Hi friends, welcome back! June was a fun, busy month for us. We got back into a routine after our trip abroad, spent a long weekend in Montreal, made new friends, and celebrated Jon’s birthday! We also saw Billy Joel perform at Madison Square Garden after buying tickets last November. I was incredibly excited to see him perform and the concert was even better than I anticipated! Billy Joel still can sing like he used to, but he put a disclaimer that we could boo him if he didn’t hit the high note in “Innocent Man”. I would say that he nailed it! He is 73, so he can’t run around the stage, but he was up and rocking for the encore. My favorite songs were “She’s Always a Woman”, “Piano Man”, “My Life”, “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, and “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”. If you have the opportunity to see a Billy Joel concert I’d highly recommend you do it!
On to my post 🙂 I’ve been linking up with my first and favorite blogger I ever read, Shay Shull, for my What’s Up posts. Each month I’m answering the following questions:
What I’m eating: I’ll be sharing my Foodie Friday for May/June next Friday! My favorite thing to eat right now is a strawberry, watermelon, and blueberry fruit salad. I love fruit and could easily eat a whole Costco size carton of strawberries in one day, it’s like candy to me. Getting the perfect watermelon feels a bit like winning the lottery, and I’m a little afraid I used up all my good watermelon luck on my first one of the summer. It tasted like candy!
What I’m reminiscing about: growing up my family always spent Fourth of July at our cottage and it’s some of my favorite memories. We would have family and friends over to celebrate the day and go tubing, boating, play volleyball, swim, and end the night with s’mores and fireworks. It’s my favorite weekend of summer, and I wrote about it here and here. The cottage was sold in 2020, but we will always have the best memories from spending all our summers there.
What I’m loving: I feel like the summer just puts everyone in a good mood in NYC. I also love how green the city is now that all the leaves and plants have grown in. You may remember the beautiful Battery Park tulips this spring, now the area is filled with colorful hydrangeas.
Favorite post of the month: Zion National Park – The Narrows & East Canyon Lookout – I loved Zion National Park and would highly recommend visiting this beautiful park!
What I’m Up to: I had a very social month! I went to a foodie networking event and had such an incredible time meeting new people. Meeting people outside of work is hard in the city, so being able to make friends through my Instagram has been amazing!
What I’m working on: my Paris and London posts! It’s a bit bittersweet writing them because it feels like once I finish my series, the trip will officially be over. People say it ain’t over until the fat lady sings, but I say it’s not over until I blog about it.
What I’m excited about: travelling! We officially booked flights to visit Germany/Austria at the end of summer. We will mostly be in the Bavarian Alps, and I’m looking forward to seeing all the beautiful mountains and unplugging a bit in nature.
What I’m watching/reading: we finished watching Under The Banner of Heaven and really enjoyed it! We are watching Stranger Things now, but it’s a little scary for me so we are also watching Outlander. I’m excited for Only Murders in the Building season 2, we love that show! We’ve also been watching Rick Steves travel Youtube videos to wind down at night. They’re so cheesy and happy, perfect to watch before bed.
Books I read:
- Lost and Found in Paris by Lian Dolan
- The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth (thankfully this book wasn’t full of grammatical errors like the previous book I read from this author)
- The Maid by Nita Prose
What I’m doing this weekend: heading to Newport for the Fourth of July! We are looking forward to a relaxing vacation after Paris & London 🙂
What I’m looking forward to next month: we will be in NYC all month, hopefully we can go hiking one weekend and work on my NYC Summer Bucket List.
What are you looking forward to in July?
A busy month Lyssy. Awesome to see Billy in concert. His music still resonates. Looking forward to your Paris/London posts. As to Stranger Things, we could not get past the first sequence in the new season with all the blood and dead bodies. We will not be finishing it. Happy Wednesday. Allan
I’m very excited to post about our trip! It’s been a long time coming 🙂 I have to look away every once in a while from Stranger Things, blood is not my thing! Good thing there’s lots of other shows to watch.
Nice form on the slalom ski!
June was a great month, and the rest of the summer is will be exciting too. You certainly will have no trouble finding interesting things to blog about.😄
A very exciting summer indeed, it will be content overload 🙂
What a great roundup. So looking forward to reading your posts on London and Paris.
Thank you! I’m very excited to share our trip 🙂
Billy Joel just played at Notre Dame earlier this month, which is amazing to me. He also played when I was an undergraduate, 35+ years ago. Christy Brinkley, who he was married to at the time, made a surprise appearance and strutted on stage to “Uptown Girl”, because the concert happened to coincide with her birthday. All of us guys at the concert went nuts. Strawberries & blueberries (w/ yogurt and granola) is one of my go-to breakfasts (just not as much of a fan of watermelon as you are). Finally, we just finished the post-pandemic season of Outlander and we were… disappointed. Great to see the usual characters but the drama gets a little out of hand. One of these seasons we want them to just let Jamie and Claire live their lives happily, without threat from others 🙂
It is amazing he is still touring! That must’ve been a concert to remember! I enjoyed that at the concert everyone wasn’t on their phones the whole time and were truly enjoying the music. When we went to Ed Sheeran it was a bunch of tween girls screaming the whole time. I agree with you on Outlander, they never catch a break. It makes it a little suspenseful to watch because you know there’s always drama around the corner. I want to watch Gilded Age on HBO now that we’ve seen some of the houses.
I can’t wait to read your Paris and London blog posts! Have fun on your next trip!
I am really looking forward to going to the Arrows in Action show at the Knitting Factory late July. I absolutely love this band and this will be there first tour! I’m also getting away for a work conference in Vermont which I think should be fun too. Just not ready for it.
Thank you!! That sounds like an awesome concert! I love Vermont, I bet it’s so beautiful in the summer.
Lovely 🙂 I’m in Germany at the end of August, though in Berlin – so I’ll try and hop on a train down South if I can. I lived Ruhpolding for a year when I was younger so I know the area fairly well, so could meet you for dinner or a hike or something.
Also VERY excited for your Paris and London posts!
That would be amazing to see you in Germany, maybe the stars are aligning! What a beautiful place to spend a year. I can’t wait to share my posts, you were a tremendous help with the London itinerary!!
What I’m excited about: reading your Paris’ post, to make sure I haven’t missed anything so far 🙂
Thank you! I am excited to post them 🙂 We did most of the popular spots, but maybe you will see something you’ve missed.
We just started season 2 last night of Only Murders and so far I am enjoying it! I eat fresh fruit with yogurt and granola every morning but have yet to have any watermelon this summer as it’s not really my favorite fruit but I’ll take all the strawberries, blueberries and pineapple!! Can’t wait to read about your Paris trip and your upcoming trip sounds wonderful too.
ItI’m excited to start Only Murders, I just love the cast! That sounds like a delicious breakfast, I love pineapple too. Thank you! I’m very excited to post about Paris 🙂
Such a great round up, looking forward to seeing your London/ Paris posts. And how amazing you got to see Billy Joel perform live!
It felt like a dream seeing him perform live, I got goosebumps listening to him play the piano!
That is so awesome that you guys saw Billy Joel! He is such a great musician and has so many hit songs. Also your New York City flower photos are gorgeous!
Thank you! He was so incredible and it’s amazing he can still play and sing so well. Now I can’t stop listening to his songs 🙂