Something Strange in the Neighborhood

As you can tell, Michael and I use any excuse to dress up in costumes.  So it goes without saying that Halloween is hands down one of our favorite holidays.  Since we met, we have paraded quite the collection of couple's costumes.  Sometimes that requires me to dress like a dude (as I did for Halloween 2010 when we were Bill & Ted), and sometimes it requires several midnight panicked trips to St. Marks Street and/or Target/Walmart/K-Mart to look for last minute costume details.  This year, Halloween fell on a Monday, so that means that there is almost a week of festive activities to attend, and multiple opportunities to wear our awesome costumes.

The 2011 Meebo/College Humor Costume Champion

When we were thinking of what we could be for Halloween this year, I had one request...I had to be a female.  And after spending a day out in Soho over Columbus Day weekend during a massive biker convention, we decided to be characters from our favorite TV show, Sons of Anarchy.  Our costumes were complete with the official cuts, reaper jewelry and tons of leather. Our get-ups were debuted at Mike's company Halloween party at Crimson on Wednesday last week.  It was a huge industry extravaganza and my agency had a great showing as well as some of the greatest costumes of the night.  I'm proud to say that my planner won the entire costume competition of the night and was rewarded by College Humor & Meebo with a brand new TV!  It had nothing at all to do with the fact that she was dressed as Macho Man Randy Savage and my husband was the judge....nothing at all.

A snowstorm in OCTOBER!?!?!?

Saturday brought us some crazy weather.  We woke up on Saturday to a Nor'easter that brought rain, ice, and believe it or not, some snow!  We JUST started Autumn and we were already getting dumped with snow!  It was unbelievable.  Luckily, we were safe and did not experience any power outages, but surrounding areas weren't so lucky.  Some of my Connecticut family may be out of power for 2-3 weeks!


But nothing could stop the Mobley's from celebrating and having another excuse to dress up.  So we made minor adjustments to our costumes to be a bit more weather appropriate and headed down to the Lower East Side for the annual Novogratz Halloween party at Matt & Nadean's apartment.  As usual, our crowd of friends did not disappoint.  We can always count on our friends to come up with the most clever, detailed, and funny costumes of the year.  Nadean had a wonderful spread of food and cocktails, including a pretty lethal orange punch that crept up on you if you drank too much.  The snow and rain continued to fall through the night,but we were inside surrounded by the warmth of friends (and the warmth of restricting costumes).

Regardless of how terrible we felt waking up the next morning, we got out of bed and rallied to meet up with the Bucks to go see one of the most terrifying movies ever, Paranormal Activity 3.  Nothing says Halloween like scary movies...and the Mobleys LOVE scary movies.   Luckily, our theater was pretty empty because the four of us were terrified and made no attempts to contain our screams and "don't go in there" shouts.  Somehow, my husband thinks we need a "demon survival kit" now, because flashlights and knives can totally save you from demons and entities.

Not only do Mike and I love Halloween, but Winston happens to love the holiday as well!  He likes to dress up (regardless of what his face may look like), and he always gets extra cookies on Halloween...because he's so freakin cute.  After charming everyone last year with him lion costume (it was seriously adorable), Winston wanted to be a monkey this year.  And he was the cutest little monkey I ever saw!!!  He got to wear his monkey outfit to Wiggly Pups for a puppy party with all of his best doggee friends.  All of the little guys were so excited to show off their costumes, it was the cutest thing, and my little guy was wiped out by the time we left.

Since Halloween was on a Monday, and we had exhausted our efforts on the previous week's festivities, our real Halloween consisted of a quiet night at home with home made treats and watching scary movies together.   The same way we spend our 2009 Halloween when Winston was only 3 months old (we were afraid to leave him too long!).  And even though we don't have trick-or-treaters in our building....we had candy in the freezer just in case....looks like we'll just have to eat it now! :)


Coincidentally, I'd also like to note that Mike and celebrated 6 months of marriage this weekend!  I can't believe it's gone by so fast.  It feels like we were just walking up to the Orange County City Clerk to get our marriage license.  But here we are 6 months later getting ready for our first holiday season as a married couple. The next few months are going to be such a blast, and I can't wait to share it all on my blog!

Congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Tim Lane

Both Michael and I have spent the majority of our lives growing up on the West Coast, so it's a bit surprising that neither of us have spent much time traveling to or visiting Washington State.  But last weekend, we had a wonderful reason to travel to the Pacific Northwest because we were celebrating the marriage of our dear friend Tim & Janelle Lane!  The little love birds tied the knot in a beautiful ceremony in Italy, and invited all their friends and family to join them in Spokane to celebrate when they returned from their dream trip.

I was overly excited to travel to Washington state for a few reasons:

1.  I've never been there before and I'm always eager to travel to places that are brand new to me
2.  We haven't seen Tim & Janelle since OUR wedding in April, so we couldn't wait to hug the newlyweds and celebrate their nuptuals.
3.  Autumn is supposed to be a wonderful time of year in Spokane.  Anytime I can see the season unfolding through the lush trees covered in beautiful colors, I get excited

4.  The Twilight series is based in Washington (not Spokane), but being that Halloween is only a week or so away, I was feeling a bit vampire-y and had hopes of seeing dreamy werewolves

Michael with the life size giant rhino at the
entrance of our hotel

 Ok, so I didn't see any werewolves and I didn't get any photo ops with the Cullens but it was our own little adventure.  Let's just start with the hotel.  Per Tim & Janelle's request, we booked a room at the Davenport Tower in Spokane....this place was amazing.  The walls were covered with ceramic elephant heads.  All the upholstery in the lobby was leopard print.  There was a real stuffed tiger lurking above the hotel bar (he died of natural causes...don't worry).  And the lobby was covered in oil paintings of rhino, elephants,

cheetahs & parrots.  Our actual room didn't disappoint either with the lavish animal print bedding and chaise lounge complete with ostrich skin pillows.  I felt like I was at Disneyland!  This was probably the best deal we've ever gotten on any hotel and it was awesome.

We joined Tim & his lovely new wife for lunch at a festive place called the Elk. We were able to take a scenic route through the outskirts of the downtown area to enjoy some of the beautiful trees that were vibrant shades of red, orange & yellow!  And later that evening we all got together to celebrate at a welcome dinner with the family.


But I think Saturday was the most eventful day of the trip!  We all woke up for a group breakfast at none other than the Safari Grill!  The fueling up was absolutely necessary because we packed into vans to head over to the indoor race track with some go-karts!  I've never been go-kart racing, and I'll admit I was a bit timid the first few laps, but it was a blast!  I was one of only a few other ladies and the boys had no qualms with passing me up or ramming into my little car.  But once I got the hang of it, I was speeding around those turns with my wheels squealing and my hands shaking on the steering wheel.  It was really tons of fun, and a little bit of an upper body workout.  It takes some strength to navigate around those tight little turns!!!!

Tim & Janelle's reception was at a beautiful historical mansion in Spokane that was surrounded by tons and tons of statuesque trees.  The evening was full of love for the happy couple as well as delicious festive beer and wine.  And after the lovely party, the crew headed to the dueling piano bar downtown where our party took over the venue by demanding only 80s metal from the pianists.


The bride & groom were so sweet as they danced on the stage in front of the venue. We wish them every happiness and are so glad we could make the trip up to Spokane to celebrate with them.

Wienerschnizel, Lederhosen, Bratwurst, & Biergardens

This was #2 of our beer challenge

I think we were a little late to the game in celebrating Octoberfest, but it's one of the more festive fall activities of the year.  And I always thought it was silly to celebrate OCTOBER-fest in September.   We had even more reason to celebrate this weekend because my brother was in town visiting for one night only!  And, it was Mr, Chuck Buck's birthday.  There are very few weekends in the year where all of our friends are in town at the same time, and this weekend was just one of those weeks where everyone was in the city, and everyone was available and down for some brewskies.

My husband taking every opportunity to wear another costume

After what seemed like an entire week of rainy weather, we woke up to crisp air and sunny skies, right in time for Garrett to arrive in Manhattan from a friends wedding in Upstate.  After waiting anxiously all morning for him to get here, we immediately cabbed it up to head out to Brooklyn's Radegast Beer Hall.  We celebrated Chuck's birthday and Garrett's visit with steins of delicious German beer, Bratwursts, giant pretzels and mead...
Well not all of us had mead...but Mike did because it said that it was made out of "Viking blood" on the menu.  Garrett and I thought that it would be fun to experiment with the beer menu and try everything as it appeared in order on the beer list.  It was a bit aggressive, but it's hard to choose a beer when they have crazy German names and confusing descriptions.  We made it through the first 5, there were some tough ones in there, I'm not going to lie.  Number 3 was disgusting, but we took a picture with each beer to document our challenge.

The boys with their mead in extremely festive glasses

Still counting our beer even though
we've left the biergarden

We continued the party back on the LES at Mike Keohane's rooftop patio.  There is a very short amount of time left for us to enjoy a night sitting outside.  Before we know it, it's going to be snowy and cold, so we were all down for a rooftop outing with cozy blankets, cigars, pungent scotch, berets, and mason jars with Rose wine.  It also meant a lot for me to be able to share the festivity with my brother.  This weekend was a bit windy and after the rain last week, the New York skyline was crystal clear and sparkling in all her glory.  I've been wanting to share an experience like this with my brother since we moved here so that he could see why we love this city and why we aren't sure that we want to return back to the West Coast just yet.  It's fall, and yes, it's very mild, but it's my favorite time of year, especially in Manhattan, and I'm so glad he could be here to have one day of real New York City autumn.

Needless to say, all three of us were hurt-ing on Sunday.  So it was the perfect setting for some good home cooked chili and double (maybe triple...) chocolate chip cookies.  All three of us (four with Winston) were glued to our little spots on the couch the entire day with breaks only to eat and refill on Gatorade and water.  Boy am I going to miss having a couch that can fit 4 comfortably!  The things you sacrifice for space in New York!  And, I'm going to miss my brother because I feel like one night was just too short!  But luckily him and Jen will be back to see us after Thanksgiving next month!  

Couch Potatoes

Michael and I have been married for almost 6 months, and I get the same "how does it feel to be married" question at least once a week.  I'm not sure I've gone more than 4 or 5 days with out getting the question "how different is your life now that you're a wife?".   The first few times I got that question...I played around with fun answers like "well all our plates match now" or "we have a lot more bar ware now".   Or if I was really trying to be quick, I went with the anti-climactic answer of  "it's not much different".  

But that's not true.  Yes, I have a lot more really sharp knives and I spend more of my time trying to figure out what to make for the perfect dinner with my husband, but there IS a difference after you get married.  It doesn't matter if you've lived together for 6 years or had a 3 year engagement.  It doesn't matter if you dated for 8 months or 18 years before getting married.  It feels different when you're married...a LOT different.   Married couples spend a lot more time making "life decisions".  Life decisions like "how can we get to see both of our families around the holidays" or "which neighborhoods are the best for when we decide to have children", "where are we going to live in 10 years".  And for us, our life decision this week was all about buying a couch!

 

We have the most comfortable custom Room & Board sectional couch.  Every Sunday Mike and I can stretch ourselves out completely into our perspective sections while still cuddling with Winston.  We've switched out the pillows once a year to give the couch a new look.  If there was an excess of dog slobber or god forbid a catastrophic spill (usually from me), those little cushions just unzip and go right into the washing machine.  But we do live in New York, and a sectional isn't the best choice for a Manhattan one-bedroom.  Since we've decided to stay in our apartment a bit longer, we've decided it was time to re-invigorate the space and say good buy to the cozy sectional.  So it was very exciting to head out with Mike to make our first BIG purchase as a married couple.  I know that eventually we'll be making bigger purchases together, like houses and cars, but this blog is about how our marriage is progressing and developing, and this was just another step. 

Crate & Barrel was having a pretty big upholstery sale for the Columbus Day and we still had a bit of credit from wedding gifts, so it was a perfect time to shop for our little investment.  Our decision was a great display of compromising both of our individual styles for something that was perfect for our little home.  And it wasn't a decision that was made quickly.  We sat on what felt like hundreds of houses and scoured over racks and racks of wonderful fabrics.  When decided on the couch/fabric, I was disappointed to hear that our couch wont come for another 10-12 weeks.  But it was more important to me to get the exact couch that we wanted and wait, than to settle for something just so that we could get it quicker.  So here it is in all it's glory!!!  Well...that's he shape of the sofa we purchased...our fabric & color are different, but I'm clearly happy about the purchase as you can tell here!

For anyone in apartments looking to buy a new couch, make sure you ask your building management about the size of the elevators to ensure that you can in fact get your purchase into your apartment.  We had to measure our elevator ourselves and speak to our super, but luckily, we're clear. 

A new couch means we'll be buying other items to enhance our cozy little living room, and we're a long way from where the room is going to be, but guess what?  I have 10-12 weeks to figure that out! :)

Ditka vs. a Hurricane, Who Would Win?

I find it extremely profound that I have written 20 posts on this blog thus far without once mentioning one of my greatest passions...THE CHICAGO BEARS!!!  I know I'm not alone when I say that football season is hands down the best time of year.  It's the only time of year when it's socially acceptable to have buffalo wings and potato skins as a meal.  The months of September through January are the only times I strategically plan out my Sunday outfits.  If you're on the west coast, it's totally normal to start your FIRST pitcher of beer at 10a.  And finally, if there was some way to measure the statistics, I'm pretty sure there would be a spike in random high-fiving and hugging of strangers during football season.

My outfit was a little retro, so we decided to be groovy
for a picture

To embrace the season and milk the football festivities as much as possible, the DuPont family has started a wonderful tradition of heading out to Chicago for an annual football game together.  But this year, our trip to Chicago was even more eventful as we also flew in town for a reunion for my mother's side of the family.

Garrett and I with Aunt Dorothy!
Sweetest lady in the world

Unfortunately my maternal grandmother passed away before I was born and when my mother was young. So my mom organized a wonderful event to bring all of her side of the family together to reminisce and celebrate everyone who could make it and remember those who were looking down on us from heaven.  The weekend kicked off early Saturday morning with the family reunion lunch with some of the best Italian food I've had in a long time.  The turnout was wonderful and it was great to see family that I haven't seen in years!  It was also the first time Michael was able to meet so many family members from my mothers side of the family all at once.  Last time I saw a lot of this family, I was so young!  And now I am married!  I hope that we can have events like this more often.

Surrounded by the wonderful world of Ditka...my heaven

After the reunion lunch we packed up in the mini van that we rented for the weekend.  I think my Pops had a LITTLE too much fun driving the minivan (we never had them growing up).  But we moved the party to downtown Chicago where we checked in to the Hilton AKA the same hotel that the Chicago Bears stay at the night before the games.  My beautiful mother was so organized in making the reservations for the family, but somehow Michael and I got upgraded to a beautiful lake view room on the penthouse floor, and the rest of the crew was cozy in their double room.  So needless to say, Mike and I volunteered our room as the "party room" as we were equipped with a wet bar and mini fridge.  While our room faced north, it was still fun to have everyone up to the room for happy hour and prosecco as we watched the color change into night time over Navy Pier.

As if we didn't have enough to celebrate, our very dear family friend Marissa Mazza who also lives Downtown announced to everyone that she passed the Bar Exam!!!!  So we continued the party with the Mazza family at Ditka's Steakhouse.  Would you believe that after 27 years of my life and being an avid Bears fan, I have never been to Ditka's Steakhouse?   The restaurant is one of the most magical places I've ever been in my life.  I was like an over stimulated child at Disneyland!  I wanted to take a picture of every "picture".  There were hundreds and thousands of vintage posters and autographed pictures.  It was seriously a Bear's fan's Mecca, at the risk of sounding cliche.  It was the happiest any restaurant has ever made me.

Mike had a hard time deciding what to eat as the menu was a barrage of cleverly named entrees including: the "fridge" burger, da pork chop, and the fullback sized filet mignon.  My husband's decision was made when he heard the special  was "the tomahawk prime rib".  It was an aggressive move, but when in Rome!  And no meal is complete without a nice bottle of Ditka's finest Pinot Noir...which Mike and I


drank by ourselves....whoops.   There will never be a trip to Chicago where I go without a visit to Ditka's from now on.  I feel terrible that I've missed out on it this my whole life, but the experience was probably heightened by the amazing company and great family friends who joined us for our meal.

Sunday was the big day.  Sunday was the day I've been waiting for since the day we booked this flight.  My head wasn't feeling too hot, but I woke up with Chicago Bears pride in my heart and excitement for the big game.  The sun was shining, the day was beautiful, and the city was painted in navy & orange.  I was so excited for the weekend that I stressed for weeks over my outfit to the game...but Mike and I chose beautiful matching Ditka shirts that were one-of-a-kind.

The stadium was one of the most beautiful sights I've seen in a while.   I love the Bears, and the only think I love more than the Chicago Bears is being around OTHER people who love the Chicago Bears just as much as I do.  So to be in a stadium full of people sharing my enthusiasm was electric.  Not to mention, we got to see a phenomenal game which included a defensive interception, Devon Hester setting the record for the most punt returns, and most importantly, a big fat W.  I enjoyed every point scored and every time I got to sing "Bear Down" whilst wearing my over sized foam Bear claw.

Unfortunately we had to fly back immediately following the game, and I vow to never leave on game day ever again.  But we did get home to see our little boy and to get just enough sleep to start the work week with out missing a beat.  It may be another year until I get to go back to Soldier Field, and we may not have a Super Bowl team this year, but I leave you with this last piece of Bear Pride:


Bear down, Chicago Bears, make every play clear the way to victory;
Bear down, Chicago Bears, put up a fight with a might so fearlessly.
We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation with your T-formation.
Bear down, Chicago Bears, and let them know why you're wearing the crown.
You're the pride and joy of Illinois, Chicago Bears, bear down.