FRIENDS! It's been a while. I'm sitting on my orange couch, hovering around my A/C unit, admiring my brand new custom made, Luke-built bench that fits perfectly in the corner of our living room AND now holds all of our shoes so I don't have to look at them in the pile by the bathroom. I'm fond of it. Since last time I slid into your inbox I: married Maddie, drank some world class smoothies (had my 2nd ever influencer moment), and celebrated my 9th liverversary with New Liver New York!

Miso's Birthday Party

Our friend's Grace and Bob threw a birthday party for their dog, Miso. I love Miso. We also happened to be watching Tim, the dog that bit me the first time we watched him. I love Tim. I didn't at first. But I do now. He's got a good heart. If you love dogs but don't want the full-time responsibility of a dog, I highly recommend Rover. Maddie and I have had mostly great experiences and have watched some really cute, sweet dogs. I was in Denver recently and talking to one of my coworkers when we randomly made the connection that we had previously watched her sister-in-law's dog, Doug!

Miso's birthday party was great and I hope to attend more dog birthday's in the future. Invite me to your dog's birthday please!

And if you need someone to watch your dog and you live in NYC, let me know.

I can't decide if Tim's worst quality is that he bites people he doesn't know or if it's that he handstands while he poops (jealous) and when he has diarrhea, it drips down his leg. TBD. We're watching Tim for two weeks in August!

Maddie and Ian's Big Day

We got married! April 25th. Thanks to all the friends and family who celebrated with us. You're the best! We had a very nice time. One of our guests said that "we had the hottest friends" so if you were there, shoutout to you! My 97 year old grandma made the most incredible entrance to the ceremony. Maddie's dad took his shirt off. Bruce gave us a ride in his motorcycle sidecar (and topped 100 mph with a few of our friends). We danced a lot! It was a really great day.

Some things we learned:

• Definitely hire a day of coordinator; we had Kristi and she was phenomenal
• Costco cake is the way to go: super good and a great deal
• I'd maybe spend the money on a DJ; we setup a Spotify playlist and the speakers blew, sort of a mess and caused me some unneeded stress
• Our photographer was Lilith Joy and she was great! She was new to the area and offered a great rate. Highly recommend

Honeymoon

After being in Kansas City for a full week prepping for the wedding, we thought it'd be nice to have a week in between back in NY to get our lives in order. In hindsight, we could have used more time. I'd wait 3-4 weeks if possible. We were still riding the high. In those couple of days, we went to Eric Andre's birthday party at the roller rink by us, Xanadu. It was wild. And weird. The best part was these guys that had huge custom inflatable guys and a dragon thing that required like 10 people to hold and breathed fire.

We went to Slovenia and Croatia for our honeymoon. We wanted something easy and still a little off the beaten path. It was early May. Still a little chilly. To be honest, these weren't my favorite places I've been. The food was boring and everything was pretty overpriced. Beautiful places. We should have gone in June or July when it was warmer because half the trip was planned around relaxing beach time. The old towns are cool but once you've seen one or two, you've sort of seen them all.

Still, it was nice for Maddie and I to get time to relax and hang out with eachother! Some highlights were:

• We stayed at a cool treehouse resort near Lake Bled
• Truffle hunted in rural Croatia
• Spent 1 day in Trieste, Italy and accidentally joined a run club
• Went for a really nice, long bike ride in Hvar
• Cliff jumped into the ocean on my birthday
• Stayed at a 5 star resort that we booked fully on points!
• And ended with a chaotic 36 hours in London (I love London)

Brasa + Best Denver Smoothies + Smurf Nutter

I had my 2nd ever influencer moment! I had shared a video of a delicious smoothie that I had at Brasa in NYC. They sent me a message thanking me for the video and sent me a gift card to come back for more smoothies! It made me really happy. I make the smoothie content for fun, I like practicing making videos and trying to make them better.

I can officially share that Mystical Blends is the best smoothie shop in Denver. There aren't many players in the game but Mystical Blends wins on all accounts. Great menu selection, solid ingredients, fairly priced, great flavors. I've had 4-5 smoothies from them and they've never missed. Shoutout to Mystical Blends!

I had the biggest smoothie of my life at Hemo's Spot Juice Bar in Gowanus. 32 ounces!!! And only $11!!! Big boy! MeglaGulp. They also have a smoothie on the menu called Smurf Nutter which is hilarious. The guy was super cool. I'm sure I'll be back to Hemo's.

Kevin Morby vs Knicks

Luke got me tickets to see Kevin Morby. I like Kevin. His new album is easily his best yet. Hands down. The show happened to collide with Knick's Game 4. We were torn but had to see Kevin. I kept checking my phone and the Knick's were getting crushed, so it sort of worked out and was nice to have a distraction. It was a great show! Kevin has great energy. He brought out Hamilton Leithauser and that was really fun. Our friend Buddy was in town and was watching with our friends nearby so we went and joined. Right at the moment that they started to come back. Not gonna say it was because of us but not gonna say it wasn't. It was WILD. The best game I've ever seen in my life. Electric!

New Liver New York

Liverversary Year 9! Every year, on or around June 19th we celebrate my liverversary. It started as Liverpalooza, became LiverMan 100 and this year, New Liver New York. A few of us ran 15 miles through Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens at 4:30am. I love that people are down to indulge in goofy stuff like this with me. From there, the broader group joined and we collectively walked another 16 miles (Strava clocked 19) from the tippity top of Manhattan to the tippity bottom. It was a steamy, beautiful, toasty day. Surrounded by friends and family. I am really lucky. Thanks to everyone who came out, walked, supported, donated, assisted, and celebrated. Life is good! Liver it up!

I'm not sure what Year 10 will look like but I already can't wait. Help me dream something up!

Knicks

Game 4 was so good that now I'm writing about it again down here. Talk about lucky. Knick's Game 5 happened to be Saturday night of tip to tip. So we just walked the entire length of Manhattan and now got to keep the night rolling at a bar with a bunch of our friends (many who came in from out of town) to watch. It was another insane game. They won! We went crazy! We went out for a while and found ourselves on the top of a double decker bus!!! It was a blast and I feel like we moved to NYC at the best possible time. I love it!

Transplant Games of America

Right after NLNY, Maddie and I flew to Denver for the Transplant Games of America. We've gone to the games the last few years. It's an every other year event that brings together the transplant community with a week of competition and celebration. Ever since Covid, I've made it a goal to be more a part of the community. To meet more people who have shared similar experiences. It's been really nice. I've met some great people.

The last two games' I competed in the triathlon. I won many gold medals. Mostly because there aren't many people in the 20-29 or 30-39 age groups. This year, I wanted to mix it up and had a goal to become the #1 transplant recipient cornhole player. My partner Hope and I (who I had met that day, kidney recipient of 20 years) lost both of our games. Dreams shattered. Maybe next year.

Instead, I did help set the world record for most transplant recipients together at one time! I'm officially a world record holder!

It was great to see our friends in Denver. We met some new babies. Got to check on our house. And had a really nice time.

 

Fruit Salon

Shameless plug! My friend Beth and I are hosting a new monthly event series called Fruit Salon. Each month, we highlight a different in-season fruit, everyone brings a dish made with or inspired by that month's fruit. We're starting with melons! August 23rd. Domino Park. More details to come. Hope to see you there!

 

That's a wrap for Q2. Have a great Q3!

Hi-five,

Ian