ashleyd /

Visiting New York City: A Day In Brooklyn

My parents are in town and that means we’ve been going non-stop! It’s so much fun but holy heck I’m ready for a nap.

For the past year I’ve heard about Egg from my parents. Last year during a snow storm my parents ended up having an amazing breakfast experience there due to the food and overall staff kindness and needless to say they’ve been talking about it ever since. Yesterday we ended up spending a perfect afternoon in Brooklyn complete with brunch, fresh air, flowers, and a museum visit!

Here is our itinerary in case you want to replicate our Brooklyn afternoon:

Egg Restaurant (Williamsburg, cash only, no reservations) A laid back, casual, little bit hipster brunch spot in Williamsburg that sources their ingredients locally and includes complimentary delicious beignets with every meal. The highlights were their French press coffee, mint roasted grapefruit, candied bacon, and home made biscuits. The line may look intimidating but it moves pretty quickly. 

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Brooklyn Botanical Gardens (Prospect Heights, $8 donation requested) This is truly a hidden treasure! I’ve never heard much about it but it really is one of New York’s best kept secrets! Even with the recent rains and overcast skies it was a beautiful way to spend two hours and so relaxing compared to the speed of the city.

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Brooklyn Museum ($12 suggested donation, right next door to the Gardens) The Brooklyn Museum is another hidden treasure that I’ve run by more than a few times but never visited before. The museum itself is best known for it’s Egyptian wing which was incredible! It amazed me that they included a mummy outside of the sarcophagus and some really detailed videos describing the processes they used to restore them. In addition, we spent time seeing the John Singer Sargent watercolor exhibit and the Rodin collection.

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Overall it was a great afternoon in Brooklyn and I would suggest everyone enjoy a similar afternoon whether you’re a local or just in town visiting!

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ashleyd /

A Whirlwind Friday

Happy Saturday! Here’s a sneak peak of how we spent our Saturday.

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It was quite the whirlwind Friday! My parents really know how to keep me moving when they are in town, that’s for sure!

After a less than stellar 10 mile run with Katie yesterday in preparation for the Brooklyn Half Marathon next weekend, my parents and I headed out to New Jersey to see my “Jersey family” and my cousin’s adorable 10 month old, Sedona. I really don’t have baby fever in the least except for when she’s in my arms. Ask me any other day and the answer is “a good solid 3-4 years” but yesterday, you could have let me take her home and I would have been just fine!

I mean how can you not love this adorable little ball of joy. She is at such a fun age right now, telling everyone hi and making sure she’s the center of attention. Her flavor of the week is lemons. No kidding. This kid loves biting, sucking, gnawing, and entertaining herself with a lemon piece. IMG_2722

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We also had some deep, serious conversations. “Sedona your mom won’t mind you coming to Geneva with me will she?”

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As you can tell, she’s jealous of teeth now that her first two teeth have started making their presence known.

After going out to Jersey and back we had just 30 minutes to change clothes and walk over to Raymi for a happy hour with a few of our friends. It was SO much fun for my parents to meet our friends after hearing about them for the last 4 years. Unfortunately not everyone could make it but it was still a wonderful night filled with lots of laughs and great conversation!

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Our “happy hour” was supposed to last until 7 but some how at 11pm we found ourselves finishing dinner. Once again Raymi was perfect for a crowd and each bite was delicious. I especially loved the plantain chips, ceviche sampler, the steak, and their take on seafood paella. Their happy hour special for mojitos wasn’t bad either!

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What’s your favorite happy hour special?

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ashleyd /

30 Minute Treadmill Workout and BAMR Band Review

April showers brings May flowers eh? I feel like today was a reverse of that childhood rhyme as most of the April flowers were washed away with today’s heavy rain in New York City.

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As lovely as a speedy run along the East River sounded last night when I went to bed it didn’t quite happen this morning. I’m human and when I hear heavy raindrops on my window sill at 5:30am it makes rolling out of bed and lacing up my shoes 100x harder than normal. I rolled back over and enjoyed an extra hour of sleep along with a relaxing cup of hot coffee while getting ready this morning. It was such a nice treat but that also meant that my run needed to happen tonight after work. I’ve committed to keeping my health and fitness a priority over the next few weeks even when I have long, stressful days. Today was a perfect example. I wanted nothing more than to head home at 7:15 and enjoy a glass of wine. But, as I sip that wine I know it tastes better now than it would have sans workout!

As I’ve mentioned, my Equinox membership will be ending soon but tonight it served as the perfect place to do a quick workout. I only had 30 minutes for my run due to an 8pm work conference call. Therefore I knew I wanted something challenging that would also keep things interesting since I get VERY bored on the treadmill. It was a pretty simple workout but it helped me keep an average pace of 8:54 which is pretty speedy for a 30 minute run. I remember that last year this time I was feeling out of breath and challenged at a 9:40 pace!

Treadmill Progression Workout

I also had the chance to test out a fun, red chevron BAMR band during tonight’s run. Have you heard of BAMR bands? BAMR stands for Bad Ass Mother Runner and her bands are 7/8 inch non-slip headbands that support the Every Mother Counts charity! How cool is that? Katie sent me a band to test earlier this week and I couldn’t wait to try it!  Each headband is lined with velvet with helps keep it in place while the bright patterns keep things fun! Each headband is only $10 which is a great price compared to some other similar headbands on the market.

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How about you? Headband or not when you workout? If you’re on the headband train which one are you sporting these days?

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