Tag: vacation

Playing Catchup

Hello from the most negligent bloggers in the land! We kept drafting posts, then not posting posts, then deleting posts, and ultimately ignoring the mere existence of posts. So here’s a little highlight reel of the last few months. We have trips to Chicago, Minnesota, and even India. We have weddings, and sightseeing, and family reunions. We have lots of friends, and lots of amazing skies. It’s been a great year and we’ve been, apparently, too busy to document it properly! Here’s to the close of 2013 and a 2014 with even more to show.

Big Apple BBQ
We came, we ate all the meat.

Chicago
Celebrating an old friend’s wedding in Jason’s favorite city.

Jekyll Island
Another wedding—this time family—on the beautiful Jekyll Island, Georgia, known for Driftwood Beach.

Bo Ssam
Shared an incredible bo ssam with ten friends and ate until we couldn’t see straight!

Beach Week 2013
Summer vacation tradition continues, but this time with a heavy heart for Jersey.

Fete Paradiso on Governor’s Island
An antique French carnival set up in New York Harbor? Ooh la la!

NYCC 2013
The boys headed to ComicCon again, this time with Cameron, too! (see more on Jason’s Flickr account).

India
Erin took the work trip of a lifetime.

Thanksgiving
Once again we hosted our family and friends for pie, stuffing, and turkey turkey turkey.

Minnesota Weekend Getaway
Braved 2° high temps to see Lauren and Peto! Escaped to Mall of America.

Bring on 2014
And as the sun sets on 2013, we are ready for a whole new year of adventure!

December 23
seaside park boardwalk

The Seaside Park boardwalk just can’t catch a break, can it? A year ago during Superstorm Sandy the Jet Star was lifted off Casino Pier and dumped into the ocean; the actual boards of the boardwalk were ripped off; and dozens of businesses were forced to shutter forever. As the site of our annual family beach week, Seaside holds an incredibly special place in our hearts, and we were so upset as we saw news reports of the storm’s aftermath. But in the ensuing months, they rebuilt the boardwalk, started raising houses, and we spent a week there this past July that was relatively normal.

But then two weeks ago a fire broke out at a Kohr’s near Funtown Pier and escalated until it became a 10-alarm fire (we didn’t know that existed) and consumed nearly the entire lower end of the boardwalk. The carousel, which we rode this summer. Maruca’s pizza, which had moved from its old location up a few doors to a larger space. So much gone. So many places that meant so much to us. It’s just heart-wrenching. This summer when we went to the boards, it was sad to see how quiet and empty they were. We bought dinner, played a game or two, got frozen custard… did our part to give back to the place we love so much. And now it’s gone. We can’t even describe how sad this makes us. In honor of the boardwalk, here are photos we took this past summer (including one of the Kohr’s where the fire started, we’re guessing.)

September 21
A Look Back at 2012

Happy new year! We’re looking forward to a fantastic 2013, but wanted to take a moment to look back at 2012. It was a fun year, though not all of it has been documented here (we only started the blog in June, after all!). Not only did we finally walk across the Manhattan Bridge, listen to the Philharmonic in the park, and take a trip to San Francisco, we weathered Superstorm Sandy, hosted a delicious Thanksgiving, and had our annual beach week vacation.

But there’s more, of course, that never made it onto the blog (we promise to be better documenters this year), and we wanted to share some of them with you.

For Jason’s birthday, we took a trip to Chicago, where we went to see Second City with Lauren and Peter.

A photo walk in our neighborhood, Bay Ridge.

Erin made her favorite quilt ever.

Jason went to the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn …

… and met Carla from Top Chef, our favorite past contestant! (Photo by Jodi, photobombed by Elizabeth and Chris.)

Erin had an idyllic weekend away with friends in the mountains of West Virginia.

Revered Erin performed the wedding ceremony for our friends Jes and Michele!

George and Ally came to visit and we dragged them on an epic walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Tim came up to brave the madness of Comic Con with Jason, Chris, and Loc.

Erin, Holly, and Tania had a classic New York fall day: brunch, shopping, and a walk in Central Park.

We took another trip to the Park Avenue Armory to see The Event of a Thread.

We spent a snowy Christmas with Erin’s parents in Maryland.

So here’s to 2012, a fun and friend-filled year, and to more of the same in 2013!

January 1
Season’s Greetings!

Our holiday card this year may not be exactly seasonal…

We took it on a hot summer day in July, donning full winter gear and heading to the water’s edge in Seaside Heights. We’re sorry that we didn’t get enough printed to mail to all our friends (we’ll fix that next year!) so we’re sharing it here—now with outtakes!

Wishing all of you a healthy and happy new year, from Jason and Erin.

December 20
(Foggy) Bay Area Tour

Jason’s one real demand on our trip to San Francisco was to see the Golden Gate Bridge. Erin had driven over it quite a few times in the past but had never actually been to it on foot. On Saturday we walked along Crissy Field until we were at the bridge’s base and got some nice photos despite a dreary background. On Sunday, the day dawned with sunny blue skies, and we thought it would bode well for gorgeous shots of the bridge, so we changed our plan and booked a one-hour boat tour in the bay. This isn’t the boat to Alcatraz (that was sold out—book in advance!), but it goes around Alcatraz as well as under the bridge, with historical commentary. But, um, we were completely wrong about the weather. Or maybe we just didn’t know enough to know that gorgeous sunny skies and warmth to the south would portend icy icy fog to the north. And icy is the only way to describe it. With wind whipping through our sweaters we huddled together atop the boat and wondered, truly, what in the world we were doing. Still, we got some cool shots, even if they weren’t what we’d anticipated.

Someday we will be back on one of those picture-perfect days!

October 26
Muralismo in San Francsico

Years ago, Erin edited a book on the San Francisco murals, and though she’d visited SF multiple times and stayed nearby many times, she’d never seen them until this trip. On our first day we took a walk down Clarion Alley, and on our last day we strolled down Balmy Alley—not to mention seeing all the murals on random buildings in the Mission. Clarion Alley, we’re told, is the less “savory” of the two streets, more likely to be the host of a drug deal than a painting in progress. When we were on Balmy Alley we actually saw two women painting a new mural. In general we’d say that Clarion’s murals were the more “current”—messages that seemed more contemporary and concerned with current events—but on Balmy the murals were traditional, depicting the ongoing struggles of the people who painted them.

October 24