Roadtrip / 24 Hours in NYC

Hi blog friends!

I promise I am alive. Between packing Thursday and leaving immediately after work on Friday to drive to Pennsylvania, I was a little too preoccupied to blog! I have been missing it though!

Here is the recap of the past several days! Enjoy! It is realllllllly long so hang in there! Making up for lost time!

Friday: Worked all day (had a pretty awesome day!) and then hit the road at 5:45 pm (central) to drive halfway to PA. Stopped at 1:15 in Zanesville, OH to sleep a few hours and then hit the road.

Saturday: Left Sketchville (Zanesville) at 6 am and I took 3 naps on the second leg of the trip! Poor Tyler, he was whooped. We listened to Fox News Channel for 12 hours on our trip. No music for me....

Side note..... My sweet blog friend Lacey and I discovered that we were both in the same city on Saturday... How crazy that our boyfriends both live in the same town in PA (well, Tyler's parents live there... close enough).. Too bad we didn't get in until about 1:30 and had to be ready to go to NY at 3. No time to meet up.. Next time! How crazy is that though?

So, Saturday we went to the train station to head to NYC! Tyler's brother is getting married next fall, so we went for a really nice dinner with their families to celebrate their engagement.

Cameron and Lis live in Houston and her parents live in Rhode Island. Obviously, Tyler and I live in Illinois and his parents live in Pennsylvania. It was so fun to meet up in NYC! This was the event I was worried about finding an outfit for. I honestly just threw something together, oh well!

We had dinner at Mas (la grillade). Lis's brother-in-law is the chef at the restaurant so we were really wined and dined! Our dinner was like 8 courses. Forgive me that I don't remember the specifics of the menu.. I can give you the gist of the food and only a couple of names from the menu. Sorry for the lack of food pics!

Outside of the restaurant

Appetizers:

Popcorn with parmesan cheese and spices

A bite of duck with some type of lettuce-y veggie. The boys loved this!

Diced scallops

Wood- Fired Oysters with Lemon Thyme- Shallot Butter (or you could have chosen Artichokes "a la chapa")

Rabbit with crab apples (OMG THIS WAS AMAZING)

Red snapper. Delish!

Entree:

Spit- Roasted Whole Hudson Valley Squab and a baby baked potato (or you could have had Grilled Rack of Lamb with Red Wine- Shallot Butter). Yum

Pre-dessert cleanser for our palate:

Apple tart sorbet with a pear-ish / apple-ish fruit. Tasted like apple pie sorbet!!

Dessert:

Pumpkin chocolate tart with marshmellows and sorbet (or cheesecake with apples and sorbet)

Mini lemon/ cranberry tarts/ mint chocolate tarts/ gingerbread tarts

And lots and lots of wine. I'm still in shock of how crazy this dinner was!!!!! And after it we got to tour the kitchen where David works. SOO cool! Highly recommend this place, NYC friends!

Tyler, David (the chef who got to enjoy dinner instead of cooking that night) and me

Lis (the bride to be!) and me

Brothers + Fiance + Girlfriend

Trying to wave down a cab

After dinner we found a cab and headed back to our hotel, The Jane. We had a silly cab experience on the way home.... Our foreign driver was very sassy. We got stuck behind this idiot lady trying to park in front of her apartment. She was livid that it took her 10 minutes to park and those of us behind her were making it difficult for her to park. Our driver got out of the massive Expedition and started screaming at her in both English and whatever language he spoke. All we could hear was "You get out of the car right now!" and "You cannot drive you dumb lady!" It was so hilarious and I really hate I can't give you the full effect. Lis and Cameron's driver hit another cab on their way home. WTF. I didn't know any of that really happens? I'm so sheltered.

Sunday: Got up, grabbed coffee and look what I saw in the window at the coffee shop, COTTON!

See it in the background?

We then went to the Church of the Ascension (Episcopal) for worship. The music was gorgeous.

After church

The Laws and Reades (+ me!)

And finally, we had brunch and called it a trip!

Brunch Spot

Ty's mom and me in front of our hotel 

Time to go home!

On  the way back to PA on the train. Ty is not so happy about more pictures!

So there you have it. The past 3 days of my life and a very short trip in New York City. Whew, I've been all over the place over the past couple of days. Stay tuned for more this week!

Ta ta,