A few weekends ago we went to New York City for the weekend to celebrate with our New York City friends over a beautiful private dinner with a menu created by The Sea Grill just for our party.

Our table looked out to the skating rink at Rockefeller Center.

While in the city, I walked around the streets feeling the energy and the awe that the city brings me. (Grand Central Station turns 100 this year!)

I’ve been hearing good things about it for quite a while and Eataly lived up to its name!

Our lunch on the glass inclosed roof top was as very close to eating at  a favorite lunch on a Italian hillside in Tuscany.

No weekend in New York City is complete without a Bowl Of Bliss from Belthazar.

Walking around Soho and Nolito and finding unique boutiques is and adventure I love.  At The Little Cupcake Bakeshop I had German Chocolate Cupcake.  I grew up with this flavor.

I found another new lunch favorite, inside food truck dining at Tacombi.  The fish tacos I had were excellent.

A little shop called the Condor did not disappoint.  This is where I met Merlin the boutique’s pet bunny who freely hopped around the shop. He had just had a haircut.

Here’s some of our other ideas for great things to see and places to be on a New York City Weekend:

New York is the New Black – Drinks: Pegu Club Stay:  The Waldorf

Fancy Friday – New York City – Eat:  Tortilla Flats  Shop:  ABC Carpet & Home and Fishs Eddy  See:  Union Square Farmers Market, Times Square

Oh My Momofuku! – Eat: Momofuku Ssam Bar

Warmed At Hearth – Eat:  Hearth

Bowl Of Bliss At Bethazar – Eat:  Balthazar

Remember The London – Eat: Maze by Gordon Ramsay  Stay:  The London

A Day In Brooklyn – Drink:  Dutch Kills  Eat:  Buttermilk Channel  Eat:  Baked   Eat:  Vinegar Hill House

“My name is Kristin, and I’m a homeschool mom.” This is a phrase, 15 years ago, I never thought I’d say. Kinda like when I announced to my husband, “I’ll never drive a wood-grained paneled mini van.” You guessed it! That was the very, next car I drove. I ate my words.

Nine years ago, I embarked on a new adventure, the one of a homeschool mom. Our family sold our home, our belongings, packed it up and moved to Hawaii for a few months where we were training to serve abroad. I didn’t have a choice but to homeschool. Really, I was getting schooled, quickly! Our travels took us around the world and it didn’t take me long to realize my kids were learning from life experiences in ways classrooms and books would never be able to deliver. We studied about castles and knights, months before we knew we were headed to Ireland to explore old castle ruins. My oldest four kids were getting a real life education.

So, when Little Man came along, I knew from jump the value of real life experience learning. He just started kindergarten this year. A couple of weeks ago, I was approached by Medieval Times. They invited us to come and have a Medieval feast. I jumped at the chance! Little Man is right at that age where sword play and “good vs. bad” guys is the theme in every make believe game. He even has his action figures arranged in his room with the “good” guys on one side of the room and the “bad guys” on the other.

He had been begging me all last spring to take him to Medieval Times. I can’t begin to tell you how fun it was to tell him we had reservations! He did a little dance.

He got his crown and was quickly greeted by the falcon and his handler.

We sat down at our banquet table, ready for the show to begin.

And my husband and I watched the show through the eyes of our five year old.

He took in every knight, every sword, every battle move and fight stance. How do I know? Because he’s been recreating them almost every day since we visited.

The feast of roasted chicken and ribs,  filled us up, the servers in character made the evening more realistic and the show came to life for our Little Man. I think Medieval Times is a great place to take the whole family, but if you take kids between the ages of 5-10, it will inspire a love for learning through a real life experience!

Thank you Medieval Times for your hospitality and for kicking our homeschool, kindergarten year off right!

*I was invited along with my husband and son, to Medieval Times’ Baltimore Castle, as their guest. The opinions about the experience, however, is entirely our own.

There were no fancy cameras. Just the click of a phone.

A simple moment, waited on.

Breathing in the salty air.

Cool breeze with the sun dipping it’s head in the ocean for one last swim.

Lingering, laughing

Leaping

Captured with a simple click.

All pictures taken with an iPhone and filtered at Instagram. Instagram has been a creative outlet for us to document life as it happens. Join us by signing up HERE then following LoveFeast_Table!

Hey ~ LoveFeast friends!  We’ve been so busy traveling, planning, working and getting ready for 2012!  We have so much that we want to share with you from behind the scenes! I started this post last night and Kristin put in her edits in blue this morning! ~ and no, I so didn’t mind!  So here is a sneak peak at what has been happening in the “underbelly” as we like to say ~ in our two voices.

*****

See the picture above?  That’s us 2 weeks ago at the Atlanta Gift Market.  We took that pic (along with like 10 others trying to get a good shot) because just as we were running out the door we realized that we matched!  See our grays and pops of teals?  We thought it was funny that we were dressing in our “brand” colors!

We did a lot of walking in Atlanta ~ this is just a side of 1 building ~ there are 3!!!

In the 10 weeks the LoveFeast girls have managed to see each other 4 times! We have 2 trips pending in February.  One to celebrate Kristin’s birthday -( can I get 40 whoo-whoos!) You had to let that cat out of the bag?! And, then we are attending our 2nd blogging conference together ~ Blissdom.

Right before Christmas we spent a weekend together here in Minnesota with our husbands.  We had hosted a dinner party, played some late night poker (a LoveFeast tradition!)  We usually gamble for who is going to move to the others’ state to live.  It becomes fierce ~ just sayin’! (And, nobody has caught on to my poker face – yet!)…not to mention Chris Ann and husband always win. Is Minnesota in our future? I mean my oldest is with Chris Ann in Minnesota this week auditioning for University of Minnesota. AND, there was no pressure from the parents…his idea.

Our husbands cookin it up LoveFeast style in the kitchen ~ while we work and sip cappuccino they made us ~

A couple of weeks ago, like I said, we went to Atlanta for our first market trip.   We were thrilled to meet such inspiring business owners, artists and what we hope to be, future business partners.  We spent days finding unique stories and inspiration to add to our LoveFeast Shop.  And, the nights sharing dinner and a beer and a notebook while we tried to keep up with our own ideas!  We hope to share some of those stories as we add product to our shop.  We enjoyed a dinner out on the town with our friend Brielle, too.  She’s a spunky chic with a smashing style ~ you can catch her vibe at her new blog ~ Fashion Is A Bitch.  We are hoping for her help to bling out an alpaca for our first LoveFeast style shoot! Yes, she did say blinged out alpaca! Except, all weekend long, Chris Ann kept referring to it as a blinged out llama.

Yeah ~ you heard me right.  Fancy-ing up an alpaca is on our 2012 LoveFeast Bucket list ~ stay tuned!

And ~ what’s heading on our 2012 bucket list besides that?

Raising $24000 for a Feed My Starving Children Mobile Pack unit.  Why?  Because we’re mothers, because we care and because we’re crazy enough to stick our necks out like that!!  We hope you can help by spreading the word, donating, and spreading the word…yeah, like that! (By the way – we think we’ll need a forklift and a space and 500 bodies! Anybody? Anybody?

We’re going to keep adding to our LoveFeast Shop.  We want to inspire you with more beautiful finds to add beauty to your life and home.  We hope to tell the stories of the places and people who bring these items together.  Those stories will be found here on our blog.

We’re going to try and write a cookbook. (Truth be told, we’ve been trying to do that for four years now.)

We’re going to travel. …keeping our fingers crossed for a south of France trip.

We’re going to enjoy the journey of The Traveling Cookbook (part of our Mobile Pack project).

We’re going to work hard.

We’re going to stay organized, thanks in part to our virtual assistant Donna! 

We’re going to laugh and have fun.

We’re going to create our first photo-shoot. With a blinged out alpaca.

We’re going to inspire the beginning of The Kitchen Project.

We’re going to balance it all. Or at least try.

We’re going to launch the first -evah, HeartGram™ product of velvet heart-shaped pumpkins.

We’re going to enjoy our families.

We’re going to get to know our readers, blogger friends and community more.

We’re going to decorate an alpaca with lots of jewelry.…I think you said that already. 

We’re going to laugh ~ because we’re just enough crazy to think we might do it all in 2012...let’s just hope our husbands will be laughing with us too, when we get to the end of this year.

Which is why we chose the word REACH for our defining word for 2012!

(I think Kristin is inspired to share a little more on that in the upcoming week or so!) For sure!

We hope you join us here at our “table” ~ and don’t be afraid to peep up (as in, leave a comment!)  We like a lively dinner party if you know what I mean!!  We want to hear your inspirations and aspirations too!!

We’re happy to stroll together along the 2012 trail and REACH for some dreams together.  Some of them might happen and some may not ~ but one thing is for sure ~ we’re going to SAVOR the journey together! It’s seriously how we love to do life. 

(Sorry, Chris Ann…I happened to read your draft and wanted to put in my two cents.  Hope you don’t mind! ~Kristin)

Fall is the perfect time of year to schedule day trips with your family.  I sit down at the beginning of the school year and map out a trip every few weeks that I think will interest my kids of all ages.  After all, I have two teenagers, a middle schooler, a 5th grader and a 4 year old.  This year we have already packed in a few day trips.  I homeschool my younger three and we are studying early American history, so I planned a few trips to kick off the school year with real life learning.  The first was to a historic Quaker farm, Woodland Manor Cultural Park,

where we were lead on a 2 1/2 hour tour through the woods.

We were escaping slaves and we explored what we would do to avoid getting caught and how to survive.  The volunteer “conductors” of the Underground Railroad, were true storytellers and left us with an experience that brought history alive.

After our hike, we headed over to the Live Butterfly Exhibit at Brookside Gardens South Conservatory.

There were hundreds of species of butterflys from all over the world. The favorites were the large Atlas moths.

Of course the teenagers loved that we found two intertwined.

I personally loved watching the butterflys that were attracted to rotting fruit.

The photographs don’t do the colors justice.

I think the  favorite family trip so far this year, was the Muddy Run Pow Wow we attended in Pennsylvania.  We spent the day visiting the vendors,

hearing a bit of their stories, watching artists at work,

sitting on the hill and watching the dancers

and a couple of my kids even participated in the candy dance.

Not only are we learning and having fun, but we are creating family memories.

What about you?  What fall field trips do you have planned?

We found our pumpkins at  Glenna Farms, Country Store & Sugarhouse.  Our family and friends enjoyed a fun afternoon here with a picnic, campfire, and horse rides to the pumpkin patch thanks to the hospitality of the owners, Rick & Kristine Glenna.  It was a great little day trip!