So remember when I was so happy to finally get my garden all neat and tidy and pretty, you know, the way it looks in this picture way back in June:

Well with travelling a lot in the summer, and teaching summer school, and then eventually just not wanting to fight with it led to the revolt of the weeds.  The hot sun killed everything living first, and then for some reason the weeds thrived and started to take over our entire front yard.  As of last weekend, I was waiting until dark to open the front door and get the mail...I was that embarrassed.  I read an article recently about how bad front yards (along with crazy neighbours) led to poor house sales and bad showings.  This makes sense, but then I started to think that the neighbours were also going to revolt against us so something had to be done.  The problem was I had no idea where to start.  There were so many weeds and I just couldn't imaging pulling them all out.  Well, as usual, my husband came to the rescue.  So while I cleaned inside and prepped for school on my Labour Day, Matt tackled the evil front yard.  

Here's some before and afters from his hard work!

Here are the pictures from late July to Labour Day weekend that I took on my phone:

First Row: 1 - Matt's birthday and anniversary presents wrapped up (he got a coffee grinder and gravity filter for his birthday). 2- Out for dinner at Pachuco - a great Mexican place at Danforth & Broadview.  3 - Meg's baby shower with the pool girls - such a lovely afternoon!

Second Row: 1 - Anniversary dinner - we intended to go out but after being in Vancouver for a few days, we were exhausted!  2 - Our anniversary gifts - year 2 is cotton, so we went to Banana and picked out something for each other. 3 - Rainy weekend at the cottage meant torturing Tabby a bit...put him under a laundry basket...he just stared at me pleading, so I let him out, and he just ran away.  Stupid uncuddly cat.

Third Row: 1 - Figures the sun comes out just as we leave the cottage.  2- Matt ran 21 km as part of his training program for the marathon next month.  It was rough on him.  So of course I photographed him while weakened.  3 - More painting begins while we were in NYC!

Fourth Row: 1 - Prepping at school - beautiful quiet school.  2 - Teaching Marta how to use Instagram.  3 - Labour Day cottage weekend - this is barbequed caesar salad Matt made!

While we were in New York, my awesome dad painted our upstairs and downstairs hallways and ceiling.  We left the trim because I'm going to change it (goodbye Cloud White - too yellow for my grey, hello White Dove).  That makes Matt a bit sad because we have already painted 3 of the 5 doorways in CW when we did both the master and guest bedroom, and the closet.  

*Note to everyone: NEVER USE OIL PAINT.  We got a recommendation to use it on trim, and the white it gets yellow really quickly.  Also it's really bad for the environment and your health while you're painting.  Now we have to prime and re-paint the oil with latex.  Note over.*

So anyway, here is just a "before" and "after" picture from the hallway.  My dad also pulled up our stair runner, because we need to paint the stairs too.  It was a bit of a shock when we got home:

So here is the plan:  prime and paint all the trim in Benjamin Moore's White Dove (it's a tiny bit cooler than Cloud White), along with the railing at the top of the stairs, and the vertical part of the stairs (what is that part called?).  We are going to stain the landing of the stairs a really dark brown, and possibly the railing too (not sure about that one).  Then we can put back our shoe holder, add a gallery wall up the stairs, and put our big NYC painting back up on the wall upstairs!  Perfectly fitting since we were in New York when it got painted!

Today was the first day back...*sigh*  Started off my day with the 11 U Chemistry class - it's a big class - 31 students (used to having more like 24), and as it was first period in the morning, raining, the power went out twice, and the air was not on so sauna-like conditions existed, they were a bit dazed and unfocused.  Second period is 12 E Science - brand new course for me so lots of prep to do, but the students seem nice enough so we'll see how that goes.  After my prep at the end of the day I have 12 C Chemistry - they are actually a great group.  Again, a big class of 26, which is high for that level (usually have less than 20).  

Since I was so tired and hot and had frizzy hair and my feet hurt from my high heels, I was a bit grumpy today.  Let's pray for a better day tomorrow!  Happy first week back to all my teacher friends.  How was YOUR first day back?

So I finally got around to blogging.  I'm sorry to all my (7) loyal readers.  Once we got back from New York it was back to school mode with prepping all week, actually going into school, then trying to relax at the cottage (which turned out to be somewhat hard when you have the worst cold ever - thanks to my darling husband who had it earlier in the week).  Feeling better today although still a bit sniffly with a low raspy voice - hopefully for the first day of school tomorrow I am back to myself - so I thought I would do so blogging on my Labour Day off.

So this is the story of our New York City trip.  We were there for 5 days, 4 nights, and did a lot of sight-seeing.  We were exhausted every night!  Some pictures I used the DSLR, some were on my phone.  It's hard not to seem touristy when you have a big camera slung around your body, but oh well, everyone was exactly the same as us.

We arrived at LaGuardia in New York around 1pm and headed to our hotel.  We stayed at Hotel Mela on 44th between 6th and 7th.  It's a small boutique hotel, but it was right in the heart midtown and was pretty and clean, though small.  Since our hotel check-in time was 3, and the room wasn't ready, we wandered around Times Square (sensory overload) and random surrounding streets.  I also forgot to unstrap my neck pillow from my purse, so though we had stored our luggage, I was the image of tourist with a stupid neck pillow, wandering New York City, for a good hour.  We stopped at Magnolia Bakery for a cupcake, which was really just okay (I had red velvet).  Finally it was 3pm so we could check in and freshen up.

Once checked in, we headed out for some refreshment (it was very hot outside).  We found the Beer Authority, which conveniently was located beside the Port Authority, about a 5-minute walk from our hotel.  We sat on the rooftop patio which overlooked the New York Times building and the bustling city below.  I even had a blueberry-infused beer (which tasted more like beer than blueberry, but was still pretty good).

That night we headed to the West Village to meet our friend Kyle and his girlfriend Jillian, for dinner at a sushi place called Amber.  It was really good sushi - between the four of us we had 10 rolls, some edamame, a free dessert and 4 bottles of wine.  Highly recommended!  We also went to a bar called Willfie & Nell, which I probably would have really liked had I been about 5-8 years younger, haha.  Very loud and crowded for my taste but I can see the appeal for others.  I didn't take any pictures...because I didn't want to seem like a tourist in front of them, haha.  I wish I did.  I think I made up for it over the next few days anyway.

Our second day started off with brunch at a place close to the hotel called Maison.  Great prices, quick, and good French-inspired food.  We then were off to live out our geeky 30 Rock fantasies of seeing Kenneth and Jack and Liz at the NBC Studio Tour and Top of the Rock.  On the studio tour, we saw Brian Williams nightly set, the Jimmy Fallon set, and the SNL set (really big!).  It was a typical touristy thing to do, but I still liked it.  Right after we went up to the top of Rockefellar Center and saw the city from above.  It was a good alternative to the Empire State Building.

After the 30 Rock stuff, we decided to walk up 5th and Park Avenue a bit and headed to FAO Schwarz.  It was busy but a lot of fun seeing all the tops and acting like 5 year olds for a few minutes.  We saw the Lego land and the giant piano and tonnes of stuffed animals.  They had a Harry Potter area too, but since there were no magic wands, I was not impressed.  I almost got a geeky science puzzle as well, but figured it would be hard to get back to Toronto with it.

That night we had some Italian food before our night on Broadway.  We went to a place called Scarlatto, which was in the basement of another building but surprisingly bright and best of all, it had great pasta.  Dinner was quick, and then we headed to Eugene O'Neill Theatre to see The Book of Mormon.  It. Was. Hilarious.  I was laughing so hard I was crying at some points.  It is very off-side (makes sense - the guys from South Park wrote it), definitely Rated R, but it was really funny.  Not recommended for any sensitive Christian people - it offends pretty much everyone but it was all in good fun.  It is coming to Toronto in 2013!  Once it was done, we had a quick walk around Times Square at night (even more sensory overload, but pretty spectacular), had a drink at the pub beside the hotel called The Long Room, and called it a night.

Our third day we decided to wander around all the neighbourhoods.  We started off with brunch at Pastis in the Meatpacking District.  Really good brunch, and it was really busy.  I had some brioche french toast - yum!  From there we walked along the High Line, which is an old railway track that has been converted to a garden pathway that goes from the Meatpacking north through Chelsea along the west side.  We then found Greenwich Village and wandered around that area, and then got to SoHo, and did some more walking.  We had lunch there at a place called Cipriani.  It was expensive, and we didn't know that beforehand - Matt's rash decision, haha.  We just had some sandwiches, which were good, but expensive for what they were.

Once we couldn't take the heat anymore, we decided to head uptown to the American Museum of Natural History.  We got there just over 2 hours before it closed, thinking that would be more than enough time.  Then I discovered Matt has never been in a planetarium, so we had to do the Hayden Planetarium which took up a half hour of seeing the stars (although it was quite educational), and then we quickly looked at the dinosaurs, some apes, and of course the big WHALE!

For dinner we went to Murray Hill to have dinner at Les Halles, which is where Anthony Bourdain used to be the head chef.  Since Matt and I watch No Reservations whenever it is on, we figured we would try out one of his places, and it didn't disappoint.  Great french food and excellent wine.

We saved Sunday to wander around Central Park.  We started off with breakfast at a little diner called The Flame Restaurant.  We didn't know it was a diner, but it sort of looks like a Denny's, but the food is a lot more fresh.  I had a waffle with loads of blueberries, bananas, and strawberries (called the Red, White and Blue Waffle).  It was cheap and quick, and then we were off to the park.  We actually wanted to ride bikes around the park, but it was a beautiful day and every one was rented out.  So we walked a bit and saw Strawberry Fields, the row boat area, lots of little bridges, the little sailboat pond, and some turtles.

Once we were done in the park, we went for lunch on the Upper East Side at Serafina - more Italian - we split a pizza and had a drink.  By then my new boat shoes were pinching my toes so we wandered back to the hotel.  Along the way we saw some incredible (and very expensive) apartments, and The Plaza Hotel.  Once I changed into some flip flops, we went out to see the New York Public Library (yay books), Grand Central Station, and the Empire State Building (just the outside, we didn't go up).  We just looked around the basics of all of these, the library was closed but we originally planned to go in the following day (didn't end up having time, sort of).

For dinner we went to the Upper West Side to Rosa Mexicano.  They had the most incredible guacamole served in a giant bowl.  I could have eaten it for hours.  The best part was that it was right across from the Lincoln Center, and there was a Metropolitan Opera playing on a screen for thousands - we could here it throughout the meal.  Of course afterward we walked over there to see a bit of it.  We grabbed a cab back to midtown, and saw a bit more of the Times Square area after grabbing a coffee at Caffe Bene.  

Our last day started off with Dean & Deluca - remember that's where Felicity worked?  We then headed downtown to see the World Trade Center (lots of rebuilding is occurring), Wall Street, and the Stock Exchange.  We wanted to walk around TriBeCa, but it started to pour rain.  So we grabbed a cab to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and ran in the pouring rain to the front door only to find it was closed.  By that time I was soaked and was no way going into it anyway in a wet sundress and squeaky shoes.  So we ran back in the rain to the bottom of the stairs to get a cab and back to the hotel.  We had actually checked out at this point but had stored our luggage, and changed in the gym area into our airport clothes.  We had to be there around 3pm anyway, and it was one, so we had lunch at The Long Room, and of course, the sun came out and it was a beautiful day once again.  So with an hour to kill we again wandered around Times Square, and went to M&M's World (so many colour M&Ms).  Finally we headed to the airport, only to find out our flight was cancelled, and we had to wait an extra 3 hours - 6 hours later we were off - it was the LONGEST WAIT EVER, but we made it home safe, and spent the next day recovering from our crazy busy few days.

Overall it was a great trip.  Really REALLY busy, and we could have spent another week there easily and taken our time with things.  This is definitely a city where we will return multiple times, and hopefully explore new places each time!