Giving Thanks

Before I head home for Thanksgiving tomorrow I wanted to make sure I get in my annual 'giving thanks' post because in this day in age it is sometimes easier to focus on what we don't have instead of what we do. Here is what I am thankful for this year:

1. My family always first and foremost.. my parents who always support me, my brother who I hope to visit in NYC  after the holidays, and my grandparents who are still alive and healthy for the most part.

2. My wonderful boyfriend who I have been living with for 9 months officially. We have our ups and downs but overall he is pretty great and I am so lucky to have him.

3. My friends - although a lot of my friendships have changed in the last year I am so lucky to still have girlfriends who stand by me no matter what. I hope that in the coming year we can still work hard to maintain close friendships because its great to have a boyfriend but it is so important to have girlfriends.

4. My beautiful house which I have officially owned for 3 years.. cant believe it. I have put so much effort into making it beautiful and I am so proud of it.

5. Traveling: this year I went skiing in Park City Utah with my family, to Florida with my mom and to San Diego and Vegas with Joe. I am a very lucky girl to have been able to experience so many of the wonderful places this world has to offer.

6. My job -- I am so thankful for a wonderful boss who treats me well and a stable job in this economy.. and for my wonderful work friend who keeps me sane most days.

7. I am so thankful that I can still go to the place that I truly call home - Rochester  to celebrate thanksgiving with the ones I love and get a nice break from daily life.

See you after thanksgiving and where ever life lands you this thanksgiving make sure to count your blessings.

Spinning for Hurricane Relief

The past few months I have been feeling stuck in a rut. The excitement of summer has long since passed and I have started to feel like the hamster running on the wheel and doing the same things over and over again... sleep.. work.. make dinner.. sleep .. rinse repeat. Yes, maybe that's an exaggeration which is really punctuated by a few dinners out with friends and nights out with Joe, but all of this is really just the same old. For awhile I have been in search of a new hobby; something I could really enjoy, pour my heart into, and also use as a way to break up the long work week and stay active. I have been trying to go to the gym; but I ultimately find the routine of treadmill and weights fairly boring as well. It also annoys me that the gym is sort of solitary and after spending a day alone in a cubicle it would be nice to find something that involves interacting with other people instead of being alone with your thoughts and the songs blaring on your ipod. So while I was perusing Facebook last week, (my ultimate hobby) and came across an event that I thought would be fun to try. The Wall Indoor Cycling Studio on Main St., here in Manayunk, was offering free spin classes if you came with donations for hurricane victims of Island Park, NY on Long Island. I thought this benefit was a great cause and would be a perfect excuse to try spinning for the first time. I convinced my friend Allie to come with me, as she had never did a spinning class before either. Saturday morning at 8:45 am, with donations in hand, we headed off to give it a try.

When we got there I was pleasantly surprised that most of the people taking the class appeared to be women around our age. We were the only people who were new to spinning but the instructor was really nice and helped us set up our bikes. The first few songs, I was feeling pretty great.. and then she said that "warm up was over"..wait this was only warm up??! The class was about 45 minutes long and the speed, resistance and your position on the bike depended on the beat of the particular song that was playing at the time. For example, during a fast song you may pedal really fast at a low resistance whereas during a slow song you could be pedaling at a high resistance very slowly. It also varied between sitting on the seat and standing. It was one of the hardest cardio work outs I have ever done. At the end I felt energized like I was going to die!! My rear end is killing me from the bike seat and my calves are burning something fierce. It is 36 hrs later and it still kills to walk. 

My overall review is that I think spinning has potential to be fun and a nice way to meet people once you get used to the work out and build up the leg strength for it. I read online that the bike seat hurting your behind goes away in time. I don't think I could do spinning as my only form of working out, but I think it would be really nice to do once a week on a Saturday morning like we did this Saturday. Lets be honest - once a week is probably all my calves are going to be able to take. 

I still don't think that this is something I 'love' as a hobby but I might sign up for a few more classes because it was a great work out. At any rate,  so I am still in search of something that peaks my interest and is actually enjoyable. While I was at Wegmans today, I bought a yoga mat and am thinking of attending a Pilate's class next.... I will let you know how it goes! 

If anyone has any interesting hobbies they would recommend.. feel free to comment! Have you ever done spinning? Did you like it? 

My Best Friends Wedding

This past weekend Joe and I were in our good friends Sara and Steve's wedding. The wedding weekend started out with a rehearsal followed by dinner at Chloe. The restaurant shut down for the private event and prepared a meal that was specially requested by the bride and groom. It was fantastic. That night, the girls slept in the penthouse suite of the Omni hotel where the wedding was to be held the next day. The guys slept at my house with Joe in Manayunk. The penthouse was amazing! It was about 2,000 square feet with two bedrooms a huge living room and full dining room. The next morning the girls woke up bright and early (6am) for hair and make-up. I absolutely loved my up-do which I had found on Pintrest.

Around 10am the group gathered for pictures before the wedding. The ceremony began at 12:30 and I was much more nervous then I thought I was going to be walking down the isle. It was also weird to see Joe standing at the other end... kinda foreshadowing for my someday wedding. Sara looked radiant! Her dress, hair and make-up were perfect. I also really liked the dresses that she chose for the bridesmaids as well as the flowers. The cocktail hour and reception were really fun--and afterwords we went out to the bar for some after wedding cocktails. I wish them nothing but the best in the future and enjoyed being part of their special day.

Duel Vacation: Las Vegas by Way of San Diego - Part 2

On Thursday morning Joe and I woke up bright and early to start the 380 mile drive from San Diego to Las Vegas. The route takes you north towards LA and then East through the Mojave Desert into Las Vegas. The drive was peaceful and uneventful. We didn't hit much traffic leaving San Diego and once we got to the desert it was clear sailing at 85 miles per hour.. what should have taken us 5 hours only took 4. There is no speed limits out there!! Being in the middle of the salt flats in the Mojave has redefined the meaning of middle of no where for me! There was nothing around for miles!! We had fun "testing" the speed and endurance of our Mustang though and it was definitely something to see!

 

 

Around 2:30 pm we arrived in Las Vegas and returned our rental car. Joe then surprised me with a limo ride down the Las Vegas strip to our hotel! He had stopped at a convenience store and bought some beers and had the limo take us all the way down the strip. It was a great way to experience Vegas for the first time! We checked in at the Wynn Encore and were amazed at how beautiful our suite was!! We had a room on the 23rd floor overlooking the strip and the pool... It was a two room suite with a bedroom and living room with a couch. It also had the biggest bathroom I have ever experienced. The bathroom had a jacuzzi and a shower and a separate room for the toilet. There was even a TV in the bathroom. The entire room was controlled by a panel next to your bed where you could turn on the lights, close the shades, make reservations etc. We were like kids in a toy store when it came to playing with the shades and the lights. The remainder of our day was spent sitting by the pool. We had dinner at an Asian place at the Wynn called Wing Lei. It was pretty good -- but wasn't my favorite meal we had while in Vegas. After dinner we went to see Beatles Love Cirque du Soliel. It was a good show -- a lot of people raved about it but I thought it was just ok and probably not worth the money we paid for it. After the show,  Joe took me to the Ghost Bar at the Palms which was a roof top bar from which you could see the entire strip. We had fun relaxing and looking out over the city -- but around 2 am we got pretty tired and decided to call it a night.

 

View from Ghost Bar

The next day Joe wanted to take me to some of the other casinos and shops along the strip. We walked around the strip in the morning and ate lunch at Otto at the Venetian, a Mario Betali pizzaria. After lunch it was getting hot so we decided to head back to the pool. Some of the pools in Las Vegas are considered day clubs and our hotel had one such pool. We decided to check out the Encore Beach club which was pretty crazy. There were no lounge chairs, your only option was to hang in the pool listening to the DJ and watching the insane water dance party. We had a great time chilling in the pool and drinking and people watching. That night we ate dinner at Sage, which was probably my favorite meal in Vegas.  Sage is classified as "artisan American" so they have unique twists on their menu. For an appetizer we had a slow poached organic farm egg that came with smoked potatoes, black truffles, and country toast for dipping. It sounds strange, but it was phenomenal. For dinner, we split the Prime rib for two... also tasty. After dinner, we had gotten tickets for one of Vegas's premier night clubs which happened to be at our hotel, Tryst. Tryst was so much fun and was a beautiful club; it is an indoor/outdoor club with a huge waterfall outside. We had a great time drinking and dancing there.




In front of the waterfall @ Tryst

On our last full day in Las Vegas, we spent most of the morning sitting by the pool -- the non-club relaxing pool. That afternoon we went to the Billagio for some gambling and an early dinner at their buffet. That night, we went to XS, the other night club at our hotel where Calvin Harris was DJing. It was a good time, but soon got way crowded and Joe and I decided to call it a night. We were getting tired from all of the fun on this trip.
The next morning we woke up and spent the morning by the pool before our flight back to Philadelphia. It was a wonderful trip and I am so glad we decided to go two different places and do a little bit of relaxing, a little bit of site seeing and a little bit of getting our dance on!

 

Duel Vacation: Las Vegas by way of San Diego - Part 1

A few months ago, as Joe and I sat talking about what we wanted to do for a vacation this year we threw around many ideas, among them, the Bahamas, Bermuda, St. Lucia, Las Vegas and San Diego. I was really pushing for something tropical, romantic, and relaxing and Joe really thought that after a summer spent at the shore and on my boat, we wouldn't really want to lay on the beach with nothing else to do. Not to mention the Bahamas and Bermuda are both incredibly pricey and we wanted to stay for an entire week. Joe loves Vegas, he has been there many times, I have never been. However, we both thought that 7 days in Vegas would be too long and too expensive. We started researching San Diego, a place both of us had never been. We decided that San Diego had a lot to do but also not enough to fill 7 days... thus the idea of Vegas by way of San Diego was born.. the perfect mix of relaxing and exciting.

We left Philadelphia on Labor Day and landed in San Diego around lunch time. We rented a 2012, red, Mustang convertible for our stay in San Diego so that we could get around. We decided to stay at the Marriott Coronado Island because I had enough Marriott points to get 2 out of our 3 nights there completely free. I cannot say enough good things about this hotel. The grounds were beautiful situated right on the San Diego Bay. Our balcony room overlooked the bay and downtown San Diego as well as the hotel pool - it was perfect. The first day we got there we were pretty excited about our flashy new whip so we tooled around Coronado with the top down and stopped for some lunch at the Coronado Brewing Company. After lunch, we unpacked and spent some time at the pool sleeping in the sun. The 3am wake up call for our flight that morning was really starting to catch up with us. That night, we had dinner reservations at a restaurant in downtown San Diego called Bertrand's at Mister A's. Mister A's was on the top floor of a building in the financial district and overlooked the whole city and the bay. The view was fantastic as was the food and service. After dinner we were pretty tired but we decided to check out a sky bar in the gas lamp district called Altitude Sky Bar. It was a relaxing outdoor lounge on the top of the Marriott Gas Lamp District and overlooked the whole city. It was also beautiful.

View from Mr. A's

The next day we decided to spend the day driving around the area to see the sights. Our first stop was Old Town San Diego where we walked around an out door museum depicting the history of San Diego from the time of the Spanish settlers to early America. After we walked around for a while, we sat down and had an authentic Mexican lunch at Fiesta De Reyes which had some of the best hard shell tacos I have ever had. 

Old Town San Diego

After lunch it was off to our second stop of the day La Jolla, California. La Jolla was beautiful. We drove around La Jolla on Ocean Drive pretty much taking in the beautiful coastal scenery. Mansions were on cliffs overlooking the ocean..expensive shops everywhere. It was seriously paradise. If I was a house this is where I would want to be built: on rock facing the sea.....

La Jolla, CA

After driving and touring all day we decided to go back to San Diego for dinner. The concierge recommended a restaurant called The Fish Market. It was a casual seafood place overlooking the bay. We had the "Famous Dungeness Crab Seafood Ciopinno" which was basically a mix of seafood in a red sauce over pasta and it was fabulous. After dinner, we rolled home, exhausted.

The final day in San Diego we decided to stay on Coronado Island and go check out the beach at a famous hotel built in the 1800's called Hotel Del Coronado. We spent a few hours laying on the beautiful beach but it was hot and we did not have an umbrella. The only thing about the Pacific ocean we didn't like is that the water is cold and full of seaweed. None the less, we had a great time. The Del was beautiful and interesting to see such a historic hotel. We got some ice cream there after the beach and walked around the grounds. We would have loved to stay here, but we couldn't pass up our free room at the Marriott! 

Later that evening we decided to go to a place the concierge had recommended called Sunset Cliffs to watch the sunset. It was stunning seeing the sunset over the ocean --which you cant do on the East Coast. After sunset we caught dinner in the Little Italy area of San Diego which was cute and quaint and the food was fantastic. Our last outing was to a wine bar in the gas lamp district called Vin De Syrah and was modeled after Alice in Wonderland. In order to enter, you had to find the door handle hidden in the grass. It was so cool. The decor inside was like stepping into a fairytale. Very cute!

Sunset Cliffs

Looking for the entrance @ Vin De Syrah!

All and all San Diego far exceeded our expectations. We had a fantastic time there and would highly recommend it to anyone! Stay tuned for Part 2 of this trip including our drive to the Mojave Desert and and Las Vegas.... 

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

The past few weekends have been so busy again! Time is really flying these days. Two weekends ago Toni, Michele, Sara and I headed down to Dewey Beach for a little girls weekend away and had a great time!! I am glad we got to spend some time sans boys and lay in the sun, drink and gossip. I hope that even as time passes, we can still make effort to bridge the gaps in geography and circumstance and make time for each other. Since Toni did such a great review of the trip, I will skip the play by play.

This past weekend I hosted Sara's bachelorette party.  I rented two rooms at the Sheraton Society Hill Philadelphia for everyone to stay over. One of the other bridesmaids and I decorated the rooms with typical bachelorette party paraphernalia, snacks and lots of alcohol. The maid of honor even brought homemade fruit infused vodkas that made for some pretty banging martinis.

I had each girl bring a wrapped gift of lingerie for Sara that best represented their personality without putting their name on it. So once everyone was settled, I had Sara sit down and open all her new goodies and guess who gave her each one based on how it looked - naughty, nice etc. She did pretty well and got a lot of great little gifts for the honeymoon!

The Bridesmaids and Bride

Next, we headed to dinner at a BYOB Italian restaurant in the city for a bite to eat. The food was great and we polished off three large bottles of wine between 9 people which got us primed and ready for a fantastic night out.

Next we went to Duel, a dueling piano bar in center city. They really cater to bachelorette parties, we had a table that was front and center in front of the pianos. They have a lot of wedding themed drinks and play really fun music. They even called Sara up on stage and did a funny little roast for her which was the perfect balance of embarrassing and cute. You can request any song imaginable and they will play it for you on the piano -- we had a great time there.

At around 11 pm we headed on to our next stop, Plough and the Stars. This is one of my favorite dancing bars in Philadelphia and one that Sara and I had spent a lot of time at during our single years. I thought it was only fitting that she get Plough'd one more time before walking down the aisle. The music is good and its a really fun/crazy atmosphere. At this point everyone was hammered and fading fast and by 2am we were ready to head back to the hotel which was only a few blocks away.

Once we got back, I unveiled my last surprise of the party. I had made cute gift bags for everyone and a special treat for Sara. Included in these gift bags were little bottles of vodka, gum, raspberry Ghirardelli chocolates, a cucumber face mask, cherry chap sticks, and a Kind granola bar. I got the idea from this blog. I used some of the things they mention in their post and improvised a little. I think they came out super cute and everyone seemed to like receiving them.

For the bride I made a special gift:  I got her a tote bag with a bride on the front that she can use to carry things in on the day of the wedding . Inside was a bottle of Skinny Girl White Peach Margarita, a bachelorette picture frame signed with well wishes by the entire bachelorette party, bride and groom luggage tags and a "Soon to be Mrs. Penwarden sweatshirt" that she can wear the day of the wedding while getting ready! I thought it was pretty cute:

All and all the party was a great success and everyone seemed to have a great time. It is always stressful when you are planning something on behalf of someone else and are not sure how the group will interact. I think the key is in the details though, we had a lot of really great little details that turned an average night out into a great time and hopefully something she will remember for a long time!

Showers of Happiness

This past weekend was my friend and former roommate Sara's bridal shower which, as a bridesmaid, I have been helping plan for the last few months. I think everything turned out wonderful, despite my ultimate nervousness day of! Sara's mom chose a tea shop in Sara's home town to host the event. The tea shop provided a good assortment of sandwiches, quiche, and sides for lunch as well as teas both cold and hot. The  I felt no party would be complete sans alcohol, so the bridesmaids also prepared a pitcher of mimosa's for the guests to enjoy. It was a big hit with guests both young and old. It was a perfect drink for the occasion because it gave a festive feeling without being overpowering on such a hot afternoon.
I also wanted to share a few of the details that I worked on in order to make this a special day! I found that I have quite a knack for shower/bachelorette party planning and have enjoyed the process for the most part. I was in charge of the invitations. I chose to do a printed invitation from a website called Zazzle. Upon scrolling through pages of invitations, I fell in love with this one because of its subtle nod to Philadelphia's Love Park Statue.

On the front of each of the invitations, I included a personalized address label which I made on the computer and  again complimented our LOVE theme. (ok so maybe this isn't exactly what mine said hahah!!)

The bridesmaids and I looked at many different favor choices but ultimately decided to again stick with the LOVE park theme and went with a set of 4 glass coasters tied with a pretty silver ribbon that we found online. I thought this was a fun yet practical shower gift that people would actually use!





For shower games we decided to limit ourselves to two games so that they were fun but not too much where guests were annoyed by them. The first game we chose was the purse game. Everyone got a partner and a list of 50 things you'd typically find in a purse. The team with the most things on the list inside their purse won a gift basket. The next game was called 'present bingo'. We gave each guest a bingo board and had them fill the squares with presents they thought Sara would receive during present opening. As Sara opened gifts she announced each gift until someone had 5 in a row and yelled bingo. The games really brought out everyone's competitive side and I think everyone had fun!

The day was a lot of fun and Sara walked away with a lot of great gifts to start her new life with Steve. Showers of happiness to both of you for a long, healthy, and happy life together!!