Poor Panda

Today I was assigned the wonderful task of taking pictures in Lower Manhattan for work. I decided to give my legs a little rest and sat down on a bench in Battery Park. It was then that I witnessed this hilarity. The video is a bit small, but basically this kid comes up, hits the panda, runs around the statue, then comes back and makes some kind of ridiculous face. Poor panda.

Happy Birthday from John Stamos

For my 25th birthday, to ease the pain of the quarter-life crisis, Chris took me to see the Broadway play Bye Bye Birdie starring John Stamos. Like every other girl I know, I am a huge fan of John Stamos, going back to the Full House days. So, of course I was thrilled. The play was so fun and lighthearted and was a perfect end to the week. We were lucky we were able to see BBB, as it closed the following Sunday. Plus, we had great seats near the center of the theatre in about the fourth row.

After the play, Chris had the fabulous idea of going to the stage door to see if we could sneak a glimpse of John (Chris is such a great husband). We had to wait for about an hour, but he eventually came out and said hello, signed autographs, and whatnot. I told him something cheesy like "Thanks for making my birthday special." He looked at me and then yelled "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" He asked how old I was, and when I told him 25, he was like wow you look so young! It definitely helped to ease the pain of a quarter-life-crisis to hear that from John Stamos!

So thanks Chris for giving me the gift of Uncle Jesse :)

 

Two Months of Catch-Up

Two months have passed since I have updated this blog. So much has happened in that time: Thanksgiving, a trip to Boston, a great big blizzard, Christmas, New Years, and a ski trip. I simply cannot go back and blog about it all...so here it is, in eleven sentences.

1)The leaves in Prospect Park and all over the City turned happy shades of yellow and orange.

2)We flew home to South Carolina, ate turkey, spent time with friends and family, went shopping really early in the morning, and watched the Clemson/Carolina game.

3)We took a weekend trip to Boston with Russell and Renee in which we enjoyed walking around the historic city, sampling some cheese and tea, eating at the delicious Flour cafe, slushing through the snow, and spending time with great friends.

4)I did lots of Christmas shopping in the City including this trip to Grand Central and Penzey's.

5)All of the little lights in New York City were sparkling for Christmas.

6)Chris, Scott, Nicki, and I fell victim to the New York thing and went to see the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall, which was...spectacular!

7)We said goodbye to our favorite German friend, Adrian.

8)And on the same night, we experienced our first blizzard in NYC...12 inches of snow in one night.

9)We flew back to South Carolina for Christmas to spend quality time with family relaxing, indulging in great food, playing Wii, fishing, and just having a generally great time.

10) We drove up to Greenville to see some dear friends from college.

11)We rang in the New Year with friends in Banner Elk, North Carolina where we were able to catch up with dear friends, attempt to snowboard, test out our new photography skills, break Andy's car, and avoid getting frostbite.

Holiday Shops at Bryant Park

Today was a pretty nice day for November...the temperature was in the mid 60s. And since Chris had a lot of school work that he needed to do, I decided to go into Manhattan and do a little Christmas window-shopping. Per Chris's suggestion, I headed to the holiday shops at Bryant Park. Seriously the most versatile park I've ever known, Bryant park becomes this winter-shopping-wonderland in the months of November and December. The ice skating rink is situated in the middle of the park with around 100 individual shops in greenhouse-esque buildings. The normal things to love about Bryant Park - Wichcraft, seating, ping pong etc. - are all still there as well. I had a lovely time browsing the shops and then grabbed some tomato soup and a goat cheese sandwich from Wichcraft, and sat and watched people ice skate. I'm really ready for Christmastime in the City now!!!

It Really Is a Small World, After All

Two things happened this weekend that made me realize what a small and crazy world we live in. Sunday morning, Chris and I went to church at Redeemer on the upper east side. It's a pretty huge church that has multiple services and this particular service meets in a large auditorium at Hunter College. Well we sat next to this couple and came to find out that they were visiting from North Carolina, grew up in SC, and went to Clemson. Then, it turns out that the people they were staying with live in our neighborhood in Brooklyn and also went to Clemson. What?! So crazy!

The second thing happened as a result of reading the Brownstoner blog, a blog that has a reputation for reporting on all things Brooklyn. They posted about a family who recently launched a blog documenting the renovation of a Victorian style house on Albemarle. When I saw pictures of the street I thought that surely that can't be so close, just south of Prospect Park. It also got me feeling guilty that I had never ventured to that neighborhood. There are so many parts of New York City - so many parts of Brooklyn - that we have never explored and probably won't ever get the chance to. So, partly feeling guilty of not knowing my own community and partly doubting that such a place existed so close to my neighborhood, I decided to go on an adventure. It was a beautiful, 65 degree day, perfect for a walk. It took me about 25 minutes, and sure enough, there is a whole neighborhood full of BEAUTIFUL, huge, victorian style houses. It absolutely blew my mind. The neighborhood is called Prospect Park South and was planned in 1899 to be a "country in the city." Amazing. I can't get over how this exists so close to us.

On the way, I passed the corner of Windsor Place and Terrace Place, so of course I had to get a picture! I heart Windsor Terrace!

The Laforces Visit!

Way back in early October, we tested whether or not our apartment could handle six people when the Laforces - Keith, Megan, Eric, and Emily - came to visit! Although our tiny apartment was a tight squeeze for the crowd, we managed and we had a great time with them. This was the first time we had gotten together since Emily and Eric's wedding so it was fun to spend time with the newlyweds.

The subway system decided to shut down that weekend...literally. Every subway line except three (two of which were shuttle services) had some sort of service disruption that weekend. The F was not running from Church Avenue to Jay Street and was replaced by...dum dum dum...shuttle buses. Normally when this happens, we just stay in Brooklyn for the weekend. But of course we didn't want to do that this weekend, so the Laforces got to enjoy the shuttle buses with us ha. They were great sports!

Saturday we walked around midtown and that night we went to see Avenue Q, which was hilarious. We are so glad they came to visit!!!

5 More Visitors

I'm not so good at this blogging thing...

So since it's been over a month since I've posted anything, I have missed 3 separate groups of visitors. First, my cousin Lindsay came to stay with us on her way back to Cairo. It was SO good to see that girl! We don't get to see each other very often, and I'm really glad that we got to catch up, especially since there were Preacher Cookies involved. :)

Next were Tara and Andrew! It was Andrew's first time in NYC, which is always fun. We walked around midtown, went to FAO Schwartz, Burger Joint, and the Museum of Natural History.

Then a couple days later Rebekah and Javier came up to visit! They had a bit of bad luck with the weather, but eventually got to see a match at the US Open...the one where Serena went crazy, nonetheless. We had a great time exploring Central Park with them....for four hours? It was a long time and a lot of walking, but a lot of fun too.