Thanksgiving in the City....

The Floats were super close to us...

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Grease On Broadway

Seeing the Balloons the night before the Parade

Wow I can't believe Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas season has arrived.  Christmas by the way, is everywhere in the city. There are Christmas markets in different parks, the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center is up, the store windows are decorated, musicians are playing Christmas music in the Subway stations and in the park, and then my FAVORITE part: Christmas tree stands are on all the streets!  I just love walking by fresh Christmas trees everyday and smelling that wonderful scent that always makes me feel like Christmas!  You can't help but be in the Christmas Spirit in this city!  I want to soak up everyday of it from now until I leave to fly home to be with my family!  

Okay so going back to Thanksgiving!  I stayed here in the city and my two close friends Erin and Katherine flew in to visit me!  I have to say we had a BLAST!! It was so sweet to be with such dear friends.  We had great conversations, laughed a ton, and did everything there was to do in this city (not really! but we did do a lot!)  I had forgotten what it felt like to laugh as much as I did.  As much as I love living here, it made me realize how much I miss my friends.  You know, those people who you can be totally yourself with and they still love you:-)   It was fun to be with people who know me so well and bring out my crazy side!  

so when I say we did a lot, we really did!  For starters Wednesday night we watched the balloons for the Macy's day parade be blown up right by my apartment.  They keep them overnight on the streets by me, so we walked with all the other tourists to get a glimpse of these amazing balloons.  Then on Thursday we actually got to watch the Macy's parade from my office building.  Redeemer is located two blocks down from Macy's on Broadway, so all the employees were invited to come and bring guests to watch the parade.  We had special passes so we got to go straight past the crowds down Broadway.  It was so funny.  We waved at the crowds and they cheered for us as we walked down the parade route.  The Redeemer offices are on the 4th floor, so we had an AMZING view of all the balloons(they were at eye level),  floats, and performances that were on the Macy's Star.  I am so thankful for the opportunity we had to see the parade.  It really has been a dream of mine to one day go, so what a privilege it was to have such incredible seats!  We cooked Thanksgiving dinner with a couple of my friends from the city so that was great!  We spent the rest of the trip just seeing the city.  We went to see Grease on Broadway which was a lot of fun.  It was sad for them to leave today.    It is fun to see and experience the city through the eyes of people who do not live here.  In some ways I did not feel like I lived here while they were here.  It was fun to act like a tourist and do all the tourist things.  It is back to the real world for me tomorrow!  The great thing is I have another close friend coming to visit me in two weeks!  I love living in a place where my friends want to come visit me:-) 

So, I feel like each day I blog I just write about things that I have done.  I feel like I have so many things I would love to share that I am learning about right now.  Maybe next time I will try to blog about some of those things.  

Until then....

Peace Like a River

Girl's Trip

Central Park

Time Square

It has taken me awhile to blog, but my mom and sister came up for a girls trip a few weeks ago.  It was so fun much!  We did a lot of shopping all over New York City, went to see Mary Poppins on Broadway, ate good food, spent time in the park, and just had fun being together. 

It was great to be together and to show them more of my world. It was the first time we ever did an official girls trip!    We stayed very busy and tried to cram in as much as we could in 4 days.  They were here at a very beautiful time.  As you can see from the above pictures, the leaves were changing and the weather was beautiful.  I am thankful that my family has been able to come see me.  I miss not being able to see them as often, but at least NYC is a fun place for them to come visit!  

Fall Pictures...

Birthday Party at my Apartment 

We Finally found a Moes in Manhattan... YAY!

My roommate Meggie and I having fun in the Park

Throwing Leaves is so much fun!

So this is going to be brief.  I am going to post some pictures and write about my families visit, but until then here are a few fall pics!  The first one is of some friends who came over to my apartment for a birthday party I threw for a girl.  The second picture is of me at one of my FAVORITE restaurants , MOES!  Meggie and I literally went all the way across Manhattan to eat at Moes.  It was so yummy, yet on the way back we both said, "we will probably not do this for a LONG time"  It was quite the trip and now that it is so cold outside, Moes just might have to wait!  Boy did we savor the taste though and enjoy the comfort of being in a Moes booth!  we told the man making our tacos that if they would open one in the upper best side (what I like to call the upper west side) we would be loyal customers!  He got a kick out of our enthusiasm

The third and fourth pic are of my roommate and I at Central Park.  we had little photo shoot at the park (Thanks to my sis) These are two of the silly pics.  Thought they would be more fun to post than the normal "smile" ones:-)  

For those of you who like to read my blog (I have to admit I would love to know who reads this thing) I promise I am going to blog again in the next little bit and I will post pics of when my mom and sis came!  

Highlights of the Month...

So, I know it has been awhile since I have blogged.  I have been getting grief about that from some of you:-)  The truth is even though some of  you may think I have an exciting life, sometimes I find it hard to know what to blog about.  Also, my life has been crazy busy.  I forget every year how busy the fall season is.  I feel like it is that way for everyone.  Fall is beautiful in NYC ( I am sure it is beautiful where you are too!)  I walked home through Central Park the other day and felt like I was walking through a movie scene.  I just love all the colors that this season brings.  Speaking of movie scenes, they have been filming the show "America's Next Top Model" right beside the school where I work.  I have had to step over chords and all kinds of stuff to get into the building in the mornings.  Also, they had a set for a movie up on my street right next to my apartment building this morning.  I thought one day I am going to see my little apartment building on a movie.  Wouldn't that be fun?

Okay, so I thought I would give you some highlights of my life from the last month or so. 

• NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK. I went with my friend Amy(who I work with at Redeemer) to see New Kids on the Block in concert at Madison Square Gardens.  NKOTB were big when I was very young, but it was so fun to go to a concert and feel like I was in the 80's again.  The picture above is from the concert. 
• FELLOWSHIP GROUP Amy (same girl from the concert) and I have started leading a fellowship group through Redeemer.  Fellowship groups are weekly bible studies that Redeemer uses to connect people in the church together.  We lead one for women every Tuesday night.  It is the highlight of my week!  Every Tuesday night around 10 girls ranging from ages 23-30 gather in my living room to talk, laugh, study the bible, pray, and share out hearts with one another.  We have been meeting for 6 weeks now and have quickly started to really bond.  It has been a great way for me to get connected to other girls at Redeemer and I am thoroughly enjoying the relationships that have been built and our time together.  I look forward to our group continuing to grow deeper together.  
• WEDNESDAYS IN THE BRONX. Every Wednesday my boss from Redeemer and I meet at 2:45 and travel to the Bronx together.  We go to St' Annes church, which is a place of safety and refuge to about 100 children who live in one of the most dangerous, impoverished  areas in America.  St. Annes hosts an after school program for these children to come to each afternoon.  My boss started going there about a year ago to help tutor children.  She easily recruited me and I now go and work with some children in the first grade class.  It has been really good for me to get out of Manhattan each week and have my eyes opened to a very different world.  It really is a joy to work with these children and have the opportunity to love on them for a couple of hours.  If you ever want a good book to read you should check out "Amazing Grace" by Jonathan Kozol.  I read it my first month here and it convinced me that I wanted to volunteer with these children each week.  The book is about this area of the Bronx and specifically St. Annes Church.  It is hard to read at points, but good to read.  
• THE PRODIGAL SON.  So I sit in church each week and am still amazed that I get to hear Tim Keller preach each Sunday.  This Fall he is doing a sermon series on the Gospel in Community,  but for 6 whole weeks within that he has been doing a series on the Prodigal Son.  It has been AMAZING.  Each week he focuses on a gospel theme in the parable.  I have learned about this parable in a whole new way.  I have read this parable so many times, and yet it is like I am looking at now with new eyes.  The Lord has really used this series to challenge me.  I wish I could tell you all about it, but I know I would be typing for quite some time.  I do suggest though that if you want some good sermons to listen too you should go to the Redeemer website and download them or purchase the CDs.  TK just came out with a new a book called "The Prodigal God", that is centered around this parable.  I love that our congregation at Redeemer got to hear these sermons right before the book came out.   I have not read the book yet, but am excited to soon.  

So those are four highlights from the past month.  Tomorrow my mom and sister are flying up for the weekend.  I am excited about that!  

So, people always ask me a lot of random questions about life in NYC.  If you have any fun questions, leave a comment and ask me and I will try to blog about some of those things. :-)