One of the first warmish days, I went on a walk up to Prospect Park, and this loop has now become my usual route (sometimes longer, sometimes shorter depending on how I feel!). The doors on the buildings along the park are so neat – historic and beautiful. I also got to see a black squirrel for the first time, which was fun! I had never seen one until we moved here, but they are all over our neighborhood. The purple and yellow crocuses started blooming and made everything look so much more cheery. You’ll notice the LACK OF SNOW in these pictures. Yay!

Pretty daffodils in the park.

My favorite bridge/tunnel in Prospect Park. I just love how it’s overgrown and so old looking.

One weekend, we decided to go into the City for the day to enjoy the sunshine and walk along the Highline. David’s office is in Chelsea Market, which is a (tourist trap) market with lots of restaurants and vendors on the bottom floor, and offices on the top floors. We went to see his office (super secret – no pictures allowed!) and then had tacos at Los Tacos #1 in Chelsea Market. These were the most legit Mexican tacos we had had up to that point, and we still think they are some of the best in town. (Aside – we think it’s funny that it’s Los Tacos #1, when it’s their only location. :))

Blue skies and budding trees along the Highline! The Highline is an elevated railway that they were going to demolish, but the City decided to make it into a park. It runs along the West side of Manhattan and they have added lots of plants, trees and benches along the 3-mile route to beautify the park. It’s usually pretty packed with people, but it’s still a fun touristy thing to do. We had been up on it when we came in October for our super secret trip, but this day we walked the ENTIRE route!

Empire State Building photo bombing us.

Another Empire State sighting at the end of the Highline

Afterward, we went exploring in that area before heading home. It was a gorgeous day all day and I was so happy to be in the City with some WARM sunshine!

At the Delancey Street subway platform, there is this enormous mosaic of these rainbow trout. All of the platforms are decorated differently here – some have beautiful art like this and some are just dark and dirty. This is my favorite stop we’ve seen by far.

We rode the subway over to the Lower East Side/Little Italy and went to this fabulous restaurant called Birds and Bubbles, where they serve fried chicken and champagne – two of our favorite things!

Another warm, sunshiney weekend called for drinking a beer on the patio. This pretty place is actually on top of the Whole Foods that is in our neighborhood.

A beautiful yellow bush blooming in front of some brownstones.

This is the other side of the tunnel…Couldn’t resist these teeny white flowers!

I snapped this picture of this Episcopal church in historic Brooklyn Heights when I went over to get my hair done for the first time. I really want to go to church here one Sunday to see the inside of this gorgeous building!

My Converse sneakers (which look much whiter in this picture than they actually were…like, you can’t see where I dropped part of my Los Tacos #1 on the laces of my right foot) make me totally fit in here in Brooklyn. I bought them a few months before we even knew we would be moving here, so you can chalk that up to another God thing! 🙂

My favorite view of the city I’ve found so far is this one from the Brooklyn Promenade in BK Heights.

James and Alaina grabbed some $10 tickets to the Brooklyn Nets game at the Barclays Center and invited us to go along. Even though our seats were WAAAAY up high, we had such a good time!

After the game we went over to No. 7, which is James and Alaina’s favorite restaurant, and is quickly becoming one of our favorite places to meet them for dinner. It’s in Fort Greene, which is near Barclays, but is also in the middle of our neighborhood and theirs, so it’s handy! (Also, please notive Alaina’s Boston Terrier shirt!!! Love.)

Mid-April, James and Alaina took us to the most fun restaurant called Brooklyn Crab, in Red Hook. They have all different kinds of seafood (and crawfish, when it’s in season!) and serve all kinds of delicious beers and drinks. They also have a whole downstairs area full of games like putt-putt and corn hole. We went right when they opened at 11, and I am so glad we did, because it was PACKED by the time we got our food. You can see the Statue of Liberty between David and my head in the picture…if you look reeeeeeeeally closely.

First on the corn hole court (is that what you call it??)! Those people behind David are in line to get a table, and we had already finished eating…haha, we win!

I just adore this sweet friend. I am so glad to have her (and James) in our lives here!

I went to meet my work friends for lunch and GOT TO DRIVE A CAR for the first time since mid-December! It was funny how it was still like second nature, but it definitely took a few minutes for me to remember to be really aware of my surroundings and to look both ways before just going when the light turned green.

My mouth is watering just looking at these pictures, even all these months later! Maudie’s is my most favorite Mexican food restaurant in Austin, and it was the first place we went to eat with my family when we got there. Just look at all that delicious queso on top of those cheese enchiladas! Mmmmmmmm

Jay and Ardis’ wedding was a beautiful affair, held at Vista West Ranch, which is coincidentally, where I had my bridal portraits taken. It’s a big barn that has been turned into a venue and I loved all the details that Ardis added to make it special for them. All the groomsmen had wooden bowties, with purple knots and matching pocket squares, and the bridesmaids had purple dresses. It was all rustic-chic and lovely! It was also a blast catching up with all of David’s Sewanee friends, since we really only get to see them all together when someone gets married!

We had such a great night celebrating these two! We loved getting to be a part of such an important day in their lives.

REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD! When we booked our tickets to come home in April, we were at once ordered to spend all day Sunday with Hunter and Lauren, and we happily obliged! We started with brunch at our favorite brunch spot, Perla’s. I had my requisite banana pancake and all was right with the world after that! We missed these two SO MUCH in the first months we were gone, which was funny because we didn’t see them all that often (maybe once or twice a month) when we lived in Austin, but it was HARD being away from them. We all started dating, got engaged and got married within weeks of each other, so it has always been the best to have friends that were in the same season of life as us. We hung out at their house for the rest of the afternoon and evening, and they made us a delicious homemade pasta dinner before we ran home and crashed in bed to get up for our early flight.

Of course, H&L *did* beat us to the punch on having babies! We loved getting to hang with Ryland on this day, too. He is the sweetest guy and such a laid back dude. Many, many prayers were said for him and his health while he was in his mommy’s tummy, and we are all soooo relieved and grateful that he arrived with very few very minor health concerns.

“Uncle” David claimed that he had never held a baby before, so we insisted that he hold Ryland. He did such a great job and I think he’s over his anxiety now! 😉

I finally decided that we were done using our hats and gloves for the season, so I gave them a good washing and let them dry in the sunshine on our balcony. I can say that I was NOT sad to see them get put up. Getting all of our gear on (hats, coats, gloves, boots, scarves, etc, etc, etc) got pretty old after just a few weeks!

It seemed only appropriate that a double rainbow would show up at this time…ushering out the cold and grey and showing us all the colors we had to look forward to in the SPRING!