The Rooftop @ The Standard Hotel

My sweet friend, Mallorie, moved to Alabama last week where she will be attending her first year of law school at the University of Alabama.  So excited for her!  Mallorie has been such a wonderful friend to have in this city.  She is so sweet and normal!  I selfishly wish I had met her earlier and that she would have stayed here much longer.  She grew up in CoMo like I did and that has been a fun connection to have.

A few of us wanted to spend an evening with her before she left the city to say good-bye and congratulations (on getting into law school AND getting engaged - woo hoo!)  I asked Mallorie if there was anything she was dying to mark off her NYC to-do list before she left.  She mentioned hitting up a roof-top bar.  I did a little research and found the perfect place for a fun evening with the girls.

The Standard Hotel is a swanky/uber-cool hotel in the Meatpacking District, right on the Highline.  They have a great restaurant (which I haven't yet been to) and several other cafes/restaurants/bars.  They also have a rooftop bar.  I saw pictures of it and it looked absolutely adorable.  We were a little worried that this place was out of our league, but decided to try anyway.  Getting in the door was a little intimidating (the hostess glared unapprovingly at my shopping bag I had from running an errand that day and she made me check it at the coat check!).  We all somehow individually made it past the girl...each with a different/strange experience.  And it was totally worth it!  The views from the top were amazing!!

Cute, fun furniture!

Spectacular views of the Hudson River & downtown

Me, Lucy, Mallorie, Sally, Jen

Take note of the building just between Lucy & Sally - 

the tallest one that is pretty lit up.  That is the new Freedom Tower.

Until this particular evening, I had NO idea it was already that tall.

So exciting!!  And, I read a few days later that it is officially the

tallest building in NYC now.  Love it!

These are some of my favorite people!

Summer Wedding

I got to attend a very fun wedding back in June.  Angela is on staff at my church and one of her primary roles has been coordinating all the children's programming.  As one of the lead teachers for the past 4+ years, I've gotten to serve alongside her.  She is wonderful at what she does and it has been both a pleasure and a blessing to get to work with her in this capacity.  Sadly, she will be replaced soon and she will be taking on another role serving our pastors.  Anyway, Angela got married in mid-June and it was such a perfect celebration and it was all SO very "Angela".  The wedding had a very homemade feel to it, yet everything still came across as professionally done.  The couple was also extremely resourceful...which is a little easier to do when you work for a church in Manhattan and have access to quite an incredible pool of talent.  The music, cakes, and photography were all done by church members.

The ceremony was held at the church where I attend on Sunday nights...St. George Episcopal church.  St. George isn't my church, just owns the building we rent for our Sunday night services.  It is a beautiful space and this was my first wedding to attend there.

The bride wanted everyone to go barefoot, if they wanted!

The bride/groom and their wedding party were all sans shoes.

Angela has explained to me before that she feels more

comfortable and free to worship when she goes barefoot.

And she references Exodus 3:5, where God asks

Moses to take off his sandals in His presence.

After the ceremony, there was a break before the reception, so

I joined some friends for a drink at a bar where you get a WHOLE

pizza (albeit a small one) with every drink purchase.  Crazy!

And they had an outdoor patio, which was nice on this hot summer day.

The reception was a bit of a trek out in Brooklyn, but it was at the Brooklyn Historical Society which had a gorgeous outdoor space that was so perfect for this occasion.

Is the groom's cake not the best you've ever seen?!

It actually looks like the groom himself!

Mason jars for everyone, with attached tags and markers

provided to claim you jar

Most of these ladies are in my Community Group

and they are such amazing people to know!

Madison Square Park Art

I'm going to attempt to start blogging again!!  I have got to get caught up and get my Spain trip documented.  So, there may be a bunch of random posts as I go through my camera photos and look back at my calendar of events.  Here's the first of (hopefully) many!

Madison Square Park is an adorable park, possibly best known as the home to the original Shake Shack.  This park is also known for it's Art Exhibits and this summer has been home to statue titled Echo.  It is really cool!

That would be the Empire State Building poking up

behind and to the left of the statue.

Community!

My church community group has shared some AMAZING times around the table recently.  It has been so much fun!

Back in May, we decided to hold a progressive dinner.  If you've never done this before, I encourage you to round up some friends and make a plan!  It was fairly easy to pull together.  We had 4 stops along our route that night :

First up was cocktails on Carly's rooftop.  She has a fabulous rooftop with great views of the Hudson.  And Carly made some some sangria that was seriously better than any I tried during my Spain vacay.  Soooo good!

Stop #2 was my home where we had appetizers.  I made Deviled Eggs and Ricotta Bruschetta.  The Bruschetta was amazing!  Thank you, once again, Ina Garten.  Man, that cookbook has done me well this year since receiving it at Christmas....makes me want to run out and purchase her older books.  Keri provided cheese/bread and fruit.  I loved seeing my apartment packed full with friends visiting.

My first attempt ever at Deviled Eggs!

I almost forgot to take a pic - this was the last piece left of

the Ricotta Bruschetta.  So yum!

Stop #3 was Claire's home.  Claire knows how to host a dinner party.  She has a long table to begin with, but she rigged a super long table using side tables and night stands from around the apartment and we were able to sit about 18 people around one long table.  It was fabulous!  Plus, the table was beautifully decorated with place settings already out and candles.  Claire & company cooked delicious chicken, pasta, bread, salad, etc....  It was a huge feast!  So much fun.  (Following pics courtesy of Leticia)

With Katie & Leticia

The fabulous table

Another view

Cheers!

Our fourth and final stop of the night was at Jason's apartment for dessert!  There was carrot cake, chocolate cake, and an ice cream/oreo concoction that was so good.  And a champagne toast to boot.

It was such a fun night and an event we will have to repeat!

The second meal we shared recently was just this week.  Claire invited us over for a potluck and encouraged us to bring friends.  There were 29 people there!  I took my friend Stacy and I think she had fun, too.  And Claire outdid herself and managed to rig a long table with enough seats for all of us.  Amazing!  Especially for a NYC apartment.  She made adorable little lights that hung over the table and once again had the table set to perfection.  She has soooo many glasses and plates...there were more than enough for all of us.  In fact, I think most of us used one glass during the cocktail hour and then we had another glass for water at our seat, plus a wine glass.  That's almost 90 glasses total!  Pretty crazy for a young single gal (she's only like 23 years-old)!  And, again, we're talking about an NYC apartment where storage space is limited.  I don't know how she does it!

Everyone brought something to the potluck to share and it was all outstanding.  I relied on Ina and she came through for me once again!  I made Greek Panzanella and it was so delish!  Claire made little tarts that were so very cute and tasty...I tried the goat cheese/carmelized onion one, but the tomato ones and the squash ones got rave reviews as well!  There were tons of different salads we passed around the table as well as Corn Pie (yum!), ravioli lasagna and other tasty treats.  Followed by brownies and ice cream for dessert.  Such fun!  I don't have any pics from this party other than my delish salad...isn't it beautiful?!

NFL Draft!

I scored free tickets to the NFL Draft this year.  Kind of a random event to go to, but it's at Radio City Hall, right by my office and every year I can see from our windows while they set-up for it and then I see the red carpet activity on Night 1.  I've always kind of wanted to go, but could never figure out how to get tickets.  This year, one of the seat-filling type agencies I'm signed up with had an opportunity to go to the draft!  We went on the 2nd night...it would have been fun to go on the first night when some bigger names were there, but I had a church obligation.  So, we settled for night 2.  When I say "we", I mean Mindy and I.  I was able to secure 2 tickets and Mindy loves pro-football so I figured she was the perfect companion for this event.  I wasn't sure I'd like it at all, but I was interested enough to check it out and I'm glad we did because it was pretty fun!
In the lobby, before entering the theater, there were a lot of different interactive booths and such that we walked around checking out.  We got some fun pictures taken of us!

I used the Cowboys jersey and Mindy used the Texans

Superbowl Trophy surrounded by Super Bowl rings

Upon entering the theater, we were given gift bags....and you know I love a good gift bag!  The best item was a pretty great t-shirt, but we also got some snacks and even a little radio (that we could use during the draft to listen to commentary)!

Love Radio City! 

Our seats were amazing!  Apparently all the good seats are used by family members of the drafted players on Night 1/Round 1.  Then those seats are empty for the rest of the rounds.  We had some men sitting behind us who had paid hundreds of dollars for their tickets - they had to purchase all rounds as a package.  They were so jealous of us and wanted to try our route next year.

We sat directly behind all the Media seats

And right next to the ESPN guys

 Some people were clearly far more into this than we were

The draft itself was interesting, but we only needed to watch Round 2 before we'd seen enough.  We could have stayed for Round 3, but opted to leave and get some dinner. Dinner was at Bill's Bar & Burger.  I (secretly) love this place.  It's a huge restaurant right in Rockefeller Center, but the food is really quite good.  We enjoyed a good burger after the draft!

Name That Actress

Okay, friends!  Let's play another round of "Name That Actor(ress).  Last night, I had the amazing opportunity to go to the GLEE concert with one of the cast member's moms....more on that in a totally separate post.  While we were backstage at the concert, a lady came in with 3 young girls (probably her daughters and friends) and I just know this lady is an actress (but not on Glee)!  I don't have much to give you this time, other than a description of what she looks like.  She's small - like probably 5 feet and very petite.  She had strawberry blonde/reddish hair.  To me, she looked like a cross between Julianne Moore and Laura Linney.  Guesses anyone?!

Back that Truck Up!

We're backing it all the way to Easter! My friend, Brooke, pointed out about 3 weeks ago that I haven't blogged since April 23rd. (I would like to point out that Brooke doesn't have a blog at all! And she just had a baby - if that's not blog worthy material, I don't know what is! And it's not like her life wasn't blog worthy before baby, with summers spent in Africa and/or Indonesia and life working at an elite private/boarding school....she's definitely got some stories)!

Anyway. Yikes - it really has been almost 2 months now...definitely the longest I've gone without posting during the 5+ years of this blog's life. Of course, I've gone through the internal debate all bloggers go through in this scenario...do you go back and catch-up or just start over with fresh/recent material? I've decided to go back and catch-up. I hate to skip over any good material! But, I probably will skip over some things and just hit some of the highlights. For now, let's take a look at Easter 2011!

So, I loved this Easter. I hesitate to call it my favorite in NYC only because I've had some really great ones here. This year, I hosted a couple of occasions during the weekend and I loved having people in my home! On Maundy Thursday, my CG got together to read some scripture, pray, and take communion. We usually meet at Sarah Beth's and Ema's apartment each week, but SB was hosting her family that weekend, so I offered to use my place instead. It was a small group, but a fruitful time with community reflecting on Jesus' sacrifice for us.

On Friday, I went to my church's Good Friday service and it was great. Our worship leader is doing a fantastic job every week, but these special services are amazing! It was just a small glimpse of what was to come on Sunday.

Saturday was my productive day of getting ready for Easter Brunch on Sunday. I spent Saturday evening with some friends eating Shake Shack in the park. My friends, the Watsons, were moving the next week back to Dallas. Shannon & Travis were wonderful ring-leaders for the Baylor Alumni in NYC and we will miss them!! Shannon also happened to work in the same building I work in so I also go to see her during the week sometimes and, on occasion, grab lunch.

I hosted a fabulous group of nine ladies at my apartment on Easter Sunday for brunch. It was a mix of friends from church and friends from elsewhere and a couple of my friends brought friends. The craziest thing was that Megan figured out that one of her co-workers lives in my building, so we invited her to come and she did! It was great! I had fun decorating and cooking to try to make it the fun and fancy celebration that Easter should be.

(Pardon the fuzziness of these pictures - my camera started freaking out on me around this time.  I purchased a new one before the big Spain trip and I love it!!)

I made some of my favorite brunch dishes, plus a new one!

To drink, I had Almond Tea, Water, and make-your-own Iced Chai

With Allison & Mindy

Stacy

Hillary

After we enjoyed a delicious meal, we got crafty together! I had some thank-you note-card printables from one of my favorite websites that were ready to be decorated. It included examples of things you could do to embellish the cards, but some ladies got super creative with theirs! Once they were decorated, we bundled them up with twine and they were ready to go - so cute! I have even used at least one of mine.

Christine & Megan

I sent the girl's home with Easter egg shaped sugar cookies

Christine brought Tulips - sweet!

Most of the girls had places to be by mid or late afternoon. Allison, Stacy and I went for a stroll in the park looking for cherry blossoms....we were about a week early so they weren't in full bloom yet.

That evening, most of us ended up at church. Oh, my! The service that night was possibly my favorite church service ever, anywhere! It was soooo good. My feelings were echoed by almost everyone I talked to about it and further confirmed the next Sunday when our pastor said it was possibly the highlight of our church's history. Wow - that's quite a statement! I wish I could describe it to you in enough detail so that you could experience it like I did, but I just cannot possibly do it justice. There was a choir, an amazing soloist, great sermon, and the undeniable presence of the Holy Spirit. It brought chills to my arms and tears to my eyes. I loved it and wish I could do it over again right now!

Until next year, I suppose!