We got to celebrate Randon’s 5th birthday on the 18th. As luck would have it, I was charging my camera batteries before we left for the bowling alley, I grabbed my camera and it was dead by the time I got it out. Luckily the iPhone 4S saved the day and I was still able to capture the moment! And of course we only had a #4 from Randon’s birthday last year. It didn’t matter one bit to him (though it may give him a complex later on in life!), he blew it out and little Rylan thought it was his turn. He has to wait another few weeks (January 14th) before it’s all about him!!

We spent Christmas morning with my family and got to share in the excitement with the boys. Randon started per-kindergarten this year and is really into coloring and art. My parents got him the famous IKEA art easel. Can you tell what his favorite color is? I think they are going to need to invest in more blue paint, chalk and markers. He won’t have anything to do with any other color.

We have been very fortunate the past three years to see the OKC Thunder play during the holidays! This year we really lucked out!!! We went Christmas day, opening night!! The atmosphere was electric, we were half court 7 rows up, really the perfect seats to see Kevin Durant throw down on the Orlando Magic. THUNDER UP!

I will get a post up very soon with the rest of the photos I took, including a family session with a good friend of mine!

I’m not sure I talked much about it, but this summer (end of June/beginning of July) Anthony got a nasty case of e.coli (and unfortunately we still don’t know where he got it from!). He was very miserable (which in turned made this wife miserable), didn’t eat much, and lost a little over 15 pounds in two weeks. It wasn’t an ideal way to lose weight but it didn’t hurt either! Right around the same time, I picked up my Zumba class load and started seeing my weight drop too. Enter in the perfect time for photographs when we are both feeling great!

I contacted a good friend of mine, Bernadette of BUPhotography out of Philadelphia, about doing a session with the idea of a Mad Men inspired photo shoot. I have loved her shooting style since the day I met her and I knew she’d be on board with just about anything I suggested. Anthony has once or twice thought of himself as Don Draper from Mad Men, so I knew he’d do whatever I asked too! Win win!

We met up in Northern Liberties in Philadelphia (and wouldn’t ya know the location once was the Schmidt’s Brewery – it was destiny!) on a perfect Thursday morning. Being the beginning of November I worried about it being too cold for the dress I picked out but the sun was shining and I had my honey by my side!

I believe most everyone has received our Christmas card by now (hence why I was waiting to share a few with you all!) and if not, here it is! I’m in love with every single photo Bernadette captured of the two of us. Picking a few to share was tough stuff!!!

A bit of causal photos first (and we had no idea that our outfits would match that wall below!)

Hello Darlings!

Our first stop was Brookdale Fruit Farm in Hollis, New Hampshire to pick apples. This was a first for all four of us – Anthony was on a mission to pick as many as possible. To slow him down, I had him throw an apple up in the air for me to photograph!

My adorable parents!

Probably talking football.

We actually didn’t get a pumpkin but my mom and Anthony wanted to pick this up as if it’s ours!

We drove and drove and drove and drove throughout New Hampshire, got lost a time or two, but somehow ended up back to Boston by evening!

In an attempt to get a photo of the 4 of us, we pulled over on a fairly deserted road. Of course in the middle a car comes up to see if we knew how to get somewhere. We were just as lost as they were! Of course Anthony with the remote took this photo. Cracks me up!

Money!

Couldn’t decide if I liked this photo in b+w or color!

Hopefully there will be a next time and if that’s the case, I sure hope the leaves will be better to us! (though I’m glad we went the weekend we did because it snowed 30″ or something ridiculous like that the following weekend!)

One thing I did not know about the city of Boston is the shear number of tunnels and not only that but you have to pay at least $3.50 each time to enter! Praise be that we have an EZ-Pass (though looking at the bill – we racked up some serious damage!). That is your fair warning for those who haven’t been but are hoping to one of these days!

On Friday we took one of the double-decker bus tours that all famous cities have (as touristy as it is, it’s the best way to see an entire city and get history behind it all!). We went to the Harvard campus (though I don’t have any photos to show today, I did get one or two with my iPhone), saw many other sites and finally got off at the Occupy Boston stop. We all had to go to the bathroom, I wanted to get photos, it was the perfect stop!

I have no words for this gentleman, other than I had to shoot from the hip to get this photo! Total hippy!

Our very last stop was a quick walk to Paul Revere’s home and then the Old North Church. It was rushed as we didn’t want to miss the last bus of the evening, but beautiful nonetheless.

I will have another post or two with iPhone photos and then our trip into New Hampshire to pick apples and see the foliage very soon!

Our neighbors Jonny + Katrina invited us to go into Philly for the 4th of July Party on the Parkway celebration including free music (artists included The Roots, Sara Bareilles, Earth, Wind + Fire, DJ Jazzy Jeff, + special guests BOYZ II MEN!!!!) and the BEST fireworks I have ever seen. Celebrating the founding of our country in the city that it all started was spectacular and nothing short of amazing. I can now check that off the imaginary bucket list!

Here is a small glimpse into our evening.

Looking back on *some* of the crowd + City Hall in the background

The whole gang (bummed that it’s blurry but what can you do when you hand off your camera to a random guy!)

Katrina, Emily + I (funny how we all wore a different shade of blue without talking beforehand)

Looking at these photos you’d never guess my husband was in pain, okay maybe you can see it a little.

Incredible evening – no editing has been done to this photo

It is really hard to get pretty firework photos while holding your camera – it’s best to have it on a tripod (and to go one step further and have a remote on it so there is literally no camera shake). The last thing I wanted to do was lug around a tripod but I was still able to get some “decent” shots of the fireworks.

That is apparently Anthony’s silly face in the couple shot! Go figure!

Our fab neighbors Katrina, Jonny, AJ and Emily! (love self timers!!!)

I wish I was creative enough to design our tablescape but I didn’t! These are all compliments of the HWTM Blog (the one where I won a grill, grill set, plateware and more!!!) in conjunction with Operation Shower. The minute I saw it in my google reader I knew I had to attempt it. I found all the right colored balls between Target and Michaels (thank goodness they are right next door to each other!) and spent a little bit of time hot gluing them to the sticks. Overall it was a very simple, seamless process!

The most amazing turkey I’ve ever had!!!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Also, if you want to see a treat, I’d recommend going into the City on Halloween. There were some very strange people out in all sorts of costumes. Most women were scantily dressed (started out at the train station with three “Disney” princesses wearing very little on a chilly, windy day – overheard them say they were by far the coldest people on the platform. Anthony and I were thinking they were the stupidest but whatever!) but it was fun to walk around seeing everyone being even crazier than normal!

We are starting our third year in NJ (how can that be!?!?!) and have pretty much explored as much of Manhattan as possible. We vowed to make our next trip be about Brooklyn. We woke up Sunday and headed that way! We walked around near the river and it was *freezing*. Gotta watch that wind! We ended our trip in DUMBO with pizza at Grimaldi’s. I’m not sure it was really worth the wait, but we had to try it either way.

Self Portrait Time!!!

This was our kitchen after the first time we canned. It sure is messy!

Second time around, I got the special utensils and all!

The spaghetti sauce I used was a version of this one. From trial and error, we discovered we don’t like celery or bell peppers or as much sugar and salt. Also, I used an immersion blender on the second batch so that it wasn’t chunky. Tastes delicious!

Feel free to click on the recipe cards – you can download them that way!

This salsa recipe came from Tasty Kitchen as well. It can be found here. We did more modifying of this recipe, removing the pickling spice (okay we actually put this in this batch and it made it too sweet – almost like cider! so the next time we won’t be adding it), removing the brown sugar and not adding as much regular sugar. We ended up using one of the jars for dinner, hence why it isn’t full!

Feel free to click on the recipe cards – you can download them that way!

To locate a CSA in your area, check out Local Harvest.

For all the photogs out there, why yes that is Anthony sporting the shootsac for me! Looks great on him if I do say so myself!

We went to Morningside Heights to walk around Columbia University, Union Theological Seminary, and Riverside Church. These were places that we would probably not take out-of-towners, but places Anthony definitely wanted to see. It was his day so we did!

After visiting Morningside Heights, we stopped for dinner at a mexican place near Central Park. We then made our way through Central Park to get in line to see Comedy Central Park put on by the NYC Parks department and SummerStage. As we were walking, we saw a group of people, bright lights, etc. Not paying attention (my camera was in my hands) a man told me to not use my flash – okay! We discovered that they were filming Friends with Benefits with Justin Timberlake. That’s them filming and JT in the white shirt (on the right). I was amazed by the paparazzi that were out there with their massive gear. Must say that was my first experience with the paps!

And lastly the reason we went into NYC! Some “illegal” photos of John Oliver and Lewis Black from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart performing at Comedy Central Park. We weren’t suppose to take any photos during the performance but I snapped these quickly!

This photo is of the family home – Eleutherian Mills. 5 generations of the DuPont family lived in this home. It was built in 1803.

We also spent the evening with all our neighbors/friends cooking on the grill. I am so thankful we live in this great community – and that they all came out to celebrate. I’m pretty sure I got them with homemade cupcakes!

The whole reason we were even going to be in NYC was to see Promises, Promises. I adore Kristen Chenoweth (I mean she’s a fellow Okie!) and was excited to see her on Broadway. Unfortunately it was a bit of a let down, but I am glad we got to see her and Sean Hayes on stage together.

We arrived at our hotel Friday mid-afternoon to drop our things off before heading down to the Intrepid. All I can say is that is one huge boat!

Please tell me you can just hear the yell coming out of his mouth?!?!?

I was there!

Saturday morning we ventured down towards the Flatiron so we could have lunch at Shake Shack in Madison Square Park. We had some time to kill before lunch, so we walked along until we found Union Square Farmers Market. And holy goodness if we weren’t walking more that day I would have bought much more than our few muffins and empire apples.

All the fresh flowers made me smile – spring is here!!!!

I seriously had no idea how popular the Shake Shack is, but I’m glad we got in line when we did. By the time we ordered, the line was starting to wrap around the park. The food was delicious and I even had a banana & vanilla concrete (Rusty’s Frozen Custard in Oklahoma serves these so it was a little piece of “home” in NYC!)

I have another post coming up with iphone photos including some incredibly good luck we had on Saturday night!

Here are a few photos from the Texas State Fair and the game (obviously everything is fried there, including butter, moon pies, s’mores, coke, lattes, etc. grosses me out!). Anthony & my dad sat together in the upper deck while my mom and I were on the lower part behind the band (about 30 rows up). During half time we left to grab a fresh, hot, incredibly amazing corny dog. No photos of the corny dog to tempt all my readers!

Bummer that Bradford re-injured his shoulder and we lost but we enjoyed going back “home” even for a short period of time.

Superman: Ultimate Flight

The in summer of 2006, the Schmidt family went to Cedar Point in Ohio to ride coasters. There we experienced the first tallest & fastest roller coaster, the Time Speed Dragster. Now here in NJ, they have the world’s fastest & tallest roller coaster, the Kingda Ka. It goes from 0 to 128 mph in 3.5 seconds and you go up 45 stories tall, your life flashing before you. Its the most thrilling experience ever. First photo is the coaster while in line and the second was right after we got off (after fixing my hair of course!)

We will definitely be going back, even if they gauge us on drinks, parking, and other items.

There were some items that I was blown away that were on display. Like this one, its basically four colored panels.

This is made from newspaper clippings, pretty cool.

Performance 4 is the name of this ongoing exhibition. It started as blank room (4 walls) and an employee of MoMA writes the name, height, and date of visit of any visitor. From far away it just looks like chicken scratch, but you see thousands of names. In the second photo you can see it a little closer. The line was fairly long and my feet were hurting so we didn’t participate but I knew I’d be in that black mess.

Compressed cardboard lounge chair. I was more than willing to take a load off on this thing.

Not only did we do all that I’ve blogged about, but we also went to see Next to Normal on Broadway. I liked it, fun music, although a heavy topic (mom w/bipolar disorder). That rounds out the total of Broadway plays to 5. I’m hoping to make that number much higher before we leave the east.

Our room at the Best Western President Hotel. It was just perfect for us until we fell asleep that night. Our window was on the side of the street and right next door to the fire department. We got woken up several times from firetrucks or the garbage truck. The joys of staying in NYC.

We took the subway over to Grand Central Station. It was my first experience there and its more than breathtaking.

After Grand Central, we went to the Museum of Modern Art. The first three photos are from an exhibit Projects 90: Song Dong. Its all the items that came from his mother’s house, collected over 50 years, including the hut structure. It was incredible to see all of it laying out.

I’m going to be posting more photos from MoMA tomorrow.

A lastly we stopped at Crumbs Bakery. Red Velvet Cupcake. YUM!!

Wall Street/New York Stock Exchange

I had never been out to Halo Farms (970 Spruce Street, Trenton, NJ (609) 695-3311), but had heard about it and even tried their ice cream before. We pulled up and were greeted by “cows” milling around on the side of the building. They were really creative in their placement of the cows, even had several around a “watering hole”. The big shocker to me was walking in and seeing the prices on everything. A half gallon of milk is currently $1.09. That beats any grocery store around here. Ice cream is buy 2, get 3rd free. We took advantage of the ice cream and ice tea. Too bad I had just bought a gallon of milk at the store two days before.

The family at Halo Farms (Noah, Taylor, Vicki, Gram, Anthony, Nanny)

The birthday boys; Taylor (21), Noah (15), Anthony (27)

Up next: Sunday in NYC

Clockwise: Raspberry, blueberries, blueberry trees, unripped blackberries, and some apples.

I felt like these needed a vintage processing.

LOVE their husband & wife scarecrows.

Henry Mercer gathered everyday life items from the 18th and 19th centuries and completed a 6 story stone castle to house the collection. The objects document the lives and tasks of early America, before the Industrial Revolution. Mercer had quite the organizational skills, placing like items in their own alcoves, i.e. file making, printing, tinsmithing, wallpaper, harvesting, etc. He also placed the items in importance to the individuals. The first few floors are items that were essential and then the higher floors were for luxury and items for fun.

With Rollo, Mercer’s dog.

This exhibit really caught my eye, wallpaper and textile making.

When you first walk into the museum, you see the central court with a whale boat and more. I didn’t realize Anthony was in the shoot, but I love that he is looking up in amazement. There is so much stuff crammed into this castle its amazing. There are even baskets and cradles on the ceiling.

Outside of the museum/castle.

We wanted to see ground zero but they are in the process of building the memorial site. They have huge fences with pictures so you can’t really see in. I was a little bit bummed, but just being down there is something else. One of the buildings next door has very little damage – I was very surprised about this. This church is right across the street from the site. The towers would have been straight on.

For proof that we actually went on this tour here is part of our group.  Its a crappy photo taken with my P&S.

And documentation that we completed our first task; in front of Nassau Hall (again taken with the P&S).