My Mom's Visit to NYC!

My mom just came to visit me for my birthday for her first trip to New York City! I was so excited to have my mom here so I could show her around and so she could see where Philip and I live, where I work and all the neat places to see here in the city that she sees on TV all the time. My mom was quite the trooper and came by herself and on the two days that I had to work, my mom explored the city. She took the double decker bus tour, NBC tour, Circle Line boat cruise, went to Top of the Rock and had lunch two days with me at our beautiful dining cafe at Hess. The photo on the right is us at Rockefeller Plaza in front of the Christmas tree. This is right near where I work. On the left is a photo she got at the Top of the Rock. And here's a photo of me at Hess in the newly renovated dining area, which is on the 42nd floor and has a beautiful view!

For my mom's birthday which was in November, I got her tickets to see a Broadway Show and we went and saw the musical Spring Awakening. It was a really good show with awesome music and singing, but it was a little bit edgy (there was a bit of nudity :)). We had a great night and started with a delicious dinner at Hell's Kitchen before the show. While my mom was here, I also wanted to go to the American Girl Doll store with her since I have five American Girl dolls and my mom loves dolls too - so we had to check out all four floors and somehow managed to leave without buying anything. Here's us at the store. We also had to go to the largest toy store in the world - FAO Schwartz and of course do some window shopping! Here's a photo of me and my mom in front of Sak's windows.

However, with all the shopping and sight seeing we did I think my mom's favorite NYC experience had to be shopping in Chinatown and getting some fake designer purses. It was insane! You wouldn't believe how many women were in this small little room with all these purses working deals with the Chinese salespeople. It was pretty funny. This is definitely an experience everyone must have when visiting New York City.

It was really great having my mom visit. I think she had a really fun time and it was so nice having her here to see where we live! Thanks again for visiting mom!

Flag Football Saturday

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Philip's friend, Ken, asked if we wanted to play flag football with him and his friends for their Thanksgiving tradition. Ken grew up in Queens and has been traveling through his job with Kiewit. Now he is back in Queens and is renting an apartment just blocks from his parent's place. So all of his good friends are back home and we have become friends with them too! It was such a fun day in the park playing several games of flag football. I had never really played flag football before and at the end of the day, I really got the hang of it. I even scored a touchdown! Here are some photos from the day!

A Lovely Thanksgiving at Susan's

After the parade, Philip and I went to my friend Susan's house for our Thanksgiving meal. It was such a nice gathering of 12 of us including Susan, her two daughters, her two nieces, her niece's boyfriend, and a couple women from her church and three friends she invited from the James Lenox House, a retirement home. It was such a lovely time.
Pictured in the kitchen on the left is: Chad, Susan's two nieces, Susan's daughter Abby and Susan.

Susan's oldest daughter, Sabina, had decided to plan the meal for Thanksgiving and she made all this amazing food with the help of her sister and mom. On the menu included stuffed mushrooms (the size of large muffins!), a huge turkey, Susan's famous sweet potatoes, vegetable root salad, pumpkin pie, cranberry apple pie, and so much more! It was delicious.
Photo on left is sisters Abby and Sabina.

Philip and I had a great time and had much to be thankful for this year. This was our first Thanksgiving away from our families, but we had the next best thing.


Photo on right is of Abby, Wesley (the dog), Sarah and Susan.

At dinner we all said what we were thankful for and celebrated friends and family and the delicious food!

One of the guests from the James Lenox House was Helen and she was 98 years old. Helen has lived in Manhattan her entire life. We couldn't believe how sharp she was! As were were talking to her we found out that Helen had gone to Elementary School in the school that is still across the street from me and Philip's apartment. What a small world!

Oh, and we couldn't forget about Wesley, Susan's beautiful 10-year-old Vizsla dog. He was hanging out by the fire to stay warm. :)

It was such a lovely day and Philip and I have much to be thankful for!

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

Philip and I had such a wonderful Thanksgiving. I don't think we could be any luckier. The company I work for, Hess, has a float in the Macy's Day Parade, and so the company was given special Grandstand tickets for the Parade that are not even available to the public. One of the executives at Hess who I work with knew we were planning to go to our first Macy's Day Parade, so she gave us two tickets to the Grandstand seats!!! These were absolutely the BEST seats at the Parade. First of all, we didn't have to stand or sit on the curb and all of the performers stopped and performed for us! We were next to Matt & Merideth from the Today Show and sat where all the cameras were, so everything you watched on television, we watched live about 30 feet away. I don't know if we can ever top that Parade experience..Here are a bunch of photos from the day! On the left is a photos of the Radio City Rockettes. The bottom photo is of the Hess Float.

Boston Bound!

Last weekend Philip and I headed to Philadelphia (which is only 1 1/2 hours away) to run the Philadelphia Marathon. I had been training for this race a long time with the goal of qualifying for Boston - which means I had to run the 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 40 minutes...and I did it! Philip ran the Half Marathon so we were able to run the first half of the race together which was awesome - we had a really good first half and I was way under my qualifying pace. And I finished with a time of 3:37:51. I was thrilled and still can't believe it! (Here's a photo of us after the race!) I already signed up for the Boston Marathon, which is April 20th. I can't wait to run in the most historic race!

While Philip and I were in Philadelphia we toured the city, including City Hall (which is behind us in this photo) and ate at this wonderful Italian restaurant called Magianos, so we could fill up with pasta to carbo load before the race. We rode out to Philadelphia with Philip's friend Ken who went to school at Drexel University. He showed us around the city and after the race on Sunday took us to get an orginal Philly cheesesteak from the famous Geno's. Here's a photo of Philip and Ken in front of Geno's.

We hope we'll be able to go back to Philadelphia soon and go out in the city. We had a great time and I'll never forget my experience of qualifying for Boston there...

Here's a video Philip took of me finishing.

Celebrating Our One Year!

Philip and I just celebrated our 1-Year Anniversary on November 1st so we decided to have a special date night - dinner and a Broadway Show - my perfect date! Philip picked out the restaurant we went to called Las Ramblas in Greenwich Village, which was absolutely fabulous. It was a tapas restaurant and we had the most delicious food I have ever tasted...I am still craving our dinner. My favorite was the seasonal stuffed mini pumpkin. It was so good! The restaurant was adorable, had wonderful service and was extremely small, but seriously had the best food. We'll definitely be going back. Here's a photo of us at the restaurant.

After dinner we headed to Broadway to see the musical, Avenue Q, which was hilarious! It's pretty dirty but also very cute. It's a musical with puppets and critics describe it as a mix of Rent, South Park and Sesame Street. We had awesome seats and were very entertained. It's definitely a must-see!

After the show, we walked around town and stopped at a place where we could have some dessert. We ended up at this very trendy French restaurant just a few blocks away from our apartment. We had a wonderful experience there - when we sat down they brought an appetizer to us "compliments of the Chef" and then gave us to two portions of this amazing dessert of fried cream puffs filled with ice cream drizzled with chocolate - it was sinfully delicious.

It was such a great evening and a wonderful way to celebrate this past year Philip and I have been together. Who would have ever thought a year ago I'd be here in NYC and living with Philip. So much has happened in a year, but I feel very lucky and know I am exactly where I should be right now. :)

Surprise Visit to Clinton!

This past weekend on Halloween, Philip and I headed back to his hometown Clinton, Iowa to surprise his mom for her birthday! Ken (Philip's dad) thought that the best gift he could give Sue (Philip's mom) for her birthday was to have all of her sons home. So...he flew me and Philip from New York and Andrew and his girlfriend, Cari, from Fresno, California and the youngest brother, Dave, came home from college and all the boys were home in Clinton for the weekend.

Sue was completely surprised! When she first saw Dave walk in she thought it was nice he came home for her birthday (but she sees him fairly often), and then she saw Andrew & Cari from California walk in and tears were streaming down her face. She still didn't think anything of Philip and me coming so when we walked by the window of the bar and she saw us...she started crying again. She couldn't believe it! Here's a photo of the Strom family after the surprise. From left to right: (Ken, Dave, Philip, Sue & Andrew Strom - by the way, none of the Strom brothers look anything alike.)

Philip was so excited to go home and see his family and a lot of his high school friends too. Here are some of his close friends from back home in the photo on the right. (From left to right: Matt, Andrew, Beau, Philip, Dave and Nolan.) More friends were able to make it that weekend like Melissa & Nolan, who grew up in Clinton and used to live with Philip when he lived in Chicago. Here's a photo of us four from that night.

It was such a great weekend having the entire family home in Clinton and I know that Sue had the best birthday! I don't know how Ken is going to be able to top this one. Here's another photo on the left of Sue and her boys.

On Saturday Philip and I took a drive around Clinton in his 1971 Chevelle that he fully restored while he was in high school and college. I didn't think I really cared much about Classic cars before, but Philip has taught me a lot about them and I think they are really cool. Here's a photo of Philip taking his car out.

Since Clinton is a little over 5 hours from Omaha and only 2 1/2 hours from Des Moines, where my sister lives, my mom decided to come out on Saturday so she could meet Philip's parents and family and so I could see her again too. So she came out Saturday afternoon and we all went to dinner at this wonderful Italian restaurant in Clinton. We had 25 people with us - all of Philip's family, his Grandma Doris, my mom, Cari's family and grandparents and some of Philip's friends too (Beau & Pam and Nolan & Melissa). It was such a great time and the food was delicious! It was so nice that everyone could be there. Later that night we out for awhile, but we were pretty tired from the late night before and were full from dinner. Here's a photo of my mom, Philp and me after dinner at a local bar next door.

The next day I still had to run 20 miles for my Marathon Training, but it was one of the most beautiful runs. Clinton is a very pretty city built right on the River so I ran along the River and went over the bridge. Then I found a bike trail with the beautiful fall leaves framing it. It was breathtaking. During my run, I saw my mom driving by as she was on her way back to the Strom's house for some coffee & breakfast. I know my mom had such a wonderful time too. Ken and Sue were so welcoming and it was such a fun weekend for my mom. I'm so glad we were able to come back. Happy Birthday Sue and Thanks Again Ken for bringing us to Clinton for the weekend!