We flew in from London on Monday and tried to stay up as late as possible to avoid the inevitable jet lag. Alex's parents have graciously allowed us to crash at their NJ residence whenever we land in the NYC area so we took advantage of their hospitality, home cooking and laundry facilities for a couple days while we got ourselves sorted.

On Wednesday we drove into the city for a day of errands - mostly beauty treatments to remove excess hair and callouses - and a reunion dinner with our friends. Being surrounded by the faces we have missed so much over the past eight months was incredible - and a reminder of how at home we feel in New York!

Not the best quality image but definitely the best quality people.

Taking advantage of additional hospitality, we stayed with our friends Nikou and Mike in Brooklyn so we could get an early start on our drive to Massachusetts Thursday morning. We stopped in Boston for lunch with our former colleague Avi and made it to Newburyport by early afternoon so we could rest up for two days of wedding festivities.

Charming streets and shops in Newburyport.

I loved the "old-timey" feel of the shops and buildings.

We enjoyed a casual BBQ outside with the bride and groom before heading to bed early (Alex is the Best Man so he needed to be fresh for Friday's wedding events!).

I spent Friday exploring the charming town of Newburyport on foot and sampling the local blueberry iced coffee before returning to our hotel to get ready for the wedding. The weather had been cloudy but cleared up just in time for the ceremony and everything - including Alex's speech - went perfectly! Alex and I got to catch up with friends and enjoyed a night of dancing while celebrating an amazing couple.

Someone's looking a little lighter...goodbye "beard!"

We woke up early on Saturday in order to drive to Montauk, the site of our wedding, to celebrate our one year anniversary for a couple of days. While the weather didn't exactly cooperate for spending time at the beach, we were able to revisit our favorite places and catch a pretty spectacular sunset on Sunday night. To top it all off, our wedding cake baker even made us a special free anniversary cake!

Saying goodbye to Todd...they didn't even plan the matching outfits!

Back to Montauk Yacht Club: site of our wedding last year!

Sunsets at Navy Beach are almost always incredible.

Mussels - a new favorite for us! - at Dave's for a special anniversary dinner.

Monday was beautiful so we spent a few hours enjoying the beach - without weekend vacationers! - before making the drive back to NJ.

Today we head to Italy for another wedding and plan to spend our time focusing on friends, food and fun. Ciao!

Miles: 270

Route: Madison, NJ - Brooklyn, NY - Old Westbury, NY - Stonington, CT - Boston, MA

Sarah and I kicked off our two-month road trip on Thursday. We packed up our trusty (well, hopefully!) car and headed to Brooklyn to see some friends. My mom was kind enough to take the Avalon in for a check-up while we were in South America so hopefully our 10-year-old car with 150,000+ miles on it will make it across the US and back!

Our hosts on Thursday, Mike and Nikou, prepared a fantastic dinner at their apartment just in time for some more friends (Matt and Emily) to join us from Chicago. After dinner we took a walk down to the water to see the view of lower Manhattan - we didn't realize the Tribute in Light would be illuminated already, but it made the view even more special.

We left early on Friday to drive to Old Westbury, NY for Sarah's cousin Todd's wedding. After catching up with the family for a few hours in the afternoon, we boarded a school bus toward the de Seversky Mansion on the NYIT campus. Todd and Dana planned an amazing wedding and we had a great time celebrating!

Sarah's siblings (and significant others).

We woke up early again on Saturday morning to drive to Orient Point - the easternmost point of the North Fork of Long Island - to catch a ferry to New London, CT. It was a nice way to break-up the trip to Stonington, though it probably took a little longer than driving the whole way.

We passed another ferry on its way back from New London to Orient Point.

After quickly showering and getting ready, we were off to Elihu Island, a small island near Stonington, CT where Amanda and Dan's ceremony and reception were held. It took about 30 minutes to get there, but it was worth the ride - the setting was beautiful and everything was perfectly set up for another amazing celebration!

A suit like that can even make a man with a burly beard look good!

We partied until well into the evening so pulling ourselves out of bed to return to the island for brunch was a bit of a challenge on Sunday morning. It was great to see all our friends, though, and we were happy we got another few hours with them.

Fortunately, the drive to Boston didn't take very long on Sunday afternoon. We met our friend Todd just in time to watch his beloved Patriots lose to the Dolphins - the Giants just lost pretty badly though so I'm glad I didn't give him too hard a time for it. (Sarah is still pulling for the Bengals, who actually won their first game against the Ravens!)

We spent Sunday evening and Monday catching up with Todd and his fiancée Shannon. Though I'll always prefer New York to Boston, we had some great weather while we were here and it was a fun stop on the trip.

Todd gave us a tour of Harvard Business School (he just started his second year).

Felt good to be back on a college campus - reminded me of all the fun times at GW.

Tomorrow we drive to Lake George, NY. We have two days there before heading further west to Niagara Falls. Looking forward to a few days in the outdoors after spending the last week in various cities!

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