New York Weekends

Julie, Me & Amy 

Julie is my Utah best friend. We met in college. Amy is my New York best friend. We interned together when I first moved to the city.

The three of us hung out all weekend long :) 

Saturday afternoon, Julie and I brunched at Lido. It is an Italian resturaunt up the street from my house. 

Julie has visited New York quite a few times. Now when she comes to the city we just chill. We sleep in, eat brunch and lounge the whole day until we are hungry again.  

Bar Primi is my favorite Italian restaurant in the city! It has an excellent brunch and dinner menu! These pictures are from our Sunday brunch. 

Julie and I dressed up on Saturday night for a girls night out on the town. We haven't had a girls night in such a long time. I miss having my best friend with me 24/7 like old times in college. 

This is how you grill in New York City. Gyu Kaku is a Japanese restaurant where you grill freshly prepared meats and vegetables at your own table. I highly recommend it!  

Labor Day Weekend

Good bye summer and hello to fall. Not that it feels like fall yet, it is still blazing hot in the city. I don't know about everyone else, but I am definitely excited for the temperature to drop and the leaves to change. This past weekend my best friend Julie came into town!!! We met in college as roommates and have been best friends ever since. Although we don't see each other too much anymore we still talk everyday and I always look forward to when she comes to town. 

Delicatessen is easily one of my favorite restaurants in NYC. I realize I use that term loosely when I post about food on my blog. But can you blame me? New York has the best food in the whole world! Everything at Delicatessen is delicious but their Mac Rueben is what really sets it apart. 

On Monday my brother and his wife came in from New Jersey to hang out with Julie and I. They wanted to hang out in Greenwich Village. I love the West Village but I am not super familiar with it. However, the thing that is so amazing about New York, is that you don't need to plan your day out. You just happen upon so many amazing restaurants, shops and places to hang out. 

For brunch, we found a darling restaurant called Meme Mediterranean. I am sure you can tell by the pictures that it is delicious. 

I am so lucky that one of my best friends is a native New Yorker. I always let Amy decide where we eat. She orders for me and I trust her recommendations! On Sunday Julie, Amy and I went to Shanghai Asian Manor in China Town for soup dumplings. 

Our last and final day at the beach did not go very smoothly. We got lost on our way there, our umbrella was not cooperating and it was so windy!! I guess this is just one of the signs that summer is over and there will be no more beach days. My best memories from this summer include our road trips to Robert Moses beach. We said our final goodbyes on Saturday. It was a little heart breaking.

We ended the beach day with a seafood dinner at the Oyster Bar. We always order more food than we can stomach. Pictured above are oysters (my favorite), baked clams, fried calamari, french onion soup, shrimp and seafood linguine!!

Labor Day weekend is over but at least I get to spend one more weekend with Julie. She is in Boston  for the week at a work conference and then she will come back to New York one more time before returning home to Utah. I can't wait! 

Reunited on the East Coast

Family Pictures in Central Park 

My family is migrating to the East Coast. My brother and his wife recently moved to New Jersey, my sister Jen just moved to Boston for school and I am in New York. My mom and dad came into town with my little sister Stacey and we all hung out. We spent Friday night in NJ and Saturday in NY. It has been a couple of years since we have all been together as a family but we have finally reunited on the East Coast. 

We love the Corner Bakery for brunch on the Upper East Side. It was the first restaurant my family ate at when I moved here so we make it a point to go every time my parents come to town.  

My dad comes to NY often which means we have favorite restaurants picked out. One of them is Village Yokocho, a Japanese restaurant on the lower east side of Manhattan. Then..... we love to get ice cream at Van Leeuwens just a couple blocks down the street. My dad always orders an ice cream Sundae. I order one scoop of chocolate ice cream and one scoop of coffee ice cream and Stacey always gets the weird flavors no one orders just so she can try something different. 

Sunday night was suppose to be movie night at the hotel room. We went to the store and bought what my dad likes to call "munchies" for the occasion, but it didn't really pan out like we had hoped it was going to. The hotel didn't have movies on demand (bummer) and nothing on Netflix sounded appealing. We started watching a documentary and realized none of us cared so we settled on the VMA awards and eventually had to turn that off once Kayne gave his awkward acceptance speech. But movie night or not we had a good time hanging out with each other, laughing, taking pictures and making snap chat stories. 

Here is a picture of my cute family! My brother just got married in May, next to him is my sister Jen who like I said earlier, has moved back to Boston to start her Junior year at Boston University. Stacey is next to Jen and she is the youngest in our family. She left for London yesterday for a study abroad. 

We are all at different places in our lives experiencing different things. It is an exciting time for all of us! We are young and we are trying to take advantage of every opportunity we can. Each of us have different goals and ambitions for ourselves. Even though we are all so different, we learn from each other and we have great discussions that involve all our different perspectives on life. I respect my family so much, especially my parents because they have given so much for their children. I am thankful for them and I am looking forward to hanging out with my brother and sister this Fall in our different cities. Many more fun adventures ahead!!!