one nicer dinner...architectural restaurants are of special interest...something in the vein of morimoto or brasserie...if you have any thoughts, drop and email or leave a comment!

halloween pumpkins/punkins

earlier this week while searching for some inspiration, i came across a pattern on martha stewart's website for these adorable felt booties. while i didn't have any fancy, nice wool felt on hand, i did have some orange scraps from my cat-proof(ish) cord charger. this got me thinking...the plan was to spend halloween with claire, and what could be more perfect than some little orange booties? the best part about the pattern is that you make the bootie to fit the foot exactly--you measure the baby's foot and scale the pattern accordingly. josh must have loved that phonecall.

me: "hey josh...can you measure your daughter's foot?"
josh: "uh....okay..."
me: "i'm making something"
josh: "okay, hold on...[in the background i hear josh saying that he needs to measure claire's foot]
"it's 3-3/16" from heel to big toe"
me: "thanks! see you tomorrow"
after that i scaled the pattern according to the directions, did a bit of hand sewing and ended up with these:

little jack-o-lantern shoes (shown next to my cell phone for scale)! they are so teeny and cute, and they fit claire. it was SO adorable. unfortunately (well, sort of) i was busy holding her so i didn't snap any pictures of the shoes ON her feet, but other people got some so i will be sure to post that when i can.

tonight was spent at jen and josh's, where my parents met us and my mom cooked dinner for everyone. it was very nice and low-key. claire had been fussy but we did make a discovery--she stopped fussing when we were putting the shoes on her and taking pictures. she is a shoe girl already.

not the best picture, but i wanted to show her little jumper, which said "my first halloween, don't scare me!"

our low-key night did not continue onto our bart ride--it was rowdy with the halloween crowd. it was funny to see people's reactions to some of the costume, especially the man who had fallen asleep and woke up to a girl dressed like a peacock looming over him--he was quite surprised. nothing else really exciting for brandon and i...we just stayed in with the cats. we're hoping that we'll get more rest than last night--ben decided to treat the bedroom like a racetrack and take laps around the room--laps which included running across our heads...literally...on our heads...and after the laps were over the boys decided to play "attack the pictures on the wall." awesome.