Friend from Spokane

Jason's long-time and very good friend, Derek, decided to come from Spokane for a visit with us during his Spring break. We met him at the airport late last night and today attempted to see many of the city highlights.

Here are Jason and Derek waiting for our train at the really beautiful 145th Street subway station...on our way to church.

After church, we stumbled across a Persian Parade ... it seems that there are parades nearly every weekend, representing one of the many people groups who call New York City their home.

Next, of course we had to get our weekly cupcake fix. We stopped by the Village Crumbs for our treat today.

Sugar rush Sunday

With our sugar rush well on it's way, we sped down to Battery Park and to the free Staten Island Ferry to catch some view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

The boys wander for a minute while I get caught up taking photos of the beautiful flowers which are finally making an appearance in the city.

Wall Street / Financial section of Manhattan...Yes, Jason & Derek are grabbing the bulls ***'s!

The city hall building.

A quick wander to Rockerfeller Center ... and the famous ice skating rink.

Every kids dream...a trip to FAO Schwarz!

We ended our day with a wander through the south end of Central Park. In the fading light, there were wonderful reflections in The Pond -- you can see The Plaza Hotel in the photo on the right, with the building I work in looming up behind it.

Friend from Chicago

This week, my friend Star has come to NYC for a visit! I had the realization when she & I were catching up on Monday, that I hadn't been sure if she was someone I would ever see again...the last time we saw each other, I was leaving for Tonga for 2 years and she was in the midst of packing to move to Chicago to complete her PhD. And yet, here we are ... in New York City, hanging out together. God is good.

After work yesterday, Jason & I met up with Star at a great little upper west side Thai place called Charm (which apparently means "bowl" in Thai, so the restaurant has cool bowls all over the walls and hanging from the ceiling) for a delicious dinner and to catch up on her adventures of being a tourist before we all headed back to our place to crash out.

Of course, on the way home, we had to stop in at a Crumbs for a cupcake (sorry, we ate them before getting any photos!) and then made a quick stop at Columbia University for a couple photos.

Easter Feasting

Having someone to cook for (and someone who happily cleans up my cooking mess), has inspired me to try cooking new meals which has been a lot of fun.

Today, I tried my hand at making a few new treats for our Easter Sunday...beginning with some hot cross buns for breakfast, a late lunch of stuffed pork loin, wild rice & lemon-parmesan asparagus and dessert of orange chocolate cheesecake. Yummy!

Dog Sundays & Perfect Apartment Dogs?

Every Sunday on our way to and from church, we walk through Madison Square Park where there is a sizeable dog park. Jason has quite a soft-spot for dogs and so we watch them for a while, entertaining ourselves with how all the different dogs interact with each other. We poke fun at some, admire others and often wonder what in the world possesses a person to keep some of the enormous animals we see there inside a tiny NYC apartment.

Spring!

Although Spring has officially begun, I'm not sure that New York got the memo as we continue to have temperatures in the low 30's ...

Even if it's not Spring outside yet, I brought some inside with some potted mini-daffodils - they are SO cheerful!

St. Patty's in NYC

Since we have gone to nearly every touristy type of thing that one can go to while in NYC, the St. Patrick's Day parade was no different. I was just lucky that my building sits just off of 5th Avenue where the parade route was. I ran downstairs on my lunch break and joined the crush of tourists taking part in the festivities. I must admit, the tourists were more interesting to me than the parade!!!

More cupcakes (and some banana pudding)!

As has become our tradition, we visited a new bakery this Sunday after church. Several months ago we had visited the original location of the famous Magnolia Bakery and were actually not that impressed. It is SUCH a tiny, tiny place that you can hardly even see the cupcakes, much less grab them from the self-service shelf and then crowd into line to pay...and due to the size, of course there is no type of seating provided...we wolfed down our cupcakes standing on the corner in the cold. Not exactly a relaxing outing. SO, I was very excited to learn that Magnolia recently opened another location on the West Side, which we of course needed to inspect. My friend, Sam, met up with us. The location is definitely much better with a few tables to sit or stand at and a much roomier area to view all the potential delicious items. Having heard that their banana pudding is not to be missed, we ordered a serving of this and a couple cupcakes. While the cupcake are really just OK, the banana pudding was fabulous! YUM!

A Tourist Saturday

Jason & I had no set plans today and although it had been predicted to be a rainy day, it turned out to be beautiful...so we decided to wander through the city and do some exploring.

Oddly enough, at one of our first stops we spent 15 - 20 minutes watching a crane working outside a high-rise building...and watched the construction workers adding exterior windows. It wasn't until we got home later in the day that we heard on the news about the horrible crane accident. Although the crane we had been watching was not at the location of the accident, the news of the accident really saddened me.

Our first stop was Grand Central Station...I LOVE this station. I love the beauty of the architecture which exudes the mysteries of a time long ago...it officially opened as it is today in 1913.

Next, we hunted down the Chrysler Building - easy to find from a distance, but not so easy once we were right next to it. This is my favorite NYC building, yet I had never been inside and after hearing about some great murals on the ceiling of the lobby, we decided to check it out for ourselves.

After our sightseeing, we decided to catch the subway down to Strand Books...notable for their 18 miles new/used books. We thrive off of the multiple racks of $1 books that are outside. However, before we began our hunt, we stopped into Max Brenner's for a delicious feast (of chocolate!) - for both the stomach and the eyes...we did get an actual meal first, if only to justify the indulgence of the amazing dessert!