Lively Up Yourself...

Marley's One Drop All Natural Coffee...?

Well I never.

Mini Christmas...

Yesterday we had ourselves a lovely little mini early Christmas together.

We had a Christmas breakfast, watched Christmassy films and opened some very lovely Christmas presents. One of mine was this very handsome looking purple giraffe vinyl toy...

Then we went for a Christmas Day stroll through McCarren Park. Oddly enough, it really did feel like Christmas Day, all day, and especially when we went out the park and saw that it was almost completely desserted...

But it looked lovely in the afternoon sunshine...

After some Christmas Crif Dogs we made our way back to our warm snug apartment for a Christmas nap and then start preparing the brussel sprouts!

It was a really lovely, relaxing day and it really did feel like a mini Christmas, especially by bed time when we both felt absolutely stuffed of lovely food looking at our presents. We're very lucky that we get to enjoy two Christmasses this year - I don't think either of us can wait for the real Christmas Day to come now!

The Nutcracker...

After our lovely meal at De Santos, we went to see the New York Ballet's The Nutcracker at the Lincoln Center for Abi's Christmas present...

Abi had no idea we were going, so it was a great surprise when the taxi pulled up outside the Lincoln Center. The Lincoln Center itself is a beautiful place, we'd never been there but we'd been passed in a bus once, so it was great to finally be there...

It was really busy with people going to see the Nutcracker, but also the other plays that are on at the moment - I think Warhorse is one of them. There were lots of people in their theatre finery, including us!

Once we got in the theatre, we went to find our seats - I was a little worried that we'd have a rubbish view as we were on the very top balcony, but I don't think it's possible to have a bad view in that place. It turned out we were on the very very back row, but it didn't matter, we could see everything perfectly... once we got passed the vertigo!

I'd never been to a ballet before, and it had been ages since Abi had been - so it was very exciting sitting there waiting for the performance to begin. Also, when Abi was 10 she was the lead flower in dance of the flowers, so we were both looking forward to see if the New York Ballet were as good as Abi!

The whole thing was absolutely amazing, some of the production was so so clever. It starts with the two children who have fallen asleep on a chair outside their sitting room. There's a big wall behind them with the sitting room door on it, then as the children look through the key hole into the sitting room, the wall became transparent! It revealed the beautiful Christmas tree in the sitting room behind the door.

There were some other very clever bits - when the Marie (the little girl) gets shrunk down to toy size, the Christmas tree in the sitting room starts to grow, and grow, and grow, and GROW! It went on forever, getting higher and higher and wider and wider, all coming out from underneath of the stage! It reminded me of the Radio City Hall tour we went on when the explained how much space there is below stage and in the ceiling. It was so clever.

The dancing was amazing too. All the children were fantastic and the music was absolutely incredible. I think Act 2 was by far my favourite, when they have all the different dances, and all the short snippets of music - I think the dance of the candy canes is one of my favourite pieces of classical music ever.

Some of the dancers were incredible, balancing of their tiptoes for ages, and at one point, when The Sugarplum Fairy and Her Cavalier were doing their dance near the end - the Sugarplum Fairy went up on one foot, on the very tips of her toes (or on point as my ballerina tells me it's called!) and stayed perfectly still as the Cavalier pulled her along. She glided so smoothly on her toes... I still don't understand how she did it - there were gasps in the audience as they did it. We've not practiced it at home yet, but I think we might tonight!

It was a really special night and a wonderful start to our Christmas!

De Santos...

Last night Abi and I went for an (early) anniversary meal at De Santos in the village.

(I didn't take this photo, it's off their website - I forgot to take one)

We first went to De Santos in the summer nearly 2 and a half years ago, for our 6 month anniversary meal. So it was very special to go back for our nearly 3 year anniversary, and to think about aaaaaaaall that's happened in those 2 and a half years in between. It REALLY doesn't feel like I've been out here that long!

De Santos is a lovely restaurant, and we've talked about the food a lot ever since the first time we went (we had some curried pasta thing!). This time though they'd completely changed their menu (it'd probably have been strange if they hadn't in 2 years!), but it was just as delicious. We had some popcorn shrimp to start (in this delicious saratcha type sauce) and then Abi had an amazing herb crusted swordfish with creamed corn and spinach and I had a delicious duck with apricot glaze. Then we shared tiny mini little lemon cheesecakes for pudding... it was all absolutely amazing.

It was such a perfect start to the evening, the music was great, the lighting was really lovely, the food was amazing and the company was... well... Okish I suppose.

T minus 168(ish) hours...

NOT LONG NOW!!!!

This final week can't go quick enough.

Barbie Foosball...

This creepy looking foosball table in FAO Scharwz is a bargain at a mere $25,000!

I wonder how many people have one of these on their Christmas list?

Out & About...

 I've been out and about and away from my Mac today doing an audit of some shops. The audit part's a bit boring, but being able to wander around and enjoy New York has been fantastic!

Stars and Stripes...

Mismatched...

Thomas Campbell...

This afternoon, in the middle of a mammoth Christmas shopping session, I stopped off at the Half Gallery, down on Forsyth street to have a look at the exhibition by Thomas Campbell.

I've liked Thomas Campbell's stuff for quite a long time now, I think the first time I heard about him was through his surf film Sprout - which is linked with Jack Johnson in one way or another. Then I saw more of Campbell's stuff cropping up as he did some people's album covers and stuff.

He's a west coast surfer/artist and does a lot more exhibitions over in California, so I was very excited to find out that some of his work was on show in New York. The Half Gallery is a lovely little (very little) gallery in a quiet area near SoHo.

Essentially it was a room, smaller than our apartment with about 10 pieces of work on display, but it was lovely and quiet and you were able to get up really close to the pieces without there being loads of people around or anything.

There were a few pieces that were made up of lots of sewn together patches of different papers and materials, making up these flowers, they were great and much smaller than I'd imagined them when I'd seen pictures of them on the internet.

There were also a couple of canvases, and a couple of sculptures and these two great 3D paintings...

It was so great to finally be able to see some of his work in the flesh, and in such a lovely little space too.

The other great find of the day was the shop right next door to the gallery. It was a shop called My Plastic Heart, full to the brim with vinyl toys! I've been on their website quite a lot in the past but had no idea they had an actual shop - and they had some fantastic toys in there, so really rare ones and some I'd never seen before.

Plus, the Christmas shopping was a success - so it's been a pretty good day really!

Finished!

They've finally finished that Opening Soon sign... 

(but then ruined it with the Toby's Estate bit)

Crisp Afternoon...

I had a lovely time walking around Williamsburg yesterday afternoon. The sun was just going down behind the Manhattan Bridge, the air was so cold and crisp, and the skyline over the river looked absolutely amazing.

I had a 'pinch-myself' moment as I looked out towards Manhattan. Sometimes it's very hard to believe I'm here... in New York City! 

It's Time To Play The Music...

Yesterday I went to go and see the new Muppets film!

I was BRILLIANT!

At first I thought it might have been a bit too cheesey, but then you realise they're taking the micky out of themselves and of their other films. It's a really lovely story line and some of the music's great in it, it felt like a proper Muppet's movie, just like the older ones.

Watching it reminded me of seeing the Muppets in 3D at Disney World, it brought back a lot of very happy memories of our holidays in Florida, which made the film even better.

There were quite a few cameo appearances in the film too, just like the old ones, Dave Grohl, Feist, Jack Black, Whoopie Goldberg and a few others, but the real star of the whole thing is Kermit. He's as lovely as ever.

Belated Photos...

Well, unfortunately my search for good photos from our little Thanksgiving gathering has been somewhat fruitless. These are the best of a sparse bunch...

Taking a wee break during cooking.

The little buffet (looking back at this, it doesn't really look like enough to feed 8 people does it, maybe we should have done more vegetables...?

Ed and Nicola about to gravy up. It was so lovely to see Ed again.

Some after dinner drinks on the roof!

It was a fun night, and it was lovely to have everyone round. It would have been lovely to have some better photos of the whole night, and to have some photos of the turkey - but I suppose we were too busy cooking and stuff to take any. Oh well, at least we'll have the memories (although I can't share those with you as easily).

Seasons Greetings...

I was designing Christmas cards last night and this is something from 'the cutting room floor'.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

Our little tree is up!

I think we're going to need a few more decorations up in the apartment to make it feel even more Christmassy, but we're starting to feel very festive!

One Song...

We spotted this lovely mural above Fette Sau this afternoon (we went to have some BBQ with Steve, Karen, Amelia, Stephan and Jim, it was deeeelicious!).

It looks pretty similar to the ESPO murals that are popping up in Brooklyn, but this one's an advert for EMI Music. I love it! It's so happy looking and positive.

I really love seeing new hand painted murals around New York, it's also funny seeing all the old ones that are very faintly still clinging to the old bricks around Manhattan. I wonder how long this will be up for people to enjoy?

Blue Glass...

Super Limited Edition & Incredibly Rare Screen Prints...

Now that you've got your screen prints I can finally show you some pictures from my course at 3rd Ward! I really want to show you some photos right after I printed them, but I didn't want to ruin the surprise.

The screen printing process is pretty complicated, and there are lots of steps, so I won't go into them all, but once the screens were developed with our designs on we were ready to plop on some ink and start printing...

... and then run some ink over the screen before it was ready to print...

It took a LOT more test prints than I thought it would before the prints were coming out right, which explains why there were only really 5 good prints in each batch, but I think as I do more printing I'll get the hang of it a bit better.

It was great to be able to experiment with a couple of different paper types and different coloured inks, I was pretty pleased with how they came out in the end, I was even more pleased I was able to share them with you!

The screen printing course was an absolutely brilliant birthday present - thank you Mops and Pops!

It's December!

We're VERY excited about Christmas in New York.

It looks like Father Christmas is excited too!