Jackie's Birthday 2014

Two amazing things happened! First, Jackie's birthday oftentimes falls during Thanksgiving and/or when I am super pregnant. Neither of these things were true this year so I was super excited to celebrate her birthday!

Me, Jackie, unicorn balloon, and invisible fairy that ruined the picture

Jackie's nieces are child models! Really!

The second thing is that I actually went out at all! It's been tough going out because Miranda relies heavily on me. She takes a bottle now, but she also still nurses and she prefers the latter at night. Kevin was brave, so I left at dinner time so I could pick up a little gift for Jackie. She's been photographing "Lego Jackie" and "Lego Rob" around town so I went to the Lego store to get her some Lego hair that looks like her real hair.

The Lego Store is amazing.

New Lego Jackie head

Lego Rob and Jackie left on their honeymoon!

Himalayan with Nick and Emily 2013

We met Nick and Emily for dinner at a Himalayan restaurant in the East Village. I have never had Himalayan food before and actually I didn't even have any idea what it was. So naturally I thought it was a great idea. It turns out that it's a cross between Chinese and Indian food which makes sense when you consider the geography. When we got our dishes some looked specifically Chinese and some looked specifically Indian. Only Emily's vegetarian dish seemed a little hard to classify as either.

 

Outside Himalayan Cafe

Then we headed over to Tile Bar for lots of drinks. I've only been to Tile Bar a few times, but it's rapidly grown on me. It's a dive bar, but it's always so comfortable and everyone there behaves amazingly civilized for New York City. Although, in our book, dive bars are a positive not a negative. 

We had lots of fun with Nick and Emily! So much fun that we almost missed our train. A mad dash through Atlantic Terminal (picture Kevin sliding down the banister of the subway stairs) and a late LIRR train saved the day though.

St. Patrick's Day 2013

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Woo! We kicked off Kevin's Spring Break last night with a St.Patrick's Day bar crawl. We celebrated early, because if St. Patrick's Day falls on Sunday, Saturday is the designated party day. And then Sunday is also the party day. Haha, no, but we are celebrating some more today with Kevin's delicious corned beef sandwiches. They are pretty amazing actually.

Grandma Kathy babysat James for us. Brady came in from Philly to party, and the three of took the LIRR into the city. It started snowing on our way over. We met a green-eye-shadowed Sarah at Dempsey's. Lukas got sick and couldn't join us, but he generously encouraged his nurse Sarah to join us anyway. Dempsey's was a lot of fun because we got there early so we got a table and they played fun dance music and Irish jigs.

Sarah, Brady, Kevin, and me at Dempsey's

The ladies

The menfolk: Kevin, Jon, and Brady

For dinner, we though Vietnamese made perfect sense for St. Patrick's Day. Last year we got sushi for dinner, so maybe there's an Irish beer-Asian food symbiosis. Alternatively, I have a Pavlov's dog response to seeing Jon, because nearly everytime we visit him and Ben in Brooklyn, we pick up Vietnamese after. Anyway, V-Nam Cafe had awesome banh-mi, and very good Pho.

V-Nam's Cafe

We briefly considered going to Swift, but they had a cover and they were crowded so it would have been a lose-lose. So we head over to Scratcher's where things were less Irish but way more chill.

Snuggling at Scratchers

After Sarah left, the rest of us decided we were better off in Brooklyn so we could easily catch the LIRR back from Atlantic without a lot of advance planning. We ended up at 4th Avenue Bar which we really like, and we missed fully three trains back while we got more drinks, expressed our outrage about drone strikes and weighed the relative merits of Harper's or The New Yorker. Um, yeah.

The Clous celebrating at home today

Last St. Patrick's Day we went out in our Irish neighborhood with Jon and Michele. The previous year, in 2011, I was pregnant, so Jon, Briggs, Lukas, and Sarah came here for Kevin's corned beef sandwiches and some canned Guinness. Here are some St. Patrick's Day pictures from 2002-2011.

Nana Visits- July 2012

I think this photo captures the type of close relationship James and my mom have. What a lucky boy!

James and his Nana

This gave me and Kevin the opportunity to go out for date night. I really wanted to go to S'Mac a place in the East Village that just serves mac and cheese. We tried 3 different types:  Favorites: 4 Cheese, Manchego, and Parisienne. I liked the Parisienne and 4 Cheese the best, but I wouldn't get the Manchego again because it didn't actually taste like Manchego cheese and was a little flavorless. I definitely want to keep going back until I've tasted all of them. Afterwards we went to Tile Bar and met up with Briggs. So sort of less date-like but still really fun. Thanks for date night, Nana!

On the train into Manhattan 

Three skillets of mac n' cheese!

With Briggs at Tile Bar