Pre-Wedding Fun Times

So leading up the wedding there was a lot of...you guessed it...preparation! But there were some fun times leading up to the big day too.

Casey planned an incredible bachelorette party in Key West...it was filled with my best friends, great food, delicious frozen concoctions and tons of dancing. We were up and down Duval Street many times and found our spot at Sloppy Joes which had a great band. We all danced and danced...so much fun. A couple moments I'll never forget are dancing on stage at Sloppy Joes, lying by the pool at the Westin with my best friends, awesome outdoor dinners, the drag queen show, doing a drinking tour of Duval Street, and brunch at Blue Heaven. I can't tell you how special I felt all weekend...it was seriously one of the best times of my life.

All the Girls!


A Key West Sunset


View from our room!


Back in NY the following weekend, our friends, Abby & Laura, came to town. Abby's artwork...a seeing eye dog with a detachable head...was used in a local theater group's show in Brooklyn. We went to the show with them which featured a bunch of local artist's theater pieces, some were great, some were off the wall. The seeing eye dog stole the show. It was Nick and I's first time to Brooklyn! We plan to visit other parts and go to the Brooklyn Brewery at some point. Abby and Laura then came back and stayed at our apt...it was really fun hanging out with them. check out abby's incredibly creative artistic talent on her blog here.

At Tortilla Flats, the mexican resturant in our neighborhood


Nick and I also did a little exploring through union square and the lower eastside (LES). We visited one of the many huge whole foods in the city, but this one has a pickle bar(!!) and a large beer room where they will fill a growler for you with one of their 5 beers on tap for the day. We roamed around Union Square which has every super-store you could want, best buy, dsw, petco (Cole got a nice sporty new collar for baseball season) plus lots of other stores and restaurants. We walked through the square which usually has really great fresh produce vendors or artists. This day it was all art. We ended up buying a really awesome canvas photography print for our apartment and also got to watch a guy create an incredible sidewalk sand design.

Whole Foods beer room


The pickle bar!


Totally blogged about it...


Sidewalk sand artist



In Union Square


Cole's sporty collar


Our new painting!



For memorial day weekend we stayed pretty low key...took Cole to the local dog park pool, went to a park so Nick could play disc-golf, and ate on our balcony all weekend. We got new balcony furniture which is offers us a nice table-top to eat meals on!

Cole enjoying the new furniture!

Our first balcony dinner!


We also ate dinner at one of our favorite neighborhood restaurants, Tartine. It's on our street, 4 blocks away and is a small french byob (bring your own booze). We LOVE byob's b/c we can bring our own wine with no corking fee and not get overcharged for alcohol! Not to mention this restaurant has awesome food....we looove the escargot and always ask for more bread to soak up that buttery garlic it's served in. healthy...we know. That night we shared a bottle of wine that Melissa and Scott Broaddus (friends from VT) gave us at one of our wedding showers. It was appropriately called "Monogamy"....we drank it on this occasion to celebrate our days-away wedding...a great way to lead into the wedding week.