lifestyle blog – Castle Foundations

Exploring the Omi International Arts Center

March 10, 2017March 17, 2017Leave a comment

If you haven’t noticed by all of our Feature Fridays, we are huge art lovers so if there’s ever a chance to check out a new artist or head to a museum, we’re there!
One day while scrolling through Instagram, I stumbled upon Omi International Arts Center and it looked incredible! Even better, it was located in NY! It wasn’t too far of a drive, so one weekend we headed there to check out all of the art in their Fields Sculpture Park.

We had always passed Storm King Art Center on our drive to college and wanted to go check out the huge sculptures, but never had the chance. So when we saw that the Omi Center had a similar concept and admission was –FREE– we had to go! It’s basically a huge outdoor area with different sculptures strewn throughout the premises.

Continue reading “Exploring the Omi International Arts Center” →

XC Skiing the Berkshires

February 11, 2017February 11, 20171 Comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

As New Yorkers, we have a ton of snow most years and wanted to make the most of it! We love cross country skiing (after going a handful of times when we were younger) and had the random urge to go this month! Our friend Kbray is all about skiing these days too, so she joined in on the fun! We decided to head to the Berkshires (in Massachusetts) since it’s one of our favorite mountain areas! Usually, we go there in the summer for their chill lakes, locally owned coffee shops, and great music and museum options! (Hit us up for recommendations on any of these – seriously!) We actually had never been to the Berkshires during the winter months, but a cool guy named James Taylor once sang, “…The Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frosting…,” and so going there for a snow-related activity just made sense. He was right, by the way – totally dreamlike.

Continue reading “XC Skiing the Berkshires” →

Bowery Market and Matcha Lattes

October 20, 20161 Comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

If you haven’t already noticed from our blog content, we frequent NYC food markets. Tara and I were actually just talking the other day, and came to the realization that we have been to every single one of them. Every. One. No joke! So when I heard that Bowery Market opened up this summer, we were there right away. We checked it out for the first time in August and snagged a few pics to give you guys a preview of how cool their vibes are.

Continue reading “Bowery Market and Matcha Lattes” →

Coffee Hopping in SoCo

December 3, 2015December 3, 2015Leave a comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

As Tara mentioned in one of our previous Texas posts, South Congress, otherwise known as SoCo was one of our favorite areas of Austin! On our first full day in Texas, we started off by grabbing coffee and breakfast burritos at Jo’s, an Austin staple. They’re famous for their Iced Turbo which is a delicious combo of hazelnut, chocolate, coffee and cream. We had to try it and as the contents elude to, it definitely didn’t need any sugar added.

Continue reading “Coffee Hopping in SoCo” →

Game Day: Two Looks

October 19, 2015July 21, 2016Leave a comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

It’s GIANTS game day! Tara and I decided to each choose a different take on game day apparel in honor of tonight’s matchup. Since it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month and you can see every team incorporating pink into their uniforms, I went that route too. I threw on one of my favorite Giants hats, which is the actual Breast Cancer Awareness hat worn by the team a few years ago! Since my other red, white, and blue team apparel didn’t match well with the hat, I just kept the rest of the look sporty with a black shirt, pink and blue flannel, and an infinity scarf to add a bit more pink into my look. I also wore a Giants bracelet that’s made with actual materials from a football!

Tara wore the classic Giants colors and sported her favorite raglan tee. She also wore her Polo Ralph Lauren sneaks that happened to match perfectly. Now that we’ve got our Giants apparel on, we can’t wait for tonight’s game!

Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course

September 8, 2015September 16, 2015Leave a comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

We happened to be home for one day prior to our end of summer trip to the Berkshires (posts coming soon!), and were supposed to be packing for our trip. Except we suddenly remembered the Travers was happening that Saturday and that Triple Crown winner, American Pharaoh was going to be racing in it! Of course the race was sold out but we had just set our minds to going and were able to get 3 tickets the night before! We got there super early to avoid traffic and get a prime bench which let us have a spot all day to watch the races before Pharaoh came out.

(keep reading…)

NYC Weekend Brunch

September 2, 2015September 3, 2015Leave a comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

If you know anything about NYC, then you know weekend brunch is a sacred tradition. Well for us, not really a tradition since it is pretty pricy, but we do love to test out new brunch spots once in a while. We had some friends from our hometown come visit and couldn’t let them leave without the typical brunch! So we headed to Cafe Orlin in the East Village at around 11 on a Saturday morning.

We had heard there would probably be a long wait since all of those other city dwellers love their brunch, and when we got there we saw a few people waiting outside. Luckily, the cards were in our favor because literally 5 seconds after I put in my name for the wait list, we were called inside and got the most perfect private table! It helped that we were a group of four since most people there were in groups of 2 or 3 tops and had to wait for smaller tables to free up.

(keep reading…)

Strollin’ on a Sunday

June 15, 2015June 16, 2015Leave a comment

BY CAILIN BURKE

For us, Sundays are our total relaxing day. After church we usually like to just hang out, walk around, and get some NYC eats. This time we took the walking around a little far and found ourselves walking about an hour all the way to Soho!

We go to church at Hillsong NYC in Midtown, so it was definitely quite the walk. Since it was a beautiful day it was no big deal. Plus I love going to Soho as it’s one of my favorite areas of Manhattan! Once in Soho we decided to grab coffee and lunch at Ground Support. It’s this cute little cafe that has tons of light, wood tables, and even a bench for a window seat!

(keep reading…)

Coney Island

October 6, 2014Leave a comment

BY: TARA BURKE

In honor of a rainy day in NY this weekend we are doing a little throw back post to our day in Coney Island. We actually went in the last few weeks of August, since we wanted some beach time, but it would also make a nice outing in the fall. You may not be able to get in the water, but a stroll along the beach in a big comfy sweater and a few carnival rides would still be fun! Plus there’s a chance it will be less crowded.

We started out by getting to the beach early, around 10am, to claim a spot and beat the crowd. We went to Brighton Beach which is a little further down the coast from the Coney Island boardwalk. Especially in the morning this side of the beach tends to be less packed. Cailin and I can attest to totally forgetting we were in the city and not on a beach get-away.

Around lunch time we met up with some friends and chatted on the beach for a little before heading to Nathan’s Hot Dogs. Coney Island is basically synonymous with Nathan’s and hot dogs so we just had to be cliche and get coney dogs. We added in some cheese fries and funnel cake cause you know, go big or go home.

After that feast we were stuffed so we just leisurely strolled the boardwalk and looked at all the amusement park rides and the Brooklyn Cyclone’s ballpark. We desperately wanted to ride a roller coaster, but the prices are steep ($17 per person for one roller coaster ride) so we decided we’d rather have ice cream! I guess all that walking made us hungry again. I ended up getting a cherry iccee and it made my tongue more red than I have ever seen in my life, haha! So if you plan on going anywhere afterwards it may not be the best choice, but it was delicious and refreshing.

In all, we had a really fun day. You still have time to catch the rides on weekends through the end of October, but the beach/boardwalk are open year round!