Sunset Cruises Are Fun

I really feel fortunate to have experienced some awesome things this summer but a huge highlight was celebrating Seafood's 30th in major style aboard a yacht at sunset, cruising around Manhattan until midnight. I've never done anything like that in the city before and it was absolutely tremendous.

Not only is Seafood (as we affectionately refer to him) the most generous person I know, he's also the best when it comes to celebrations. He knows how to have fun, that's for sure. It was so hard coming up with what to get him for his birthday until a lightbulb went off: Colleen! A group of us decided to pool funds together and hire Colleen to photograph the entire evening. It's honestly the best decision we could've made. Not only was Seafood ecstatic about the surprise but he told us several times how happy he was to have that memory documented.

We had gorgeous weather for the evening and I truly feel lucky to have spent such a special night with Seafood's good friends and family. I must share some of Colleen's beautiful photos as they capture much more than I can:

What a terrific, fun and memorable evening. I honestly love my life sometimes and the people in it are irreplaceable. I'm a very lucky lady.

Halloween Weekend with Brant and Susanne

First of all, it's November?!?! I'm in serious disbelief. Anyway...

My goodness, October was a busy month for me. It's fitting that I'd round it out with more guests, too. Brant and Susanne came up to visit again and what a nice weekend we had. They've come to see me several times since I moved here which is always so special. This trip was particularly great because we really just laid low. They wanted to be more like locals since they've covered most all the touristy stuff during past visits. I really enjoyed this visit for that reason which I'm sure most people would understand. ;)

We spent Saturday mainly walking all around town. The weather was just so gorgeous all weekend, albeit chilly. I brought them up to see my office and we did some shopping in several different areas of town. It was really nice to simply roam around with no real agenda. Just as a side note, we went into Armani Exchange in Soho and I've never in my life heard such loud music. I contemplated getting a six pack and just hanging out there since it was more of a club in that store than anywhere I've seen in a while. However, I did find a hat I've been wanting forever so yay for that! Anyway, a group of us had dinner at Po (just as tremendous as the first time I went!) and then it was off to Seafood's party. I hadn't gotten a costume this year because I had a race to run on Sunday morning and blah blah. It was supposed to be a low key Halloween but...it wasn't. Thanks to Camille's Halloween stockpile, I became a witch pretty fast so I was "accepted" into the party. :P It was so awesome having Brant and Susanne here to join in the fun:

Isn't she menacing:

Team Camps on the roof, weeee:

Stephanie is so freaking creative. She was a bed bug (and yes, made her shell out of fiberglass!) and Alex was the mattress. Genius:

Seafood did an awesome job with everything and I think Brant and Susanne were thoroughly impressed with his incredible apartment. I kept trying to describe it to them but saying it's a "quadplex" doesn't really do it justice til you see it. We were there for quite a while and then went for a few more beers at Highlands. We all had such a blast and, next thing we all knew, it was 3:30am. Um, I do not stay out until 3:30am. I sure didn't have a problem doing so Saturday, though.

Needless to say, I did not run my race on Sunday morning but I'm actually glad because we had a wonderful time walking through Central Park. The leaves were beautiful:

After that, we walked around the west side and stopped at a little Swedish cafe called Fika that Susanne knew of. It was fun to try some treats that she grew up having. :) How cute is she:

Argh, I do not know what's up with my camera uploading these weird, grrrr! Anyway, last but not least, we did our one big touristy thing of the weekend: Katz's Deli. Brant was set on getting a sandwich from there so we braved the masses and went. I swear, they have some insane operation happening in there. Finally after being squished like sardines in line, Brant got his dream pastrami sandwich and I have to admit...it was freaking delicious. I mean, look at that thing:

It was worth the $15. I'm going back to get one of my own soon.

It was another awesome trip to add to the books. I'm excited because I think I'll be home at Christmas while Susanne's parents are in from Sweden so I'm really looking forward to hopefully meeting them. :) We all know Christmas will be here before we know it, too...

PS -  Is it really November?!?!

Allison DOMINATES

Last night might have been one of the best nights I've ever had. See, for years, my lovely sister has gone back and forth with the guys at work about how she could win a hot dog eating competition with ease. She proudly boasted that she could take down 8 dogs (with buns) in 25 minutes, no problem. The guys decided that enough was enough and they conferenced me into a call about a month ago so we could get a date confirmed to make these shenanigans happen. Well, last night was the night - and holy crap, was it awesome.

We decided the event should be held at Seafood's (long story on the nickname) place since he's the GUY and has an awesome rooftop. Anyway, I walked in to find all the guys with Nathan's hot dogs hats on and I absolutely cracked up. We opened a few cold beers and poured them right into Nathan's cups. I'm telling you, this was serious business. Seafood threw the dogs on the grill and we all waited for Allison to get prepared. I will admittedly state that I did NOT think Allison could do it and I've said so for weeks. That was the general consensus, though Camille fully supported her from day one. What a nice friend!

When we got the dogs in the buns, we just kinda stared for a minute at how much food was realistically on the plate. I mean, Allison almost didn't even begin out of sheer fright looking at what she was about to put in her body. It really didn't help that Scott sent this lovely gem earlier in the day:

I mean, windpipe?!? Seriously? Let's just say that Scott succeeded in psyching Allison out completely. Anyway, Theo got the 25 minute countdown ready and it was officially time to get the hot dog party started. Allison began slowly which got all of us in an uproar thinking we totally called it that she couldn't do it. However, she totally kicked those dog's asses. Watching her face as she got through each one was absolutely priceless. I can't even describe some of the expressions she was making but I crack up thinking about it, hahaha. The rule was she had to keep them down for 2 minutes and then she'd have Seafood's apartment to herself for 20 minutes. Um, I'm sure you can guess why. She completely dominated, with time left on the clock, and proudly put each of us in our place - minus Camille, the "real friend".

I seriously about peed my pants several times watching her. It was tremendous. Afterwards, once she had time to get herself together, Seafood treated us to an awesome night out with dinner and drinks. We had SO much fun and that'll definitely be one of my favorite memories for a very long time. I'll certainly post photos soon...