Megamind Premiere

We felt like our lucky streak had ended when we couldn't get into the Wall Street premiere a while back. But last night, we hit the jackpot again and got into the Megamind 3D premiere! We could not have been happier to be back in the game!



We got some great pictures of celebrities. Here is Keith Powell from 30 Rock. We saw others from the cast of 30 Rock (characters Kenneth and Cerie), but were too nervous to take pictures of them.



Tina Fey is the voice of one of the characters in Megamind, so she was at the premiere as well. We were very excited to see her in person. This is a terrible picture, but we were able to get pretty close to her.



The obvious highlight of the night was seeing Brad Pitt. Yes, Brad Pitt. OMG. We were about 10 feet away from him when he was exiting the theater.



This is a total Stars-They're-Just-Like-Us photo (They throw away their trash!).



As you probably guessed, going to movie premieres is definitely one of our favorite things to do in NYC. Free fun doesn't get much better than this!

Guy's Trip

There are several differences between a guy's trip and a girl's trip. For example: 1) Less shopping; 2) More college football; and of course 3) Very few pictures. Since he had never been here, my buddy Jesse came to visit NYC for a couple days and got the whirlwind tour. Literally. It was so windy on the top of the Empire State Building, they had to close off an entire side. Here is a picture we had a tourist take. Notice how the photographer was able to get a great view of all the buildings.

We also saw Times Square, Grand Central Station and walked around Greenwich Village (where we watched the college football).

An important part of any trip to New York is a tour of Central Park. We found out that while Jesse was here, they were going to have a Big Wheel race down one of the hills in the park. Thinking this might be a unique event, we decided to check it out. Once we got there, we encountered one guy on a Big Wheel and three other guys dressed as a Jamaican bobsled team pushing a makeshift rolling bobsled down the hill. Disappointing would be an understatement.

But, Jesse was able to maintain a smile, even though I knew he was thinking, "Seriously guys? A Big Wheel race?"

Though it was a short trip, we had a great time. Thanks for visiting, Jesse!

Whew!

Last weekend, two cheerful Minnesotans - Andrea and Michelle - paid us a visit! Although we had to work for part of their visit, we had a great time over the weekend when we could all be together. One of our first stops on Saturday morning was the South Street Seaport, an area we discovered a short while back.





We also walked around Wall Street, and checked out George Washington's old stomping grounds, i.e., the location of his inauguration.



After seeing the business side of the city, we checked out Washington Square Park and Greenwich Village.

Loooooong line at Magnolia Bakery!

Michelle is a huge BBQ fan, so when we read about a BBQ restaurant in Chelsea that was supposedly one of the best in the city, we had to take her there. We were going to a comedy show in Chelsea that evening, so it worked out perfectly. It seemed to satisfy Michelle and her high BBQ standards, so we considered it a success!

On our way to the comedy show, Andrea lured us into Tasti D Lite! Yum!

The comedy show was great and, as an added bonus, someone Andrea went to high school with was one of the improv actors! It was a total surprise to Andrea to see him there, so that made it even more fun.

Of course, no trip to NYC is complete without a nighttime stop in Times Square. Here we are, in all its glory.

The next day, we woke up and made our way over to the Upper East Side in the hopes of getting one of the first tables at Serendipity when it opened for the day. We arrived early and stood outside in line for a little bit, but soon enough we were in! It really is an adorable restaurant, and I think it lived up to everyone's expectations. You can't go wrong with that frozen hot chocolate!

The next stop was Dylan's Candy Bar, where we think we spotted Jon Cryer from Two and a Half Men. There was quite a bit of debate between us, so what do you think? Were we right?

We walked over to Central Park and enjoyed the beautiful weather and scenery.

Bryan's weakness - the Nuts 4 Nuts stand! He always has to stop and get some cashews.

After Central Park, we made the epic journey to Brooklyn. Brooklyn is so close on the map, yet it's always so difficult to get there on the weekend subway. After a lot of patience on our guests' part, we made it to the borough. We walked around the Park Slope neighborhood and ooo'ed and ahh'ed at the brownstones. I can't believe we didn't see Dr. Huxtable.

To end the Brooklyn trip on a calm and relaxing note, we hung out at a coffee shop in Park Slope called:

It was the perfect place to take a break before heading back to Manhattan to watch the Vikings/Packers game that night. You know why we aren't going to talk about that game.

We accomplished so much in the couple days we had together and got a lot of great pictures to capture the memories. It sure helps to have a built-in camera man like Bryan! Thanks for visiting Michelle and Andrea!

Connecticut and Rhode Island

For some reason, the trees have not really changed colors in New York City. Or maybe the trees have changed, but green smog is covering them and making them look green. Who knows at this point. In the hopes of seeing some real fall colors, we rented a car the other weekend and drove to Connecticut and Rhode Island. Our view from the car window was very pleasant.

We visited several adorable New England towns, with churches like this one.

We drove through an area in Connecticut called Litchfield Hills, which probably had the best fall colors of all the places we visited.

We almost had to check our map to make sure we were really in Connecticut, and not Redwood Falls, Minnesota!

We visited Mystic, Connecticut, which was near the coast and proved to be another picturesque small town.

Mystic is home to Mystic Pizza, which was apparently a Julia Roberts movie. Given my total lack of knowledge regarding pre-2001 movies, I haven't seen it, but I can say the pizza was delicious!

Based on a recommendation from a co-worker, we also stopped by the Book Barn in Connecticut. He said he couldn't describe the place, but that we had to go there. I didn't know what could be so difficult about describing a book store, but when we got there, we totally understood. It was an enormous used book store, with a very "unique" layout. At first we thought this building was the book store...

...but there were so many more random buildings/areas!

A few new books...

...and a few webby ones.

A couple of goats for good measure.

And several cats. This one was taking a snack break.

It was definitely an interesting experience!

While we didn't find a Book Barn equivalent in Rhode Island, we really enjoyed the state. We went to Providence first, and luckily arrived on the night of the WaterFire festival. It was amazing! Tons of bonfire-like stations were set up on the river, and gondoliers rowed people through the festival.

During daylight hours, we went to the Federal Hill area of Providence, which was kind of like a Little Italy.

After Providence, we drove to Newport, Rhode Island. Newport had several historic mansions to tour, and we saw as many as we could in our limited time. The mansions were so enormous, it really was difficult to see more than a few.

Honey, I'm home! It was crazy to think of our teeny-tiny apartment compared to these palaces.

One of the coolest parts about these mansions was the proximity to the ocean. As if living in extravagant quarters was not enough - you had to be able to hear the ocean waves crashing against the shore, too, right? I guess I don't blame them!

Newport was a very beautiful town. We would definitely recommend it to anyone.

Okay, so we have an admission to make. We made it seem like we went to Connecticut and Rhode Island to see fall colors, but in reality, we searched online for Dairy Queens and noticed that there were several north of the city. Because there are no Dairy Queens in New York City, this was quite the draw. We have been tortured by these Dairy Queen chicken strip basket commericals that keep playing on our TV station, and it was getting to be too much. We tracked down this Dairy Queen that served chicken strip baskets. Obviously the set up was a little different than in Minnesota (it was in a gas station), but we didn't care. We happily shared a six-piece chicken strip basket, got a blizzard, and hit the road back to the city.