Nantucket Red - The Official Partay, Pt 1

Saturday dawned and Geoff and I did wake up to find a tent in the yard. Not out of necessity, as there was plenty of space to sleep, but just because Evan wanted to. Sure, why not? The morning consisted of deck time and partaking in Kristyn's gift to Clay - The Morning After Basket (complete with Bloody Mary fixins)and I learned that Clay can make a mean bloody mary. I hadn't even had one that I liked up until this point. But Dang. And Yum. I think pickles are the secret. After at least partially recovering from their late nite birthday festivities (in which I think Kevin may have been nearly mistakenly arrested - but wasn't, as they literally had indeed mistaken him for someone else), most folks hopped on Clay's boat and headed for the beach. Alison, Geoff and I stuck close to home, chilled on the deck and helped with last minute party prep.

Mom clipped new hydrangeas. Very patriotic with her fun hat.



Alison = pretty

Alison and I chopped stuff to make this pasta salad. Tomato, basil, mozzerella, yellow peppers, and a mustard balsamic vinagrette. Pretty Yum.


Then it was party time....Check out Clay's pants. Those are sailboats, and all things nautical I believe.


Me & Alison


Kim & Kristyn - who just ARE Nantucket at all times. Amazing.


Rupert snuggled up with Alison


On the deck with a margarita. Ahhhhhhhhh.....


More classic Clay & Alison (I really love this picture)


Hayley with football, wondering why no one will play with her. She didn't know she'd been benched after cutting her foot and splattering the deck with blood earlier in the day.


Clay teases Hayley


The family


The full crew - I actually think I have one of the best outfits. There, I said it. Best, as in, true to appropriate style. Besides Clay, of course.


Love this series - The four of us.... (normal)


Clay starts making his Stupid Face....Mom senses something is happening...


Mom checks to see what he's doing...


She doesn't like it. :-)


After the BBQ portion, we move to the backyard for some "Fun & Games".... coming soon.

Nantucket Red - The Actual Birthday

OK, this is gonna go a lot faster as a photo montage....Too much to tell. Basically, there were friends, laughs, cocktails, pizza, jokes, photos, presents, cake, and fireworks to celebrate Clay's 30th birthday. And a late night party scene at The Squire, a bar downtown, which I barely made it through 30 minutes of as I am old and lame. But the cool kids seemed to have a blast. And the sun even came out for us briefly.

The Tobe - just as the guests start to arrive....


Dad & the Ladies


The View


Photo Mantle...Clay in his youth


Hayley & Her Fancy Collar


Partay on the Deck


The Birf'day boy


Kim & Clay check themselves out


Kristen & Kim make the boys laugh...


Geoff - Chillaxin'


Mom, the Boys, & bacon wrapped scallops


Classic Clay & Alison


Turtle Time - Alison shows off her turtle necklace (I have a matching one and know its secret meaning and also at this point and am super grateful she's my best friend)


Clay showed us a fun new trick - Relax all the muscles in your face, shake your head back and forth real fast, and have someone take a picture. If you're lucky, you too can capture yourself on film looking like this:


The big 3-0 (Texas Sheet Cake "3" & a cheesecake "0")


Contemplating a MASSIVE amount of Candles


Clay's present from Alison - for the dash of his fancy new car.


Sparklers on the deck


Yay for Clay and the big 3-0. I was super glad we could be there to celebrate. Even if my celebrating didn't make it all the way into the wee hours of the morning, it was no less genuine. Love you Claybo!

Now onto the official partay the next day.....

Nantucket Red - The Calm Before the Storm

Well. It was quite the Fourth of July weekend.

We drove up Wednesday night - leaving the city at 9pm - far later than anticipated. BUT, this proved to be a good thing, as there was zero traffic and it made for a shorter trip. We got in around 1:30am I believe.

Thursday dawned damp and foggy. This was the only day we had as a family before the Par-tay descended and it was lovely. Clay arrived bearing pizza - Upper Crust Pizza (certainly the best on the Cape. And possibly the world.) We helped mom get ready for the party, and generally enjoyed ourselves.

Dad had brought lobsters down from Maine the day before, so the 6 of us (Mom, Dad, Clay, Alison, me & Geoff) enjoyed lobster, corn on the cob and Cape Cod Salt & Vinegar potato chips. Along with several bottles of Savingon Blanc. Amazing.


Clay had a wardrobe for the whole weekend, not just the party. It was only Thursday and he was already outdoing us.


Here he is in full effect, with Alison's dog, Rupert.


The Hayley


Alison and I needed a bit of coaching on how to do Lobster - as this was only my second time ever.


After dinner us kids went to see Public Enemies (Johnny Depp, Christian Bale). The Savignon Blanc and the fact that I didn't have any characters to care about within the first 15 minutes, caused me to sleep though most of it. Never done that before.

Friday breakfast -


Hydrangeas from the bush on the side of the house. Yes, these are real. And, in the spirit of the weekend, in a Nantucket Basket.


Toby likes to lay in a hole of his own digging just below the back porch. It's cool, shady, and gets him some Alone Time.



Hayley - so pretty!


Toby - in his standard meal time position


As the guests started to roll in, Alison made a homemade sour cherry pie. Which started out like this:


And ended up like this:



A woman of many talents. No Doubt.
More to come...

Accidental Purchases

Geoff and I had a lovely day of browsing yesterday. Which turned into a lovely day of shopping. We went to West Elm, which was heaven. Ended up with a pseudo bedding set and several accessories. We decided we're going to return the bedspread (not pictured, but matches the shams), as it seemed to be from another dye lot and didn't quite match. But the shams (on sale for $9.99 each) and throws matched our current bedspread and sheets quite well.

The pillow on the left we already had...the other two are new.


We also bought new (MATCHING) bedside lamps, thanks to Uncle Jon & Aunt Paula's Crate & Barrel gift card from the wedding that we had YET to use. We love them! Their arms swing....closer or farther, whichever you like.


Geoff also bought me these vases....which I loved, but was hesitating on. I heart them. Also heart the $10 lilys we bought from our local florist this morning.


All in all....totally digging our room right now.


Just have to get a slipcover for that yellow chair, stain the TV stand to match the rest of the furniture and maybe swap the TV out for a sleeker (flat screen) model. And maybe actually get my shoes out of that basket and into the closet-appropriate rack I bought over 6 months ago (which is still in the box), and maybe also swap out the photography (those warm colors don't really match anymore and besides, Robert Norman gave us a huge print of us in Florence). Then we will be Martha Stewart-ready....

Friday Confessions

TRUTH: I have not even begun to fight on those pictures from the July 4th weekend. I've worked on them every spare moment I've had (which hasn't been a ton this week) but I'm not even half done. Truth be told, I was a bit disappointed in them. Some decent ones for sure but....not amazing. Therefore the blog post is not done. Barely started. My goal is to get it done this weekend. We'll see....

TRUTH: I think there is a serious lack of good gazpacho available. In general. But also specifically in the area around my office. It's what I want for lunch in the summer. Hale and Hearty Soups - eh. Metro Cafe - Way too spicy. Pret A Manger - Boring. The only gazpacho i liked - and I used to get every day last summer was from Wholesome Wraps. And they closed.

TRUTH: I am bored by the movies that are out currently. I'm sure the Harry Potter will be good next weekend, but the rest have seemed....blah.

TRUTH: I am leaving work early today. "Summer hours" are supposed to start at 2pm. Here it is nearly 4pm and I'm considering myself lucky to be getting out. Might go sit in the park and read. Might go window shop for things I can't afford. Hard to say. Would like to go home and blog with my slightly-less-than-4 free hours I have before our dinner plans. But....Half hour home - It's 430pm, then 2-ish hours at home and back into the city. Eh....would just make me tired. And 2 hours is not nearly enough.

TRUTH: I wish I had a garden. Our windowsill is getting mighty crowded and there are more things I want to plant and dunno how to make it work.

TRUTH: My house is a disaster. Needs to be cleaned, laundry needs to be done, and I need to finish unpacking from last weekend. We will tackle at least a little of this this weekend.

TRUTH: Sometimes I have a hard time letting go of things. If I get hurt or worried or stressed, it can be tough to have it not affect me for a decent amount of time. I can tell myself to take a deep breath, relax and remember what I can control and can't. The Serenity Prayer does actually come in handy.

TRUTH: I REALLY want a big chalkboard for our kitchen wall, but Geoff says our walls are so old and weak and stupid, it's hard to hang remotely heavy things on there. I still want one though. Like, a lot.

TRUTH: I cried three times during Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.

TRUTH: I wish I liked to exercises. I wish I could make myself be one of those people. I like biking and tennis and swimming. That's it. Tennis and Swimming you can't just do on your own....needing a tennis court and a swimming pool to actually facilitate those activities. Biking is all I've got. But even then, sometimes I'd rather just sit outside with a book. Hopefully I will feel like it this weekend... we'll see.

TRUTH: I love baskets. Not baskets with handles that are grandma-ish, but cool, mostly square and rectangle baskets that you can put on your bookshelf/coffee table/entertainment unit to hide the stuff you need on hand, but is ugly to look at.

TRUTH: I consistently misspell the same words. Rhythmn. Excercise. Disappointed. Specifically. That is how I always spell them. I may never learn. Thank God for spell check or I would look like an idiot.

TRUTH: I would almost always choose a salty snack over a sweet one.

TRUTH: I am now heading to the Upper West Side where I will window shop at Crate and Barrel for furniture have no space for, pop into the container store and potentially buy some baskets, and then maybe go to Central Park and read my book before dinner with friends. I may even break with the norm and get a Pinkberry to enjoy. Look at me, I am full of surprises.

Happy Friday!

Speedy Sunflower

Well, well, well....

We arrived home on Sunday night at 2:30am from our big weekend at the Cape (more to come on that soon - once I sort through the 750 pictures we took!) and WHAT did I find awaiting me?

This guy -


He is so tall and so fast to grow! There was NOTHING growing out of that pot when we left Wednesday night. Then we go away for 4 days and all of a sudden he's practically a teenage sunflower! I was shocked. Shocked/Nervous that he will outgrow our kitchen windowsill garden faster than I thought. Geoff took this picture yesterday afternoon and we think it was even taller by last night. Um.... yikes.

More to come on the 4th of July weekend soon...

Cape Cod bound

We are sooo outta here.

Tonight we are packing up the car with bags, bikes, Bokas, Alison and her dog Rupert and driving up to Cape Cod for the long weekend. I'm beyond excited. It will likely be our only chance to get there this summer. Mom and Dad are there already. Clay is coming tomorrow. In fact, Clay is the reason for the whole sha-bang. He will be turning 30 years young on Friday. And he is throwing himself quite the bash. And we will be just a few of the guests in attendance. He sheepishly admitted to Mom that, "there might be tents". Mom is attempting to remain very calm. QUITE the soiree. And tons of his fun Boston friends are coming, most of whom I've yet to meet. He bought a condo there, is now driving a BMW and is all kinds of fabulous.

We do milestone birthdays prety well in our family I think. For my 30th, Mom and Dad came to surprise me, Clay flew in all the way from California, which was also a huge surprise (that made me cry), we rented out a martini bar in Hells Kitchen for the party and Geoff proposed. Not too shabby. For Dad's 60th, Clay and Geoff and Uncle Chuck and I all came to the Cape to surprise him. Clay apparently didn't trust us to do him justice, so it took it upon himself to plan his own party.

AND, this party has a theme. Inspired by Nantucket Reds, the Cape Cod lifestyle, and the below video.



We are all expected to come dressed appropriately. I've been working on my outfit all week. Not as easy to find in NYC, but as Tim Gunn says, I will be making it work.

Oh, there will be MANY photos to come....

Happy July 4th holiday weekend!