After an incredibly busy and frantic June, we came into July just back from California with me starting a new job and the summer in full effect in New York City.

RECAP OF THE MONTH

We arrived back from California on the last day of June and the very next day I started my new job at Citi. It reminded me a lot of when we first moved from California three years ago flying in and starting a new job. Luckily this was a lot less stressful and after joining a virtual off-site and a pretty light Friday we were already at a three-day weekend for July 4th. The weather was actually quite bad for most of the weekend so we stayed home, recovered from our California trip, and watched Wimbledon and some movies.

On Monday, July 5th we dropped off Frasier at Biscuits and Bath and went out for a date day. We started our morning at one of Jenn’s favorite spots in the city Restoration Hardware Restaurant and had a great breakfast/lunch of champagne, eggs, and toast, and grilled cheese. From there we grabbed an Uber to take us to Brooklyn where we hopped on a fairy to Governor’s Island.

This has been on our notepad of “things to do” for a while now and it was a perfect day to do it. The fairy ride over was maybe five minutes and we spent the next 3 hours walking around the island and taking in the beautiful surroundings and views of Manhattan. This is what Jenn I love to do, walk around take in historical spots, and just walking. I’ll never forget sitting at a bench for nearly an hour talking about where we’d like to travel in the coming years.

After getting dropped off from the fairy we walked ten minutes to our last stop of the day, Red Hook Winery. One of the things we both miss about California is having wineries within driving distance so it was nice to find this spot that brings in local wines from the east coast and brings them to this beautiful riverside spot to do tastings. Jenn had pre-booked so we got to try three whites, two reds, and a rose. Although the wine doesn’t come close to anything from Napa it was still a beautiful way to close out our date day and enjoy the AC.

The weather in early July continued to be terrible with massive rain storms almost every day for the first ten days of the month. One of my favorite rainy day activities was when Jenn booked us tickets to go to the Met Cloisters. Since we still have a car we try to use it as often as possible to go to nearby activities and this one was only a fifteen-minute drive. When we arrived it felt like we were two hours outside of the city at a beautiful Italian villa. We spent the next two hours walking around the beautiful museum. Jenn became completely mesmerized by the tapestry called The Hunt of the Unicorn. We actually went back to the room that contains several different tapestry’s that they believe make up the story that is called The Hunt of the Unicorn. It was quite spectacular. As we were leaving we couldn’t help but stop at the gift shop where Jenn picked up a 1,000 piece puzzle (quite ambitious).

One of the best evenings of the year so far was when we went to the Mondrian Park Avenue hotel to watch a live Frank Sinatra concert on their rooftop. We actually booked the tickets around the same day we signed the lease for our new apartment, so it’s been a long wait. We had such a great evening with great drinks, amazing music, and a picture-perfect evening. Going on a date like the one this evening almost felt normal again and for that, it made soaking up the moment even more special. I’ll never forget Jenn grooving to the music with a couple of cocktails in her without a care in the world. Those are really good moments that I’ll cherish.

The rest of July was pretty normal. Jenn did go meet a co-worker in Connecticut (either of our first times there) and we spent a lot of the time walking Frasier both to Central and Riverside Park. One of the most triumphant moments of the month (and maybe a year) was when Jenn was finally able to get our New York license plates for the Mercedes. It took her three attempts along with a number of phone calls and headaches but she preserved and did it. That was good timing because only two days later we dropped Frasier off at New York Tails and spent three nights at the Mandarin Oriental in Washington DC our first mini getaway since February of 2020. I have an entire post recapping the weekend but needless to say it felt great to get away and will be a weekend we won’t soon forget.

TV WE WATCHED

We watched a lot of TV this month, especially in the latter half. One of the highlights for sure was the return of Ted Lasso my favorite show from 2020. However, it just started to I should also mention that we loved the second season of Trying on Apple TV + as well as the new series Schimigadoon a musical also on Apple TV+.

We wrapped up the third season of The West Wing which continues to be amazing and at least so far are enjoying the new reboot/continuation of Gossip Girl. It was another great month of TV and that’s not even mentioning the excellent finale for For All Mankind and the new reality show Alone that we just started to watch.

BOOKS I READ (OR LISTENED TO)

I love reading. I look back on the four books that I read in July and just marvel at all the incredible stories and books I’ve read this year. I’ve always loved Jeffrey Archer so it was fun to go back and see where his career really took off with Kane and Abel. And although a lot of the books I’ve read of his heavily borrows from this one it was still a very enjoyable read. I thought The Psychology of Money was interesting although not overly enlightening book and Uprooted was a fun albeit disappointing second half.

My favorite book of the month hands down goes to The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper which could simply be described as lovely. From the onset of this story I fell in love with the world, the main character Arthur and his journey to recapture the love of his wife after she passed away. A truly special book and one that will be heavily considered towards the end of the year when I pick my favorites.

MOVIES WE WATCHED

We actually watched a fair number of movies this month. With COVID still going there are still movies that are coming to streaming and theaters. We’ve actually yet to go see a movie in a theater. We did watch the very entertaining and confusing No Sudden Move on HBO which we really enjoyed as well as the first stand-alone movie for Black Widow on Disney +. Continuing our tradition we watched Independence Day on you guessed it July 4th.

Really though my favorite movie of the month was watching Audrey Hepburn’s My Fair Lady on Netflix. Jenn and I loved the play when we saw it in 2019 and had never seen the movie version and it lived up to the hype. Just a delightful fun movie to watch on a rainy day.