NYC Date with Josh

The Saturday before we moved from New Jersey Josh and I were lucky enough to spend a full day in New York City. My cousin Cara was so wonderful to set this up for us and babysit our kids all day. Josh and I had such a fun day!

This is just a cute shot of Tate and Cara at the zoo on that day :) We've only been away from New Jersey for 6 weeks now and we already MISS living so close to Cara and her family. I'm so grateful for the two years we had living just 5-10 minutes from the Newmans and the fun time it was to be in their ward.

Josh and I rode the train into NYC and then our first stop was to Dominique Ansel's bakery. This was our first time and I loved looking at all the beautiful treats. Of course we were mostly there for the Cronuts, though! Luckily the fad has died down a bit because we didn't get to the bakery til probably 9 am and the line for Cronuts was only about 15 minutes.

We thought the Cronut was really delicious! In hindsight, we should have split one since they are pretty rich and heavy and this was our "breakfast"...maybe they wouldn't have seemed so rich had we eaten them later in the day? We also split a "DKA" (Dominique's Kouign Amann). I actually loved the DKA even more than the Cronut. So good! It was kind of like a crunchy croissant that was warm and soft inside. Yum.

 Afterwards we took the subway down to the 9/11 Memorial, which we hadn't ever visited before. It was really sobering, especially looking at all the names of those who died. 

 The freedom tower

 For the rest of the day Josh and I each chose one NYC thing we wanted to do before we moved. Josh's choice was to spend time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - not viewing the usual American and European Art that I normally lead him to, but instead looking at all the Egyptian, African, South American, and Oceanic art and artifacts. Neither of us had been through those sections, so it was neat to check them out.

 Josh was loving it. This particular exhibit cracked me up because the pottery was from the years 200-600 AD and when Josh said that he said "These are replicas, right? I mean, there's no way these are really around from that long ago, right!?" Josh was eventually convinced that they were probably legit artifacts. :)

It's so interesting to see how different cultures (and different centuries) depict the human figure and face. I love how the African sculptures were so stylized, especially since we had just walked through the sculpture hall with all the classic European figure sculptures. Such a contrast!

My semester in Tonga and New Zealand studying native art and culture definitely gave me a soft spot for Oceanic art. I loved all the artifacts and beautiful carvings from this region. 

And then on to the Egyptian artifacts...

 Nothing brings people together quite like good Egyptian art :)

Of course we had to pop up to the roof of the Met for the beautiful view of Central Park and the NYC skyline. We will miss this place.

 After walking all through the Met we thought it would be a good idea to do more walking in the hot weather, so we walked across Central Park. Why did I think long jeans would be a good idea for a warm day in NYC? 

Some parts of New York are so crowded and dirty and ugly, but other parts are so pretty. I love the Upper West Side neighborhoods like this one.

Our walk landed us at Jacob's Pickles, where we were so happy to get out of the sun and enjoy some delicious southern food. It was really, really good (better than my picture shows).

 After lunch we headed to one of my very favorite spots in New York: the MoMA. Josh's company is one of the corporate sponsors of the MoMA, so we got in free with his company badge. That's a great work perk, if you ask me! I didn't take pictures of all the famous paintings, but I've already posted about the MoMA at least once on my blog, but here are a few favorites...

(Including that rad black piece above by Louise Nevelson)

Rauschenberg | Lee Bontecou

It's hard to tell, but the piece on the right is three-dimensional, with parts of canvas and steel and wire jutting out. It's made of dirtied canvas from conveyor belts. Bontecou made this piece during the Vietnam War and only felt it was right that his art during that time depicted the fear and ugliness that hung over the heads of Americans during the war. 

 I will always love Matisse. The MoMA has a huge gallery of just Matisse and it's one of my favorite parts of the museum. 

Philip Guston | Matisse

Franz Kline

Frank Stella | Rauschenberg

Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns | Rauschenberg

 Cezanne is always another favorite of mine. I love his still lifes the best, but his landscapes also get a thumbs up.

 Alex Katz | Andy Warhol

 One of the current temporary exhibits was a large exhibit of Degas' work. There was tons of good stuff, including lots of his beautiful ballerina paintings that I love and that we're all familiar with. But my favorite part was seeing his landscape and more abstract paintings. (See above). What!? I had never seen that type of work from Degas and I loved it.

- - - 

After the MoMA we decided to call it a day! My cousin Cara was so sweet and was encouraging us to stay later and see a Broadway show, but we were pooped! If you're familiar with NYC then you'll know that our itinerary was taking us all over - Soho, the Financial District, Upper West Side, Upper West Side, and then back to Midtown. So it was a lot of walking (and a few subway rides). 

I'm so grateful to Cara for letting Josh and I have this wonderful child-free day in NYC before we moved. We will miss you, New York!

NYC Date

Josh and I had such a fun NYC date the week before Valentine's Day. This "date" was definitely bigger than our normal "dating budget", but we counted it as our Valentine's Day/birthday/belated-Christmas date. It was such a fun day! 

My wonderful sister-in-law watched our kids for 9 hours(!!), which was a true act of love! 

 We took the train into the city and then had a delicious lunch at Parm on the Upper West Side. We had heard about their famous chicken parmesan sandwiches and they totally lived up to the hype. Yum! (The picture doesn't do it justice. So good!)

 Then we headed to the Gershwin Theater for Wicked! 

Fun fact: the Gershwin Theater is located at the bottom of the Paramount Plaza Building, which is where Josh goes to work everyday!

 I've been wanting to see Wicked for years! ...Ever since my choir friends in high school raved about it years ago. It totally lived up to the hype! Josh and I loved the story, loved the music, loved the acting and all the talent. It was fantastic!

After the show we walked through Time Square to see the big ad the LDS church put up for Christmas time. That message definitely stands out among the other worldly ads. 

 We ended our fabulous NYC date with banana pudding from Magnolia Bakery. This was our first time trying it and we loved it! We've got to go back sometime because I'm still thinking about it.

Such a fun day with Josh! We checked off three big things from our NYC bucket list and it made for the perfect date!

Nashville

Josh travels regularly for work and I finally decided to tag along and accompany him on a business meeting to Nashville, Tennessee. We flew into Nashville on Friday evening and had 48 hours of fun until I flew back on Sunday night and Josh stayed in Nashville for two more days of work. It was such a great weekend. Josh had a bit of work on Saturday, but we also had plenty of time to explore Nashville and have fun enjoying each other's company without our kids.... which rarely happens!

 This was my first trip to "the South" , so our first stop on Friday night was getting a good southern meal at Hattie B's Chicken. Oh man, this was a fantastic restaurant choice. (Thank you, Yelp!) 

 Yum.

 It was all amazing, but our favorites were the fried chicken, pimento mac and cheese, and the banana pudding. So, so good!

We also had two delicious meals with work clients, which prevented me from snapping pictures:

Another good southern lunch at Puckett's Grocery & Restaurant (as seen on Food Network) and a delicious steak and seafood dinner at Sperry's Restaurant in Franklin. Yum.

 After dinner we walked to Centennial Park and to check out the Parthenon, all lit up with Christmas lights. The Parthenon is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. So basically, this was a fancy international vacation :)

On Saturday in between Josh's work commitments we spent time walking around downtown Nashville. It was exactly what I would have pictured: Lots of fun and energy, tons of boot and cowboy hat shops, live music blaring from literally every restaurant. It was such a unique experience compared to all the other cities I've explored. 

Boots, boots, boots!

Lots of record shops and Country Music paraphernalia 

 We loved this fun candy shop. They lured us in with delicious samples of warm chocolates and caramels and then we had to take a few for the road!

We had a nice walk across the Cumberland River Pedestrian Bridge. 

On Sunday we slept in (!!!) and went to church in Franklin. We also walked around the Nashville LDS Temple, which was beautiful. 

It was such a fun trip and such a good time with Josh! 

Our kids were babysat by Jake and Tyra's family and they had such a fun time with their cousins. They were sad to leave. This was the first time I've ever left Tate and to top it off he had been having some breathing trouble. Tyra was a saint to not only watch my kids, but also to deal with Tate's nebulizer treatments. 

As a side note, we only have a few more weeks with Jake and Tyra's family until they move to Chicago :( We are so sad! We've been so lucky to live by them this past year and a half. What a blessing it has been to live so close to family!