Excuses, excuses

Whether it be to celebrate a friend's birthday, catch a Cyclones game or two, or do a little shopping, there is always an excuse to return to Brooklyn.

Birthday fun outdoors!

Some of Liam's Brooklyn buddies!

Lots of water games, hence Liam in the same swimsuit.

(I don't think he has worn much of anything else this summer.)

Cool mural at the Brooklyn Cyclones' stadium

"Meet the Players" event 

(Make no mistake, these guys are huge.)

At bat, Jose Reyes of the New York Mets
(recovering from an injury)

Jose Reyes coming into home 

(He did what he could for the Cyclones, but they lost anyway.)

 Air guitar to a Jonas Brothers song 

(It was "Summer Camp" day and the stadium was loaded with elementary school-aged children.)

 Daddy and the team mascot

(nearing the end of the game when the summer camp children had already exited)

House slippers, water shoes, flip flops, Chinese fans, hummus, baklava, halva, smoked almonds and dried apricots (from my favorite Turkish deli), toy cars and one pink shirt for mama (picked out by Liam)

 My sentiments exactly!

Birthday weekend wishes

My husband got his birthday wishes granted this past weekend. He got the BBQ, homemade cookies and the next morning, he got his pancake breakfast. It was completed with a trip to an inventor's event. Big deal, you say? Read on.

Day One - Friday Evening

Firstly, we grilled Australian lamb on Friday (The meat had been marinating all morning in a mix of grated garlic and onion, lemon, rosemary and thyme, and freshly ground black pepper. I also brought the meat almost to room temperature before grilling to ensure tenderness. The salt was added just before grilling so as to not toughen up the meat.). I served it with succotash on the side. Odd pairing, but tasty combo.

I made the succotash from grilled veggies: corn, zucchini, red bell pepper, onion, unsalted butter, salt and pepper. It was adapted from a R.R. recipe I found in this month's magazine.

We had Star Wars themed cookies for dessert.

The dough was terribly sticky and I'm pretty sure I followed the recipe exactly (actually I halved it). It felt like it needed more flour. Decorating them was tricky. It required time, the right equipment, and much needed common sense, all of which I didn't have. I made a glaze instead of icing because I didn't want to use raw egg whites. That's probably where I first when wrong.

 They were meant to look like this. I cannot show you my finished product for fear of embarrassment. Hence the stock pic of the cookies.

These were, by far, the best ones of the lot.

Day Two - Saturday Morning

 On Saturday, we had a pancake breakfast with Star Wars themed pancakes. Again, I cannot show you the finished product for fear of embarrassment. Apparently, I can't even make pancakes right. The batter stuck to the molds making them difficult to come off and the temperature was too high, so they turned out a little too brown. So, stock pic here. Next time, I will spray them down with some oil spray for baking, even though the molds already claim to be nonstick.

Day Three - Sunday Afternoon

 Then on Sunday we took a drive over to Williamsburg in Brooklyn for the Red Bull Creation event.

It was an event where inventors had to produce a motorized vehicle of some sort (without using fossil fuels) in just 72 hours. Bill was in geek heaven. The winner was this enormous one-word text message printer (think dot-matrix printer). One of my favorites was an adult-sized see-saw or teeter-totter that spun around.

This was Liam's favorite.
You could drive while lying on a hammock!

Another favorite of ours was this 3D printer! Here Liam is holding a blue guy that was produced by this printer. Also available in red, orange and yellow. Each sold separately. Around $1,600

Taking in the sights and sounds of the event.

Did I mention how uncomfortably hot it was this past Sunday?

Here, with the Empire State Building in the background.

At this point, Liam was pretty much begging to go home...

...until he saw this big truck!

Liam and mama danced to the audio-visual mixings of these guys, Eclectic Method.

Liam and mama also stayed in the shade most of the time by this mural... 

 ...where he created this piece (with a little help from mama)...

...and I created this one.

Here he is hammering out the last details. There's even a you tube video of Liam at the mural! He is seen in the beginning at 16 seconds and then again at 21 seconds. He's the cutie in the red shirt, of course. 

 In the end, my husband and I both agreed that this little boy is our favorite creation.

Thanks be to God for our miracle baby boy!

 We ended that weekend with a brief visit with some old friends, the Herreras.

We stood in front of the door to our old apartment and reminisced for a few minutes.

Oh yeah, we also needed to pick up a package that was wrongly delivered to our old address.

All in all, it was a fun birthday weekend. Here's to many, many more birthday celebrations.

Take me out...

...to the ball game... A minor league game, but nevertheless, a baseball game played by professional athletes. Last night, we went to see the Brooklyn Cyclones play the Hudson Valley Renegades at Coney Island courtesy of one of my husband's Park Slope friends who has season tickets.

Yes! We were THAT close! Right behind home plate! Yippee!

We stuffed our faces with all sorts of ballpark food and even had room for the Cracker Jack.

It was "Medieval Times" Night at the ballpark.

It takes a really special daddy to go along with the fun and wear the paper crown, for Liam's sake, of course.

We even got our cheeks painted. Liam was a little spooked by the clown (who isn't afraid of clowns when they are THIS close?), but he was brave and stood perfectly still. I can't imagine though, what must have been going through Liam's mind as he stared at this clown painting his little cheek. 

Liam got a baseball and I went the Brooklyn Cyclones logo. How silly of me, I know, but I guess I'm hoping Liam will see me as a cool mommy.

At bat is Burt Reynolds, but not the one you are thinking. I guess this man's mama was a huge fan of the actor.

Every time he was up, they put up a different picture of the actor Burt Reynolds on the board. Hilarious!

Liam with the team mascot. Don't you just love that they are wearing the same sneakers?

One last pic before heading home. It was getting late and the Cyclones were losing anyway. You can't blame them, though. You should have seen the size of those Renegades.

Even though we have moved out of Brooklyn, we always seem to find an excuse to go back. With fun like this to be had, who could resist? All in all, though, we had a fun night! Thanks to the generosity of friends. 

Things I will miss about living in Brooklyn

(I started this post a while ago hoping that I would be able to add a few more thoughts and post it before packing up my computer for the big move. There was just so much packing, not to mention the fact that we were still in the middle of getting the house in move-in-ready condition, that there was little time to think about sitting down to get in a blog post. Now that we finally got the computer set up and everything, and everyone is asleep, here's my big chance to finally finish this post.)

I never knew this day would actually come. I always thought we would stay here and be the ones to see people off. Yet, we are the ones leaving.

Before I get into the list of the things I will miss about my neighborhood here in Brooklyn, let me just say that there are definitely things that we will NOT miss, so let me get those out of the way before I proceed. I will not miss alternate side of the street parking regulations. Bundling up Liam in the morning during the cold winter months for three years was a real sacrifice. We are also very happy to leave behind the cigarette smoke that seeps into our bedroom from our upstairs neighbor's apartment. Oh! Our creeky floors! Just about every floor board in our apartment creeks, I kid you not. Goodbye to the world's tiniest kitchen! Amazing how much we were able to cram in there. We are also very happy not to have to listen to the blaring music and smell the exhaust fumes from the cars waiting at the traffic light. Yuck.

We take the good with the bad, as they say. Needless to say there is so much more that I will miss about our neighborhood in Brooklyn. You know that I am a Queens girl. I was born there and I lived there practically my whole life. I never expected to like living anywhere else, except maybe Manhattan, of course. Not that my old neighborhood in Queens was spectacular, far from it, but I did really like living in Brooklyn, hence the reason why I am posting this. I came here as a newlywed to live in my husband's bachelor pad. I had our baby here in Brooklyn. This New York City borough, this neighborhood in particular, will always hold a special place in my heart.

I will miss:

• Shore Road
• walking along the promenade
• the fantastic views of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge
• watching the military ships come in for Fleet Week and how they majestically salute NYC
• kite flying at the park off the Belt Parkway
• the nearby playgrounds (the favorite being the one on Shore Road with the fantastic views of the bay)
• the nearby Church bells that play hymns at 12, 3 and 6.
• all the great stores that are all walking distance to our apartment (I'm pretty sure that I will never have a Century 21 walking distance ever again.)
• the one of a kind mom and pop shops
• the Haagen Daz with the cool jukebox
• the florist with the fun storefront window
• the comic book store that both my husband and Liam love so much
• the Halal food vendor car that my husband can't get enough of
• sitting with Liam at our favorite stoop to wait for the school children to be let out (just so that Liam can pretend to be in their class)
• walking over to the train station to wait for daddy
• the kid that plays his bagpipes on his front porch
• Noodles and Puppet! (the doggies that live down the block)
• chasing the Mr. Softee truck down the streets
• our favorite eateries: Pizza Wagon, Casa Calamari, Plaka, Hinsch's, Off Shore Diner, Fuel, Bagel Boy, Falafel King, Karam, Viva Latin Bistro, Tuscany Grill, Sophia's, Areo...
• our super clean apartment building (and the treasures we have acquired from the recycling room!!)
• having an elevator
• our walk-in closet (will I ever have one again?!)
• our extra long cast iron tub (aaaaahhhhh!!!!!)
• our ward

Most of all, we will miss our neighbors and friends terribly. You hear people say that  "Home is where the heart is". Well, a piece of my heart will always be here in this fabulous neighborhood, so I will always consider it home.

June, Emily, Shawna, Martha, Melanie, Lindsay (Naomi, not pictured)