I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! I know I sure did, can we press rewind? I headed out east for the long weekend for a little family, relaxation and FLOATIE time!! Oh yessss.

I've been dying to use my donut floaties I picked up during my trip to Washington and the time came this weekend to bust out these cuties for some quality pool time. 

I can't say weenie was totally excited about the idea at first, but I think he realized that I wasn't going to make him swim in the pool (he didn't love that experience last summer) he warmed up to the idea and we floated around the pool all afternoon.

To celebrate the holiday we got our red, white and blue on and headed to Southampton. I'd never been before and it's been a long tradition to go to the 4th of July parade in Chris' family so that was neat to be apart of! 

On our way to the parade we passed... what do you know... a floaty shop that was seriously up on its game! Floaty envy!

Scoots decided he liked the Hamptons too... especially if he got to live in one of the places below. Keep dreaming Scooter ;-)

To celebrate the rest of the weekend we headed to a delicious family BBQ that let to an inevitable food coma and we had a little bit more time visiting before it was time to head back to the city again. Hope you all had nice weekends too!

I hope you all had a nice 4th of July weekend! I had a great time relaxing with some friends in Brooklyn for the holiday followed by a Long Island trip and a brunch adventure!

I’m not sure Scooter was that excited about our matching outfits, but I couldn’t resist!

We didn’t get that lucky with the weather on the 4th this year, so we had to bring our BBQ feast inside, but we still had a lot of fun. Scooter loved coming along for the action too.

The fireworks took place on the East River this year, for the first time since I’ve lived here. We headed to the roof to try and catch some of the fireworks, but weren’t able to see them as good as we thought we might be able to. We got a good look at about the top 30%, but hey, that’s what the rewind button is for on the TV! After catching some of the show in person we headed back instead and caught the show on TV before winding down the night. 

The next day, we headed back to Williamsburg to head out to Long Island with the same group of friends out to Chris’ parents’ house.

Scoots got to come along for that trip too (little spoiled guy!)

The weather on the 4th might not have been the best, but it certainly made up for it on the 5th! It really was the perfect weather for a family and friends BBQ! After nearly 4 years of dating, we finally had a pool day! I’ve been talking about dragging Scoots into the pool for years too and the day finally came…

I’ve always wondered if the little guy could swim and walah… it turns out he indeed can! lol

Although he got out of the pool as fast as he could so I’m not sure he totally loved it. It made for some good entertainment though!

After a nice day out on Long Island we headed back into Manhattan for the remainder of the weekend. On Sunday we headed out to brunch at Parlor Steakhouse. It’s a spot in the neighborhood we’ve been wanting to check out, so we finally made it!

I ordered their Brioche French Toast and it was the perfect combination of soft and buttery on the inside with nice toasted edges. A great way to kick-off the day!

Chris ordered their Steak and Eggs — with the steak barely dead of course. Just the way he likes it. 

it was a really nice spot for brunch and they also have a nice prix fixe option, for those who enjoy a mimosa or two! Definitely worth adding to your brunch list for the UES!

And that’s a wrap! Such a nice 3-day weekend :)

4th of July was a little strange this year since it fell on a Wednesday. I ended up having a half day on Tuesday and Wednesday off, but it seemed to be a different story for each of my friends! One thing was certain though, everyone had Wednesday off! Even though it was a little different having the holiday in the middle of the week, it was a nice little break in the week.

I kicked off the holiday with a little prep with a patriotic nail polish job. I didn’t have any white polish so the red and blue with sparkles had to suffice.

Once my nails were finished, I was onto my next project (with a little help from Chris)

Also, a little inspiration from Pinterest! We made white chocolate dipped strawberries with silver sparkles and then a little blue icing! They didn’t end up as pretty as the ones on Pinterest, but boy were they delicious!

Once the prep work was done we headed to celebrate the holiday at our friends’ apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was a lot of fun because their apartment leads out to the roof of the building, so we basically had our own private roof to hang out and BBQ on all day. The boys definitely showed off their mean BBQ skills too! 

One thing I’ve really missed out on since living in the city is sunsets! It might sound silly, but being on the east side, I never really catch them because it sets on the west side and the buildings block out most of it. So I was very excited when the sky started to turn pink before the sun went down in Brooklyn! It really was beautiful.

When the sun went down, we were ready to catch some fireworks! The apartment we were at wasn’t very close to the water so we ended up not being able to see the Macy’s fireworks in person, but that’s okay because we still had a great view of others! Plus, the neighbors brought out their projector and projected live coverage of the show on the next-store building so we kind of saw them. 4th of July city style - hanging out on roofs with friends and watching fireworks from a projector screened onto a building!