Ice Skating!

I don't think I've been ice skating since I was in high school, but apparently the thing to do in New York in the winter is to go!  There is an ice skating rink that appears every winter in Bryant Park and so Monica, Kari, and I decided we needed to go!

Can-Can Can You Do the Can-Can?

This is just a tad delayed because I've had other stuff going on this week, but Monday night I saw The Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular.  My roommates and I had bought tickets several months ago and Monday night was finally the night!  Long story short it was so so much fun. I'd seen the show a couple of years ago and most of it was the same but they do make changes here and there every year. Basically the Rockettes show is a bunch of different dances, all vaguely narrated together by Santa.  Highlights include an ice skating rink that shows up on stage, a 3D movie, and a nativity scene with live animals.

It completely put me in the holiday spirit because the show itself is pure joy.  The only small thing that made me hate every person ever (conflicting emotions...I know) was that people were taking flash photos and were still coming in late to the show 20 minutes into it.  So Obnoxious!  The late thing, actually ok fine, some people have good excuses.  But the flashes!  They even announce it at the beginning not to do it!  And another thing, most of the flashes came from towards the back of the theatre...don't they know that from that distance the flash would do nothing to help get a better picture? They are even better off NOT using flash because it will show up better!  UUURRRGHGHHHHH.

Ok, now that little rant is out of the way...onto the videos and pictures (that I did NOT take during the show and only in the lobby)!

I couldn't choose just one video so here are a few.

It's almost Christmas!

Almost Christmas means lots of fun activities!  That also means lots of fun pictures!  Wooooo!

So a while ago (like October), it was Seth's birthday!  And for his birthday I knitted him a scarf (I know, I'm so impressive).  And this weekend it was finally cold enough for him to wear it!

Isn't it a great looking scarf?

We also went with my roommates to see the holiday train display at Grand Central station.  It was pretty neat.  And as Sheldon Cooper says on The Big Bang Theory, if you only have one day, make it a train day!

Train!

The other thing I'm very excited about at the moment is that I finally came up with a way to get better internet reception in my room.  Before I could barely check my email because the wi-fi just didn't stretch that far but over Thanksgiving weekend I got a new router that I could have more control over.  The trick ended up being getting the router closer to the rooms and sticking it somewhere in the middle of the hallway.  A couple problems with this solution was that there wasn't really anywhere to set the router in the hallway without it being in the way and people tripping on it, and also it didn't quite reach where the modem and the outlets were.  So...the solution!  I jerry-rigged the router to stick on the wall and then went all around the city looking for cheap extension cords.  I found a 50 foot extension cord for fairly cheap at Home Depot and then I also found this thing called a coupler that connects two ethernet cables.  This way I didn't have to buy a 50 foot cable but instead could use two that we already had.  It looks a little tacky I think but it's way better to have working internet.  Also...yes the router is setting on what is supposed to be a soap dish....  Clearly I'm like MacGyver.

The other other thing I'm excited about is that we have a Christmas tree!!!  I found a fake one at Rite Aid and decided the apartment needed to be more festive.  After picking up lights and some small ball ornaments at the 99 cent store it looks awesome!  We also used a curtain we had and don't use as the tree skirt and Kari made some origami cranes for the tree and I made an origami angel as our tree topper.  It looks great!  We'll add more ornaments as we acquire them but for now I think it's pretty great!

While running errands today Kari and I also stopped by the shops at Columbus Circle where they have a light display and it lights up to music and is fun to watch.  So now I'm completely in the Christmas spirit!

From the outside

Looking Up

From the mezzanine level

So pretty!

Closeup of the origami angel

Closeup of the origami crane ornament

Fuller picture of the tree in the room

Also while trimming the tree and decking the halls we finally put up some of the posters we hadn't bothered to put up (seen above).  Also Kari's sister Katy had done this really awesome painting of characters from the musical Rent and we finally put that up!  It's very impressive so I wanted to share :)

A Katy Original!

Tomorrow night we're going to see The Rockettes so look for that post soon.

Macy's Thanksgiving Balloons

The night before Thanksgiving I went to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Balloon Inflation.  Basically the night before the parade they blow up all of the balloons outside of the natural history museum and you can walk around and look at them.  It was a lot of fun even if there were ALOT of people there.  Also my new pet peeve is people with strollers.  Just because you keep ramming me in the back of the ankles with your stroller (with your child in it!) doesn't mean I can move any faster when I'm in a crowd of people and can only go as fast as the people in front of me.

Lots of pictures!

I also spent Thanksgiving in Indiana this year!  It was really fun to be with family and getting to see my grandparents as well as my aunt and uncle and cousins (including the baby!)  I just have a few pictures, one of the things we did was go to the botanical gardens and part of it was decorated in a Grinch Who Stole Christmas theme which was cute.  We also saw the Festival of Trees at the Embassy because Santa was there and we took the baby for his first picture with Santa.

Nice Work Pumpkins

Yay for fun weekend activities!

This weekend my roommates had a Pumpkin Bread Bake Off.  Apparently they both had recipes so they wanted to put them to the test.  Both were actually pretty good even considering I don't really like pumpkin that much.  Monica's was in a bundt cake pan and reminded me a lot of a spice cake.  Kari's was in cupcake form and included chocolate chips.  But both were yummy.

Monica's pumpkin bread in the pan

Monica's pumpkin bread out of the pan

Kari's pumpkin bread muffins with chocolate chips

Another random story:

There's a cute coffee shop near me and they had the funniest sign out the other day.  I thought it was cute.

And then today I saw Nice Work If You Can Get It with Matthew Broderick and Kelli O'Hara.  It was sooo cute.  The music is all Gershwin music that I knew and the whole plot is silly and fun with lots of dancing and funny moments.

Basically I realized that the last musical I saw was Avenue Q in September and I get cranky if I go too long in between seeing shows so I decided I needed to see something.  My roommates were busy but that didn't stop me!  Seth was super sweet and offered to hang out with me in line.  He wasn't super excited to see the show so he waited with me and then after I got my ticket we hung out until the show started.

Again, the show was so much fun.  It basically takes place in the 1920s during prohibition and Matthew Broderick plays a kind of dopey, not very smart, rich guy and Kelli O'Hara is the best bootlegger in the business.

Aaaand compulsory show clip :)