Planes, automobiles and boats! Time for some summer vacation plans.

Last night, sweet hubs and I booked our first vacation of the summer/early fall.  It's not really a vacation, it's for our friends Wes and Ariana's wedding, but we're still treating it as a mini-vacation.  So off to Treasure Island, Florida we will go for Labor Day weekend.

The hotel we've booked is super cute - I can't wait to stay there.  I have a feeling I'll do an interior design post after the trip.  Until then, you'll have to wait and see.

This coming weekend is Independence Day, and due to needing a car inspection as well as the need to escape the NYC summer, we'll be going down to Virginia to visit my family.  I believe we're going to go out on the lake in a big ol' pontoon boat while we're there, so for a few hours I'll be in heaven.

I love boats.

Our next trip to book will be finalizing our plans for a week long trip to Costa Rica in mid-September with mine and sweet hubs friend, Rob Knight and Digital Photography Adventures! I'm so excited!  It's my first trip out of the US (aside from a trip to see my Canadian gal pal, Angela who used to live in Toronto, back in 2004.)

Anyhow, I'm super stoked that I've got so much travel coming up!  Also, my other gal, Christina, is getting hitched in a few short weeks.

So much to look forward to!

What are ya'll's summer plans?

Photo from Costa Rica courtesy of Rob Knight and Digital Photography Adventures

Happy Father's Day!

I wish I could be spending the day with my step-dad today, but he's on a flight to France for work.

Even though we can't spend the day together, I'll be thinking of him all day long.

He's the best.

So here's to you, John, pops extraordinaire! I love you very much!

xo

Court

The Bryant Park Hotel (Review)

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of my mom visiting to celebrate her birthday and a belated Mother's day and then my friend Jaime coming to visit. It was a ton of fun.

When my mom came, she decided that we should live it up and stay in a fancy hotel in the city one night, in celebration of her birthday and belated Mother's Day.  

I managed to get us an awesome rate at the very "fashion centric" The Bryant Park Hotel, which is one of the main hotels that models, designers and celebrities stay in during Fashion Week in New York, since its directly across from and overlooking Bryant Park.  We originally booked a regular room, but because of a shortage of the type of room we booked, the management kindly offered to upgrade us to a 1 bedroom "Bryant Park Suite". It was so amazingly luxurious. I loved it. I'd stay there again in a heartbeat.

The hotel itself is very minimal design-wise, which is always incredibly appealing to me.  It was recently remodeled, so everything feels new and fresh.  For those of you visiting NYC and seeking a "sexy" hotel to stay in, this also fits the bill.  I'll let you discover why on your own, but let's just say that the Bryant Park Hotel offers certain discreet amenities that frisky couples will enjoy taking part in.

So let's talk about the room suite (I love saying that!) we had. Like the rest of the hotel, the design is minimal with lots of clean lines. The bathroom was EXTREMELY luxurious with it's marble floors, rain shower, DEEP DEEP soaking tub and Molton Brown soaps, shampoos, lotions, etc.

On top of an amazing night's sleep and wonderfully relaxing bath, the hotel is SO QUIET! I find this to be a rarity when it comes to hotels, especially New York hotels.

If I was a real reviewer, I'd absolutely give the Bryant Park Hotel five stars.

A little tip for those interested in staying there: I follow them on Twitter and they had posted a tweet saying to send them an email to inquire about special Twitter rates... and they've done it numerous times since I booked mine, so give it a try! What can it hurt?

Here are a few gorgeous photos of the suite we got to stay in, courtesy of Oyster.com:

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike.

• Bicycle Race by Queen

More Queen music on iLike

Summertime is a time for riding bicycles. When its hot as hell and you can't cool down, if you just ride a bike and get some speed going, you're bound to cool down from the breeze. At least it always works for me.

I have a perfectly good bicycle downstairs in the common area of my apartment building, which I haven't ridden in over a year for some reason, but I'm always looking for one that I'll LOVE. The one that I have is fine and in good working order, just not really attractive or all that awesome, nor does it fit my personality style-wise.

Today, I found one I LOVE. Too bad its a bit out of my price range.

But a gal can drool, can't she?

Here are some of my favorites. The company that makes them is called Adeline Adeline and they're located here in NYC. They even carry all kinds of awesome accessories from basic baskets (which I adore!) to vintage style seats and bells.

Anyone have one? Do you love it?

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my wonderful mamacita's birthday! I'm not going to say how old she is, but instead say that personality wise, she's about 30 and she doesn't look a day over 45.

I love my mom very much - she's an amazing woman as well as a really cool person.

So here's to you, Mom. May this next year bring you the very best of happiness, health, and fortune.

These photos are what my mom has said was the happiest day of her life - my wedding day. She looked so radiant and beautiful!

I love you, mom!

Photos by Andrea and Tim Wedig.

Lost!

Well its been almost two weeks since Lost ended.  Sweet hubs and I were BIG lost fans, thanks to one of my friends that had introduced us to the show during its third season.  (He forced his DVDs of seasons 1 and 2 upon us and from the moment that the first show aired, we were hooked!)

Anyhow, since I felt a little empty on Tuesday night without being able to watch Lost at its regularly scheduled time, so I figured I'd take a moment today to share something I found the other day - Lost posters.  And not silly mega fan posters, but WELL DESIGNED, artful posters by a graphic designer named Ty Mattson.

I may end up investing in these to decorate my home one day when I have more walls free for artwork.  If you're interested in purchasing them, head on over to ABC's website and pick them up for $45.95 each.

Oops!

I've attempted to write several times over the last few days, but real life has gotten in the way of my virtual life.

Work has been booming, my mom is in town visiting, sweet hubs and I are considering adopting another furbaby (ie. a kitten), and one of my BFF's, Jaime, is coming to visit me next weekend.  I'm a busy lady these days.

So my apologies - next week, I'll do better.  I promise.  Maybe even do a design related post (been a bit for one of those!) - what a crazy idea.  Haha.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.  Once my work day ends, I'm going to go and enjoy it with my sweet hubs and my amazing mamacita.  I see lots of good food, laughing and delicious drinks in my very near future.

Au revoir!

Goodbye for now, but see you again soon! (PART 2)

This is a follow up to my previous entry because ...

HOORAY!

Three cheers for Christina and Nick because they're now allowed to get hitched!

Yes, that's right as of Thursday, May 20th at 10:30am, Christina received her visa - well not her REAL visa since that has to be mailed to her and she's stuck in Canada till she gets it - but permission to come back to the USA and finally get married!  You can read all the juicy details on her blog.

I'm so thrilled for them!!

And on another exciting note (this time for myself), I won a contest held by the venue where sweet hubs and I got hitched in 2008, the Almost Heaven Resort in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  The prize is a free two night stay at the cabin we stayed on our wedding nite!  We're hoping to book it to celebrate our two year anniversary.

Goodbye for now, but see you again soon!

This little post is dedicated to my wonderful Canadian friend, Christina. She's off to Canada today with her fiancée to go through her final immigration meeting tomorrow and will hopefully be given a visa and permission to come back to the USA to get married.

Christina has been through so much over the last three years between managing to hold together an amazing relationship with her hubs-to-be, being told many times over she has to leave the US of A and having to hunt down every bit of medical history she possibly can among filing many many papers and other daunting tasks. What a champ. I told her earlier that if I was in charge, she'd be given a platinum and diamond encrusted visa because of the effort she's put forth to PROPERLY enter the US to be with her man.

If you're interested in reading about her trials and tribulations of border issues and finding true love (among other things that interest her), check out her blog: http://christinamm.wordpress.com/

Fingers crossed for the next two days that she'll receive good news.

Good luck, Christina (and Nick)!

Hope to see you back in NYC very soon!

Summertime: A Good Time for Expanding Your Horizons

This summer, I fully intend on expanding my horizons. I've recently had a moment of clarity and its hit me just how much I miss having hobbies. I've restricted myself in many ways over the last several years and have given up many things I used to enjoy. Now, when attempting to revisit a lot of my previous hobbies, I no longer have the skills needed or interest and motivation to pursue them, so now I have realized that I will need to make some changes.

I'm sure this sounds like a bunch of ramble and nonsense, but if you think about it, maybe you, like myself, will come to the realization that as you've gotten older, you've let some of the things you love slip away. If you haven't, then I admire your ability to hold on and fully enjoy life, but I think the majority of people end up focusing too much on what it takes to live, and not enough on what it takes to be happy. I, regretfully, am one of those people and I intend to rectify that. It may be a slow process for a control freak such as myself to learn to let go a little and be more fluid and flexible, but I am going to try my hardest. And maybe, if you are in the same boat, you'll try and do the same. And if you are, I'd love to hear about it. Let's band together to enjoy life more!

The whole point of this is to sort of make a tentative "to do" list for myself for this summer of things I'd like to pursue and enjoy. Living in New York offers a lot of opportunities, and its ridiculous that I have not taken advantage of them.

Without further adieu, here is my list. I hope to accomplish as many of these as possible.

• Spend more time with my husband.
• Spend more time with my friends.
• Take a letterpressing class. (Signed up on last night for a class at The Arm in on Sunday, June 13th
• Sell my unused video camera and use the money to buy a new still camera (I'm thinking of the Olympus Pen) and take more photos, specifically more travel photos.
• On that note, travel more. Even if it's just short day and weekend trips.
• Explore locally. I love Brooklyn and need to experience more of what it has to offer.
• Take a flower class from Little Flower School. As soon as they release their summer schedule, I hope to sign up. I'd really like to take their succulents class.
• Smile more. Simple, I know, but really. Just smile more.
• Take advantage of the fact that I live so close to Coney Island and enjoy what's left of the old skool culture there before Thor Equities destroys it.
• Go to the beach. I don't do that nearly enough.
• Read more books.
• Bake and cook more.
• Attempt to write more, even if its just blogging.
• Rely on digital technology a bit less (ie. spend less time on Facebook and other useless time wasting websites.)

I'll keep an ongoing list, but I think this is a good starting point.

And a photo, completely unrelated to this post, which just makes me happy.

Sweet hubs and I, at Coney Island in Summer of 2005, when we first moved to Brooklyn.