NYC Day 2

We woke up bright and early Friday to have breakfast at Pie Face before we all walked to the Empire State Building.  We wanted to get there early,and beat the lines, but the only bad thing was that there was still a lot of smog over the skyline.  But despite the smog the views of the city that high were still impressive. 

I told Chris from a distance that the Empire State Building doesn't look that big but once you get close you realize just how big it is!

Flatiron Building

Chrysler Building

After we finished shopping in the gift shop we headed over to Macy's to do a little bit more shopping before lunch.  We all decided that we needed to eat at Carnegie Deli.  We worked up a big appetite walking to get there and it was a good thing too because they give you massive amounts of food!! Chris and I split our food and we still had a ton of food leftover.  We all piled our food together and gave it to a homeless person.  Chris said the person was extremely happy to get it! For dessert we headed over to Grom for some Italian Gelato.  I was so excited when I found out that NYC had a Grom that I knew that we all had to eat there.  Once we finished our gelato we went over to FAO Schwartz to check out the Big Piano and toys.  We then headed over to Rockefeller Center to see where the ice skating rink was, and where they put the big Christmas tree.

The matzah ball soup was amazing!!

The Woody Allen, pastrami sandwich

I could eat gelato for every meal!!

We did a little more shopping before we headed back to the hotel to get ready to go to the Bronx to see a Yankee's baseball game.  We had to take the subway to get there and we just happened to pick rush hour to ride so it was extremely busy.  If you don't like someone being in your personal space then riding the subway during rush hour may not be for you!  Once we got there we headed over to the gift shop to get some souvenirs before watching batting practice.   We only stayed for 4 innings before we all got really hungry.  We decided to take the subway back and get some Chinese food at Yum Yum Bangkok.  After being sufficiently stuffed we got some cookies before officially calling it a night.

NYC Day 1

Last Tuesday we came back from a 6 day vacation from New York City.  We went with a group of friends because the Razorbacks were playing Rutgers.  The guys went to see the game while the women went and saw Wicked.  We've been planning this trip since it was announced last year.  No one had been before so we decided to turn it into a vacation.  Our vacation actually started Wednesday, September 18th when we received a phone call from Delta saying our flight for Thursday had been cancelled.  Thankfully Chris was able to get our flights switched to an earlier flight, which meant that we got into NYC at 1 instead of 3.  So it all worked at in the end since we got there early.

Chris called our hotel and reserved a private car to meet us once we landed to take us to the hotel.  Our driver was extremely nice and the car was HUGE.  I was expecting a small car but we got to drive in Cadillac Escalade.  After a 30 minute drive we were dropped off at our hotel, The Distrikt.  Our hotel room was located on the 24th floor and we had an amazing view of the Empire State Building on one side, and the harbor on the other side.  I was expecting our room to be really small after all of the hotels we stayed in from Europe but our room was pretty big!

View of the Empire State Building from our room.

After we got all settled in we headed out to get some lunch and then to do a little shopping before everyone else got there.  We quickly found out that we were within walking distance to Time Square and the Empire State Building.  Once everyone arrived we headed to a restaurant in Time Square called R Lounge.  It's located in the Renaissance Hotel and has amazing views of Time Square.  After dinner we walked over to Hurley's Bar which is home to the Greater New York City Chapter of the Arkansas Alumni Association for some drinks.

Time Square during the day.

View of Time Square at night from R Lounge.

I loved opening the curtains and being able to see this every night!

View of the harbor at night.

Are you ready for some football

This past Saturday was the first football home game of the season.  I can't believe that it's football season again! You guys know by now that we go all out for tailgate, this year is no exception.  We discovered that the generator can power a fan as well as all of the other normal tailgate stuff. The fan really came in handy since it was 90+ outside.  We've had a pretty mild summer so far and mother nature decided to pick the first game to be one of the hottest.  Other than that it was another successful tailgate at Bacon Lovin' Tailgate.

Bacon wrapped hotdog!

While the guys are at the football we get to watch tv.

August Recap

We spent the month of August in a blur of work.  Chris had applied for a different position within his company.  Thankfully he got the job and he started last Monday.  It means that he won't be traveling near as much, and he'll be home every night.  The only bad thing is that now we actually have to start paying for gas in our second car!  We've been having doubts on whether we should get a hybrid car.  I've test driven several of them but we're going to wait a few months to see how much it's really going to cost us in gas. Right after he found out he got the job his company got a box for one of the Naturals home baseball games.  Their mascot got to throw out the first pitch.

View from the box.

He was a little tired.

The only other fun thing we really did in August was that we all went out to Dickinson Street one Friday night.  We all had a blast and we didn't get home until 2:30! We got to do karaoke and go to our favorite piano bar, Willy D's.  Of course the night isn't complete without a late night stop at Village Inn before heading home.

We all got dressed up for our night out on the town!

Coffee table tray

After we moved the coffee table back into the living room I told Chris that we needed to find a coffee table tray to put on it.  A lot of the reasons the table got scuffed up was because we would just toss the remote controls and iPads on the table.  Finding a coffee table tray that worked wasn't that easy though.  We looked all over and we finally decided that we would probably have to make one or find one at an antique store or flea market.  We went to Mena this Saturday to check out Chris family's new consignment shop, which if you're ever there is called The Allure Consignment make sure and check it out.  While we were there we wandered around downtown Mena and we found a coffee table tray at one of the antique stores.  It wasn't for sale but the guy sold it to us anyways.  We liked the shape but I didn't like the wicker part of it.  So we decided to spray paint it red, give it a little distressing to match the coffee table and add some fabric to cover up the wicker.  I think that it turned out pretty chic looking for something that we found at an antique store!

A photo I took wandering around Mena.

Here's what it looked like before we started.

The completed project!

Coffee table in distress

Chris and I love to go antique and flea markets.  It's also a very bad place to get ideas for our house.  Lately I've been seeing a lot of furniture being painted different colors and then people give it a distressed look.  Well our coffee table has seen better days.  The top had a ton of scratches and water marks on it.  I kept telling Chris that I was going to paint the coffee table black.  So one day when I was at work Chris sent me a picture of the coffee table half sanded.  After it was sanded we primed it and then painted it red.  I forgot to take some pictures of the red phase of the project but we painted it red so once we distressed it you could see some of it.  Once that was done we painted it several coats of black paint and started to distress it.  I'm not a 100% happy with the way that it turned out.  I've painted a lot of furniture now and for some reason this one didn't turn out the exact way that I wanted it.  It looks a whole lot better than what it did, so I'll take that!

You have to wear proper face gear to sand! :)

This is the only photo I took while we were still painting.  You can see some of the red underneath.

Finished painting!

I like that you can see the red and the white after we finished distressing it.

Completed and moved back into the house!