Bear + Katrina

I love these two, and I love that we live so close to them!! Who would've thought that 6 years after high school Katrina and I would both live on the East Coast and only be 45 minutes apart from each other? I absolutely love it!

We had a lovely evening together last weekend seeing the Christmas sights in the city: the Rockefeller Center tree, sipping hot chocolate, window shopping, finding Christmas ornaments in Macy's and strolling through Bryant Park. Thanks for such a fun night!!

You know you live in NYC...

...when you wake up one morning to look outside your window and see a movie set with old cars, actors / actresses, fake snow and lots of cameras. This isn't the first time movie sets have crowded our street, and I'm sure it won't be the last. We don't blame them - our street is beautiful! Maybe one of these days they'll actually ask us to be in their movie!

Miss Marie in NYC after Italy

Marie and her roommate, Elizabeth, stopped by for a couple days on their way home from studying abroad in Italy {sounds like a rough life, right?}. Oh how happy I am that she's back!! I missed so much our very frequent phone conversations and text messages for three whole months. iChatting once a week was just not cutting it. She's now home and my call list in my phone once again reads "Marie." Hooray!

What we did:

Attempted to walk to the Rockefeller Center to see the tree lighting {didn't happen..it was packed}, Mary Poppins, shopping in SoHo, brunch at Kitchenette and yummy dinners both in and out {she makes a killer chocolate tortina - yum!}.

{Marie took a cooking class while in Italy. I'm trying to convince her to live with us and be our cook, but I don't think that will happen. Her lucky future husband...}

Thanks for a fun visit, Marie and Elizabeth!

we don't get pictures of us together often enough!

Thanksgiving

We were so lucky to have Jon's parents, Lee and Jane, join us for Thanksgiving! They found a great deal on tickets and decided to pay us a visit. I absolutely love their spontaneity, and I love New York City's accessibility!

This year I realized how much of an effort Thanksgiving dinner really is! I always helped my mom and grandma with the cooking in prior years, but I had never been a host. We had so much fun cooking a Thanksgiving feast for four people in a tiny one bedroom city apartment. Thanks to Jane and Jon everything turned out wonderfully! What a fun memory this will be!

Fun highlights of the trip: ice skating in Bryant Park with Jon's students, Radio City Christmas Spectacular, Jersey Boys, Met Opera, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Thanksgiving Dinner {turkey, cranberry ice: a Curtis family tradition, homemade rolls / orange rolls, mashed yams, parsnips, pecan pie, apple pie, homemade vanilla ice cream}, watching the movie Up, playing Rook, beautiful weather and scooter rides. Thanks for a wonderful, memorable visit!!