Saturday Is a Special Day...

It's the day of free things in the ci-ty.

Noah and I are anxious to soak up every little bit of this city - but turns out, we're not loaded. So we let big-name corporate sponsors chart our course each weekend.

Saturday afternoon, we met the Andersons in the 145th Street subway station (it was classic... we got to the platform and saw the train was already there - this is a miracle and you don't pass up miracles. you HOP on that train. but we could see Derek and Jamie on the opposite end of the platform and ideally wanted to be in the same car as them, so we did the fast walk and then the full on run toward each other - eyeing the train all the way to be sure we could dart into the nearest car if need be. we got to opposite ends of the same car and motioned to each other to hop into the nearest entrance before finally rendezvousing in the middle of the car. it was terribly romantic. and then we realized the train wasn't going anywhere for another 10 minutes or so. and then it was just anticlimactic.) and made our way to the East River Park for WinterJam NYC.

That's right. Four Utahns who grew up having snowball fights with The Greatest Snow on Earth just a stones' throw from Olympic training grounds spent our afternoon with hordes of city-dwellers on fake snow waiting for a glimpse or two of snowboarders hurling down the snow flume and ultimately catching their mad air on the opposite side of the slope from where we stood. Oh, the irony.

It was an absolutely gorgeous winter day, though, so I was happy for the excuse to get outside and explore. The type of day you would have wanted to walk around a vibrant city anyway - just with the added bonus of an Empire State Building snow sculpture in the mix.

After jamming - winterstyle - we grabbed an early dinner in Chinatown and wandered our way through lower Manhattan where Noah was delighted to find a good dentist:

I think he made a few people around us nervous when he stripped the coat, scarf and sweater before their eyes. But when you're sporting the ProtectToothy.com tee, you best be prepared to represent.

Noah bundled back up and we strolled across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset (Sigh.) and over to the Brooklyn Museum for Target First Saturdays Free. The museum is absolutely beautiful, the collections are fascinating - we especially loved the exhibit on African art - and Noah was irresistable in his knowledge of Khmer artifacts/history in the Asian art collection. Smart is sexy.

Plus, we saw two girls jump rope with their hair, which is usually my litmus test for whether or not an evening is a success.

By the time we got back on the uptown train, my dogs were barkin'. I was ready to get home and secretly dreaming of the sweets in the freezer, but I wasn't sure if my sweet tooth or my tired lids were going to prevail. So I asked Noah, "if we're still awake when we get home, want to watch a movie over a bowl of ice cream?" He looked a little confused but agreed. Later I realized it was only 8:30 p.m. when I asked the question. Party on, Wayne.