2 kids from jersey

A few months ago, some SJ knotties and I planned a NYC get-together. Yesterday we finally got to do it and I took them flying!

Lyndsay, Eva, Regina, Christen, MC, Karen, Michelle all met at our apt and we train hopped it over to Brooklyn. There we met up with Luisa (it was her b-day!)(well, day after) and Diana & Rachel (Michelle’s cousin & friend). 11 of us went over to the Espana Streb Trapeze Academy in Brooklyn. We completely took over the 3-5pm class.

We walked in and Dino was there! Dino was my trainer when I flew last spring at TSNY. Apparently, he’s working at Streb full time now and was going to be one of our instructors. Everyone got changed and while they were walked through the intro flying stuff, I got a few good turns in. I haven’t flown since last spring, so I was excited (and a little surprised) to see that I hadn’t forgotten everything.

I demonstrated the knee hang and the flippy dismount – which I forgot to lay-out from and landed on my face. Ooops! Haha! Through-out the class, I was able to throw my set-birdie, set-split and work on my swing. I attempted some of my back-end positions. Like last spring, I would always get a trick on the first try but had one heck of a time duplicating it. I threw my back-end birdie the first time and then couldn’t get it at all the rest of the class. Argh! Guess I’ll just have to go back for more lessons!

All the other girls did so well! 2 of them were even caught! I posted some video of everyone on YouTube. Click here to check it out! I don’t have any video of me but Karen did get a pretty good picture of me. I’m not sure what trick I was just coming out of and my arms are a little splayed but it’s the first good shot I’ve seen of me flying!

We got a pretty good group shot of everyone afterwards:

And with Lyndsay & Luisa!

After flying, we went to S’Mac for mac and cheese. It’s a tiny little place on the lower east side. Then up to 30 Rock, where Rob gave us a tour of NBC studios. The girls thought the Conan & SNL studios were pretty awesome. Some of girls spent the night and I made breakfast casserole for the next morning.

The next morning came a little earlier than planned. Christen woke up with neck spasms and we had to call 911. The ambulance ride put her on the “fast track” and was actually seen, medicated, prescriptions had, and home by 9:30am. In time for everyone to get breakfast and on the road on schedule. She’s doing much better, by the way.

It was great to finally meet everyone and I loved being back up in the air. Gonna have to get back over to Brooklyn as soon as the rips on my hands heal.

Friday night we had a bunch of Rob’s friends from work over for a little Halloween Spookshow get together. About 11 people made the trek to Jersey and we’re so glad they did! It was a blast!! Even our new neighbors popped by for a little bit.

Rob and I decorated all out for this weekend. Since we had to get rid of all the dead squirrel smelling decorations, we bought some new stuf. I love shopping for Halloween decor! So many orange things to choose from!

The table in the front foyer has a new family of light up pumpkins. The front door still has our skeleton but we’ve taken off the staining gel “Beware!” sign and moved it to the bathroom mirror. In it’s place is a black metal circular sign that says “Happy Halloween” and has sculls around the edge. A few new tea & hand towels and some black and orange plates topped off the kitchen and bathroom. We also found the coolest spider candy dish and coordinating tea light holders. I put spider webs on our doll molds but, according to most people, they don’t need anything to be made anymore creepy. The flickering cauldron sitting on top of our up-light makes it especially awesome.

Of course, coming from families that don’t throw small parties, we had WAY to much food. We made 2 pepperoni breads, 2 pans of baked ziti, 2 packages of mini mummy dogs, a batch of Velveeta Chili dip, 2 batches of brownies, 24 cupcakes, a large cauldron of punch and a TON of beer and cider. For 11 people, that was a bit overkill and we have a ton left over. But I think everyone had a nice time.

We watched (or attempted to watch) The Shining. The continuous color commentary ensured that it never got to scary. Lyndsay, Mike and her little dog Peggy spend the night. Peggy is one of the cutest things ever (besides our little cockapoos, of course)! She made me wish our little ones were up here for some puppy play time.

It was such a fun night!! I hope they come back again soon. It was a good time and a great excuse to make lots of yummy food.

Back when we used to live in New Brunswick, we used to decorate like crazy for Halloween. 22 Jones got especially decked out the last year we were living there for our crazy Halloween party (which was quite the party, by the way).

Anyway, all my halloween decorations were packed in this big rubbermaid tub that we moved with us to Newark. Last year I just pulled out a few things since we were only here a little while but I noticed the bin smelled really bad. I pawed through the bin, didn’t find anything and put it away.

I just pulled out the same bin and it STILL smelled. I finally untied the plastic grocery sack that was full of fabric (the handles were tied in a knot) and dumped the fabric on the floor to wash it. OMG! There in the middle of the fabric, curled up in a little ball was a dead squirrel. We moved here with that thing and it’s been rotting in our closet for more than 2 (probably closer to 3) years.

OMG OMG OMG. I am so incredibly grossed out right now. I think might barf. It took me 10 min to get up the nerve to touch the fabric long enough to throw it away (and I put plastic bags on my hands so I wasn’t really touching it). Yuck yuck yuck. I’ve got all the windows open and the fan on trying to get the dead squirrel smell out of the house.

With the wedding just over 2 months away, people are starting to make their travel plans. To make it as easy as possible, we have compiled the most pertinent information and included it in the invitations. Invitations will be going out at the beginning of the month/early November, so keep your eye out.

We also posted the same information right here on our website. In fact, just tonight, I added downloadable PDFs of our direction inserts. Here are some quick links around our site to help you plan your visit -

• The Itinerary
• Airport Information
• Directions & Maps
  
• Hotel Information – Please remember to reserve your room no later than November 28th! Check out that page for all the important details.

I enjoy having all the info I need right at my finger tips, no matter where I am. Hope you find this as helpful as I do!!

We officially have the best friends and family ever. Operation Invitation was a complete and total success this weekend. 168 complete invitations are currently sitting on the long table in my parent’s house. They look amazing. Each one is a hand crafted work of art made with love and no 2 are the same. How cool is that?!

A HUGE (huge, huge, huge) thank you to Erin, Lily, Jaimie, Aunt Carole, Katie, Sam, Skippy, Michael, Pop, Aunt Sarah, Grammy, Pop-Pop, and our Mom’s and Dad’s!! We honestly could not have done this without you. I was always told “many hands make light work.” It might not have been light or easy but, with 18 people, we got it done faster than I could have hoped for. I’m still stunned that we finished assembling ALL of the pieces Saturday. Everything was beaded and wrapped, glued or taped and embossed before the end of SNL. It was a long but incredibly productive day.

By the end we were getting a little punchy and I’m relatively certain a significant number of our volunteers would prefer to never see copper wire ever again. But each piece came out beautifully and everyone did such a fantastic job. We appreciate the time and energy that you gave this weekend. You are all so talented and generous. We are feeling very loved!!

All of the pocketfolds are assembled. The envelopes should be arriving Wednesday. We will be printing the addresses directly on the envelopes because Rob and I have awful handwriting. Hope no one minds. Besides, the font will match the rest of the invite and I think it looks classy. Printing and stuffing envelopes will happen in 2 weekends (27th & 28th). We could have done it all this weekend but were just looking for another excuse for a party. Also, the 26th is Mom’s birthday. If you’d like to come help stuff and seal, we’d love to have you! Since all the hard work was done this weekend, it should be relatively painless.

Thank you again, to our amazing friends and family. It was so much fun to hang out and create art with you. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. We love you!!

If you buy one of those gel cling things, DON’T put it on paint!!! The package says it’s for glass and mirror but should read that it is only for those surfaces. We had it on our door for about a week and it has absolutely 100% stained our door. It’s kind of faint but still totally readable. Ooops!

Oh – and we decorated our door last week.

is shaping up to be very busy.

Tonight we’re going to see Bruce Springsteen! He’s playing down in Philly and we’ve got tickets. I remember buy these tickets and thinking that Oct. 5th was awfully far away. Not anymore! Rob’s pretty excited about the play-list. Apparently, he’s playing Born to Run every show. Fingers crossed he plays it tonight!

Tomorrow is Andy & Laura’s wedding! Andy and Rob were in the RU Glee Club together and we’re very excited for them. Congrats guys!!

Sunday, Oct. 7th is my Dad’s b-day.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!! We love you!

October is invitation month and we are cruising along. I’ve printed out all of the Response Cards and Fish Lake Friday invites. I was going to print out the actual invitation part too but it just wasn’t coming out right. The linen text-weight paper printed fine but the linen card-stock didn’t look as nice. The letters weren’t crisp, like they should be. Everything looks slightly fuzzy from where the ink bled into the paper.

One of the nice parts about living in a city is the convenience of having vendors right on your doorstep. MinuteMan press is right on Commerce St., only a block away. I dropped the invites off there and they’ll print it using thermography. Hopefully that will be done today or Monday. The only thing left to print is our invite tags. I think I like them best printed from my parents printer. They come out slightly fuzzy on mine but the toner from a professional laser printer doesn’t look right either. Hopefully we’ll print them out Sunday.

SirSpeedy is cutting all of our paper down to size for free! We use them a ton for work and Sherri said we could just bring it by. I took half of it over yesterday and they had it done same day. It looks perfect and professional. I’ll take the invites, Fish Lake Friday invites and invite tags over sometime next week.

Next Saturday, the 13th, is Operation: Invitation. We will be combining 2,100 pieces of paper, 2,250 beeds and 17,625″ of copper wire into 150 custom invitations. They’re going to look amazing! Of course, we are enlisting the help of our friends and family to glue, wrap and assemble starting at 10am. If you can come and haven’t gotten the evite, please let us know. We’d love to see you!

My name is Carrie and I have been living with CHAOS (can’t have anyone over syndrome). I realized this Tuesday when Rob’s dad brought our “I forgots” up from SJ. Of course I loved seeing him but inside I was horrified to let him in the apartment. You would have thought teenagers lived here. Clothes were strewn about and dirty dishes dotted the horizontal surfaces.

I remembered this FlyLady thing my Mom does. I’d always thought that advice was only really meant for people with real houses, children and minivans. But really it’s all about establishing little routines that make cleaning automatic. The very first step is shining your sink. It’s one tiny little baby step towards keeping the housework run smoothly. Tuesday evening, I shined my sink for the very first time. Since then, I’ve done the 27 Thing Fling and given away a whole bag of stuff to GoodWill. I cleaned out the drawer on my bedside table (I haven’t opened them since leaving New Brunswick). I’m working on doing the laundry one load a day, so it doesn’t all pile up and take over. The sink is still shiny. If you check out their website (http://www.flylady.net), you’ll figure out what I’m talking about. Rob thinks I’ve gone a little nuts but the house is looking much better! We may even be able to find some Halloween decorations.

Come on over! If we can keep this up (which we will) visitors can pop by anytime they like.