Relax NYC

Brian has been hush-hush (kinda) about his app for awhile now, but it's almost finished! And now we need help!

For those who don't know, he's created an app that can search for places to sit (parks, street benches, playgrounds, etc.) while you're walking around NYC. The app is called Relax NYC.

It's meant for both locals and tourists, kind of along the same line as NYC Mate (has subway and bus maps with schedules).

The issue we're currently having is deciding what direction design-wise to go in: more fun and playful (1) or more polished and city-like (2). Photo here:

We like how appealing number 2 is, but like the idea of number 1. Number 1, however, also looks more like a game than a tool. But number 2 looks very similar to NYC mate (unintentional):

Any comments? Helpful ideas? Do you like #1 or #2 better? Which would you rather use and download? Which reflects the app better? Which reflects the city and appeals to its users better?

Anything would help! Thanks!!

Christmas in Sitka

Brian and I spent Christmas in Sitka this year. And we were super lucky and had a White Christmas!

These are my favourite pictures from the trip.

Sunset from Seattle to Ketchican.

My parents moved from their house to an apartment we used to live in. So I had the lucky chance to go through all the boxes...there were TONS. But I did get to reminisce. I don't usually brag...but check out all my medals! :P (Jump Rope)

Family photo with cedar branches.

Found a Christmas tree!

We had a family friend over and had a duck dinner that was AMAZING. It's called Flying Prime Rib (duck recipe) and then spinach salad and butternut squash with butter and brown sugar. YUM YUM.

Cookie decorating! Photo bombed.

We had some new guests this year at Christmas Eve that included 2 wonderful kids. Jax spent a rather large portion of the night counting to 3 with Kari and then jumping off a single stair, laughing, and then getting up to do it again. This is him resting.

Marley had an especially fun time pushing buttons - like the knee button which makes her bounce. Or the stomach button that made her fly.

Christmas Eve - hats for everybody!

Christmas morning tree.

Helena (Hel-Ay-Na) really likes mice. But mice only, nothing else.

White Christmas

Fashion's Night Out NYC 2011

Blogging is like exercise. It feels good when I do it all the time, but if I stop for a while, it takes a lot to get me back in the habit. So what was so big that I just have to write about it?

Fashion's night out is the kick-off to Fashion Week here in New York City. All (and I mean ALL) of the stores on 5th Ave and Madison Ave that have anything to do with fashion throw parties that go from 6 til 11pm. There are honestly thousands of parties all over the City. I went to the Upper East Side, because I'm not cool enough to party in the meat-packing district.

There are a few things that every party had in common, and a few stores went the extra mile to set themselves apart from the rest of the pack.

First, the common themes:

Alcohol. And a lot of it.

Most places just had servers wandering around giving out champagne and mixed drinks. Some places skip the server and just put all the drinks out for you to grab.

And DKNY skipped the champagne all together and went right to free beer.

Music. The louder the better.

Every place blasted fun and upbeat tunes, and most had live DJ's.

That's the official Fashion's Night Out tote bag - only $50!

Some had jazz bands...

And one (Ann Taylor) had Natasha Bedingfield, who is really good. I like her now.

Tiffany's had Leighton Meester, but it was packed full before I got there, so here's the main floor, decked out in Disco style:

I didn't mean to go to all these places, I actually just went for the "carnival" at Alice + Olive's that I read about in this morning's paper:

They were doing free makeovers and haircuts and face painting and all sorts of fun stuff in there. But it was so packed, so I left. But on my way to the subway, something caught my eye.

No, not that, this:

Free Food!!!

And then I needed something to drink, something non-alcoholic, so I went into another place and got some water and kettle corn.

And then, since I was well-fed, I decided to hang out for a while. And I probably hit up 15 different parties. All in all, fun night. I highly recommend it.

Potbelly Star Cookies, I Orange NY, Aquarium Peeing, and some Tunes

This post is made-up of completely random photos from our life.

(and a couple song recommendations)

1. I worked at Potbelly this summer for awhile, but alas, the day would come when that would end. That day was Friday, August 19th. I was asked to bake some cookies. Usually, they are just giant round-ish cookies. Instead, I made a couple stars, a heart, and a square :)

2. My old roommate, Gabriella came and stayed with us this spring. To put it nicely, she thought our shower curtain was a little too old. Being the wonderful person she is, she sent us a new one! And weirdly enough, the best way to photograph the colours was via the mirror. Anyway, WE LOVE IT. There's a window behind it and when the lights off, the daylight shines behind it and lights up the bathroom in a gorgeous aquamarine/teal colour. It's like peeing in an aquarium.

3. This is a package/letter I picked up from Fedex. It took 3 weeks to get it (after they had just previously lost another package). I just wanted to share the craziness of this over-done mailing. (It has a post-it on it!)

4. Tropicana is doing promotional work throughout the City. I got a free orange juice (or two). I love NY.

5. We've started making our own croutons! Olive Oil, Italian Seasoning, Garlic Salt/Powder, Parmesan Cheese. Delish. So much better than store bought and cheaper!

6. This is how Brian was considering going to work last Friday.

(one leg ironed, one not. I had to add this explanation because Brian didn't understand)

And here is a list of the songs I'm addicted to right now:

1. Faster by Matt Nathanson

2. Right Here by Heyhihello

3. Wizard Love by Heyhihello (This one is best for Harry Potter fans)

4. I Do by Colbie Caillat

5. Tonight Tonight by Hot Chelle Rae

We Haven't Posted in Awhile

Update:

Work
Brian is still working the same 9-5 job in the CancerCare CoPay division. (9-5, crazy, right!?)
Isa is working at Potbelly Sandwich Shop on Maiden Lane. Not good pay, but fun job for the summer. She just finished her summer classes. AND she just got an internship at RumbaTime starting in two weeks! She's stoked.

Fun
Church BBQ last Saturday had Brian playing baseball for a good 2.5 hours only to end in an extremely sunburnt face and back of neck. Isa has a gladiator sandal tan on her feet. Brisa made a mix of Strawberry, Raspberry, and Orange jello with pineapple and mandarin oranges in it (delish)...needless to say, in the sun it melted.

Brisa went to Harry Potter 7 and loved it! Isa feels like her childhood has ended and was much sadder than expected when the movie was over (her heart sank). But is super excited to have a HP marathon someday.

Brian has a super duper idea for a NYC phone app. He is currently reading a "for Dummies" book on developing. He will not however discuss the idea on the world wide web for fear of it being stolen (it's THAT super).

Brian built an extension to our counter. It's wonderful. (He'll probably post on this).

Brisa went camping with Chris Ciccotelli, Maryellen, Greg and Rich Dool at North/South Lake a couple weeks ago and had a great time hiking, though Isa twisted her ankle on the way down the mountain and was walking funky for a few days (she's all better now).


Church
Brisa got called to teach the Primary 7 class, so basically we have our Cub Scouts in class and then the girls too. They are wonderful students and a lot of fun to teach.

Brisa is still doing Cub Scouts. Slowly, but surely, things are getting more organized. Currently planned is another swimming trip/sports day and fishing! (But still not a chartered pack...)

Reason for no posts
Brian gets off work at 5pm, Isa starts 4pm. Brisa doesn't see eachother much during the week and Saturday's have been busy so we haven't been going on a lot of adventures or have many good stories to tell.

But summer is good. Using the AC is wonderful :)

Jordan, this is totally for you! But it was much needed :) We send our love from NYC

Happy Birthday America

As any of my friends know, I'm always late in wishing people a happy birthday. So it's fitting that I post this a day late.

The day started out in Coney Island (as every July 4th does) with a hot dog eating contest at Nathan's. It's been going on for decades, and although Isa and I had heard about it forever, we'd never been. Now we've been...

...along with 50,000 other people. I'll give it to them, the first two or three minutes of the contest is pretty exciting. To see someone eat 20 hot dogs in two minutes is quite a sight. But then it's pretty much the same, but a little slower, for the next 8 minutes. I think it was worth going to once, just for the experience and to say we've been there, but we'll probably not be attending again.

But 62 hot dogs? Seriously? Forget being able to eat that fast, how do you eat 62 hot dogs? How are you not full after 20? Or 5? Or if you're Isa, 2? Who feeds these people for Thanksgiving?

After the contest, we headed home to put together a picnic and then staked out a sweet spot on the West Side Highway for the fireworks on the Hudson. We didn't bring the real camera or the tripod because we didn't think we'd have space. We were wrong.

We were one of the first ones there at 4:30pm (for a 9:20 show, which is surprising considering Bryant Park movies are packed 5 hours before the show) and so we staked out the corner of the spectator holding cell at 30th and 12th Ave.

The weather was perfect and the sunset was beautiful.

FDNY Fireboat sprayed red, white, and blue water

pretty. :)

Isa's pic. LOVE this.

Macy's fireworks did not disappoint. From our sweet vantage spot, we could see four of the six barges clearly. If you've never seen the NYC fireworks, Macy's sets up six barges in a line up the Hudson River and they shoot off fireworks simultaneously, creating a 2-mile wide fireworks display that's pretty dang amazing.

Happy Independence Day everyone. Thanks to everyone who fights to keep this land free. Because I was thinking about it last night, and I really like being free. Like a lot. America rocks.

Happy Father's Day

To all the dads out there in the interwebs, I hope you had a fantastic day. You're awesome.

My dad is an avid train lover, as you may know from his blog or if you've been to his house, you've seen the train room, which is exactly that: an entire room just for his trains. It's pretty amazing.

So I decided to reach back to my inner kid, and create a card specifically for him:

Awesome, huh?

And we also bought him some parsley to put in his garden. We figured that parsley is easy to add to anything Italian, so they should be able to use it.

So yeah, it was a fun afternoon. Great food, really relaxed, and perfect weather. We sat and chatted outside for a while, long after dinner was done.

Lazy Saturday

We went to see our friends get married down in the City today, and we ate SO MUCH food at the reception that we wrote off all other plans and came home to lounge around the apartment. And it's only a matter of time before Youtube comes on and we start watching Ellen videos, which then lead us all over the web. Here's a few of our favorite videos from today. Enjoy:



This is the coolest magic trick I have ever seen. I cannot even begin to figure out how he did this. If you have any insights or ideas on how this is even remotely possible, throw 'em in the comments.


You can stop it at 1:41 if you want. The whip one is meh.

This song is Uh. May. Zing:



If you watch Youtube, go to Kurt's page and check him out. He's such an amazing producer and film maker (he edited the video above!) and all around talented guy. We want to be his friend. And we think the three of them should tour and come to New York.

And finally, if you haven't seen Ellen scare Taylor Swift, it's pretty great:



Hope you enjoyed our lazy Saturday afternoon. How was your day?

Newark is Helpful

Isa and I drove down to Newark to pick up my parents from their trip to the UK, and it's a good thing their flight was a little late, because we took several wrong turns and got hopelessly lost in the airport.

At one point, when we stopped seeing signs for terminals/highways/exits/anything we might want to head toward, and everything around us disappeared and turned into a graveyard of rarely used planes and forgotten equipment, we knew we were definitely not going the right way. It was at that very moment that we saw a fantasticly helpful sign:

As in why on earth are you all the way the heck out here?

No map. No number to call. No radio station to tune to. No information at all. Just a subtle slap in the face and a welcome to Jersey.

We love Newark. /sarcasm