Tuesday's Treasures

I think I have decided that each Tuesday (hopefully!!!) will be a day of Treasures. The first thing that comes to mind is all of the artwork in our home. I love each piece...they all make me feel warm and fuzzy and I know each one tells a really great story. Each Tuesday I am going to try and feature a new piece of artwork from our home. Hopefully you can enjoy them on the Internet as much as I enjoy them in my home!

The first treasure is our most recent piece. Katharine got this for me at a Dallas art show. Each item was either made by a local artist or a local child. She instantly knew this one was for me based on the quote.

Isn't it beautiful? This is where it is displayed in our little home!

Enjoy!

Saturday in Brooklyn

We had a fantastic day in Brooklyn on Saturday. We headed out first to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens and it was beautiful. There were so many things in bloom and the entire garden was so peaceful and full of color. We enjoyed the rose garden so much.


We really enjoyed visiting the Japanese gardens and seeing some beautiful sights in that area.


There were some really lovely animals along our journey today too...

gold fish in the lily pond...

a tiny turtle swimming along in a fountain area...

a sweet chipmunk...

some turtles having a sunbath...

and some coy fish in the pond at the Japanese Garden.
We saw amazing beauty on our journey...here are some of our favorites.















The day definitely would not have been possible without Orie's excellent map reading skills


Here was his favorite of the day...a beautiful willow tree
What a fabulous afternoon in the gardens!

After our time at the BBG we headed over to Prospect Park for Celebrate Brooklyn. We saw three bands perform with the main one coming from Dr. Dog. They were all great. A variety of music for everyone. Orie and I had a great time lounged on our park blanket listening to some great sounds!
It was an awesome crowd...this was before the show even started.

Check out this rainbow that appeared after the rainstorm...yes it rained on us again during our Saturday activities. We hid under our water repellent blanket!

Then the band rocked out to another awesome song on stage!

What an amazing day...here are two of my favorite pics from the whole day. Isn't he sweet?

Ward's Island

We went on our first adventure this morning...on a nice walk with Grace. We walked north along the East River today and went up to Ward's Island. It was so cool...we walked across that mint green bridge in the website photograph. I wish we had a camera to capture the views back towards Manhattan and across to Long Island. Grace was in high heaven on such a nice and scenic walk. There were lots and lots of grass, many trees, lots of people and sights to see. I think next time we head back in that direction we walk north on the island towards Randal's Island which I have heard of before. Until then...

U.S. Open

We had a fantastic Saturday heading out to Bethpage for the U.S. Open. We knew our day would probably be full of rain, people, and hopefully some great golf. We definitely got it all!! We walked all over the place in the muddy muck catching a glimpse of some golfers and watching some holes. We took a seat on the 18th hole and watched several groups come through and finish. It was awesome. Due to the rain and delays we missed a lot of golfers who teed off that morning at 7:30.

We were warned that the course was really hard to walk, really muddy and very crowded...that was exactly what we got. I wore flip flops (thinking that it didn't matter if these got muddy...I would just wash them off)....biggest mistake ever! I flip flopped mud all over the back of me...all over my jeans and rain coat. It was really funny! It didn't matter though because everyone else was covered in mud too! I think Orie had a good time watching me wade through the super muddy sections...he was so pleased that he wore his tennis shoes....and I the good wife had them washed and cleaned today for him! At one point I went into each merchandise store asking if they sold shoes!

We were hoping to watch Shreveporter David Toms take a few swings but our timing and the cut made that impossible. We were able to see many of the other big names practice late that afternoon...Tiger, Rocco, the 19 year old Rory, Phil, Ogilvy, Billy Mayfair, Vijay Singh, Goosen?? We were in the grandstands behind their driving range. It was amazing! We even saw Phil Mickelson tee off at about 6:30 ish...nothing short of super cool! I wish I knew this man because he seems like one of the nicest most respectful athletes out there.

Just FYI...the reason it is called Bethpage Black is because Bethpage has three courses...three different colors...black being the hardest. (I did not know this until late in our day...I am sure if you already knew this then you are laughing at me!)

It's hard to have a great day of golf in steady rain and steady ground muck but I think we made the most of it! We put our Pollyanna hats on and trucked on through. Thanks Dad for helping us get there; it was an experience we will never forget!

Beautiful...

This is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard...I also love both songs...

ENJOY!

Love Story (Taylor Swift) meets Viva La Vida (Coldplay)

It's Tee Time?

We are so excited the weekend is near! We are headed to Farmingdale, NY and Bethpage Park to take in some of the U.S. Open. We are thrilled and can't wait. This evening we were looking into the details such as tee times, weather, transportation, etc. and discovered that cameras are not allowed into the course. I was a little bummed at first but then realized we could take some pictures with Orie's iPHONE....nope can't do that either....no cell phones allowed. I'm not sure what I will do not being able to document our adventures this weekend!

Goodbye to Great Friends

Friday night we went to a going away party for our friends J and E. They are moving to D.C. and will be greatly missed. We headed to Brooklyn for this big adventure...the neighborhood of Williamsburg. We went to a great beer garden, Radegast Hall, and celebrated their NYC days with many of E's friends. It was a great evening of meeting new people and enjoying a nice night out...in a new place too!

Farewell to Friends and enjoy your D.C. days!

Blog Music Playlist

Just wanted to remind everyone to scroll down to our music play list next time you visit our blog. We have some great tunes and it's a good listen while you read. It should automatically start but sometimes it likes you to scroll down to it before it starts!

Happy reading and listening!

LSU Baseball

Don't forget our Tigers are still going strong with their baseball season. Orie and I are excited about getting to watch some action tonight at 7:00 (6:00 CST) on ESPN.

GEAUX TIGERS!

The Belmont

We had so much fun at the Belmont this past Saturday. We arrived via Long Island Rail Road and that was so much fun!

The park was beautiful and full of green. We went around checking things out and then finally found the box office to see if there were any last minute tickets available. There were...and we made our way to our seats in time for the 2nd race.




We really thought betting would be easy...



After a while we figured it out and made our bets...winning on a few...Princess named Jess was my favorite!






We had a fantastic day at the Belmont! I think we will have to go back next year and do it again...! Bye Bye for now!

a delayed Belmont moment...

the video took forever to upload...have a listen and look!

You Gotta Love Crawfish...

Sorry for the delay in this post...I've tried to be social this week and we ended up quite busy.

Last weekend we had 2, yes 2 crawfish parties to attend. LSU alumni association held their crawfish boil on Saturday. Orie and Geoff have gone for the past 2 years and this was my first one to attend. I was so excited...I have heard nothing but great things about the event and really have been looking forward to it and CRAWFISH in NYC for many weeks. You pay $60 bucks in advance and it's all you can eat and drink. So we had out to Pier 66 on the lower west side to the location. We thought it was a pier but ended up being a floating barge with a restaurant called the Frying Pan. We were located at the far end of the pier and there were LSU people everywhere! We started off with a cold Abita beer brought in from Louisiana and then set off to find a table...still searching...ahhh...there's one. So I decided to sit down, save it and Orie set off to get the crawfish. Many minutes after I finished enjoying that cold Abita beer Orie was still not back...still not back and then finally returned after about 45 minutes with one tray of crawfish with about 20-25 crawfish on it. Mild disappointment on our end. I then set off for 2 more cold Abita beers and water. I was denied the water because I could only have 2 beverages at a time...even if the additional was just a water.

So we're back up top enjoying our few crawfish and cold Abita beer. Geoff and Camille come and they go down for their crawfish and cold Abita and wine. Many moons later they return and we all sit and have great conversation. Great crawfish...not so much....they were a little fishy. I was somewhat disappointed with this outing. I was nauseous from the floating barge and a little grossed out by the crawfish in the end. Both boys...who have been to 2 other crawfish boils....said this was the worst location and the least fun they have had....

Maybe next year's will be better.

Sunday we were off to Augusta Georgia for Michael Arnone's Crawfish Festival. We went last year and it was AWESOME...much the same this year. The line up of bands was a little different on Sunday than last year on Saturday but we still had a great time. Lawn chairs, blankets, sunscreen, friends, crawfish and great music....you really can't ask for more on a Sunday afternoon.

Enjoy all the pics and have a lovely weekend....we are off to Belmont Stakes....more to come!

soon to come....

Two crawfish boils this past weekend...pics to come soon!