Mama's birthday

I helped Mom celebrate her birthday this year by coaxing her off the isle of Manhattan over to my house in Brooklyn, where we meandered our way through Dumbo and Brooklyn Heights over to the new Pier 6 playground and ferry dock. Destination: Governors Island! The boarding line was long and inched along, and the sun was mighty hot, but we had a baguette from Almondine and some Jacques Torres chocolate to sustain us!

The two minute ferry journey behind us, we ambled until we found a shady patch of grass to sprawl out on, and dug into our lazy picnic lunch.

That was all we had really bargained for for the day, but once we took a walk around the island, we realized there were all sorts of enticing things around us. Like public art, and couples riding rental tandem bikes, and the new water taxi beach!

It seemed too perfect to have stumbled upon that, complete with real sand and a beach volleyball court, so we set up shop on our little tatami mat all over again.

And ordered a beer. We played a game of scrabble, and people watched. Stayed for a few songs by the band--not sure but it might have been the Freelance Whales.

The plastic, light-up, blinking palm trees really added to the atmosphere--we were both quite taken by them! Once dusk started to fall, we packed up and headed to the on-location photobooth to cap off our day with a little sponsored photo session: