Happy Easter!

Happy Resurrection Day, everyone!

I am loving this Easter...so far, and it's not even Easter day yet!  My Bible Study has been studying the coming of the Messiah and it has been so great to be studying that in depth leading up to this holiday.  I especially enjoyed the week we studied the crucifixion.  We spent most of the week studying Isaiah 53.  It was written 700 years before Jesus entered our world, yet Isaiah prophesied Jesus' death for our transgressions.  For some reason that makes this powerful event all the more powerful in my mind.  For centuries, people were looking for their coming Messiah and then to see it come to light through Jesus on the cross - amazing!

Another neat thing we did last Friday was to have a Jewish Passover Seder meal together.  Have you ever done one of these?  It was a powerful experience for me.  Every step of the meal is clearly a sign of Jesus and His crucifixion for our sins.  I have found myself extra sad for people who still have the Seder meal every year - yet have no idea it's pointing to Jesus.  They are still waiting for their Messiah!  To us who know Him, it is so obvious!  But, for them.....

They know nothing, they understand nothing; 

their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see;

and their minds closed so they cannot understand.

Isaiah 44:18

Our leader for the Seder meal prayed that night that anyone who partakes in the meal would see that it clearly points to Jesus as Messiah.  I think it's neat to pray that God would begin to take the veil off their eyes so they can see Jesus as God!

We remembered all these things I've been studying at our church's Good Friday service - which was so excellent and all the more powerful to me after these recent experiences.  Tomorrow, we'll celebrate the risen King!

On Friday, He died for our sins and on Sunday he rose for our justification.

He bore my sin, so I could bear His righteousness before God.

He became powerless, so that I could have power to live forever.

He did it obediently and quietly and all with a strong confidence in God's plan.

Hallelujah, what a Savior!

B-A-Y-L-O-R

Baylor NCAA Games! I had some fun times watching our men battle their way through the Round of 32 and Sweet 16 and their final game in the Elite 8! I watched the Round of 32 game in New Jersey of all places! There are 5 people from my old community group still in the Tri-State area and 3 of us are Baylor Bears and 2 are Colorado Buffalo. Since we were playing each other, it made sense to watch together! Two of the girls have moved to New Jersey and one has a 4-month-old - her husband was also out of town for a conference, so there was no way she was bringing baby into the city late at night alone. So, we opted to go to her place instead! The 3 New Yorkers (myself, Kim, and Jen) only slightly regretted the fact that we obligated ourselves to travel by train to NJ on St. Patrick's Day. I was really glad St. Patty's fell on a weekend this year because I didn't have to battle all the crazy rif-raf around my office building. TONS of people come in from New Jersey, Long Island, and the Outer Boro's to watch the parade and drink all day long. It's a loud, disgusting mess. And, we were riding with that disgusting mess back to their home on the train for 1.5 hours. By the time we got to our destination, our train conductor had blood all over his shirt from breaking up a fight and Kim had practically participated in a threesome when some girl came and sat in the lap of the guy sitting next to Kim and they proceeded to make-out like crazy. Seriously obnoxious people the whole way there! Luckily, the ride back into the city was much more calm. AND, we had a great time catching up with our Jersey girls, Erin & Erin! Plus, Baylor won - woot!

I watched the Sweet 16 game at Stacy's apartment along with Mindy and Christina and her friend in from Oklahoma. Another fun night with pizza and catching-up and another win!

For the Elite 8 game on Sunday, Kim and I just met at a bar near church because I had a meeting that was starting right about the time the game would be ending. We ate lunch and cheered on our Bears. We lost the game in the 1st half, but luckily the score got a little better in the 2nd. I didn't expect that we would beat Kentucky (I actually have them winning the whole thing in my bracket!), so I wasn't too disappointed.  Super proud we made it to the Elite 8!

Now we're cheering on our Lady Bears in the Final 4 and after that we get to see RGIII take the NFL Draft by storm. Definitely the best year in sports for Baylor in my lifetime thus far. Maybe our bad luck curse is finally over! But I don't want to jinx it, so I'll state for the record that I fully expect career ending injuries, murders of teammates, coaching scandals, and anything else that could possibly go wrong.... next year.

Sic 'em!

Spain! Madrid - Day 2, Part 2!

I know you're all sitting on pins & needles waiting to find out what our big adventure was for Part 2 of Day 2 in Spain.  I suppose I've left you hanging for long enough.

Bullfighting!!  It was definitely a highlight of the whole trip!  The first fight was a little shocking (even though we were well aware of how it would end), but after that it was quite entertaining!  They do six full fights each evening and it lasted a couple of hours.  The arena was filled with mostly locals and it was fun to be surrounded by them at an event that is so cultural to that country.  They were SO into it and it was really quite interesting to watch.  I've got TONS of pictures from the night.  (WARNING : the bull dies).

Plaza de Toros was really beautiful and huge

There was an opening ceremony of sorts to get the evening started

Tons & tons of Spaniards were there

On the way in, we had a confusing interaction with 

the concession stand seller and I thought I ended

up with a bottle of water.  Turns out Aquarius

is more of a carbonated lemon drink, but it was tasty

(not nearly as good as Lemon Fanta, though)!

The whole process of the bullfight is fascinating...

once you get over how really horrible it is

It starts with a group of men in amazing costumes and bright socks

with bright capes

They tease the bull mercilessly and sometimes have to run out of

harm's way and hide behind crevices in the ring wall

Next come the fighters on horses with swords.

The cape guys attempt to draw the bull near to 

the horses and the man on the horse stabs

the bull with the sword

You could see that the horse fighter went for

the bull in the exact same spot near his neck

each time.  Everything was extremely

methodical and planned out.  There was definitely

a plan and purpose for each fighter and each move

Next, one fighter pulls out these sword type things and goes

after the bull.  See the man in the fancy pink costume with

no cape holding 2 white things?   Those are his weapons.

The cape guys draw the bull towards the weapon holder and he

stabs the bull.  The weapons are left hanging, inserted in the bull.

This happens a couple of times - here you can see the

bull already has 2 weapons hanging from him and

another fighter is about to stab him with 2 more.

The fighter has to stab and RUN!

More RUNNING after a successful stab

The poor bull has now been worn down by the fighters with capes

and stabbed multiple times and is bleeding.  But, that's not all.

By this time, the bull would start to struggle.  He

was worn out and moving slowly and sometimes

had trouble even standing up.  This is when the real

Bullfighter (the Matador) with the RED cape comes out.

The Matador carries a small sword and has one goal -

to strike the bull in a certain spot right between the eyes

that causes the bull to die immediately.  Once the fighter

is in the correct position to hit the right spot, it all happens very quickly.

Trying to draw the bull nearer

I couldn't believe I captured this - I had no

idea the bull would run this guy over!!

It happened to this same Matador twice -

guess he wasn't very good?!  The Matador

finished his fight, but then they had to carry him

out of the ring, so I guess his 2 run-ins really hurt!

As soon as the bull is pierced with that last sword, he falls immediately

And they parade the poor, beaten bull out of the ring

If you look closely in this next picture, you can see a few people are waving white flags.

This seemed to be some method of voting.  After the last fight, the crowd went CRAZY

and everyone was waving their white flags.

Also, after the last fight when the crowd was going crazy with their white flags,

they were also turning towards and yelling at the people in the box seats

directly above our seats.  We tried to ask around, but there were only 2 good English

speakers near us and they also had no clue.  From what the semi-English speaking man

next to me said, it was the President sitting in the box and he gets to make the

decision as to the winner.  The crowd was appealing to him with their choice

of the final fighter, but apparently the President chose no one that night.  We still

aren't completely sure and we have no idea who this President was...the President of

this fight?  The President of all bullfighting?  The President of SPAIN?!

After bullfighting, we went to a restaurant, Casa Minga, that was

a bit off the beaten path, but was totally worth the trek.  It

was an Asturian (another region of Spain) restaurant and

they pretty much just served chicken and cider.

They also told us we needed to get the salad, which wasn't very good, but

the chicken and the cider were SO yummy!  And it was a neat little

restaurant.  We really enjoyed it! 

Lots & lots of cider!

Weekend Review - Sunday

On Sunday morning, I was back in the theatre district before 9am!  Mindy and I were on a mission to get tickets to see Sutton Foster's last performance in Anything Goes.  We tried to get Rush tickets at 10am, but were about 3 people too far back in line.  But, that put us 1st in the Cancellation line.  This line is for people who call and cancel their tickets and then the theatre re-sells them to people like us. We had to wait in line outside (and it was kind of cold!) until about 11:45, but then they got a bunch of cancellations and we scored 4th row, center seats!!  Plus, with Mindy's student ID (for her acting classes), we got them for 1/2 off.  Mindy had a good theory about the cancellations - hotels probably get tickets to every show and then cancel at the last minute.


We had a couple of hours to spare, so we went to John's Pizzeria for lunch-really good New York pizza - yum!  Then, it was back to the theatre for the show.  This was one of the very best Broadway experiences I have ever had!  Because it was Sutton's last day, all her biggest fans came out.  The energy of both the audience and the cast was out-of-control...in a good way!  When Sutton first walked on to the stage, she got seriously huge applause.  It's normal for big celebrities to get applause when they walk on stage, but this went on and on and on.  This happened a few times throughout the show - where the audience clapped at normal times, but wouldn't stop!


Sutton and Joel Grey (Jennifer Grey's dad!), the lead male role, clearly had so much fun at this show.  They both looked like they were about to burst into laughter in a few different scenes.  It was clear that they were having a lot of fun!  After one of Sutton's big scenes, she got a very long standing ovation...in the middle of the show!  I cannot say I have ever seen this happen before. Every time the audience would go wild, she looked so overwhelmed by it - even looked like she teared up a couple of times (I could tell because I was on the FOURTH row, remember!?).  She would try to get us to stop clapping by holding up her hands or something.  It was unreal.  Plus, the show was just really good!  It's a classic Broadway musical...fun songs (a few that anyone would recognize), great singing, dancing and silly humor.  


After the performance, the cast took their normal bows to another standing ovation and then Joel Grey got us to sit back down.  He gave a little tribute to Sutton that was so sweet.  He mentioned how he has worked with many wonderful stars... Bebe Neuwirth, Liza Minelli, Kristin Chenoweth - to name a few.  But, he said he didn't love any of them as much as he loved Sutton.  So Sweet!!  Sutton had tears, her family who was on stage had tears, I had tears, Mindy had tears!  Then, Joel and the whole cast sang a cute song they had written for Sutton.  It was really neat to see all this happen.  I would definitely try to see a final performance again!


After the show, I was heading towards the subway and there was a TV show being taped in the street.  I hung around long enough to find out that it was  Pilot for an HBO show called Newsroom.  I saw Aaron Sorkin doing his directing thing and Jeff Daniels doing his acting thing (at the time, I thought he was Uncle Joey from Full House, but that's Dave Coulier...is it just me or do these 2 look exactly alike?!)

Jeff Daniels

Dave Coulier

My Pic of Jeff Daniels

Aaron Sorkin

After stalking the TV set for a while, I went on my way.  My final stop for the weekend was Laduree...one of my new favorite places in the city!  Laduree is a store that got its start in Paris selling macarons and they have finally hit the states!  Macarons have been popping up all over the city....I guess their the new cupcake?  Laduree ships their macarons straight from Paris every single day.  And they are delightful!!  My co-worker, Tamara's birthday was on Monday and she had recently shared with me her love for macarons, so I wanted to pick up some of NYC's best for her to try!  (And let's not lie...I got a few for myself, too.  The vanilla and carmel are my favorites so far.)

Such a fantastic weekend.  I need to be more intentional about getting out and doing New Yorky things every weekend!

Weekend Review - Saturday

Saturday morning, I woke up and whipped up a fruit salad and then went to Claire's for a lovely brunch with Ema and Ryann.  Claire always out does herself and this was no exception!  We had delicious bacon wrapped poached eggs, chocolate chip scones, and bread with goat cheese and lemon chutney served with Mimosas and some hot tea (Mariage Freres..my favorite, but in a flavor I've never had before).  The four of us sat around the table for close to 3 hours just catching-up and had so much fun!  We hope to make this a monthly thing.

I was able to take a lovely walk in Central Park on Saturday afternoon.  The weather this winter has been so crazy (in a good, but starting to weird me out kind of way).

Then, Saturday evening I met Rosella and Alejandra to see the new Broadway musical, Once, based on the movie of the same name.  It was really good!  The music is fantastic and the whole cast is on stage the entire show and they all can sing and play 1 or more instruments.  I really love the songs in the show and have been listening to the Broadway soundtrack a lot!  Afterwards, we wanted to get a small bite to eat or a drink and we randomly ended up at McDonald's!  (I know - the horror!).  But, we saw their ad for Shamrock Shakes and we were curious and then we realized that combining the Irish play with Shamrock Shakes would make quite a theme for the evening, so there was no turning back then. And the shakes were pretty good - minty deliciousness!

Weekend Review - Friday

This past weekend was definitely one for the blog!  It was such a wonderful, New Yorky weekend.  I love those!  Seems I have a lot to say about it, so I'm breaking it down by day!  It gets better and better, so hold-out for Saturday and Sundays posts!

Friday night, I went over to Roosevelt Island after work.  I've been over to the Island that's in the middle of the East River, just off of Manhattan, but I'd never been in a home there before.  My friend, Mary, had some of the ladies from our Bible Study over to her apartment for dinner.  Roosevelt Island is kind of a quirky place.  It's easy to get there - just 1 stop outside Manhattan on the subway or you can take the tram over the East River.  It is just 3 or 4 subway stops from my office, so it was super quick for me.  Life seems much more slow-paced over there and there is not nearly as much to do or shops or restaurants - but you're still so close to it all!  It feels a bit sketchy, too - at least at night.  But, Mary's apartment was lovely and it was such a fun and refreshing night!  Mary is the wife of a man on staff at my church.  They are really the only people their age in our church - they have 3 grown children and 2 grandchildren.  I really like having them around and it has been a blessing to have Mary join our study this semester.  There were a few other girls there on Friday who I haven't yet had the chance to get to know very well so this was a great opportunity.  Mary made us yummy soup and salad and sweet potatoes.  Do you know that I've never had a baked sweet potato?  I've tried sweet potato casseroles before and I don't usually like them, so I always assumed I didn't like sweet potatoes.  But, I loved these!!  So good.  We spent the rest of the evening - about 5 hours! - just chatting.  We laughed SO much!  And Mary and her husband have a get-to-know you game they always play when they have company over so we played the game.  Basically you write 3 things down on a paper that are unique about yourself, the papers get all mixed up and then we all have to guess who is who.  I put down that my high school mascot was a Kewpie, I once hit 2 parked cars in 1 day, and I took 6 years of Spanish.  Most of the ladies had NO idea what a kewpie is, and I always love re-telling my story of the day I hit 2 parked cars (and threw-up in a 3rd!  NOT kidding!!).  At the end of the night, several of us took the tram back to Manhattan - so fun!  I'd never taken it at night and the views of the city lights were just gorgeous!

To Add to Your Prayer List

My last post about movies ended with an Iranian movie.  Iran makes me think of a man who really needs your prayers.  His name is Yousef Nadarkhani.  You may have seen his story on the news as the media has started to pick-up on it more recently.  Yousef is a husband, a father, a pastor and, most importantly, a follower of Christ.  His refusal to deny Christ as his Savior has led the Iranian courts to order that he be executed.  He could save his life by simply saying he doesn't follow Jesus.  But, He won't do that.

I can't help but to tear up when thinking about this man who is facing death, this family who is facing the loss of their husband & dad, and his church who are facing the loss of their pastor.  And I tear up even more when I think of this man who loves Our Lord more than any of that.  When we read the stories of Paul and Peter and other martyrs in the Bible, we don't think much about it happening today.  But, it does...much more than we ever hear about.  

To me, this is such a very real, literal, and present-day picture of what God calls us to do in Mark 8:34-38.  Oh, to deny myself so that I can have all that He wishes to bestow on me!  To lose MY life, so that I can live the life HE planned for me.  I pray to make that choice every minute of every day, no matter what earthly things it may cost me...He is more, He is better, He is all.

Please pray for Yousef.  Pray for the Iranian officials.  Pray for circumstances to change.  Pray for God to be glorified through Yousef's life and then through his death, whenever that may come.  I am thankful to know that God CAN work to soften the hearts of the Iranian officials so that they would overturn this.  (Heck, His powerful hand could even cause an earthquake to cause those prison doors to swing open).  But, I am also thankful that I know that God is sovereign and always loving and always working all things together for our good and according to His plans and purposes.  While it is my desire and the desire of many to see Yousef remain with his family on earth for much longer, I trust my God whose ways are always higher than mine.