Emma Summer Lucyk - 6.18.2000 - 9.26.2010

Our beloved family dog, Emma, went to doggy heaven yesterday. It was so sad to see her go but just reminded me of all the great times we had with her.

Like the time I put knit gloves on her paws and made her walk on tile floor. This was the beginning of her phobia of glossy flooring whereby she refused to walk over it unless there were rugs spaced at regular intervals to give her some traction.

You can't really argue that I wasn't Emma's favorite, since I'm the only one that walked her regularly. Here we are cuddling on the floor before I left home last year. I always made sure to say goodbye like it might be the last time because she was getting older...

Ok, maybe Dad is her favorite...


I have no doubt that there was promise of food in order to get this photo.

Here are some photos of her yesterday right before they had to let her go:



She really does look like she's in heaven in this photo.


Miss you, Emma girl!

18 Miles and counting!

Hey there friends. Sorry for the 2 week lapse in posts. I should be more diligent. Just wanted to share with you the fun run that Taylor and I did last weekend. You can see from the map below that we ran the entire perimeter of Manhattan, about 18 miles! We did the run on Friday night, so since it was September 10th, they already had two spotlights out in honor of September 11th. So that was pretty cool.

A perfect Coney Island Friday

Since the summer is winding to a close (blasphemy, I know!), Taylor and I decided to spend Friday night checking another item off of our New York Summer Bucket List. We went out to Coney Island to eat some yummy food, ride the cyclone, and watch the Brooklyn Cyclones (minor league team of the Mets).

Despite some trepidation due to the potential of Hurriane Early to hit on Friday, the weather and experience actually turned out to be perfect. Here are some fun photos!

First things first, Nathan's Hot Dogs! Nathan's is home to the annual (and now infamous) hot-dog-eating contest. We managed to down 2 in just over 15 mintues, do you think we qualify?
After filling our tummies with all 5 food groups (hot dogs: meat; bun: grains; fries: veggie; cheese sauce: dairy and beans: the magical fruit, right? I crack myself up), we headed over to the game. I was pumped because the giveaway for the first 2,500 fans was Brooklyn Cyclones Silly Bandz. I had not yet hopped on the silly bandz-wagon, if you will, so I figured what better time than when they were free! We got there just as the game was starting and even though they hadn't run out yet, the Beach Bums (that's what the cheerleaders for the Cyclones are called....I guess because the stadium is on the beach) were leaving with the remaining bandz just as we arrived. But my loyal husband was kind enough to chase down the retreating jail-bait for some silly bandz, isn't he sweet??

Here are a few of them:
From left to right, a batter, MCU (the stadium name), and this thing, the Coney Island Parachute Jump.

Here are some photos from the game:

Those clouds in the background are Earl...and despite the fact that it never rained, they cancelled the planned fireworks due to high winds. But, we did get a consolation prize: running the bases!! Taylor was so excited when they announced it. I told him we could go if there was anyone else over the age of 12 lined up to do it :) Turns out EVERYONE wanted to run the bases, kids and parents alike. So here are some photos of Taylor's first running of the bases at a baseball game (that he can remember):

The excitement builds as we head toward the field...
Heading for second...
Approaching home plate (sliding was strictly prohibited or he definitely would have done it)...
We scored a run!
And of course, any good run must be followed by...FUNNEL CAKE (we actually had ice cream before this too, full disclosure)...

Garmin + Me = LOVE

As some of you may know, last Saturday was Taylor's 26th birthday. You may also know that we are training for the Chicago Marathon on October 10 (the date is 10/10/10, in case you find that sort of thing interesting). So, Taylor's parents decided to get Taylor a GPS watch by Garmin for his birthday. I have to say, I love this gift as much as, if not more than, Taylor himself does. While I've always fallen into the Tom Tom camp when it comes to vehicular GPS devices, Garmin makes a stellar GPS watch.

The whole idea of the watch is to track your running via satellite, just like the GPS for your car. This allows you to track your distance, route, pace, elevation changes, and many other statistics related to your run. We've tried our watch out a few times and I really love it. Here are just some of the cool features:

• You can program it to ring at specific distance intervals, so ours chimes every quarter mile.
• The watch displays your current pace and (optionally) your average pace for the run. I find this really helpful for both long runs and faster workouts.
• The watch really does track your movements almost to the foot. I have noticed that even when I run on a different side of the street than I did previously, it notices.
• The watch also comes with a wireless hear monitor (which we have yet to use).
  
• You can program the watch to be your "virtual partner." This means that you can tell it ahead of time how fast you want to go for the run, and the watch will keep track of how far ahead or behind you are of you goal pace. Here's a shot of the screen (on a stranger's arm). The little guy on top shows if you are ahead or behind your goal. The bottom tells you by how many feet you are ahead/behind (black means behind, white would mean ahead).
  
• Here's an example of the type of data we can download after our runs. This is from our run today which was Taylor's longest run ever, 16.75 miles! One issue with the Garmin, especially in the city, is that it has trouble loading satellites when it is near tall buildings or trees. That's why our run only shows 16 miles, we didn't get satellite service until about .75 miles into our run.
  
  The run was really fun, we ran all the way from our apartment, up to the George Washington Bridge, and back. So basically you could say we ran to New Jersey and back. Good times!
  

A big thanks to the Smiths for this great gift! Hopefully it will help us hit our goal for 4 hours for the marathon!!

Weekend in Michigan/Ohio - Recap

A couple of weeks ago, Taylor and I headed to Ohio/Michigan to visit my fam, so I thought I'd post a quick recap. It was a VERY busy weekend but we had fun!

Friday
We woke up at about 4am on Friday to get to the airport by 5:15 for our 6:10 flight. My mom picked us up from the airport at about 8am and we went and had brunch with my Grandma Lucyk at Bob Evans (always a fave!). After spending some time with Grandma Lucyk, we headed to Ann Arbor so Taylor could check out their business school. It was a beautiful day and the campus, the business school, and the surrounding area were all really nice. I have to say the highlight of Ann Arbor, though, was when we first drove in to what might be considered the "collegey" part of town and the first thing we see is a guy wearing no shirt with a beard and a hairy chest. He walked out of his front door, stood on his porch and did the best crazy-college-guy-just-waking-up-after-a-bender stretch. All I could think was "we have entered college-ville."

After visiting Michigan, we headed to Toledo just in time to take a quick nap before heading out for dinner to celebrate my birthday with my family. We went to my FAVORITE place in Toledo, an Italian restaurant called Zia's. I'm not sure how great the rest of Zia's food is, but their pizza's are AMAZING. There were 7 of us (Mom, Dad, me, Taylor, Garett, Taryn and her boyfriend Aaron), and we polished off two of their huge meat-lovers pizzas pretty easily. Here are some good photos from dinner.

My birthday present was a charm bracelet from Brighton!
The sibs
Sibs + significant others
The whole fam outside the restaurant on the mighty Maumee River. That's downtown Toledo in the background.

By Friday night we were super tired from being up at 4am so we went to sleep pretty early!

Saturday
Saturday morning, Taylor and I got up and went for a 10 mile run through Perrysburg, Maumee and Toledo. It was a nice day, but I didn't feel that great on the run.

After the run we grabbed lunch at a great little Mediterranean place in dowtown Perrysburg and then headed home to clean up. On Saturday afternoon, we headed up to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Michigan for my cousin's son's first birthday (I think that makes him my second cousin). Ethan was born last August and this was the first time I got to meet him, so that was really nice. I also got to meet my cousin Vicki's (Ethan's Mom's) husband Herschel. And THEN I got to meet my cousin Stacey's boyfriend Pete. The gang was all there!

The party was really a good time and the weather was great. After that, we headed home and spent the evening playing games and just hanging out.

Sunday
On Sunday, we spent the day at our friends the Monroes' cottage on Archer Lake in Michigan. My mom knows how much I miss being able to just go hang out at the lake, so she did a great job arranging for a full day of fun in the sun and on the water. Thanks, Mom!

We got there at around 10am and proceeded to lay in the sun, float on rafts in the lake, kayak, ride waverunners, go out on the boat, you name it! Taylor went tubing and kneeboarding too and he did a great job!

I think one of my favorite parts of the day was when we all piled in the boat and headed over to "the sandbar." On most lakes, the sandbar is the place where all the boats dock so that people can lay out and then jump in the water. Typically there's lots of drinking going on and some of the boats are playing music making it an all-out party. And this was no exception! In fact, they even had a "stage" which was effectively a pontoon boat with a HUGE sound system and they were blasting music! When we first pulled up, Kid Rock was playing which is just TOO funny for those of you who know is song "All Summer Long," which is basically a homage to this very culture in Michigan. We spent some time there tossing a frisbee and watching the drunk people try to dance in knee-deep water, it was awesome! Here's the only photo I could dig up:

We ate dinner shortly after the party and headed home after that, totally pooped but happy!

Monday
On Monday morning, we continued the marathon weekend by getting up at 4am AGAIN in order to make out 6:30 flight back to New York.

Thanks to my family and the Monroes for a great weekend!

Technology is amazing...

So, as you know, Taylor and I are training for the Chicago Marathon on 10/10/10. Well, I've been a little bit busy lately and haven't been able to blog as much as I like. I did however take some time to map our 15-mile run we did last weekend. Then, I found out that our good friends at Google have 3D video of the ENTIRE WORLD and can show you a 3-d video of the route we run. Here it is. Just to give you an overview, we basically did a lap in central park (the first 5 miles) and then ran down Park Avenue (the fast part) all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge and back. Enjoy!

Checking things off the [New York] Bucket List

I'd like to interrupt this woefully boring blog for which I have no one but myself to blame to update you on our summer in New York thus far. First of all, my excuse for being so boring since we got back from our trip to Australia and Indonesia (and for taking more than a month to recap said trip for heaven's sake!) is that it been "unseasonably" (read, MISERABLY) HOT in New York this summer. Take a look at this report I downloaded from Weather.com. In the last 3 weeks, 12 days have had highs over 90 (red boxes)!

Not to mention that Taylor and I live on the 5th floor of a building with no elevator in an apartment that gets freakishly hot without air conditioning AND we're also attempting to train for a marathon in this weather. Good grief!

Anyway, I'll stop my whining there to tell you about some fun experiences we have had since I stopped being a good blogger :)

I'll start with a trip to the legendary Carnegie Deli, but first, the backstory. One of the guests at our wedding, a friend of Taylor's mother who lives in New York, gave us a fantastic wedding gift of a 1-year "Young Professionals" membership to the Manhattan Theater Club. With that, we get 2 tickets to each of their shows this year complete with a "lounge" hour before the show with free wine and snacks :) Good times!

So a few weeks ago we decided to check out our first show. Since the theater happens to be near the famous Carnegie Deli, we decided to check it out. The place was on Taylor's New York Bucket List (NYBL), though I have to admit not on mine. I wasn't even quite sure why the place is famous until we got there, and I was underwhelmed when I looked at their menu which had 3 strikes against it: 1) Cash only 2) Not very many menu options and 3) Expensive. It wasn't until we arrived and a server walked by with one of their "sandwiches" that I had even an inkling of why this place was such a big deal. And. Then. I. Knew. It was without a doubt the biggest "sandwich" that I have ever seen. And I use "sandwich" in quotations because one of the most popular dishes at Carnegie Deli is their open face pastrami sandwich (their pastrami is world-renowned and - I can testify - delicious). But this is no typical open faced sandwich. Sure it has all of the contents of the sandwich on top of the bread, but in this case what you have is about 2.5 lbs worth of pastrami topped with sauerkraut and swiss on top of what might as well be a saltine cracker. It's like an elephant sitting on a playing card, seriously! Taylor and I split just one of those suckers, which set us back $23 which is a bargain when you actually see the thing.
I'm ashamed to admit that we polished off the sandwich and made a valiant effort at their famous cheesecake which, thankfully, is not as gargantuan as their "sandwiches." Oh, and the play afterward was good too.

Moving right along to the second NYBL item of this post, Shakespeare in the Park. Last weekend, it was (shockingly) really hot and I was also feeling pretty sick. So we bailed on our long run which was supposed to happen that morning and pretty much laid around all day. We even napped for a couple of hours in the afternoon, it was fantastic. At 6pm, we finally got around to checking our phones and realized we had an e-mail from a friend saying that they had gotten up early, got to Central Park at 6am, and waited 7 hours to score tickets to Shakespeare in the Park, an annual tradition every summer which I had resigned to never participate in because I am not willing to spend 7 hours in line in 90 degree weather. Well, bless their hearts, our friends were allowed to get 2 tickets each to see The Winter's Tale and asked if we would like to join them. We of course could not believe our good fortune and immediately agreed!

The show took place in the beautiful Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The theater is outdoors and holds about 2,000 people. The back of the stage opens on to a secluded part of a pond in Central Park so it's really beautiful and worked well for The Winter's Tale, which has quite a few outdoor scenes. Of course, I did not know anything about the number of outdoor scenes or, heck, the plot of The Winter's Tale before arriving at the show and studying the absolutely-necessary-for-understanding-Shakespeare plot synopsis in the playbook. I mean, without that thing, it's virtually impossible to follow Shakespearean dialog.

But follow we did and it was actually a really entertaining show. It even featured a newly famous actor, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, from a show that Taylor and I have taken quite a liking to, Modern Family and another Jesse from Law & Order. All in all a great experience. I think Amanda reads this blog, so just wanted to say THANKS for the tickets and we will happily stand in line next year!!

Vacation Recap, Part 3

Whew, this is a marathon, not a sprint, that's for sure! :)

So last time, I wrapped up after telling you all about our weekend in Sydney. After Sydney, we headed back to Melbourne for more Australian adventures. On Monday, Kim and Will had to work, so Taylor and I picked up a rental car and hit the (left side of) the open road! Here we are with our rental car, which we nicknamed "Yarra."

That's Taylor driving on the left. Notice his awesome $2 Aussie Socceroos scarf!


We hit the road and I could tell you all about it, but the photos really speak for themselves. Basically, we spent the entire day driving away from Melbourne, culminating in views of the beautiful Apostle Islands. Then, we headed back on an inland highway.

Taylor was so happy to see the beach!

A beautiful little lagoon

This plant is appropriately called "Neptune's necklace"


The beautiful coastline and a lighthouse from the distance.


Standing by said lighthoue. My mom says this photo looks like it could have been taken in Michigan, I kinda agree!


We took this of ourselves with the camera timer, not bad!


Beautiful view of the Apostle Islands. They were formed when the waves eroded all of the coastline except these rocks because they were made of a more durable mineral.


Another view of the islands.

Aaaaand I'm tired! :) More to come!

Vacation Recap Part 2!

Before my memory officially fades, I want to take time to recap, at least to some extent, the Australia portion of our trip.

We left Indonesia on a Wednesday at 4:30pm. There aren't many direct flights to Melbourne, Australia from Surabaya, Indonesia, so we actually had to fly back to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which is north to head to Australia, which is south. Not to mention, we had a pretty long layover in Kuala Lumpur just to board our flight to Australia, which took off around midnight and got to Melbourne at 11am on Thursday. Needless to say, we were a little bit tired after our overnight flight and basically headed straight to our friend Kim and Will's apartment (after Will so kindly waited for us at the train station) for a shower and some relaxing.

That night, we met Kim and Will for a wine tasting event in downtown Melbourne. It was very classy and a lot of fun, a great way to start off our time in Australia.

Now, seeing as we were all the way in Australia after all, we decided that we should try to see as much as we could. Unfortunately, some of the more famous (and remote) parts of Australia, such as the Outback and the Great Barrier Reef, weren't really in the cards for our 8-day trip, but we were able to squeeze in a trip to Sydney, which we left for promptly at 6am Friday morning. It actually worked out quite well in that Kim had to go to Sydney for the weekend for work, which came with some perks including free taxis, a built-in hotel recommendation with some generous subsidies, and a very entertaining and not at ALL proud Australian co-worker...oh, and Kim having to work all weekend (that was actually a bummer)!

Anyway, we got to Sydney around 10am on Friday and realized we wouldn't be able to check in to our hotel for a few hours, so Taylor and I decided to get right at it and head out to an area I'd heard about called the Cliff Walk from Bondi to Coogee beach. We opted to head to Coogee first to get some fish and chips. We took a bus there and no sooner had we set foot at the bus station than it started pouring rain. Bummer. It would not stop raining for any significant amount of time for our entire time in Sydney but that's neither here nor there.

We did in fact eat some fish and chips in Coogee, despite what this photo shows.

We then attempted to take the 5K walk to Bondi Beach but were thwarted about 1/4 of the way through due to torrential downpours. We decided to head back to the hotel and thaw out/rest up for the evening. That evening we went out to dinner in Chinatown and were later joined by Will who came in after work on Friday.

Saturday actually started out really nice so we rushed out to see the sights as early as we possible could. We managed to take in a good portion of Sydney while the weather was still nice. here are some highlights:

Bats in the Botanical Gardens
A view of the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House

Downtown Sydney
A quaint little area of Sydney known as the Rocks
and Liter beers...always a bonus!
On our way back to the hotel after the beers, we also spotted this iconic Australian image

Saturday night we headed back to downtown Sydney and saw some amazing sights by night. We even found a fabulous rooftop restaurant with views of the harbor.

Even from the toilet, I'm serious, I took this shot from the pot!
Sunday we went to an Australian Rules Football game. I cannot even begin to describe this sport, but suffice to say that it was very entertaining even though the Sydney Swans defeated our new hometown team, the Essendon Bombers of Melbourne.

After the game we grabbed dinner in Sydney with Kim before catching our flight back to Melbourne.

Whew! That was longer than I meant for it to be! I think I'll wrap up this post and resume later with photos/tales from our trip to the Great Ocean Road.