2007 in Review
12/28/2007 03:36:00 PM Posted In 2007 in Review Edit This 3 Comments »
2007 has been an amazing year for us! We've been able to travel a lot and enjoy each other's company, and that of our family and friends. Here's what we have been up to this year:
January
I (Debi) turned 30 this last January and to celebrate we took our first Caribbean vacation together to the U.S. Virgin Islands. We had an amazing 10 days vacation. We stayed in the hills on St. Thomas
(this is the magnificent view from our hotel room, which overlooked the bay). We quickly found the ferry to a neighboring island, St. John and a secluded beach. It was amazing!
Once on St. John, we took a short 20-minute hike through a forested area and arrived at a mile-long secluded beach (shared with maybe 10 other people). This became our daily routine: ferry to St. John, short hike, laying on the beach all day, hike back to downtown St. John, ice cream and dinner on the beach, ferry back to St. Thomas. We did visit another beach as well but this was our favorite. We also visited a pirate museum and a preserved sugar / rum plantation house museum as well. One of our favorite activities was a day of sailing and snorkeling!
Lastly we also managed to make it out to the opera and saw
the world premiere of Tan Dun's (he did the music for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) the First Emperor. A really great opera!
February
After our big vacation we chilled out for February. We attended a super bowl party at our friend Eric's apartment and caught up with several old friends for dinner during the month.
March
There are a lot of family birthdays in March for both of us. My two sisters have birthdays as does David's brother. We decided to go down to North Carolina and surprise David's brother on his birthday. We worked out it all out with David's sister-in-law and managed to surprise Doug in the grocery store (Lizz picked us up at the airport under the pretense of running errands). We not only surprised him but also David's two nephews, who had no idea we were coming to spend the weekend. We had a great time! Check out the video here where David is calling his brother (pretending to be back in NYC) in the grocery store, one aisle away from him! (sorry in advance that I got so excited and forgot that I was filming!)
We also managed to see another opera in March by one of Debi's favorite composers, Richard Strauss. We saw the Agyptisches Helene with our friend Geoff. The staging was very modern but the production was great and innovative.
April
We both love the month of April, despite all the rain. We began the month on April Fool's Day by running the Scotland 10K race; both of us in skirts (David in a kilt and me in a tartan miniskirt)! We had a great time and it was such a beautiful day for the race. We ran it with two of our great friends (Eric and Mandi) as well. We also celebrated David's birthday by going to the cloisters with Dave and Suzanne to attend a reading of "Beowulf" in Old English. We then joined our friends at Swift's pub downtown for a "wee dram" and some ice cream in Washington Square Park afterwards.
May
In May we celebrated our four year anniversary and took another vacation together to celebrate. We spent five days in Santa Fe, New Mexico. David used to live in Santa Fe, so it was nice for me to see all of the landmarks and meet some of his old friends. The scenery is beautiful. We also treated each other to a day at the spa in the mountains!
Debi also managed to sneak off to the beach again this month when she went to Florida to attend a conference for work.
June
We celebrated the beginning of summer with lots of fun events in June. Several of our friends had parties this month including one rooftop party in the village and one birthday party on the beach! Debi also traveled again for work, this time going to Hartford, Connecticut for a conference. Debi was also on the radio this month and even got to answer questions from callers! David's brother, sister-in-law and nephews also came to town and stayed with us. We had fun showing the nephews our lightsabers! Check out this video of them dueling with the light-sabers (which, as we all know, can only end in tears). Debi also went to DC to see our friend's induction into the Foreign Service.
July
In July we focused on the beach and Harry Potter! We tried to spend as much time at the beach as possible this summer. In July, the OotP movie (Order of the Phoenix for non-Potter fans) came out and we saw it a couple of times. Also, the much anticipated book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out and we (David, Eric, Suzanne, Fran and I) stayed up until midnight to buy it at Borders (which included going in the morning to pick up a wristband to secure a place in line at midnight). Borders held a big party complete with a costume contest, music, face painting and tons of Potter fans milling about. We also went downtown to Potter Place; a huge one-block festival celebrating the book release (by the publishers Scholastic). After we all got our books, we parted ways to commence with the night reading of the book. David and I began reading over coffee at around 2AM, then stayed in bed for most of the next day and finished the 759 page book in less than 24 hours (and we STILL had a few friends...Bonnie, Suzanne who read it quicker than that!). From one obsession to another: We also managed to go see Wagner's last opera in the Ring Cycle (Gotterdamerung) performed by the Kirov opera by getting standing room tickets for this 6 hour opera. Boy, what a weekend! It will go down in history as the most fun 24 hours ever!
August
We continued our beach presence in August....my dad also came to NYC for five days and we enjoyed going around town and spending time with him. We went to a FABULOUS Yankees game (they won!), walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, ate pizza at Grimaldi's, went to the Times Square Church, went to the Top of the Rock (much better than Empire State Building in my opinion), went to the Met museum, saw the Bourne Ultimatum, went to the South Street Seaport, went to the Morgan Library and overall had a blast in the city!
David and I also managed (after several years of trying) to see a Shakespeare in the Park production. We saw "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and it was a great production. The funny thing was that we later recognized one of the actor's from the production in our favorite cafe (la Fortuna) and totally made his day.
September
More traveling in September! David and I flew out to Portland, Oregon to attend my niece's wedding. It was such a lovely wedding set in the Columbia River Gorge. We had such a great time catching up with everyone and celebrating this wonderful event! Here's a picture of us at the wedding.
October
This year we were blessed to be able to travel so much! In October, I (Debi) flew to Seattle and met up with my sister, and took the ferry to Victoria, Canada to run the Royal Victoria Half-Marathon! Despite room service difficulties the morning of the race and post-race sickness as a result of the delayed breakfast, the race went really well. The route was absolutely wonderful and followed the bay for several miles. After the race, Michelle and I had fun vegging out ordering room service and watching cable!
I also traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah for a week to attend a conference for work. I then made the first of many DC trips during the fall to see a Tori Amos concert. We also managed to make it out to the opera again this month and saw the new production of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met (really nice!)
October is also when the yearly GrantFry Halloween party occurs and this year was no exception! Dressed as a flapper girl and Dr. David Livingston (I presume), we decked out the place and enjoyed spending the holiday with friends. Our decorating included a life size skeleton secretively placed in the bathroom (that WAS FUN! heheeheee)! We also had a bit of wacky fun with Dave afterwards...
November
The key word for November was Washington, DC! I went to DC at the beginning of November to attend a conference and went back again for our friend's Kristen and Frank's 11th annual pre-Thanksgiving feast! David and I also went and saw the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (Debi for the first time)! We watched the balloons go by, then went to Cafe La Fortuna for cappuccino and biscotti. We then came home and passed out (David had worked the night before). We celebrated Thanksgiving, just the two of us complete with Tofurkey.
December
December started out with Debi having jury duty. We also celebrated the beginning of winter up at the cloisters with our friend, Jenny. This month we also welcomed Ellie (a lovely calico cat) into our lives (more on her in another post).
We celebrated Christmas with just the two of us and decorated our apartment for the first time with our own tree. We saw our last opera of the year with our friend Geoff (we saw Prokofiev's War and Peace). We welcomed in 2008 at our friend Sara and Shannon's party and we are definitely looking forward to another great year together!
January
I (Debi) turned 30 this last January and to celebrate we took our first Caribbean vacation together to the U.S. Virgin Islands. We had an amazing 10 days vacation. We stayed in the hills on St. Thomas
(this is the magnificent view from our hotel room, which overlooked the bay). We quickly found the ferry to a neighboring island, St. John and a secluded beach. It was amazing!Once on St. John, we took a short 20-minute hike through a forested area and arrived at a mile-long secluded beach (shared with maybe 10 other people). This became our daily routine: ferry to St. John, short hike, laying on the beach all day, hike back to downtown St. John, ice cream and dinner on the beach, ferry back to St. Thomas. We did visit another beach as well but this was our favorite. We also visited a pirate museum and a preserved sugar / rum plantation house museum as well. One of our favorite activities was a day of sailing and snorkeling!
Lastly we also managed to make it out to the opera and saw
the world premiere of Tan Dun's (he did the music for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) the First Emperor. A really great opera!
February
After our big vacation we chilled out for February. We attended a super bowl party at our friend Eric's apartment and caught up with several old friends for dinner during the month.
March
There are a lot of family birthdays in March for both of us. My two sisters have birthdays as does David's brother. We decided to go down to North Carolina and surprise David's brother on his birthday. We worked out it all out with David's sister-in-law and managed to surprise Doug in the grocery store (Lizz picked us up at the airport under the pretense of running errands). We not only surprised him but also David's two nephews, who had no idea we were coming to spend the weekend. We had a great time! Check out the video here where David is calling his brother (pretending to be back in NYC) in the grocery store, one aisle away from him! (sorry in advance that I got so excited and forgot that I was filming!)
We also managed to see another opera in March by one of Debi's favorite composers, Richard Strauss. We saw the Agyptisches Helene with our friend Geoff. The staging was very modern but the production was great and innovative.
April
We both love the month of April, despite all the rain. We began the month on April Fool's Day by running the Scotland 10K race; both of us in skirts (David in a kilt and me in a tartan miniskirt)! We had a great time and it was such a beautiful day for the race. We ran it with two of our great friends (Eric and Mandi) as well. We also celebrated David's birthday by going to the cloisters with Dave and Suzanne to attend a reading of "Beowulf" in Old English. We then joined our friends at Swift's pub downtown for a "wee dram" and some ice cream in Washington Square Park afterwards.
May
In May we celebrated our four year anniversary and took another vacation together to celebrate. We spent five days in Santa Fe, New Mexico. David used to live in Santa Fe, so it was nice for me to see all of the landmarks and meet some of his old friends. The scenery is beautiful. We also treated each other to a day at the spa in the mountains!
Debi also managed to sneak off to the beach again this month when she went to Florida to attend a conference for work.
June
We celebrated the beginning of summer with lots of fun events in June. Several of our friends had parties this month including one rooftop party in the village and one birthday party on the beach! Debi also traveled again for work, this time going to Hartford, Connecticut for a conference. Debi was also on the radio this month and even got to answer questions from callers! David's brother, sister-in-law and nephews also came to town and stayed with us. We had fun showing the nephews our lightsabers! Check out this video of them dueling with the light-sabers (which, as we all know, can only end in tears). Debi also went to DC to see our friend's induction into the Foreign Service.
July
In July we focused on the beach and Harry Potter! We tried to spend as much time at the beach as possible this summer. In July, the OotP movie (Order of the Phoenix for non-Potter fans) came out and we saw it a couple of times. Also, the much anticipated book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out and we (David, Eric, Suzanne, Fran and I) stayed up until midnight to buy it at Borders (which included going in the morning to pick up a wristband to secure a place in line at midnight). Borders held a big party complete with a costume contest, music, face painting and tons of Potter fans milling about. We also went downtown to Potter Place; a huge one-block festival celebrating the book release (by the publishers Scholastic). After we all got our books, we parted ways to commence with the night reading of the book. David and I began reading over coffee at around 2AM, then stayed in bed for most of the next day and finished the 759 page book in less than 24 hours (and we STILL had a few friends...Bonnie, Suzanne who read it quicker than that!). From one obsession to another: We also managed to go see Wagner's last opera in the Ring Cycle (Gotterdamerung) performed by the Kirov opera by getting standing room tickets for this 6 hour opera. Boy, what a weekend! It will go down in history as the most fun 24 hours ever!
August
We continued our beach presence in August....my dad also came to NYC for five days and we enjoyed going around town and spending time with him. We went to a FABULOUS Yankees game (they won!), walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, ate pizza at Grimaldi's, went to the Times Square Church, went to the Top of the Rock (much better than Empire State Building in my opinion), went to the Met museum, saw the Bourne Ultimatum, went to the South Street Seaport, went to the Morgan Library and overall had a blast in the city!
David and I also managed (after several years of trying) to see a Shakespeare in the Park production. We saw "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and it was a great production. The funny thing was that we later recognized one of the actor's from the production in our favorite cafe (la Fortuna) and totally made his day.
September
More traveling in September! David and I flew out to Portland, Oregon to attend my niece's wedding. It was such a lovely wedding set in the Columbia River Gorge. We had such a great time catching up with everyone and celebrating this wonderful event! Here's a picture of us at the wedding.
October
This year we were blessed to be able to travel so much! In October, I (Debi) flew to Seattle and met up with my sister, and took the ferry to Victoria, Canada to run the Royal Victoria Half-Marathon! Despite room service difficulties the morning of the race and post-race sickness as a result of the delayed breakfast, the race went really well. The route was absolutely wonderful and followed the bay for several miles. After the race, Michelle and I had fun vegging out ordering room service and watching cable!
I also traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah for a week to attend a conference for work. I then made the first of many DC trips during the fall to see a Tori Amos concert. We also managed to make it out to the opera again this month and saw the new production of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Met (really nice!)
October is also when the yearly GrantFry Halloween party occurs and this year was no exception! Dressed as a flapper girl and Dr. David Livingston (I presume), we decked out the place and enjoyed spending the holiday with friends. Our decorating included a life size skeleton secretively placed in the bathroom (that WAS FUN! heheeheee)! We also had a bit of wacky fun with Dave afterwards...
NovemberThe key word for November was Washington, DC! I went to DC at the beginning of November to attend a conference and went back again for our friend's Kristen and Frank's 11th annual pre-Thanksgiving feast! David and I also went and saw the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (Debi for the first time)! We watched the balloons go by, then went to Cafe La Fortuna for cappuccino and biscotti. We then came home and passed out (David had worked the night before). We celebrated Thanksgiving, just the two of us complete with Tofurkey.
December
December started out with Debi having jury duty. We also celebrated the beginning of winter up at the cloisters with our friend, Jenny. This month we also welcomed Ellie (a lovely calico cat) into our lives (more on her in another post).
We celebrated Christmas with just the two of us and decorated our apartment for the first time with our own tree. We saw our last opera of the year with our friend Geoff (we saw Prokofiev's War and Peace). We welcomed in 2008 at our friend Sara and Shannon's party and we are definitely looking forward to another great year together!
3 comments:
Looks like 2007 was a great year for you guys. I hope 2008 brings more of the same!
Me too! I think 2008 will be all about change (for lots of people) and we are really looking forward to it!
:) DF
Can I trade my 2007? Yours looks like it was SO much better. Where can I get my refund?
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