Apostles 5-Years!

My church celebrated its 5th Anniversary in September and on October 15th, we held a huge party to celebrate. I was one of the 3 lead planners and had a total blast planning this party. With an expected 200 guests, it would be my biggest event to plan yet (# of people wise, at least). We actually ended up getting over 240 RSVPs! We couldn't believe it and as the RSVPs continued rolling in the day of the event, I began to get worried about food quantities and began praying for a loaves & fishes scenario. Well, I guess the prayers worked because we sent home several people with entire 6-packs of cupcakes. It was a super fun evening and I loved every minute of it! Here are some of the details:

The venue was the Fire House Museum in SoHo. That may sound strange, but it's actually an awesome space for a party. The 1st floor is the museum, which I've never really paid much attention to (I've been to an event there before). Then, the 2nd floor is a huge open space with incredible brick walls and red framed windows and it's just a great event space. I am really pleased that we (I use "we" lightly...I had very little input on the venue) chose that location and that it worked out so well.

After trying to make dinner work with our budget, we abandoned that plan and decided on a dessert party with cupcakes being the highlight. We had wine to drink and offered several other desserts along with some cheeses, crackers, and grapes to mix things up a bit. It was a great assortment and my decision to use Sugar Sweet Sunshine bakery for all the treats proved to be a good one.

I handmade cupcake toppers and was

very pleased with how they turned out

Liz bought the vases at Ikea for super-cheap

and I thought they turned out so cute!

For some decor, Liz had some great photos of Apostles, its people and the city printed and then attached them to foam board and we hung them around the space.  They turned out SO good.  And the cool thing is that the staff are about to move into a new office space and they will get to use the photos there, too!  It's hard to tell, but these next pictures are actually pictures of the walls around the room with the mounted photos hung on them.

We had an incredible jazz band who played throughout the evening.  They were so good!  People really got into it and began dancing towards the end of the night.  It was a lot of fun!

These two are very sweet and fun!

Steven & Elizabeth

Bounce House for the Kiddos! I was in charge of this and tried to do my due-diligence in making sure we got a bounce house that would fit in our event space. Checked the sizes of the houses, called the venue to find out the size of the space and especially the ceiling height. Well, I'm not sure if the bounce house people told me wrong or the venue did, but the Bounce House was entirely to tall! I was freaking out. Our pastor (i.e. my boss in this case) had been so excited about this and I didn't want to let him down. And there were kids coming who would be so disappointed and their parent's wouldn't have it to keep their kids occupied and busy like they'd planned. So, the guys who were setting it up told me they had a smaller one out in their truck and would I want to try that? YES, of course I would. They bring that house in and again, too big. Ugh! Freaking out again. But, these guys were awesome and kept working with it and figured out how to tie off the tops of the house and had a real make-it-work moment! I tipped them generously!  And the kids LOVED it!  It was full of kids for most of the 3-hour party.

Should have looked like a castle, but ended

up looking like a box with carrot tops!

We had an awesome photo-booth.  Well, there was really no "booth" to it, but we used the great red brick walls as a back drop and had a camera set-up on a tripod and one of the great photographers in our church offered to man the camera for most of the evening.

I made some lips and mustaches for the booth-

copied off an Etsy shop that sells them!

We brought in whatever other props we could find

and Liz made some great chalkboards using foam

board and chalkboard paint

Me with Kim and Jen

With Amanda!

We ended up with TONS of pictures from the evening.  These are just a handful of my favorites!

Murph was our photographer for the night

I love Meg and Megan!!

Role-reversals.  She's a flautist, he's a scientist

Amy's husband Matt couldn't be there

so she got a stand-in for the photo-op

These cute girls all live in 2 apartments

in the same building in Chelsea - fun!

Our older elementary girls!

Neely, Halle, and Sydney

Angela, our awesome Kids' Ministry staff leader

with our pastors' youngest daughter

Jones and Judson are too cute in this pic

These are the REAL Housewives of New York-

our Upper East Side moms

As our young church grows-up, so do its people.

These are our first 2 high schoolers!

Freshmen, Madison and Vianna

Hilarious!

One of my sweet Sunday School girls, Maia

Sydney was the only regular kid in my

Sunday School class a couple of years ago.

I love her and her fun personality!

The Jazz Band

And some other fun pics from my personal camera:

Getting ready for our photo booth op

with Kim

With Kim and Jen

Pastor's daughters

With Lucy and Amanda

With Allison

It was a blast of an evening and I was so glad I got to be a part of it.  I love planning events and probably need to seek out more opportunities to be able to help in this way.  I feel like I really thrive when I've got a good event to plan.  Like it's part of what I was created to do and I'm not fully myself if I'm not doing it!

Texas Twang

My co-workers like to laugh at things I say.  Most often, they giggle when I say "y'all".  I feel like "y'all" is a word I grew up being made fun of for saying so I'm used to it and I like the word and it's not ever being removed from my vocabulary.  Anyway, they aren't so much making fun of it as they think it's kind of cute and funny.  But, there are others times when they are just plain making fun of what I say.

For instance, I was recently giving directions to a sandwich shop to two of my co-workers.  It went something like this:

Me:  So, you go up 6th and turn right on 49th.  Then, you'll cross over the road....
Them: Bwahahahahah!!

And it turns out road is not an acceptable word here!  I do personally use the word street more often, but I would say I use the two words interchangeably and in my mind they are the same thing.  But to my co-workers, roads are only out in the country and here in the city only street or block are acceptable terms.  Okay.  Lesson learned.

Then, this week I was rounding up some of the girls to head to lunch.  We were just going across the street and I noticed one of my co-workers was changing her shoes.

Me:  So, are you going for a long walk or something?  Why are you putting your tennis shoes on?
The ladies:  Bwahahahaha!!

Apparently "tennis shoes" is just as unacceptable as "road".  Now, this one really surprised me because I see nothing strange or funny about "tennis shoes" at all.  But, they insist it's "sneakers" and nothing else.  Sneakers isn't really in my vocabulary.  I'm sticking with tennis shoes.

Yet Another Random Post

Here is yet another catch-up post! Just a few random things I've done recently that I hadn't blogged about yet. The good news is that I feel like I'm on the brink of being totally caught up and hopefully that will make this whole blogging thing seem less overwhelming and more enjoyable again!

Stacy and I grabbed burgers at a new place near work one Friday night. Bill's Bar & Burgers at Rockefeller Center. Although, I keep calling it Bob's and actually typed that here first and then went to double check the name and realized I was wrong yet again! Bill/Bob same diff, I guess. Anyway, it was surprisingly delicious! I was a little wary because it's a HUGE restaurant in a very touristy area. It reminded me of Olive Garden or Hard Rock that are in Times Square. I try to stay away from those places. But, the burgers were great. And, they had cupcakes and I was SUPER wary about those, but Stacy really wanted one, so I joined in and they were so good! Anyway, it's kind of exciting to have a new place within walking distance of work that's decent because mid-town is pretty lacking in that department.

After our yummy dinner, we headed to Lincoln Center where we met Megan for a showing of Social Network. I loved this movie! But, something was terribly wrong with the sound in our theatre - several people complained during the previews, but the theatre staff kept saying it would get better for the movie. Well, it didn't. It wasn't horrible, but I'd kind of like to see the movie again with normal sound. I should have demanded a comp ticket so I don't have to pay for it again! Anyway, brilliantly created movie and interesting story!

On another evening, Joy and I went after work to see a play, "Time Stands Still". It is starring Laura Linney, Christina Ricci, and Brian d'Arcy James. It was so good. It was about a couple who are war photographers and have just come back home and the struggles they have after seeing all the crazy stuff in the war-torn countries. Afterwards, they we were treated to a "Broadway Talks Back", which is a newer concept shows are occasionally doing on Broadway. They had 3 war photographers from Getty Images there who were interviewed. Laura Linney was on stage for this as well, but insisted that it was to be about the photographers and she was just listening in. It was very interesting to hear the stories of the photographers and to also hear how they could relate to what the couple in the play went through. And it was fun to see Laura on stage just being herself. She seemed very sweet and humble.

I took a calligraphy class! I had been on the waiting list for 9-10 months for this class and was so excited when I got an email saying there was finally a spot for me. It was taught by a lovely calligrapher in her own home, not far from my apartment. She had a great apartment and space in her living area for 8 of us to be able to take the class at once. It was a 3.5 hour class, but it went by way too fast. I think the main thing I learned is that calligraphy is really hard and I'm really bad at it. The teacher told us it took her a full year of practice before she could do it well and that we would need to practice for 15 minutes every day. I haven't been practicing, but I really want to start. I think it is the type of thing I could eventually perfect, but it will take time.

Class started by us receiving our very own pens and nibs and jars full of ink.  The teacher explained to us that different people like different nibs and the ones she bought us were antique and she feels they were made much better back in the day.  So, I thought that was pretty cool and it was nice to be able to take something tangible home with me. 

Here is my practice page of some of the lower case

letters.  If you see any on here that look pretty good,

then they are probably ones the teacher did!

And some of my upper case letters. These

were a lot harder for me.

The teacher obviously did my name that

you see in the middle - pretty, right?

So, I had dreams of coming away from the class and putting an advertisement on Craigslist and starting a calligraphy business on the side.  But, I now know that was pretty unrealistic and it's going to take a lot more before I can actually do something professional!  I am on the hunt for a desk so that I have a place where I can sit for 15 minutes a day and really practice.  We'll see where I've gotten a year from now.

Erin W's Wedding Day!

My friend, Erin, got married in September on the Jersey Shore.  A few of us drove over together and it was a fun evening.

The wedding was held in an area of a National

Park that used to be a Fort used for
protecting the New York Harbor.

The wedding was outside

The sun was shining so brightly in our eyes, it

made it hard to see and hard to take good pics!

The reception was held inside the cute
little chapel that was recently restored
to its original state.

Erin sent us all back to NYC with centerpieces!

I enjoyed my hydrangeas in my apartment for days.

Cute cake topped with a lighthouse

Grand Entrance

Listening to the toasts

Community Group represents!

Exit lined with those light up bracelet thingys for

the bride & groom getaway.

Retreating in the Poconos

I got to go to the Pocono's way back in September for the annual women's retreat with my church.  It was a weekend not unlike the retreats I attended the past two years.  However, since we went about a month earlier than those years, it didn't snow like 2009, but we also did not have the vibrant fall foliage of 2008.  It was, however, just as great of a weekend.  In fact, I think this may have been my favorite retreat yet.  The speakers were AmAzing.  We have some beautiful ladies in my church who have experienced the life transforming power of pursuing a life walked with Jesus and they humbly share their stories.  It was inspiring to hear of the freedom and joy some of these ladies are experiencing after giving up some "junk" they were holding on to and choosing Christ and His ways instead.  Our retreat planners did an excellent job of adding some extra personal touches to the weekend and I always appreciate those little things.  I didn't take any pictures this year, but snagged a few from other people to post here.

We were welcomed to our cabins with these cute

bags filled with treats.  Love the logo that the retreat

planners created and carried throughout the weekend.

There were flowers on the tables in our meeting room

and even in each of our bathrooms!

If you look hard, you might find me in this pic.

That's Murph down front, doing her interpretation

of Ethel Merman in a box.  One of the funniest

things I have ever seen!

After early morning worship in the amphitheatre,

we all trekked to the cafe for breakfast.

Someone took this pic of me during our morning

quiet times.  A sweet girl, Amanda, writes devotions

for us to work through during this time and they are awesome!

Watching Angeline maneuver the tiny pond in this

little paddle boat thing was hilarious!

The knitting circle during free time!  I opted to hike and

then play a round of NERTS on the lawn during our 3

hours of unscheduled time Saturday afternoon.