Thanksgiving 2009

We started our Thanksgiving with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Tyler got up at 4:30am to get us these front row seats!

My friend broke her foot so I was "Substitute Mom" to these cute girls.

Not only did we have perfect seats, we had perfect weather. 50 degrees!

I caught miss Katharine McPhee checking her phone during the parade.

Even with a broken foot my friend pulled out an amazing feast. It was a great Thanksgiving.

We decided to participate in Black Friday for the first time at Woodbury Common Premium Outlets. These are not just any outlets, it was like an outlet mall on steroids! Over 500 stores. It was another 4:30am morning but definitely worth it. We had a great time and got some great stuff!

We decided to go to the tree lighting at South Street Seaport again this year (can we call this a tradition yet?) Before the lighting we went to dinner at a great restaurant on the pier.

We have had a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend! We were so thankful to spend it with such great friends and each other.

Boston Birthday Bash

I celebrated my 24th Birthday last week!!

Tyler and I decided it was a good excuse to take a weekend away. Neither of us had been there before so we decided to go to Boston!
It was so much fun!! We spent Saturday in Cambridge, MA where Harvard University is. The campus and town was so quaint and historic. I loved the old buildings and gates (as you can see below) It was just like I'd pictured with the colorful leaves falling around us and the students wearing the same Harvard sweatshirts (seriously like 60% of everyone we saw).

My obsession of bridges continues...
The next day we spent in downtown Boston. We started in Public Garden. It was 68 degrees and sunny! The fall leaves were so beautiful. We loved the park

and Newbury St.

and Beacon Hill

and the Cheers Bar

and Acorn St.

and Faneuil Market

and Long Wharf

and ALL the cute streets in between!

This city had so much character and charm. love love love Boston!

I thought this image was a good one to sum up the feeling of this city...

World Series 2009

Tyler: "Whit, do you want to go take pictures at the Stadium tonight?"

Whitney: "That would be fun to go be in the atmosphere of the game, but I'm really tired and its freezing..."

Whitney: "Lets just go, you never know if we'll have this chance again."

**Tyler & Whitney arrive at Yankee Stadium**

Random Man: "Do you guys want tickets to the game?"

Tyler: "How much?"

Random Man: "My gift"

Whitney: "Shut up!?"

Miracle Man: "Enjoy the game"

Tyler: "Are you serious? Thanks man!"

After contemplating for 10 minutes whether they were real or if we would get in trouble for using fake tickets we went for it ... and got in!! Who knows why that guy just GAVE us tickets to the WORLD SERIES?!? But we had a BLAST!!

Lots of anticipation and great plays.....

AND THE YANKEES WON!!!

Top "I-love-living-in-New-York" moment so far!

Halloween 2009

Props to the photog

Tyler and I dressed up as Danny and Sandy for Halloween this year. Tyler was the one to purchase all of our get up at Salvation Army ($35!). I think he did pretty darn good!

We went to the annual Halloween party at the New York Design Center. Tyler was out of town last year so I was so glad he came. We had so much fun! (please try and guess which one is my boss!)

Yes, Lady Gaga was at the party (recycling her outfit from the VMAs).

We also had a party with our ward. Our friends that went as Juno were my favorite! Miss Cruella de Vil made a killer pumpkin chili (it won the chili contest)

Facebook Miracles

I was on the fence about joining the Facebook craze for about a year until we moved to NYC and I decided I should join to stay in touch with family and friends. Who knew it would bring to pass miracles in my life!?

Miracle 1:
It started in 2004 (a LONG time ago) ... I would get a phone call probably once a month or so asking to speak with Stacie (name has been changed). I would (over and over) tell them they had the wrong number. Over the years the phone calls continued always asking for the same Stacie. Through these "wrong number" calls I always knew what was going on in Stacie's life. I assumed she was getting married when I got calls from photographers galore asking about shooting the wedding and wishing her and David (name has been changed) luck. After the wedding I assumed they were looking for a house and I got calls from a million different mortgage companies. Not long after that, calls started coming in from shipping companies, apparently she was trying to ship a vehicle to Missouri for some reason. Anyway those are just a few of the specifics that I learned about Stacie's life over the last 5 years! But the last few months it has been at least 1-3 calls A DAY! It was so annoying. I came to the conclusion that she must have a phone number close to mine so she changes one digit and uses mine as a fake. Finally one of the shipping companies left a message for her using her full name and it dawned on me...LOOK HER UP ON FACEBOOK! There were a couple of matches in the Ogden area (of course I knew where she was from) so I sent the most awkward and random message that I have ever written. I mean what do you write to someone that you know everything about but they don't even know you exist and ask them to stop giving out your number?! She responded very kindly and said that she was so sorry, she never really realized that might be a real phone number. And that was it! No more phone calls. MIRACLE!!

Miracle 2:
(this one is not as long of a story)
A couple weeks ago I got a message on Facebook from someone that I didn't know. He said that he had found my drivers licence on the sidewalk near his building. I didn't even realize I had lost it! I wrote back thanks so much and asked him to leave it with his doorman. I picked it up the next day and that was it! Easy Peasy!

What an awesome tool Facebook is!! I'm so glad that I have it not only to keep in touch with friends and family but also to find and contact total strangers for whatever situation might arise.

PARK-A-THON

My Dad had meetings with a client that lives in NYC so he brought my Mom along and we spent a WONDERFUL 3 days together. It was such a fun weekend.

We didn't do it on purpose but we went on a park-a-thon. The weather was PERFECT all weekend so we ended up visiting 6 parks throughout the city (and over a couple days).

Madison Square Park
Union Square Park
Washington Square Park
Central Park
Bryant Park
Highline Park
Riverside Park

And of course we had to do a round at Chelsea Piers. It was so fun double dating with my parents :) Thanks Mom & Dad for staying a few extra days to play with us.

Christmas Haters

Ya know how everyone hates when Christmas decorations come out in the stores in October and Christmas music starts flooding the radio in November?? This always bugged me too UNTIL....

I came across these ornaments and fell in love! Aren't they so hot!?

Labor Day

We had the great idea to go to a match at the US Open...we found tickets the night before but thought that we'd try to scalp tickets..."All tickets for Labor Day Weekend are sold out"..."you can have these for $250ea"...we didn't get to see a match. It was fun and exciting to be on the grounds though, we WILL purchase tickets in advance next year!

What a match Oudin-Petrova would have been to see live...however we did watch it here.
Where we also enjoyed yummy shakes. Tyler: Toasted Marshmallow Whitney: Ricotta-Pistachio
Thanks to my friend for the tip

Spent some time in Union Square browsing the market and my favorite...people watching.
We then rented bikes and rode through Central Park. It was a perfect 72 degrees and we really enjoyed our ride. I. LOVE. CENTRAL. PARK.

I have such a thing for bridges and this one just took first place! Looks like it'd be from Alice & Wonderland or something. Love it.

Dropped off our bikes near Times Square and thanks to the new closure of Broadway we enjoyed our stroll to the train. Can't have enough "Times Square pictures" right?

Very random-unplanned-"go with the flow"-Labor Day but we had a blast and loved spending the whole day together.

The Installation

This post is long over due. I installed this project in June but am now just getting around to posting about it. sorry.

The project is in The Dakota. Famous for being the home of former Beatle John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono (current neighbor to my clients!!)

The amazing view of Central Park and the East side skyline.

This is looking down at the 7 trucks that held 4,200 sq. ft. of our furniture. The craziest thing was that they (the moving company) recruited their employees to park their cars at 2AM so that they would have these prime parking spots for the trucks the next day. That's dedication!

All of the furniture had to be hoisted up by this huge crane and delivered through 1 window.
Talk about good aim!
In addition to the 15 man team on the ground the apartment was filled with 15 men ready to receive, unpack, place the furniture and get rid of the packaging before the next load came up. It was seriously insane. 4200 sq. of furniture hoisted in only 5 hours.

The clients are Chinese so this is a shoe cabinet in the foyer where they take off their shoes and put on slippers.

Oh the story and headache of getting these solid bronze fixtures install but we got it done and they are beautiful!!

These are the results of our efforts. This project has been ongoing for 2 years so it was so amazing to finally see it all together. This is the Formal Living Room. Very fancy, very beautiful, very expensive :)

Other side of the Formal Living Room.
This is the husband's office. (I custom designed the desks!)
This is the Informal Living Room. It is a very large room used for entertaining and dining.

The Master Bedroom
The clients saw this same scheme that we did for a show house and said they wanted it just like that in a different color way.
This is their Master Bathroom. It is so amazing. The bathtub was carved out of 1 huge block of marble. (yes, hoisted through the window! talk about a heart attack)

This is their 5 year old daughter's bedroom. One of my favorite rooms in the whole place. Such a sophisticated princess room. She loves it! (design lovers please notice the baby Panton chairs, so cute!!)

This is her princess bathroom with pink marble, pink mosaic tile and even a pink glass light fixture.

This is the room of their 16 year old son.

And his bathroom. His shower on the right is also a steamer...lucky!

The kitchen with the most amazing light fixture that I've ever seen.
I want a Christopher Peacock kitchen!

Unfortunately, these pictures dont even begin to give it justice. This project was in an amazing building with an amazing budget and I still pinch myself that I was able to participate in this. It was such a learning and rewarding experience.
I. LOVE. MY. JOB.