Hold on for photo overload… it’s the only way I have of remembering what happened! Won’t it be fun when I get caught up and can real-time blog our life? We will see if that ever happens…

So, we made it to Brooklyn on January 17th, and David promptly left the next day to go to California to visit the Google home office. Luckily, my mom is retired and was READY to see us by then, so she was able to come stay with me while David was gone. She was SO helpful in getting things unpacked and organized, and besides that, we are the best of buddies so it was great to have her around to keep me company. Nelly LOVES Mom, even though I think Mom could probably do without her…

(also, could we HAVE any more blankets? I guess I was preparing for the heat to go out or something?)

About a week after we moved to Brooklyn, we got our first snow. It was about 4″, if i remember correctly, and we were amazed how the city didn’t shut down! Coming from Texas where 1/4″ of snow causes mass chaos for days, we were so impressed how prepared everyone was here. The snow plows came through overnight each time it snowed to clear the main roads and most side streets. In the picture below, you can see that we live right behind a middle school, which meant that the school maintenance men would come out and plow the sidewalks around all four sides of the school each morning before classes started (which was rarely cancelled for the weather). The doormen in our building would also shovel our walkways outside our building, so that made it really nice to be able to take Nelly out and not have to trudge through the snow each time. David thankfully took the brunt of that duty and was great about taking her out 3x a day, even when it was blowing snow with negative wind chills. What a good Daddy he is!

Taking the little dog out in a snow shower.

The day after this snow, we went out exploring and walked all the way up 5th Avenue (not the same 5th Ave as in Manhattan), which is the main commercial avenue in our neighborhood. At the end of 5th is the Barclays Center, where the Brooklyn Nets basketball team plays and where the New York Islanders hockey team will play next year. They also have lots of big concerts there, and it will be super convenient to get to during next year’s basketball and hockey seasons!

This is just about a mile from our house – which is something that we laugh about now. When we lived in Texas, we had a 7-11 convenience store just up the street from our house, where we would run to get drinks or ice or use the ATM. NEVER ONCE did we walk to this store, and I would bet that it was less than a mile away. Here, you have no choice – you have to walk! One mile falls under the “no big deal” category these days. We definitely get more exercise here than we ever did in Texas, but don’t be fooled, we haven’t lost a ton of weight, being that ALL WE DO is eat and drink delicious food and cocktails.

#reflectionselfie in the window of the Barclays Center. All bundled up in our snow gear for trudging through the slush.

Nelly actually LOVED the snow, even though she detested putting on her booties. Because they salt and used chemical de-icer on the sidewalks, it was necessary for her to wear the boots to keep her feet from getting eaten up. Once she got the hang of walking in them, she was fine, but the first few times were HILARIOUS. We got her a fleece jacket to wear under her down coat, so she was always toasty warm outside. Preeeetty sure that her jackets cost as much as my 3/4 length Columbia coat…#spoiledrottendog.

Sad doggy face on the way out the door for her walk. 

The Long Meadow in Prospect Park covered in a beautiful blanket of snow. We walked a long way around the park this day and we were surprised at the number of people who were out and about.

More Prospect Park exploring…this is the Meadowpoint Arch, which is really beautiful outside and through the inside of the arch. I’m tempted to take a picture every time I walk by it!

People told us when we moved here that part of the reason that most NYCers have small apartments and don’t really care is because they spend so much time out in the City and basically only sleep at home. We have really found that to be true – there are just so many amazing, wonderful places to see and things to do that you don’t want to just sit inside all day. We always feel bad when we don’t get out and explore our neighborhood or hop a train to the City on the weekends. Our apartment is definitely a comfy home for us, and we are lucky to get all 760 sq ft we have, but being outside of it is really refreshing and most of all just FUN.

Do I have something on my face, Mom?

This picture is from a subsequent snow in early February. We went out to play in the snow with Nelly and had the best time playing until we were all three too frozen to stay out one more minute and had to go back in. 

The snow had been pushed off the skateboard park and basketball courts to the edges, and the snow there was as deep as Nelly was tall. If I was fancy enough, I could post a video of her leaping through the snow, but I can’t figure it out, so this pic will have to do. 🙂

A view from our building’s elevator windows facing Manhattan. She’s a bit obstructed by the F train, but still a great view of my FAVORITE NYC landmark, the Statue of Liberty. The quintessential NYC picture. LOVE LOVE.

Brownstones and Limestones in our neighborhood. All of the heart eye emojis for this.

I can’t remember when it was, but it was a couple of years ago… I had this thought: Wouldn’t it be so cool to live in New York City and walk down streets filled with historic brownstone homes? And now, it’s our reality all day every day. (God thing: I’ve lost count.) I can’t help but always be looking up as I walk around here in… so many cool things to see and so much history. We saw a plaque on a brownstone this weekend that read “Circa 1845” and that totally blew my mind. Texas became a US state in 1845… to think that there were already people living in NYC, creating lives and industry and building homes in the first suburbs in the country is just amazing. Texans were still playing cowboys and Indians then, and people here had a full-blown metropolitan center established.

Nelly’s first big walk to Prospect Park, all decked out in her cold weather gear. She was such a trooper until a few blocks from home when she refused to walk another step and we had to carry the rest of the way. #spoiledrottendog

On one of our days out exploring, we came across this little Community Bookstore. David’s grandmother ran a bookstore just like this for many, many years, so he was really happy to have found this place. The book above was on the table when we walked in…this was the story my nieces read during our wedding ceremony. Isn’t it wonderful how things are placed in your path to remind you that you are being looked after and that everything’s going to be just fine? 🙂

David perusing the titles…

I was SO HAPPY when we happened upon a tapas bar in our neighborhood and they had shishito peppers on the menu! This place has become one of our favorite weekend mid-day stops. It’s a perfect place for a snack and a drink when we are out and about. Delicious food and white sangria. Pictured above are the shishitos, bacon wrapped blue cheese stuffed dates, and pan con tomate. Delicioso! 

Another long walk for the little dog, this time to the Time Warner Cable office to swap out (what we thought was) a faulty cable box. It was quite a haul down there, and when we got there, the office was closed. Womp, womp. We had the cable guy come out soon after this to check the jacks in the walls and it turns out that the jack in the bedroom is just not connected to anything at all! He told me he could drill a hole through the wall and run a new jack, but since we rent, I didn’t want to do that without our landlord’s permission. So, we just have our Apple TV in the bedroom now, which actually works just fine, since we really only watch TV once we get in bed in the evenings and we can watch all of our favorite shows on Netflix and HuluPlus.

We went out for our Valentine’s Day dinner on the 13th, so we could beat the rush (or perhaps it was because there were no reservations left on the 14th by the time we (he) tried to get a table? Maybe?) We went to Stone Park Cafe, which is less than a block away from us, and has incredible food and drinks. It was a fun night celebrating with my love and reflecting on the time we had spent in NYC up to that point. Couldn’t ask for a better partner to do life with than this man!

The next night (on Valentine’s Day) we met James and Alaina at a shuffleboard place called Royal Palms. It’s a really neat place in Gowanus, the neighborhood next to ours, which is mainly industrial…lots of warehouses and manufacturing. They have turned this huge warehouse into 10 shuffleboard courts, and decorated the building in vintage cruise ship decor. It was SO fun! We had to wait about 3 hours for a court to free up, but it was fun to just hang out and drink and talk while we waited. 

Wife selfie! (with an awesome photo bomb behind us… thanks, dude!)

It snowed while we were inside playing. So, of course we had to do a group selfie in the snow. Duh. 

One day, we came out to all of this gear stacked up on our street. (Our building was directly behind me when I took this pic.) After some sleuthing (pun intended) by my very clever BFF, we discovered that they were filming the TV show “Elementary” in one of the buildings across from us. I didn’t see anyone famous, but it was still fun to have the crew right there and watch them work for the whole day. 

As it got darker, they turned on this bright light outside, I guess to make it look like daylight still? This was taken from our balcony.

Nelly will chase the sunshine around our apartment. She LOVES laying in the sunshine, and will stay there until she’s so hot she can’t stand it, and then usually move to the bed or the couch. Nothing better than a sun puddle on a cold winter’s day!

This is my favorite picture I have EVER taken. These two are my heart.

So, by mid-February, we were both going a little stir-crazy from being inside so much. We decided to go explore a new neighborhood and try out a famous pizza joint. DUMBO (stands for: Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) is an up-and-coming neighborhood that was once a lot of warehouses and is now the “cool” place to live in Brooklyn (as evidenced by the rental rates!). They have converted a lot of commercial building into condos and lofts, and it’s a really neat neighborhood, with a real urban feel. It’s super convenient to the City for commuters and there are more and more businesses and restaurants starting to pop up there. These owls were painted on the side of a bridge, and are just one of eight murals along the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) painted by street artists in DUMBO. (Here’s a link to a neat story about how the owls were painted: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/craig-anthony-miller-owls-dumbo)

The Brooklyn Bridge is so beautiful and amazing. We are always in awe of it when we are near it. I can’t even imagine the engineering and planning that was involved in building it in 1869 – it took nearly 20 years to be completed!

There is much (much) debate over the best pizza in NYC. Grimaldi’s is an institution in the NYC pizza world, and is usually on the list of top pizzerias in the City.  Their main location is in DUMBO. We decided to skip Grimaldi’s because it is really touristy nowadays (they have locations all over the US), and go next door to Juliana’s instead. The Grimaldi family sold their pizzeria and the rights to its name about 10 years ago to a long-time customer, but apparently, they weren’t ready to stop making pizzas, and opened Juliana’s within spitting distance of Grimaldi’s. This is the “original” recipe pizza, and it did not disappoint! We had the Margherita pizza and it was perfection. (David got lots of harassment when I posted this picture on Facebook that day, because he was eating with a fork and knife which is not the “real way” to eat NYC pizza. What they didn’t know was that it was about 500 degrees and he just COULD.NOT.WAIT to take a bite, but it was too hot to pick up.) There’s your history lesson for the day, folks. 🙂

After pizza, we walked down to Brooklyn Bridge Park to check it out. It’s been revitalized in the past years, and there are now tons of things to see and do down there. It’s a fabulous park, with awesome views of Manhattan. (You can see One World Trade behind us in the skyline.)

Artsy bridge photo. I really want to get this printed to hang on our wall.

It was COLD this day, but it was so sunshiney and bright. We were amazed that there were huge pieces of ice floating down the East River. We have heard that the East & Hudson Rivers barely ever get that much ice during the winter. BRRRRR. Oh, and there’s my favorite lady in the distance again. I literally get chills seeing her there. I can’t wait to play tourist one day this Fall and go out to see her up close. 

You would think that when it’s 20 degrees outside that one wouldn’t want cold dessert. You would be wrong. This gelato is divine and is just up the street from us. I love the coffee flavor seen here (with whole coffee beans in it!), but David is much more adventurous and tries things like mascarpone and olive oil. We also discovered that they will DELIVER gelato to you. What a crazy city this is. You can literally get almost anything brought to your front door within a few hours. 

More cold day adventures in Prospect Park. This pond was about 90% frozen over, so all of the ducks, coots and swans were in this one part. If you look closely over David’s head in this pic, you can see the birds standing on the ice. I’m sure it was freezing, but they didn’t seem to mind!

My cute cousin Anne came to the City with her friend Genny to visit Genny’s sister, so we got to hang out for a few days and it was so fun catching up and saying hi to a little piece of home! 

I met up with Anne and Genny in the City and we stopped at Bloomingdale’s to see their friend who works there, and then walked over to The Plaza Hotel for lunch. Deeee-lish! This hotel is so fancy and fabulous. It’s a dream of mine to stay here for just one night. I was also super proud of myself for successfully getting them on the right subway train to get them back to Genny’s sister’s apartment. I had such anxiety of putting them on the wrong train and them getting lost, but turns out, I kind am kind of getting the hang of the subways! 

So, January and February were COLD (lots of days in the teens and 20s for highs) and snowy, but it was sort of fun to getting to experience that since Texas doesn’t get weather like that ever. Every day I would tell myself, just a few more weeks, just a few more weeks. And eventually, it started to warm up and the plants started to bloom and it was SPRING…hooray. 🙂