friday five

every once in a while i will do a blog post called friday five. just five random things about what's going on in my life lately. :)

1. apple just recently released this ad about putting a sticker/decal on your macbook which incorporates the apple symbol. so for weeks even before i got my mac, i had started researching online for the sticker i would want. i ordered that and a case as soon as i could. i'm so, so happy with it. :) what do you think?

2. spring is finally here. this is one of my newest favorite times of the year. mostly because of these cherry blossoms. are they not the prettiest things ever? 

3. on wednesday of this week, the husband left in the morning to arkasas for a day because of some meetings for work. this meant that i would be staying at the house by myself for the night which i hadn't yet done. i probably sound like i'm five, but i was so, so nervous. i've always been so used to having someone constantly around (even pre-marriage) that i was having a bit of a hard time with this. but i knew he would have to travel every once in a while now for work so i decided i had to just do it once and get it over with. although i am blessed in that i have his entire family here who was willing to let me stay the night, i decided to go through with it. 

it ended up being okay. not something i liked or want to get used to but i survived. with the help of a girls night out for dinner/hookah, a little facetime date with my sister, and some netflix. and when he came back he brought these cute t-shirts for me. because he's a sweetheart. :) 

4. it just so happened that some friends planned a girls night out/birthday dinner for my sister in law the same night the husband had left. we went to a place called cafe istanbul for dinner and hookah. i ended up not coming home until one a.m. which worked out perfectly. less time to have to spend alone ;)

 ^^(virgin) apple martini

 ^^being a hookaholic

^^i promise i looked a lot nicer than i do in this picture lol

5. just this morning, some friends and i went to go see cinderella. this was my favorite princess movie growing up. i was soo excited to get to see the newest edition. the movie was amazing. and those glass slippers were to die for ;) 

^^^my sister in law got us breakfast burritos from chick-fil-a 

(which are amazing, by the way)

so there's my friday five for the week. hope everyone has an awesome weekend. :)

adventures in the city

this past week the husband needed to travel to new york to attend some meetings for work so i decided to tag along with him. :)

we stayed in a hotel right off of 5th avenue which was nice for me because while he was in meetings for the first couple of days, i got to roam around a bit on my own and do some shopping. 

new york city has this charm that no other city has. what i love is the constant rush of people. and the fact that even though i spent a lot of my time walking around by myself, or even having lunch alone at different restaurants/cafe, i never really felt alone necessarily. it's great to be able to be by yourself, but not really ever be alone at the same time. something i love about this place. :)

the first day on my own consisted of having lunch at the pizza cafe right across from our hotel (because why wouldn't you have pizza while in new york city???) then i grabbed some coffee (or espresso, rather) from starbucks and did some window shopping on 5th avenue. until i saw h&m where i ditched the window shopping and did some actual shopping. ;)

the following day i spent lunchtime at cafe manhattan where i had this yummy turkey sandwich, then made my way back to starbucks to work on some writing. :) it was more of a relaxed day. oh, and i wore my brand new shirt from h&m as well (pictured above ;) )

while it was fun spending some time on my own, i was more excited when the husband came and found me at starbucks after his meetings were done and said we were off to see the statue of liberty since he got done early. :) 

we decided to take the subway which, for newcomers like us, ended up being a pain in the you know what. the map was super confusing and we ended up getting off at the wrong station two or three times. :/ still, if you're going to the city, you may as well experience everything, so i'm glad we gave it a try. ;) 

we went on an hour long boat tour from staten island which took us around to see the freedom tower, the statue of liberty, and a couple of the bridges. afterwards, we walked lower manhattan to go see wall street. we also saw this super fancy tiffany & co. which was so, so pretty from inside. i decided to be a total loser and take a picture with the doorman. ;) 

because of my husband's obsession, we visited the halal guys quite a few times. but after having that two-three times, i ventured out myself and had amazing cheese pizza from ray's, and too many hot dogs from one of the food trucks in times square. also, due to my own obsession, we visited magnolia bakery a couple of times. i'd recommend their banana pudding. it's yummy :)

visiting times square is always so fun :)
"these lights are so bright but they never blind me.." 

the only downside to the entire trip was the cold weather. especially on our last day when it snowed the entire day and the following night. new york city is breathtaking under a few inches of snow, but not so fun to have to walk around in. :/

instead of bringing back t-shirts for the family as souvenirs, we got everyone platters from the halal guys since we're all obsessed. it was totally worth it. everyone loved it. :)

i'm already missing the city and all of it's craziness. until next time, new york!