a love letter

Snoasis, we love you. Please don't ever leave. Our lives are significantly better with you in them. 

XOXO

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E

adventure: dreamathon

The other weekend we went to the Dreamathon in Salt lake and it was literally so cool! Basically there was an abandoned school that they let 150 artists come in and just do whatever. I didn't think it would be like, street art style, but it was! We decided it was the coolest art exhibit we have been to in a while.

Jake calls me "little bacon" now and it is my favorite thing in the world. Don't ask where bacon came from, because I don't even know.

"Dead cat society" hahahahah. I love it. I love it so much.

So, can we focus on how weird this wall-face is? Jake thought it was super creepy. I partially agree, but it's almost too creative to be creepy, ya know? Like gosh that horse-nose... I don't even know where people get these ideas, but thank heavens they do. 

The rainbow stairs were one of my favorite things! I hope one day when we have little bebes we can have some sweet rainbow stairs going to their room, or playroom, or something.

We saw this artist at a gallery stroll a while ago, and he was displayed at the dreamathon! He's Jake's favorite, so needless to say he was a happy camper. 

Ok, this room was my very favorite. It was so neat. The walls were all like the above, except in different colors. Also, the floor was a calendar. Soooo cool. 

Ok, this room probably doesn't look super cool, but it was! Everything was white except for like, certain spots. It was amazing! It was like, a small school heaven. 

This room had like, flower lights on the wall, and when you looked through the little plastic cards, it made them go all crazy. 

Hahahaha I love these. This was like a triangle tube, and you took a picture from the other end with a flash, and it turned out like this! How awesome!

I feel it's important to note that the people who participated in the Dreamathon are purely genius and we are literally so happy that it happened. Also, we are sad that it's over, but we really hope they do something like it again.

I've never been to an exhibit that was so inspiring! All I want to do now is make some cute stencils for our room. 

XOXO

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E

new york: day six

This day is only important to note for three reasons.

#1: It was the day we went to Lauderee and I tasted the most amazing macarons I've ever tasted and I feel like that's an accurate statement, because for our wedding we tasted every macaron in Utah county until we found the best. These were better than the best. 

Like, I'm almost embarrassed that I'm this obsessed with a food item, but then I remember that I actually don't care. So, we got (from left to right) rose petal, cherry blossom, lemon, chocolate coconut, and chocolate citrus. THEY WERE SO GOOD. I didn't want to eat them right away, so I carried them all the way home, like a small child. Then I shared them with my mother because #bestdaughter. Then I cried when they were gone, and then I found a recipe online, and now I'm just waiting until I have two weeks of nothing so I can perfect the macaron.

This day was also important because #2: It was the last time we will eat Shake Shack (for a while...) and that's notable because I've never had better fries, shakes, or portobello mushroom burgers. 

Although, when I was ordering I asked for "A hamburger with everything on it, except for the meat pattie" (they were out of mushrooms) and the girl was having like, the hardest time understanding. I even told her I didn't eat meat, so I wanted everything that would come with a hamburger, just not the meat. Anyways, I ended up with like hamburger toppings on grilled cheese bread? It was strange, but good nonetheless. WE WILL MISS YOU, SHAKE SHACK. NOTHING WILL EVER REPLACE YOUR PLACE IN OUR HEARTS.

Also, #3: I bought my very first Mac product and I can't believe I haven't done it sooner. I got a lipstick and it stays on so much longer than my others. It goes on better and has a better color too. Plus, it wasn't as expensive as I've thought Mac products were all this time. So, win, win.

In closing, New York was so amazing and I'm so grateful to my wonderful inlaws for taking us with them. It was such a great experience and I only hope we will be able to move there for college, or what-be-it. Shout out to anyone who gets to go there often, or who lives there: I am jealous of you and please let me live vicariously through you. There is so much to do and so much to see, I just can't even handle it. We would move there in a second, and hopefully we'll get the chance someday when we're done with undergrad!

I'm glad we're home, though. It's nice to be back in our bed with our nightly routine of The X-Files and cuddling. I would love to live in New York someday, but for now, Utah isn't so bad :).

XOXO

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E

new york: day five

Best baked goods ever! Weirdly enough, their drinks weren't very good, like at all. But, the cookie was the best chocolate chip cookie we've ever eaten. Also, a pretzel croissant. Like, who even knew those were a thing? But, they are, and they are delicious.

The picture I took of Jake taking a picture. I thought the Ducati dealership was going to be kind of dumb, but there were actually some pretty cool bikes there. 

(Jake practicing his camera skills, haha) So, we ate at this place called Pret-A-Manger, and it was so good! The strawberry lemonade was the best I've ever tasted, and my tomato, basil, and brie sandwich sparked an obsession. Every day since we've been back I've been eating tomato and basil on french bread for dinner. Haha.

We stopped by the 9/11 memorial. I thought it was pretty cool how instead of building another building there, or just leaving like a cement slab, they built a continuous waterfall. Well done, New York. Well done.

Ok, I feel it's important to note my obsession with street art. I didn't see as much as I thought I would have, but I really liked this piece on Canal street. Side note: We went to the Dreamathon in Salt Lake and it was AMAZING. I will have to post pictures of that, because ever since we went I've been mega obsessed with street art. Like, mega.

One of my favorite things about New York was getting to wear my fancy dresses. I feel like in Utah, even when I would wear a dress to school people would ask me why I was all dressed up until they realized that's just what I wear most days haha. So, it was pretty awesome being able to whip out my Betsey Johnson and bright yellow bow dress with no questions asked, haha.

MOCHI. I love mochi. These are like those little squares that you see at frozen yogurt places. You know, the ones that are made out of soy or something? Well, yeah at Japanese restaurants they fill them with ice cream and give them different flavors. They are SO GOOD.

Lion King! Whoever did those costumes deserves an award. They were phenomenal.

After the play, we decided to venture out to the Empire State building since maybe the lines wouldn't be as long. We got there at like 10-ish and only waited in line for about an hour, so it wasn't bad at all. Although, we should have bought our tickets online and shaved off like thirty minutes, but oh well. 

Also, I feel it's important to note that along with street art and mochi, I love city views. They are like a magnet to me. In every place I've lived (so two, haha) I've managed to find some awesome lookout points. We usually just call them "picnic spot". So, going to the top of the Empire State building was AMAZING. I don't even want to say how many pictures I took at the top (20, what?). It was hard to narrow down, but here you go.

(Strangely enough, even at 11pm it was crazy crowded up there. I wonder if going in the early morning would have less people?)

Hahahahaha. So, asking strangers to take our picture... not my favorite thing. There are just so many factors you know? Cause like, shooting on auto results in very strange looking pictures, especially at night. So, I got it all set up so you could see bookeh city lights in the background, but then the person who took it left like a foot above our heads and cut off all the city lights below our torsos! Ha! Oh well. You can still partially see some lights, so I'm satisfied.

I feel like this day wouldn't have been complete without the fact that the Starbuck's in Times Square is open 24 hours. That fact both pleases me and disgusts me, because being someone who works at Starbuck's I can't imagine working a night shift. (Although, my old store decided to be open all night on Thanksgiving night, so I had to work that and yes, it was terrible. Although, it was not as busy as they thought it would be.) So, I was starving my face off after eating tons of edamame and mochi (which apparently don't hold you over, haha) so we kept looking for places to eat at 1 a.m. that weren't super heavy. Lo and behold, Starbuck's was glistening in the dark like the small angel it is. I don't think a peppermint hot chocolate and raspberry swirl cake has ever tasted so good, haha.

XOXO

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E

P.S. There is an awesome giveaway with amazing jewelry going on (here).

new york: day four

Embarrassingly enough we had double breakfast on this day, because sometimes you have to do that when you are only somewhere for six days and there are so many delicious places to eat.

They were pretty good, but I think Brugee's Waffles and Frites is a tidge better. You can't beat those belgian chocolate filled waffles, yo.

Breakfast #2 was at a Build Your Own Bowl place. I got quinoa, with blueberries, mangoes, and grapes with honey drizzle. It was strangely good. I think I've finally found a good recipe for quinoa! I think I'm going to do strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries next time.

Cool totes and the scientology building. My brother went through a major obsession with Scientology and just like, researched it everyday. It was kind of cool seeing it in the flesh, haha.

Waiting for our bikes to go and bike Central Park. 

It looks so lovely doesn't it? Like, a casual ride through Central Park? Haha! Well, I should probably mention that I exercise like 0 times a week at all weeks. So, not the most athletic. Also, Central Park is huge. Also, there are lots of hills. Needless to say, I basically died. 

Luckily, we took a couple breaks and checked out ponds and stuff. So, that was good, haha. It's really nice in there. I wish we had pond parks here!

Stop #2!

Also, I feel it's worthy to note that I cried this day. Shortly after this picture was taken, in fact. Remember when I mentioned I never exercise? Yeah. Ok, well I also hate the heat. Like, my fantasy is to live in a house made of snow and have various syrup flavors that I could just like pour onto my snow furniture and make snow cones and also there would be like chocolate columns holding up my snow house that I could also eat from if I wanted.

Anyways, so basically, things weren't communicated to well and there ended up being mass confusion when there didn't need to be. That, plus the heat and exhaustion, made me meltdown. I started explaining things to fix the mass confusion, but then started crying because I was so frustrated, and then start laughing that I was crying. It was definitely a very interesting couple minutes.

So, we decided to fix the situation withs some pizza. Like all bad situations are fixed. It was super good! I feel like the Fiore Pizza Truck is my #1 favorite pizza, and this pizza was #2. DELICIOUS. 

We went to Wall Street for the Bacon and saw all the big corporations and stuff.

We took a break at the pier (is that what it's called?) and looked over to Brooklyn!

The best asparagus I've ever eaten! And probably the tiniest plate I've ever gotten, haha! I'm obsessed with the asparagus though. It was perfectly cooked and OMG. I almost can't even talk about it right now.

They had mocktails! Haha! So classy. I really want to have a mocktail party now. 

Also, I forgot my tripod and had to balance my camera on a side table, so sorry for the world's weirdest angle.

We saw Phantom that night! It was seriously sooooo good! Phantom is probably one of my favorite musicals anyways, so gosh dang. They had some cool effects too, like with the stage. I felt like it was partially a magic show, because at the end the phantom sat in a chair and covered himself with a sheet, and then someone removed the sheet and he was gone. Like, what the heck?!

Even though I cried on this day and also destroyed my thighs, it was pretty good! It's hard for small things like that to ruin a New York experience, haha! 

XOXO

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E