Lindsay's Birthday Week Part 1

The big 2-4! Well if you know us, you know we absolutely love celebrating birthdays, and this year was no exception.

If it's your birthday and it's 8 AM that probably means Little Magdaline (Maggie Taylor) is in your kitchen making cinnamon buns. That's exactly how Lindsay started off her 24th birthday. It was deliciously delightful and such a great way to start the day!

After roomie breakfast, we went our separate ways. I headed to work at Horn Group- I'm not sure if I've updated everyone on my life, but I'm now an AAE at a digital communications agency! anywho... Nicole headed to Macy's where she is an Event Coordinator, Maggie did her music and babysitting thing and Lindsay went off to start celebrating. She enjoyed her day with Emily, Cody and Will. They went to Room Service, a thai restaurant in Hells Kitchen. From what she said, lunch was absolutely amazing. Her day was just getting better and better.

What Lindsay didn't know is I was scheming... and when I scheme, something awesome is going to happen.

So we all ended up back at 75 Powers. The roomies + Paul Sabala (an unplanned surprise) went to this adorable pizza place down the street for Linday's birthday dinner. We enjoyed pizza and vodka ginger ales. Or at least that's what we thought we were enjoying... "Monica we have that entire bottle of vodka on the fridge that we can bring!" - Lindsay - Well when Lindsay Schwak is telling you about the kind of liquor stored in your home, always double check. ALWAYS. We ended up enjoying pizza and rum ginger ales. Ya, we made the best of it.

After an awesome dinner full of laughter and fun, I suggested we go to this speak easy in Williamsburg. I had been there before with some soccer friends and just knew Lindsay and the gang would love it. The speak easy is called Larry Lawrence. I warned everyone that it was hard to find (hence the term "speak easy") but people weren't prepared for the awesomeness that was before them.

I lead Lindsay through a door that did NOT look like an entrance to a bar and down a long hallway until we found another door. We walked in and right before her eyes were all of her friends! SHE HAD NO IDEA!! Bwahahahaha. Yes, I just gave myself a pat on the back.

The birthday week had officially begun...

Halloween/Birthday Week!

You may or may not know this, but I am slightly (majorly) obsessed with scary movies/haunted houses/halloween/etc. God instilled this love in me and brought me to earth just five days before the scariest holiday of all! Thanks God:) So, this week is a big week in our apartment. Tonight (and every other night this week) we are watching scary movies! My roomies seem to be excited, but maybe they are just being sweet and swallowing the sheer terror that they're feeling??

Anyway, tonight we begin with Paranormal Activity! Tomorrow night... you guessed it... Paranormal Activity 2! Wednesday evening (if Netflix arrives on time) Let me in. Thursday and Friday are up in the air. The finale will be Paranormal Activity 3 on Saturday or Sunday. I decided we should all go to a matinee that way people who hate horror films can leave the theater with plenty of daylight left! I would also love to go to a haunted house before they all close, but I might be going alone at that point... which I would do because I enjoy them THAT much:/

Wish us/my roomies luck as we begin this endeavor!

-Linds

Tuesday night flower party!

Last night I worked an event and they bought a "few" extra flowers! I was overjoyed when I found out that they were up for grabs AND that I had a ride home (meaning I could grab them all!)

Then I searched for every single vase or item that could be used as a vase in our apartment:)

And now our apartment looks like a wedding!

It was the perfect Tuesday night:)

-L

"Flowers are love's truest language" ~Park Benjamin

New Home on Powers

On July 1 Moni, Mackenzie, Nicole and I moved in to our official New York apartment. Yes, we have had other apartments in the past, but this is the real deal! One year lease and all:) So, obviously we have A LOT to show you here at duet to it.

Last weekend we had an extremely successful housewarming party that forced us

to pull our apartment together quickly (the greatest motivator ever!). Now we are ready to take you on a tour of our new pad. One room per post:)

Low budget... that was the theme of my room. The jumping off point was finding two packing pallets on the side of the road when Andrew and I were walking back to the apartment. I was so excited to find inspiration, but Andrew knew what this "inspiration" meant...

a long walk home :/ Greatest boyfriend EVER!

The pallet went up over my bed as a headboard.

You'll see how we used the other one soon!

Next, I started painting a design on one of my walls. I love all of the new wallpapers out there, but I didn't want to do something that was going to be such a pain to put up and eventually remove. This is what I came up with.

(hanging lamp- Urban Outfitters)

I needed to do something with my not so cute chest of drawers. First, I painted it grey then added a splash of color.

A little reading nook.

And the extra stuff:)

The two paintings in my room are extremely special to me. The one with the footprint is a luo painting that my brother got for me(luo-setfree.org/). Visit their website to learn about their incredible cause.

The one above the green chair is by a dear family friend, Mike Ham. Visit his facebook page to see many more of his outstanding pieces.

That's my room!

-L

Update

We realize it has been a while... a long while since we have updated our blog, so here it goes. Here is a short summary of our lives during these last two months.

We are now roomies. ROOMIES! We can't even believe it. Life at Skillz (the name of our apartment, duh) is amazing.

Some things that are constant at Skillz: brushing our teeth in the kitchen sink, sharing of clothes, watching netflix movies, not watching TV (well until a few weeks ago when we realized we had basic cable), eating taco soup and paninis, listening to Sara Bareilles, encouraging each other, Trinity Grace Bible studies, going over songs for auditions, singing in the shower, coffee in the morning and TJ's red wine at night.

Brooklyn is wonderful.

Lindsay is currently babysitting, catering, auditioning, directing and getting her creativity on at Larry Abel Designs. I am interning at JIBE.com and HHC Marketing. In my free time I've been known to work some tradeshows and getting my creativity on at Larry Abel with Lindsay. The job search has been interesting for the both of us.

We worked a Godiva event about a month ago where we ate our weight in dark chocolate. Who knew you could glue chocolate onto chocolate with chocolate?

We've celebrated birthdays, national championships, holidays, call-backs and interviews, seen some shows, had girls and game nights AND we've had some pretty amazing people come to visit (individual posts are required to share the incredibleness of those events). I've been home once and last week went skiing with my family (also more on that later). Lindsay has some trips home coming up and some friends coming in town soon! We stay pretty dang busy up here.

We mostly stay in Brooklyn and Manhattan, but we have ventured up to Queens to see Ryan Koss and Co. and I have even made a trip to Jersey. Only recently have we really seen what Williamsburg has to offer, and boy is it great. We can't wait for it to stay warm so we can walk around our area, finally exercise and maybe play some soccer!

We are very blessed and thankful to be where we are right now. Life couldn't be better for me, and I'm pretty sure Lindsay feels the same way... if only our families, friends and boyfriends... oh no wait, that's just Lindsay... could ALL move up here, THEN life would be perfect.

Thanks for being patient. More updates to come this weekend!

I love birthdays

Especially this one. I am so happy that this kid was born. Happy birthday Cait. You are amazing and amazingly beautiful. I hope you have a wonderful 23rd birthday. I wish I could be spending it with you... so bad. We will be reunited soon enough.

Nicole is 23!!

We wanted to wish one of our greatest friends Nicole LaMontagne a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! We miss you tons and can't wait until we are together again. Have a wonderful day!! Relax and let loose... you deserve it!!