Weekend with Friends

Apologies for a dearth of posts over the last few days - we were quite busy in the best sort of way as our wonderful friends Ryan and Anna Applegate came to town to stay with us for the weekend.

The two arrived on Thursday evening and we all enjoyed a burrito dinner at our favorite neighborhood spot.  On Friday, Tracy and I had to work so Anna and Ryan made their way around the city like old pros - maybe it’s the years they spent in the DC-area, but they both are naturals when it comes to subway riding and urban navigation.  For some reason, the subways were running SLOW and crowded on Friday, but it didn’t deter these visitors; I believe Anna made a new friend, as you can see from the picture below.

Friday night we tried out a new (to us) pizza place in the West Village.  We’d heard a lot about John’s of Bleecker Street - the place lived up to the hype: relatively affordable, short wait, low key ambiance.  Highly recommend if you’re looking for a good pizza spot on your next trip.

Saturday morning, the Applegates made their way to a couple different flea markets in Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen.  Anna has a fantastic talent for interior design and has her own business selling furnishings and design services.  They were able to pick up a few items which will likely be on display soon at her booth in Raleigh’s Hunt and Gather store.

We were so excited that Anna and Ryan chose to come up this weekend as we already had a small baby shower planned with our closest friends here in NYC.  They were able to meet our community of friends here and we all had fun celebrating the little one who is soon to come.  While the girls spent a couple hours doing traditional baby shower stuff (including designing and making some amazing onesies for Baby Mans), the guys went to a local sports bar and watched some SEC football.  We all met up afterwards at John and Summer’s apartment for some amazing grub.  Our friends know us too well, as they chose to cater in food from Moe’s (“Welcome to Moe’s”).

We were blown away from the generosity and support of our friends.  And it was also awesome to look around the room and see a couple babies already born and more on the way - little friends for little Manser!

Needless to say, it was a fantastically fun weekend, spent with some of our favorite people.  Feeling very blessed and thankful these days.