Weekend Update

I've had a great few days with friends in town, a Christmas party, and more Christmas sights and events in the city! See pictures here.

I had no plans on Friday night, so I went to Macy’s to do some shopping. I also wanted to see it all decorated for Christmas. It looks so pretty!! And they had some great sales going on.

My friend Julie came in late on Friday night and is here until Thursday! We got up early on Saturday and headed to Brooklyn to spend the day. We first went to the Greenwood Cemetery—there was recently an article in the Dallas Morning News about it and it’s supposedly the prettiest cemetery in the US. It really was very pretty. There was a very pretty welcome building and a chapel and the grounds were gorgeous. It is huge, so I don’t think we saw very much of it, but we walked for quite a while

We headed to Grimaldi’s for lunch so Julie could try their famous pizza. We got there about 10 minutes before it opened and got seated as soon as they opened the doors—first time I haven’t had to wait in a long line on the street! It was delicious as always.

We walked through the pretty Brooklyn Heights brownstones and saw the views of Manhattan from the promenade. This is one of my favorite areas, but this was my first time to see it during the day! I like it better at night, I think, but it was nice to see in the daylight for a change.

We went to the Brooklyn Tabernacle where they were having a Christmas show. This was my first time there so it was exciting to see the pretty sanctuary and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. They were excellent. There were some skits that I could have done without, but otherwise, it was a good show. I’d like to go back there sometime to see a normal service.

Saturday night, Joy had a Crazy Christmas Sweater & Moustache party. Everyone was supposed to wear a tacky Christmas sweater and the guys were supposed to grow out ‘staches. People did pretty good with the sweaters, among other Holiday-wear. But, the guys didn’t grow their moustaches. However, George, my old co-worker, did bring a bunch of fake ones. I found sweaters for Julie and I and she brought some Christmas jewelry. My sweater had snowmen on it—Julie didn’t know that, but she brought a snowman necklace and snowmen earrings for me to wear with it. It worked out perfectly!! One of the best costumes was my friend Kelli (Kristin’s roommate). She wore a Christmas tree skirt as an actual skirt! It had characters knitted all over it and balls hanging off the end. It was a funny night!

After Joy’s, I took Julie to see the Rock Tree and skating rink. We saw a proposal on the rink!!! I have been wanting to see that—supposedly it happens quite a bit. It was really cute—just the two of them on the ice, then he got down on one knee and she had her hands to her mouth in surprise. Then, they hugged a lot and skated around a little and then suddenly he lost his balance and fell and then she did! It was so cute and funny!

On Sunday, Julie and I went to breakfast at Alice’s Teacup. I have been wanting to go to this cute Tea Room on the Upper West Side. It was really cute and we really enjoyed our breakfast and tea!

We shopped a lot on Sunday. We went to the Columbus Avenue flea market, then down to the West Village/Greenwich Village area…went to my store, Purdy Girl, and I again found a couple of skirts on sale for great prices! We got cupcakes at Magnolia. Then, we went to Chinatown to see if there was anything we couldn’t live without. Julie did a good job finding lots of scarves….I had to go to the bathroom and spent most of my time there in line for the restroom at Starbucks while Julie shopped. Starbucks really come in handy around here.

My old roommate, Deanna, and her husband, Derek, came in on Sunday and we met them for dinner at the Hudson Cafeteria. It was a lot of fun and really great to see them! It is so strange how different I feel being around people who know me so well after spending most of my time the last 8 months around people who don’t know me at all. It is a very nice feeling!!

Julie and I went to see the Rockette’s Christmas Spectacular at Radio City. It was an excellent, amazing show. I’ve seen it once in college in Branson, MO and once in Dallas a few years ago, but I don’t remember it being quite this good. The dancing was so entertaining. At the end, they do a live nativity scene and read scriptures from Isaiah and the Gospels. It was really touching and so crazy that such a commercialized, secular show became so religious and really spoke the Truth! Great for people to see at this time of year when they are more open to hearing about Jesus than any other time during the year. You could take pictures at this show and a lot of people were during the whole thing, but the camera flashes really started going crazy during this last part and that also surprised me—people were not only accepting of it, they liked it enough to take lots of pictures!

Tonight (Monday), I met up with Julie after work and we went down to Little Italy to meet Derek and Deanna for dinner again. We went to my favorite, Angelo's, and it was great. Afterwards, Julie and I did a little bit of shopping in SoHo.

It's been a great few days!!