The Cat Show...Seriously!

OK, so we may be a little bit dorky...but we went to a cat show this weekend. I could say it was because we had our nephew Ethan with us, but in reality we knew we were going before we knew we were going to hang with the E-man.

Ryan and I love, love, love our cat Coodie (hence, the blog name). He is super sweet and 12 lbs. of orange fur and cuteness. He loves us just as much and we battle about exactly who he likes better, mama or papa (don't get started on telling us we need to have kids!). So, we heard about this cat show in Concord, NH and headed up there after I picked up Ethan. We met some cool, crazy and fun people at the show and got to see and cuddle some seriously adorable cats. Here are some photos....

This cracked us up....here is Ethan behind the "no pets allowed" sign.

Ethan, Ryan and I all agreed that the hairless cats are a little scary.

A beautiful "red" Maine Coon cat. Very gentle and nice and quite possibly Cood's distant cousin.
I can't remember the name of this cat...persian? They are so funny because when they fall asleep, they crash right out...I wish we had a photo of that. They look so grouchy but have a very nice disposition.We fell in LOVE with these cats...the Birmans. They have this "worried" expression that makes you want to give them a big cuddle and kiss. They are "lap" cats and love people. Look at that little face! The fur is also like a bunny, amazingly soft.

Here is one of the Birmans being "judged". It's all a perfection game...poor kitties! We love you even if you have an extra stripe or an uneven paw!!

Well, we had a great time hanging with Ethan and the kitties. Who knows....maybe there will be another kitty in our future soon!

Whirlwind Weekend in NYC

As you know, Ryan turned 30 last Saturday. As it turns out, our friend Kate, part of the dazzling duo also known as our BFFs has her birthday the day after Ryan's. So, we usually get together to celebrate at one of our houses for dinner. This year, we decided to take a little trip to New York City. Scoop used to live there, Kate has never been there and I haven't been since '99. Since Kate and Ryan were the birthday guy and gal, Scoop and I did our homework on hotels.com and researched where to stay for a decent price. We landed on a Kimpton Hotel - "70 park avenue" - at, you guessed it, 70 Park Avenue. It was great - small, but not the shoebox you get in Boston. We were able to move around and the beds were super comfy. But, onto the exciting stuff... lots and lots of photos on this post!



Arrival at Grand Central Station. Notice the sign above the escalator - the MetLife building otherwise known as the mother ship. For those of you who don't know, this is my place of employment. Nothing like company loyalty, we stayed just afew blocks away.

Here is the actual building...pretty impressive as it looms over Grand Central.
Hailing one of many cabs on night # 1.

We are clearly very HAPPY to be off work for a bit.... even for a day!
Ryan in Times Square.


Terra Blues on Bleecker Street. We saw Ray Schinnery who was amazing. This is just Ryan and Scoop being goofy at our little booth.

Our means of travel during the daylight hours - the double decker tour bus. So touristy but so cool. They have a deal where you can hop off and on at each stop and the busses come in 15 minute intervals. So, we hit Ground Zero, Little Italy, Greenwich Village, Chelsea Pier, Central Park, Harlem and SoHo. It may have only been for 1/2 hour at a time but now we know where to spend our time the next time we go. The photo above was taken on Harlem as we approached the historic Apollo Theatre up on the left.


Squirrels where I come from run away on the sight of a human. This was a Central Park squirrel who grabbed a chip out of the hand of a lady next to us and proceeded to enjoy it just feet away. Amazing.The boys at O'Brien's, just a few blocks from Times Square. They had the best Pomegranate Cosmo and the best view....there is nothing like people watching!


Happy girls!

We had the best time with Kate and Scoop in all of the 32 hours we spent there! Next time, we will stay longer as we missed seeing so many people while we were there.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 30th Birthday to my wonderful husband!

We are headed to New York soon for a special b-day weekend with our best buds, Kate and Scoop...so stay tuned for that blog. For today, we headed to our favorite brew pub to watch the Red Sox game (a win for Ryan!) and had a nice relaxing and quiet day together!

Look at Cood giving Dad a big kiss!

We have another birthday in our little fam coming up...Coodie is turning 3 on April 15th!

We tied his little toy bunny to Ryan's birthday balloon for a special treat - he loves it!

Happy day to both of my special boys!

Spring Cleaning

Ryan and I tackled some spring cleaning this weekend that was way overdue. We started with the worst task first...the basement. Someday, we will finish it but for now it is unfinished and dusty. Talk about sneezing! I think you will agree, we did a pretty good job (especially for those of you who saw it pre-clean):

Satisfied and motivated, we decided to do something fun and bring the deck furniture out (sorry, no photos as it is now raining).

On to the next task - our closet. I wish I had thought to do a before and after photo of this because it was a truly amazing transformation worthy of some HGTV show. I happen to have a *little* problem with not wanting to get rid of things which may have contributed to the issue and we have both been slightly negligent on closet cleaning since you can close the doors and pretend the mess doesn't exist. So, in a nutshell, you could not see the floor of the closet before we cleaned..... I am providing several views of this one because it was a doozy and I am very proud of our work!

I was able to part with several pieces of clothing, shoes, etc that I hadn't worn in years as did Ryan. We ended up donating 3 trash bags of clothes and shoes to Planet Aid.

Luckily, my mother in law visited in February and thoroughly cleaned and organized our spare room and bathroom closet so we had a head start and some motivation to get started. Thank you, Donna!

Spring, here we come!

I think I'll go to Boston...

Ryan and I headed down to Boston this weekend. We needed some retail therapy and we also had to stimulate the economy a bit...I mean, it is our civic duty! I've also been craving some good salmon and since I am not quite sure how to cook it, Legal Seafoods did the trick.

So, there we are on Newbury Street in Niketown and who do we see? Wilbur! He is one of our fave people (and one of my oldest and dearest friends...you may recognize him from previous posts). This was complete coincidence..Wilbur had taken the T in from Somerville and serendipitously (is that a word?) happened to be in the same shop at the same time! We were able to spend some quality time with him before he jets off to Paris next week and we had a great time as usual.

Wilbur also took us to the Trader Joe's in Cambridge on our way to drop him off.... as we love Trader Joe's and our usual store is quite small. This store also had the added benefit of a HUGE and CHEAP wine selection. I saw tons of people carrying cases of wine and no sooner did I find out that all of their wines are ridiculously bargain priced! The Trader Joe's brand wine is $3.99, they also sell "Two Buck Chuck" (which was actually $2.99) and several more that I usually buy for $14-$15 and were selling for less than $9!! Holy cow - no wonder everyone had cases full! Needless to say, I bought in bulk and have commissioned Wilbur to bring me a case each time he comes to visit. I am saving money left and right....

I also had to throw in this very cool advertisement for the new U2 album that we found in Copley Square...

I've got my snowshoes on....

We have gone from 15 degrees and over a foot of snow to 60 degrees and the ability to see the grass within a week. Only in New England....

Ryan and I woke up this morning and decided to go out in the woods for a snowshoe (there was still plenty of snow under the cover of trees in the woods). So, we drove out to Joe English Reservation in Amherst for a beautiful walk in the woods.

It was definitely a great way to start the day...a little bit of winter and little bit of spring. Now, I am sincerely hoping for a lot more of spring very soon!!!

No Line on the Horizon

For the first time in a long time, I was excited about a new album coming out this week....U2's "No Line on the Horizon" dropped Tuesday March 3. Ryan was excited about it as much as I was and he went to pick it up during the day (his job involves a lot of driving). So, there it was.... still wrapped in plastic waiting for me on the kitchen table when I got home. Nice! My wonderful husband wanted me to be the first to listen.

A loyal fan since The Joshua Tree came out when I was 12, each new album release 20+ years after the band formed is pretty exciting for me. New songs and a tour!! I am particularly partial to U2 concerts since that is where Ryan asked me to marry him.

But, back to the album...it usually takes me awhile to warm up to an album no matter who the artist is. I downloaded this onto iTunes (yes, we still buy the real CDs and then download them - it is just more fun that way) and it was fantastic from the first listen and keeps getting better.

Now...on to researching when Bono and the boys will be coming to Boston again!