A Gala and the Elephant Walk

I never got around to blogging about my events last week! On Monday night, I had my first “gig”. I helped out at an event my teacher’s company was working on. Usually, her company does entire events…from creation to production. However, for this event, they were doing décor only. The event was held at the Crowne Plaza Suites in Times Square and was the 10th Annual Gala for the National Business Travel Association. There were representatives there from all the major airlines, hotels, travel websites, etc… The main part of the décor was that all the tables and bars were illuminated in blue. It looked really cool once it was all put together. We had a lot of down-time during the event, but they had a cocktail reception room we helped set-up, as well as the main ballroom where they were served dinner. Then, while dinner was going on, we moved everything from the reception room to another area where they had dessert and drinks after dinner. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the work as well as the people who were there from my teacher’s company.

A "high-top" table at the Cocktail Reception















The bar at the Cocktail Reception















The main dining room















Flower centerpieces















Dinner Table















The appetizer




















One of the bars in the dessert area















Another bar in the dessert area















More high-tops in the dessert area















On Tuesday night, the Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey circus came to town. The circus still travels everywhere by train, but since all our train stations are underground, the elephants can’t get out! So, they walk the elephants into town from a station in Queens. It’s a big deal every year to go watch the elephants march into town. I met Joy and a couple of other people to witness the event ourselves. We had to wait for quite a while and then it only took about a minute for the elephants to walk by—too quick! Also, they don’t get into Manhattan until after midnight, so it was a late night. But, it was still fun and I’m glad to be able to say I saw it!








































My friends Andi and Jennifer (aka Worley) have been here the past few days...look for a blog about our adventures coming soon!

S'Mac!

One of the fun things about NYC is all the novelty restaurants. I met Kristin down in the East Village on Friday night to eat at S’mac. Serving, what else? Mac & Cheese! They had several different varieties. The one I got was filled with brie, nutmeg, fig, rosemary, etc… It was amazing. The menu said it was addictive and it truly was…there was some flavor in it that I couldn’t identify (possibly the nutmeg) that made it sooo good and kept me eating and eating! It was great to catch up with Kristin one-on-one as well. I think that’s happened only one other time since I left the Journey—we’re usually group brunching together. She is definitely one of my favorite people in NYC. Very real, sweet, mature, thoughtful, etc…

Otherwise, I didn’t do too much else exciting over the weekend. My parent’s mutual cousin (I mentioned her in my Christmas blog, here), was in town with her husband so I met them for dinner on Saturday night. They were staying just around the corner from me, so we ate in my neighborhood at Pietresanta—the pumpkin ravioli place. It was good again, but the service was REALLY slow and I was kind of annoyed at that.

Sunday, I did some shopping. I had to have a white dress shirt for an event on Monday night and I didn’t own one! I also headed out to Brooklyn to check out a children’s store I had read about and I needed another baby gift for a friend. The store was really cute—didn’t have as many clothes as I had imagined, but what they did have was cute. They also had some really cool looking toys that I’ll have to keep in mind for future gifts for Ryder. It was a beautiful day, so I took a stroll along the Promenade and saw 3 bride & grooms out there taking wedding pictures.

I’ve done a couple of fun, unusual things this week…will blog about that when I have time to upload some pictures to go along with it!

My roommates

In response to Nicole's (my cousin) last comment, I decided to write a post updating everyone on my roommate situation. I used to be afraid of talking about other people on my blog, but it would be pretty difficult for them to run across it, so I think it's okay. Nicole is right, I don't talk about them much, but I really don't even see them too much. (Nicole, you'll hardly see them when you're here, I'm sure).

Sharon is a pastry chef-- works from 3:00am til whenever she gets done. Sometimes, she's coming home from work at the same time I am even though she goes in 6 hours earlier!! Her job is really stressful with long hours and when she's home, she's usually sleeping or watching movies on the couch. On the weekends, she gets on a slightly more normal schedule, but otherwise, we're pretty flipped. I think I would like her a lot if we had the chance to hang out more. She's cute and some of her interests seem similar to mine. But, she's very dirty- that's the one thing I don't like about her. She cooks a lot and leaves the kitchen a disaster!! There are other gross things that I can't even mention on my blog. I seriously never knew that girls could be so disgusting. And I'm not a neat-freak (some of my old roommates will vouch for that, I'm sure)...Sharon is just really, really bad.

Cathy is interesting. I thought I liked her at first, but she has turned out to be a bit overwhelming. She became a Christian about 5 years ago and apparently has been going through an identity crisis ever since. She talks about it ALL the time. In fact, it is pretty much the only thing she talks about. For instance, when my mom was here for several days in October, she ran into Cathy only twice and both times Cathy went into her whole identity crisis situation. Basically, she just can't figure out how to live in this world as a Christian...she worries and stresses about it a lot. She just got a new job at a PR firm, but otherwise had basically been unemployed since I moved in (I guess her parent's were paying her rent). Anyway, the main reason she didn't have a job was because she didn't know what God wanted her to do. So, she didn't really even try to look for something else-- waited all those months doing absolutely nothing everyday until a job was literally placed in her lap. Really??? I mean, yeah, I agree that it's important to pray about big decisions (like where you're going to spend 40+ hours of every week), but to do absolutely nothing, put your life on hold for 9 months? I don't think that's ever God's plan for us...He tells us to "live IN the world." I think most people would at least get out and do SOMEthing-- volunteer, get a part-time job, something!! It's overwhelming because I just don't know how to help her when she says the same things over and over and over again. Honestly, it has made me wonder if she really understands what faith and trust mean. I just think that as Christians who are seeking God and his will and being obedient to that, we find (or actually are given through grace) freedom from those worries and stresses. We've placed our trust in something that we know is perfectly good and right, we've "cast ALL our burdens on Him." I know she spends a lot of time in the Word and in prayer-- much more than I do- so, I haven't been able to reconcile how she remains such a worried person about making sure she's doing what God wants her to do. I know part of it is just personality. Anyway, maybe I'm being too judgemental here, but the longer I hear about it the more I get annoyed! So, I've gotten in a bad habit of avoiding her the best I can. Not very Christ-like of me, I realize, and I do need to spend more time praying for her and about how I could be more helpful to her.

Sorry for the rant, sometimes a blog is good for that!! That's basically the synopsis on the roommate situation. I often think about moving out on my own...especially now that I know all these girls in my Bible Study with super-cute studios. But, a studio in Manhattan would be about a 50% increase in rent for me and I just can't make much sense of that. Moving out of Manhattan or into Harlem where places are more affordable is also not appealing. We have a really nice space (for NYC standards) and our neighborhood is very young and full of fun restaurants, so that would be hard to give up as well. So, for now, I remain in Hells Kitchen...

Living in NYC = Brunch on the weekends

Everyone here always said they discovered brunch when they moved to NYC. I've always liked brunch and have been doing it with friends occasionally since college, but never to the extent that we seem to do it here in New York. I went to a new brunch place on Saturday with a couple of girls…Good Enough to Eat. It really was! It was a very cute place on the Upper West Side. I had a brie and pear omelet that was amazing. I couldn’t taste the pear much, but I decided brie might be the best cheese to pair with eggs! Afterwards, we trudged through the piles of snow across the park to 5th Avenue to catch the end of the St. Paddy’s Day Parade. It was pretty anti-climatic. I don’t think I’m a parade person. They’re all pretty much the same with high school bands and random groups of people. There were lots of groups of bagpipers though and they were pretty cool. I imagine if we had been closer to mid-town it probably would have been a different scene, but we were on the Upper East side with all the families with children watching the parade.

During the parade, we were standing just outside the MET, so after we got tired of the parade, we decided to go check out the Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibit. I had walked through this exhibit very quickly back in December, but had been wanting to go back and do the audio tour. I really like this exhibit. It is mostly things from his home, windows, his piano, the outside terrace…all pieces of art created by Tiffany.

After the museum, I made my way back through the park to do some shopping on the Upper West. I knew there are lots of cute baby stores over there and wanted to pick up something to take home to Baby Beau in a few weeks. I got a couple of cute new summery outfits he can wear out by the pool this summer while Beth and Ryder swim.

Sunday was my first week to teach the kids. I taught the 3-5 year-olds with a girl named Katie. Turns out she’s from Dallas and went to Baylor as well. This church is full of Texas transplants and I actually love that about it. Also, teaching the babies-2 year-olds was another couple from Dallas and it turns out they went to my sister’s church in Dallas and they are good friends of my brother-in-law’s twin brother and his family. I had been told about this couple and their children when I was moving up here, but never met them until now. It is nice to make connections like these up here—makes it seem like home! The kids at church were so cute and fun. The curriculum they are using seems very good and our pastor’s wife does an excellent job organizing everything. Katie and I only had two little boys in our class this week. Both are from Dallas, of course. My friend Michelle one day asked one of these boys, Griffin, where he was from. He replied, “Texas”. And Michelle asked, “where in Texas”, expecting to get Dallas, or Austin, or Houston for an answer. Griffin quickly responded, “a really big house”. Even the little 3-year-olds realize that their lifestyle here in their tiny apartments is very different from where they came from. I thought that was really cute.

Joy visited Apostles yesterday—don’t think I can convince her to leave The Journey because she has so many friends there and is a rock-star singer for the church, but she was VERY impressed with JR’s sermon. She commented to me after that if she wasn’t already saved, his sermon yesterday would have convinced her! After church, she went with Michelle and I to brunch. We went to a great Mexican place near church, so that was fun. They even served free drinks with your meal—that never happens here! I never get drinks at brunch—too expensive, but, when offered a free Mimosa, I’ll take one!

I went back to church last night so I could actually attend worship myself. It was good and I was once again very thankful that I’ve started getting to know people there and had people to sit with and chat with afterwards.

My roommates and I went out to dinner together last night. This is a rare occasion. I think Cathy would like us to do it more, but we all have such different schedules and it is hard to coordinate sometimes. I was actually very surprised that Sharon came along—she should be sleeping at that time! We decided to pick a restaurant none of us had been to and ended up at Vinyl, just down the street. I’ve always been told that it’s kind of a hip diner. It was hip, but I wouldn’t consider it a diner. They had all kinds of food- from Kansas City barbecue sandwiches to Mexican to Thai and on. I just got a burger- kind of boring, but it sounded good and it was.

Is it Spring yet??

The weather has been crazy this week! It was in the 60' and 70's all week-- so nice!!! Then, today, it starts snowing and icing. It's supposedly the worst storm of the year-- won't know until tomorrow if that's the truth. They did close our office early- at 3:00. Most offices here don't do that, but for whatever reason, the NHL looks out for people when the weather is bad. I did some fun things this week- here's a synopsis...

Monday night I went grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s. My family discovered Trader Joe’s when my parent’s lived in California—they have them all over out there. It is a great place for groceries, but there is only one in NYC so it is always a mad-house. The line to check-out wrapped around the entire store. It was worth it, though. Their food is so cheap and really good. Ever since I moved here, I’ve been buying a salad at Central Market that I take to work for lunch a lot. I decided to buy the ingredients at Trader Joe’s and start making it myself. It has turned out really good this week! It has cranberries, walnuts, and goat cheese—a great combination, I’ve discovered. The main reason I went to Trader Joe’s was to get ingredients to make a chicken dish. A girl in my church was hit by a car a couple of weeks ago and is still in a coma. Her parent’s have been in from California, so my Bible study was taking food for them. My friend Jennifer, who is a personal chef, came to my rescue with a recipe for something they could easily freeze for later. It was a fiesta chicken dish with rice and black beans. I made enough to keep some for myself and plan to try it for dinner tonight!

Tuesday night was food-delivery night for my Bible study. We dropped off the meals we prepared at one of our minister’s apartments and he was going to deliver them to the girl’s parents. This minister, Kenny, just came on staff at Apostles and moved from Dallas just last month. His apartment was really cute—much more decorated than mine is! He made a comment that in Dallas he had started to get the 7-year itch. That made me realize that I had moved after about exactly 7 years. I wonder if I had the 7-year itch, too? It really makes me think it’s a real thing! After dropping off the food, us girls went out to dinner. It was fun just hanging out together.

Wednesday night I had class. We had our first quiz this week. We graded our OWN! Hysterical. I’m sure everyone got 100%. I really did get 100%-- I missed one, but there was an “extra-credit” question that I got right. After the quiz, we began discussing themes and I was having so much fun. We were split into groups and given a color and had 4 minutes to come up with a themed party based on that color. My group was assigned the color white and we came up with a Winter-Wonderland party. We had a white-carpet (instead of red) entry outside and as you walked into the event, you would walk through a cold igloo-type tunnel filled with snow. We would serve white-chocolate fondue, have white-chocolate martinis, The Average White Boy would provide entertainment, white snow-flakes would decorate the room, the caterers would use white-glove service, the bar would be made of ice, etc…. It was a lot of fun to come up with all these ideas in 4 minutes. My group presented first, but I had to leave early so I missed the other groups and was disappointed!

I left class early because Joy and I had tickets to the opera at Lincoln Center! We’ve had the tickets since before I registered for the class. This was my first opera experience! We saw Madame Butterfly and it was amazing. I loved it. I didn’t know before that the musical Miss Saigon, is based on Madame Butterfly. Miss Saigon happens to be my favorite musical, so that made me love Madame Butterfly all the more. The singing and costumes were so pretty. They have the English translation on a screen high above the stage, which was kind of awkard. I’m sure from some seats it is okay, but from where we were sitting, it was like watching a movie from the first row and it was impossible to watch the stage and the words at the same time. There is another theatre next door and I’ve heard that it has individual screens at each seat with the translation- that could be interesting. I loved the show anyway- just had a slight headache when we left!

Last Weekend

Just now getting around to posting about last weekend. I saw two plays, so that was fun. On Friday night, I went to see a play called “Coming or Going” that my friend, Amanda, was in. It was excellent!!! It was in a really tiny theatre with just three rows of chairs. The story was of 4 sisters from Texas. They did a really good job portraying different Texas stereotypes. It was funny and sad all at the same time. I really enjoyed it.

Saturday night, Joy and I got half-price tickets to see "Vertical Hour", with Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy. It was closing on Sunday, so this was our last chance to see it. I really enjoyed seeing Julianne Moore. Bill Nighy was also very good, but I really had trouble getting into this play. It was very political and I get bored by that pretty quickly.

I also went to brunch with Joy and Amanda and her roommate on Saturday at a French restaurant called Felix. It was really good and a very cute restaurant down in SoHo. We sat there forever people-watching…very fun. The restaurant was on West Broadway which I hadn’t really walked down much before and I discovered that it is a really cute street filled with great shops. After shopping for a while, Joy and I discovered a bakery that sells only crème puffs!! My family has a special love for crème puffs because our grandma was known for hers. So, when I saw the bakery, I just had to go in! Joy and I both got one—mine was chocolate covered, Joy’s was not. The crème inside was really good. Definitely a good new find!

Sunday I went to church and afterwards attended a meeting for the Kids Ministry. I am going to be on the leadership team for that and am really excited about it. One of my new responsibilities is to buy the supplies for Sunday School every week so that will be fun. This Sunday I am going to teach for the first time and I’ll be with the pre-schoolers. I am really looking forward to getting to know some of the kids there!

INTRODUCING....

Beau Hamilton

March 5, 2007

7lb, 11oz; 21.5 inches

He arrived at 12:21 on Monday. He and Beth are doing great. I swear she's like the energizer bunny. She has these babies and keeps on going! She is very excited about his blonde hair and mentions it every time I talk to her. We're not sure where it came from as our family and Brian's family all have dark hair! They said Ryder doesn't notice him much, but that he has been WILD lately. He just wants to get into everything but each thing only occupies his attention for a few minutes and then he's on to the next thing. I cannot wait to see these boys in April!!