Relaxing weekend just us two

Stamford is very cute during the winter. The whole city is lit up. This street, Bedford, is the cutest. 

Hello! Hope you had an awesome weekend. 

We went to Lucky’s for burgers on Friday and then we watched an old American college movie. Kinda stupid for my taste though.
On Saturday we woke up early as usual and then we walked over to the Athletic Club. Jim went swimming and I was at the gym doing cardio and used the weight machines. My inner thighs are on fire now, haha. After we had showered we wanted to take Thor for a walk to get coffee and bagels, but it was suddenly raining outside, so we took the car to a donut delight instead. Thor freaked out as always.
Jim had a phone call waiting around noon so I took Thor out and spent some time playing with him, and when the call was over we drove to Norwalk. We went to Home Depot to check floors, hahaha. Yup, we drove all the way there to look at wood floors, fake floors, carpets, tiles etc. Some time in the future (God knows when..) we will buy or build a house and we thought it could be a good idea to have some kind of sense on what’s out there and what it costs. Now we just need to remember all that for when the day comes:) 

After our adventure in the store, we were both starving so we drove a block north to a Mexican place that J had got recommended. Very happy with my order for two reasons: A) it was so yummy and spicy B) I first wanted to order the burrito but decided in the last second to order a rice and bean bowl which turned out to be a great decision cause the table next to us did order the burrito and it was humongous!! Really, I have never seen a burrito that big, it was the size of a large loaf of bread, I would have never been able to eat that. Now we know and next time we go there we can bring some people and share that thing:) 
In the afternoon, we walked over to Mill River Park. They have put up an ice rink there now and the Half Full Brewery has put up a big tent next to it. Very cute inside actually. We ordered a drink each but decided to go after that cause there were no seats. We walked over to Buffalo Wild Wings. We had fried cheese and drinks. Back at home we had some family playtime with Thor, then I watched the new Netflix movie “Dumplin”. Very cute movie (but very predictable) and awesome music (Dolly Parton!!!). 
It was raining all of Sunday. We had breakfast at a diner. Took Thor with us to Pet Smart to buy a Christmas gift for T and for our neighbor. Back home, I played God of War I until I was so tired that I went to the bedroom for a long nap. I only slept like 4.5 hours during the night and when I don’t get enough sleep I don’t really function. Jim was watching football with Thor. I woke up to pizza delivery, yum! After lots of football and some Hawaii Life on hgtv, it was time to end this weekend. 

We don’t always have the most exciting weekends, but to us it’s perfect. I think we have a good mix of fun activities and relaxed times when we can just focus on each other. Every since we first started to see each other 7.5 years ago, we have tried to have the weekends to just ourselves. Sometimes we end up spending time with friends, or back then I would work with the company or have rehearsals with choreographers on weekends, but mostly we take these days to ourselves. I love spending time with my husband, no matter what we do:)

it’s Lucia today

It’s Lucia today, December 13th. I’ve always loved this weird tradition we have in Sweden. If you look up who Lucia was, then it’s an Italian saint (just google her). But the Swedish tradition actually has nothing to do with the saint, it just happens to be that Lucia is remembered on Dec 13, the same day as the winter solstice. The Lucia celebration in Sweden seems to have history from Germany but has also developed throughout the years into what today is the Swedish tradition. It’s a woman in a white dress and candles on her head = she brings the light when it’s dark in Sweden. It’s now part of Christmas every year.
After Lucia and her little line of people (santas, gingerbread, terns and star boys ….wow, terrible google translate, haha, but I don’t know what else to call them) have come to sing and play music in schools or at work places in the morning of the 13th, everyone is usually having a morning fika together with saffron buns, gingerbread and glogg (Swedish mulled wine). It’s a cute tradition, but a little weird if you listen to what the lyrics in the songs are, a lot of them doesn’t make sense. I still sing them all through the whole month of December every year. I was in the choir my whole childhood and we sang the same things every Christmas, they still do. Although, I think some people in Sweden wants to get rid of this tradition or at least have boys to be the woman in the dress. I haven’t really followed the Lucia discussions so I don’t know what’s going on. Why change thing we like, is all I can ask…

I was chosen to be Lucia for the school in 5th grade, the first Lucia to
sing a
solo instead of reading a boring poem, which I was very proud of

Ice Skating at Rockefeller

I felt like crap yesterday after barely 4 hours of sleep during the night, so didn’t get much done all day, I was passed out. So no blogging. But  I’m feeling awesome today, so here is our fun Sunday, yay! 

We left the apartment and Thor (who got picked up by our neighbor shortly after), took an uber to train station and was on Manhattan around 10 am. We walked straight over to Rockefeller Center. There was long line to the ice rink but didn’t seem too bad (or so we thought). I have been talking about ice skating at Rockefeller since I came to NYC, since it’s on every list of things to do there. Every year we just kept saying “nah, we do it a different time, it’s too much people here” but now we really wanted to just get it done. Such a cold day and we had to wait 1.5 hour in line. The rink has it open in blocks of 1.5 hours (they need to fix the ice in between) and we got in 20 minutes before they would close it off for half an hour. They allow you to wait during this time and go on again when they open, but we were both cold and hungry so we ended up paying almost $100 to skate for twenty minutes. Oh well.

It was fun. I have not been ice skating since I was about 8-10 years old. I tried to remember if I went to a rink with school when I was like 14-15, it’s possible but I don’t think I was actually on the ice then. It’s amazing to me how the muscles and brain remembers how to do it. And what I mean by that is that I could totally remember that I was making 8’s and skating backwards, doing side steps, trying to do tricks, going really fast and being able to stop when I was a kid. Non of that was possible on Sunday of course. The ice was wobbly (since it was in the end of the session) and you have to be careful and respectful to the other people. So you go pretty slow and try not to fall. Jim’s right blade seemed to make him fall on the outside, he struggled a little, but what to expect, they probably don’t take care of the skates that well there. I thought it was fun though, even if it was just for 20 min. Now we can check that off the NYC bucket list 🙂 

After skating, we walked back to the Grand Central area and ate at the bar we’ve been to many times before, Perfect Pint. I ordered the shrimp salad as always. After lunch, we took the subway down to 23rd. We wanted to check off another thing on the must-do-in-nyc, the Rolf bar. They have crazy decorations in there. We’ve never been cause the line is always insane. It said on google that it wasn’t too busy so we thought we could give it a try. The line was loooong! So, nope. Another thing that tourists like to go to is Gramercy Tavern, an upscale fancy pants place. Not sure why that’s a huge thing but apparently it is. Luckily we got seats in the bar which was what we wanted. Jim wanted to order a beer for $22 (rated the best beer in the world, he has only tried it once before, it’s really hard to find) but unfortunately they didn’t have it which we expected so he had to pick something else. I ordered a hot chocolate with a giant marshmello to keep warm. 

We continued and walked to Flatiron and Madison Sq Park and from there we decided to go for a walk all the way up to Grand Central. At GC I quickly ran into the Swatch store to change battery on my watch. Free lifetime battery change, can’t beat that. We then walked over to 44th and 3rd to the Wheeltapper, cause they have a fireplace. They didn’t have it on, bummer. I was so cold so I ordered tea. We sat there for awhile until we decided to take the train home. We picked up Thor, ordered Chinese takeout and watched the Bears game. 

We had a lovely (but cold) day on Manhattan. Lots of people but not too crazy like it usually is around Christmas (I don’t understand why people come visit NYC in the winter). I’m happy we could check off from our NYC list. We don’t have that much left but we have to get it done this spring. 

a cold xmas day on Manhattan

We came home about an hour ago from a long day on Manhattan. We left at 8:40 am and came back around 7 pm. A very cold day in NYC and of course lots of people like every Christmas season. We had a really great day. Frozen but happy day. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow. Right now I’m going to do absolutely nothing on the couch next to Jim who’s watching the Bears game.

First frozen ground in Stamford this morning at 6:30am
Rockefeller Center“Fanny” 🙂 Flatiron BuildingEmpire State Building seen from 23rd Street