Bonjour de Paris!

Greetings all from belle Paris! After spending Christmas in Wellesley, Brian and I jetted off to Paris for a 5 day escapade. We have spent the last 4 days window shopping in quaint neighborhoods and stores, visiting museums, strolling the Champs-Elysee, and restaurant packed latin quarter, the Marche aux Puce (very large open aired flea market), and stopping at several cafes. Brian's parents have treated us to the ballet in the stunningly ornate Opera National de Paris and several wonderful dinner outs.

We've really enjoyed our time in Paris and could very happily spend another several weeks here in the Hennessey's charming apartment in the 7th - just walking around window shopping and going to different cafes.... and eating, why is everything so good? We've had wonderful dinners.. haven't eaten a crepe yet, must do that before we leave. We need a Grand Epicerie near Grand Central, the market there isn't quite enough and not even Whole Foods holds a candle to the delicaces and variety of high end goods found is this spectacular food market. How many grocery stores have Dom Perignon champagne bars in them?

Bailey and Kahlua are vacationing in Wellesley with a dog sitter...we have one more day here before we head back to pick them up and then back to work and reality on Jan 1.

Time to start planning Christmas 2008 in Uruguay when we get home. :)

Happy New Year and a joyful start to your 2008!!

Happy Holidays!

The NY Hennessey household held a holiday (that's a lot of H's) party over the weekend - we got our tree up, pups were in their holiday sweaters (how could I resist) and I cooked too much food as usual, and we had fun with friends we haven't seen for a while. Pretty much all stages of our life friends were represented, college, grad school childhood and work. It was great to see everyone before they all head home for the holidays. Probably our last hurrah in our current apartment too until we move to Long Island City, sometime in the spring.... we hope!

Brian spent some time in Toronto this week for work, which continues to be busy and stressful but his group continues to do well. Miguel and Carmen are getting ready for a cruise on the Queen Mary 2 for a 10 day sail around the Virgin Islands. Not bad for December, not to mention Carmen retires December 31st :) We've heard from Lauren and Brian who are doing well with Anna and Noah enjoying the Chicago snow. Lynn and Gib are back in Wellesley and probabaly planning for the onslaught of people expected for the holidays which will bring the house total to seven adults, 2 children and 4 dogs: Lynn, Gib, Brian H., Brian B., Lauren, Verena, Anna, Noah, Beverley, Bailey, Kahlua, Samantha and Wolfgang. Always a fun and festive time. Then off to Paris for new years!

Wishing everyone a wonderful and joyful holiday season and a happy New Year!

-Verena, Brian, Bailey & Kahlua

Tis the season

New Yorkers were out shopping with a vengeance on Friday, many stores opening their doors at midnight, 4 am or 6 am to accomodate crazy shoppers who enjoy dealing with other crazed and pushy shoppers before the sun comes up. No thanks. I think I'm doing my shopping online and taking advantage of 'cyber monday'.

We spent a quiet Thanksgiving at the Arnabal's, great food and the travel was a breeeze (15 blocks in a cab because it was raining and we had the dessert), and then went back to work on Friday - losers I know, but it was very quiet at the office and we're saving the vacation days for New Years in Paris. Brian spent the weekend fighting with our iMac which we don't know how to use (iPhoto apparently loses pictures) and we got in some furniture shopping for our new dwelling on Sunday when it was quieter and the holiday shoppers were running out of steam. Target in Brooklyn looked like it had been raided. Brian's fiscal year is over on Friday (finally) even though there's this, and we've got 4 weeks of work to survive before Christmas in Wellesley and a getaway to belle Paris. And oh yeah... the realty company called, our "estimated" and "tentative" closing date is now in March. Whatever...

Enjoy the shopping and Thanksgiving leftovers.

November

November is a great month in NYC. The ice rinks are open for business, the leaves have finally started to turn, the Christmas buzz and holidays season is about to hit evident by the store preparations under way if not already completed for the holidays, it's sunny and cool in the morning and 50 degrees in the afternoon, and government employees have 3 days off to boot! (Election day, Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving). Sorry Brian. Oh yeah – and we finally finished off our year of weddings this month – which took us to Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, North Carolina, Long Island and Mississippi. Phew!

We finally had a free weekend to head out to East Hampton and enjoy the serene atmosphere - and I saw Paul McCartney at the movie theatre! Looking forward to a quiet Thanksgiving in New York at my parent's house and lots of 'practice' Thanksgiving feasts at friends' houses before the real thing. Williams Homecoming was this weekend which we would have gone to except we are saving up to pay our closing costs - we watched the football game with friends in NY instead, which was amazingly cast on ESPN. Williams beat Amherst 20-0. Go ephs! Brian is counting down the days until his fiscal year ends on November 30th and finally put a tumultuous year for investors to rest.

Happy Halloweeenie

Some pics from the Halloween dachshund Meetup for your enjoyment. Bailey was dogzilla, Kahlua went as a skunk, and our weekend house guest Toby wore a tuxedo. Although the picture is a little dark, 2 doggy brothers took the cake dressed up as the titanic and an iceberg.

New construction or gotta ways to go construction?

We toured Long Island City with Lynn yesterday, the site of our newly purchased apartment and even got to go inside our unit - although as you can see, there was not much to check out except maybe the view. The layout of the unit was there but that was about it - no floors, dry wall or ceiling, there were lots of electrical wires and pipes jutting out, drawn outlines where our countertops are supposed to be, our bathtub hanging out solo in the smaller bathroom - we did have windows!

Maybe a January closing date is a little optimistic, fine by us.

Dachtoberfest

Every year all the weenie dogs in NYC gather under the arch in Washington Square Park for a little fall hurray. Many were in their Halloween costumes - we saw bees, a fire truck, a fish, a witch and of course many hot dogs. The owners get a kick of seeing so many dachshunds together in one place and they always attract a crowd of onlookers that ooooh and awwww at our short legged companions.

Bailey and Kahlua participated sans costume (we're saving those for the real Halloweenie) and Lynn came down from Boston to join us for the weekend. It is beautiful in NY as fall has finally arrived after a week of 80 degree weather. It was a cool crisp sunny day.

Entering the world of blogs

So here we are... a little late to the blog world perhaps but we've decided to join in the fun and keep friends and family in the loop. It's been a year(!) since our wedding and 2007 has been a whirlwind of activity for the Hennessey-Arnabal household. Our wedding website which I fully intended to re-do and upload pictures from that wonderful night is still sitting somewhere in cyberspace untouched. We did miraculously finish our wedding album which looked great thanks to the awesome talent of our photographer.

Much of the busy-ness has been due to our ever changing job status. I decided to leave my job at People for the American Way for a city government position as a policy analyst at the Manhattan Borough President's office. So far it's been great - and I've been able to pursue projects that I really enjoy working on. Brian has survived an interesting year at Citigroup courtesy of the ups and downs of the stock market (and hedge funds in particular) this year. So far so good, although it certainly hasn't been boring.

In other exciting news - we bought an apartment! Our 2 Br, 2 Bth brand spanking new apt is in the Long Island City section of Queens, on the eastern bank of the East River, a quickly developing area with great views of Manhattan and a nice waterfront. If you're curious you can see some pictures of our new building at www.5sl.com. Construction is supposed to be finished in the next couple of months and we expect to move in February. Needless to say we're very excited.

That's the latest for now - we're looking forward to the fall and the beautiful weather that comes with it.

Love,
Verena & Brian