For our fifth anniversary, we wanted to do something special, just the two of us. After a flurry of last-minute planning, we ended up booking a weekend in New York City. The last time Pete and I visited New York was for my 30th birthday. I was pregnant, but most people didn't know yet. I woke up on my birthday at 5AM to watch the Royal Wedding, then we hopped on a plane to the big city.

This time was different. We packed Eli up to spend the weekend with his grandparents, and since this is the longest we've been away from him, there was a fair bit of anxiety on our part. I made Eli a countdown calendar so he could see how many days remained until we got back. I'm pretty sure he didn't give a hoot about us going away - it was a little vacation for him, too.

On Friday we were up at some ungodly hour to fly to New York. We got there midmorning, dropped our bags at the hotel, and spent the next couple of hours grabbing takeout and wandering to Central Park to eat. Once we'd checked in and gotten cleaned up and organized, we headed to Brooklyn where we spent some time wandering around the neighbourhoods before walking over the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan. The weather was perfect and the sunset? Come onnn. Like something out of a movie. We finished up the evening with pizza at Lombardi's (so good) and dessert and champagne back at the hotel.

Saturday, we slept in a little, lingered over some breakfast, and spent the morning doing some shopping. We visited the New York Public Library (you know, "the" library) in the afternoon and then headed to Central Park for a run - this has been on my bucket list for ages. Saturday night was dinner at a French bistro followed by Les Miserables on Broadway, probably my favourite show ever.

On Sunday we had to leave our hotel midmorning to get back to the airport, so we didn't get a chance for more than breakfast and a quick walk to say goodbye to one of our favourite cities. We got home to see that Eli had been a superstar the whole time we were gone. Nothing like that first hug at the airport after a couple days away to reinforce how much you love your little man.

It was a perfect little getaway for us and just the thing to celebrate five big years as Smug Marrieds.






In case you're interested in places to sleep and eat...

We stayed at the Sofitel
We ate dinners at Lombardi's and Un Deux Trois
Breakfast at Gaby is not to be missed!

This week's list is all about comforts. Being comfortable and cozy is one of my greatest joys, especially in January. There's not much to look at outside right now: most of the snow is gone, other than some dirty snowbanks, there are no more Christmas decorations, and everything is kind of gray and exhausted-looking. So holing up indoors with some comfort food, books, puzzles, and TV has been pretty appealing instead. 

We're almost a week in to 2014. How's it going so far? I can sum up 2014 thus far in one word: weather. It's supposed to be +10 degrees today, and if that happens, that's 40 DEGREES warmer than it was a week ago. The year started off bitterly cold, then we had a full-on blizzard (when the liquor store shuts down you KNOW shit's real) and today feels deceptively like spring.