Winter Top 10... Part 1

I thought it was time for a good old fashioned top ten list... your favorite and mine. Primarily because I've been too lazy to blog anything recently... but that's neither here nor there! So here are the highlights of Winter 2011/12...

10.) Immaculate Conception Day- When I interviewed for my current job at Catholic Charities I asked the question "What does faith-based practice look like at this agency?" The response were some blank stares and a hesitant response from the director, "Well... we aren't allowed to talk about abortion... and we get Immaculate Conception Day off... does that answer your question?" Well no.. no it didn't... but a random holiday?! I'll take it! So December 8th I was given a free little shopping day off of work, free to live it up in the city, all thanks to the virgin birth. Thanks Mary!

9.) Josh Came To Visit!

And this is the only picture I took. But it's appropriate, because it was in the middle of our donut crawl. Unfortunately, donuts aren't the best thing to seek out late at night. Doughnut Plant only had Marzipan Doughnuts left. Marzipan?! SICK. Disappointing. But don't worry, we had like five other sweet treats that night to make up for it.

8.) Henderson Family Christmas!!

Picture perfect. You see the tiny stocking shoved to the left? Middle child syndrome, you betcha.

Ohhh just sneakin' a sausage ball...

Christmas Cracker Hats! Thanks Josh... and the Brits. Yes, we wore the crowns the whole meal.

Stacy got an Ab Roller. So we had some family fitness time- natch. 

Sisters!!

7.) Barnabi Christmas Extravaganza

Whitney, Erika, Kara and I had a Christmas sleepover (thanks Nick!) after being separated for the whole year! We had at least 13 full photo shoots in the 14 hour period we were together.. here are some of the highlights...

Kara made us a mug. Best Christmas Gift EVER.

Erika's ring got stuck in my hair. Whitney apparently thought it was hilarious.

Best Friends Forever!! I can't wait for our next adventure...

6.) Planning My Funeral- The Henderson family this year decided that the day after Christmas would be the day to go ahead and draw up our living wills and discuss our future funeral plans. You know... because December 26th isn't already depressing enough. Nevertheless-- it was probably a good call. And just to add to the experience, we decided to play the Game of Life afterwards. We love irony. I lost the game... good thing I planned ahead for it.

5.) Whitney's Wedding #1-- California Edition

This winter I had the pleasure of attending two wedding-- both of friends named Whitney. The first took place in California for my dear friend Whitney Roeder ... now Platina! The wedding was beautiful and even though California chose to be cold and rainy, the festivities and the company made up for it-- also, the Chick-Fil-A.

Beautiful Whitney at the Bachelorette dinner.

"Hey Audge, wanna get out of NYC for the weekend and go to Cali?"

"Sure, I'm in."

Is there another face to make after discovering the Chick-Fil-A?

So hood.

Only the finest videographer on the west coast...

We took this same pic at Amanda's wedding... I'm pretty sure the next one of these is going to be a BIT down the road :)

Whitney surprised Gino with a beautiful song. Everything about this wedding was beautiful! So much fun! I'm gonna need to go to Califonia again soon.

This blog post got real long real fast. So this is the end of Part 1. Hopefully Part 2 will be complete before my Spring Top 10 is ready!

High-Maintenance Water

So the other day, whilst standing in the Starbucks line, a woman jumps the line in front of me and this transpires...

Woman: "Gimme an icy-hot"

Barista #1: (Look of judgment) I'm sorry... a what?

Woman: "An ICY HOT"

Barista #1: "... A what??"

Barista #2: (Obviously recognizes the woman as some type of regular) "Oh um, an icy hot... it's where you fill up the cup with ice, then pour hot water over it, and then add more ice"

Me: (Look of disbelief)

Barista #1: "I'm sorry... pour what over ice?"

Barista #2: (Obviously embarrassed that he has allowed this woman to believe is a real drink) "Just hot water... over the ice... then a little more ice.. that's all."

Woman: "Yeah! An ICY HOT.. like I said!"

Barista #1: ".... Coming right up."

Me: (Desperate attempt to make eye contact with Barista #1 to let him know he's not the crazy one in this situation)

So yes, friends, this New Yorker found a way to make her free ice water a high-maintenance Starbucks drink. I encourage you all to start quenching your thirst with a little icy hot. There's nothing quite like that refreshing sensation of chilled hot water. I'll obviously only be ordering my waters in this fashion from here on out.

Subway Scare

There are moments here in this city when people go crazy. There's so much going on -- so many people-- I guess we're all bound to snap one day. What's really terrifying though is when you get trapped with said crazy person in an enclosed area... such as the subway.

Janell and I were headed home from church last night and are riding peacefully home on the 4 train. About two stops from our stop, an older woman gets on the train and the nice gentleman sitting across from me gets up to allow her to sit down. She mumbles something as she sits down, but since I was engaged in an intense Nertz game on my phone (don't be jealous), I didn't think much of it.

I began to get that creepy feeling where you feel like you're being watched, so I pressed pause and glanced up... only to see the old woman glaring at me. The next few moments went like this...all in a blur..

Woman: (INTENSE GLARE) murmer murmer murmer
Me: I'm sorry, what?
Woman: LOUDER MURMOR MURMOR (continued glare)
Me: I'm so sorry, I can't hear you.
Woman: Shut up- you're so STUPID (now SHAKING FIST) -- don't act like you don't know me!
Janell: (Stifled laughter)
Stranger next to old lady: (Overt laughter)
Me:... What?? (Clutching belongings-- wishing I had packed my taser)
Woman: YOU KNOW ME!!
(Janell and stranger bond over my extreme awkward situation through stolen glances and more laughter)
Me: I'm sorry, I don't know you
Woman: (Terrifyingly intense glare) GIVE ME A BREAK!!
Me: (Playing with gloves. Too stunned to focus on Nertz)
(Janell and stranger exchange numbers)
Subway Voice: "This is Franklin Ave."
Me: (DASHING out of subway)
Woman: (STILL glaring)
Janell and Me: (Extreme Laughter)

I have NO idea who that woman was or what I did to her to cause her so much hate. I would like for that exchange to never happen again though. I now have her glare seared in my mind, so I'll try to hop cars if I find myself trapped with her again.

Ohhh the adventures never stop...

Visitors

Over the past couple of months, I have had some GREAT weekends with some of my favorite people stopping by NYC for a little visit :) First, at the beginning of November I had this conversation with my mom...

Mom: So.. what are you doing the first weekend of November?
Me: Oh I don't know... why?
Mom: I think I just booked a ticket to come see you!
Me: GREAT!

So my Mom pops in and we had so much fun just hanging out together and seeing some sites. I hadn't been to the Empire State Building since I moved here, so we thought we'd give it a whirl. Mom thought it would be best to go late at night on Saturday, when they have the saxophone player (Mom: "You know-- for the romantics"). What we didn't know is that the wind was going to be 90mph and it was going to be the coldest night of the year. I think the vertical position of my hair explains the situation best...

OUT OF CONTROL. We did manage to get some semi-normal shots though...

We spent the rest of the weekend eating some tasty treats, going to the ballet, and just hanging out together. It was PERFECT and I'm pretty sure it needs to be a new tradition. Obviously, I'm all about annual events. Just added this one to the list.

A couple weeks later, my friend and old roommate from grad school, Christy, and some of her friends were in town for the Quiddich World Cup. Let's just take a minute and digest that together. For those of you who aren't Harry Potter fans, Quiddich is an imaginary sport played by wizards. Die hard fans, apparently, have made the sport a reality and now there are enough college teams playing that a World Cup is warranted. And who better to host than NYC? All the crazies fit in :) Sadly, I was working and unable to attend the event, but I did get to hang out with Christy later which was really great! Come back soon my friend!

And just a couple of weekends ago, another old roommate and her sister, Julie and Diane, came for the weekend to enjoy NYC at Christmas time. It was so fun! We started out the weekend by me making them go stand in line for over 2 hours in the cold while I went to work to get tickets to Memphis! Thanks guys-- loved our fancy (and CHEAP) box seats! Who needs to see Stage Right??

And then it was time to see the Rockefeller Tree lit up! Apparently all other 8 million residents thought it would be good to go see the tree at the same time. I got head butted by an old woman. That happened. Needless to say, I don't remember much about the rest of that night.

This is a singing snowman choir at SantaLand at Macy's. Pretty fancy floor dedicated to becoming the North Pole. I must say though- I was a bit shocked and disturbed when I realized at the end there were no fewer than 4 Santas that we were siphoned off to see from the line. Tricky, Macy's.. Tricky.

We also got to go to the September 11th Memorial, which I hadn't seen yet. They are still doing some work on it, but the reflecting pools are beautiful. This picture is actually pretty terrible, but it really is cool!

We of course ate some delicious food and encountered some crazies on the subway and in the park.... Overall I'd say it was one of my favorite weekends here! 

So take this as a plug my friends-- you're welcome to visit any time! I can assure you will leave well-fed, full of stories of crazy people, and possibly a concussion. What's stopping you??

Thanksgiving!!!

Thanksgiving this year was my first without any Hendersons around me... which made me really depressed the days leading up to turkey day. However, while I missed the fam of course, I think my Thanksgiving holiday was as good as it possibly could be away from home. Whitney flew in from Oklahoma on Tuesday night and stayed through Sunday, and we had so much fun. One of our first orders of business was going to the Plaza and sneaking up to the top trying to get to the roof... We couldn't find a way out but we did steal a laundry bag on our way down as a keepsake. No shame. On Thanksgiving morning, we woke up bright and early and went to claim our spot for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And man was it CHILLY... I think this picture sums up the weather for you...

There was nothing else to be done.

We survived the cold though and it was a lot of fun to watch the floats! I will say though, after two years in a row, I think I might enjoy the parade at an appropriate hour in front of a television next year... of course by next year I will have forgotten about my frostbite and probably convince myself to go again. Only time will tell. Here are some parade pics...

7:00am people... Yep, that would be 2.5 hours before the parade showed it face at our spot. 

That's dedication.

Andrew thought it would be appropriate to mosey on in around 8:30 and cut in front of approximately 2000 people to come stand with us. Next year you're holding the spots, buddy! :)

Literally thawing out in some random deli. I have never been happier than when I was drinking that chai.

We headed home and began to prepare a Thanksgiving feast! Now about a month prior, we had "Fakesgiving", which has apparently become an annual tradition. It's basically a trial run for the turkey... and also an excuse to eat a full Thanksgiving dinner a month early. I kind of forgot to take pics, but I do have this on of the original four members of Fakesgiving... meaning the one from last year. But we all returned this year for Round 2!

Fakesgiving was a success so I felt more than confident about Thanksgiving dinner. At Fakesgiving we had 19 people squeezed into our apartment, and we STILL had leftovers. SO, we felt it was obviously appropriate to make the same amount of food for the seven people who attended Thanksgiving. We literally all had our own pie. Totally fine! Yet again, I forgot to take pics except there is this one of me and my dear friend from T-Town, Audrey--

After the feast, we took some naps and prepared for our midnight shopping trip. Yes friends, the fact that we woke up at 5:30 that morning did not squelch our need to participate in Black Friday. At 11:30pm, Janell, Whitney, Andrew and I headed to the Brooklyn Target to STAND IN LINE to get inside. It was amazing. Especially the part where Janell almost got into a physical fight with some guys who decided to cut in line. When we got inside, literally EVERYONE except us had a huge flat screen tv in their shopping baskets. HOW they were planning on transporting these monstrosities back to their respective apartments, I will never know. But I guess people will do whatever is necessary to get a $200 TV. We then headed to Macy's-- why? I will never know. About 4:00am, we could no longer stand up straight, so we headed back and finally went to sleep. It was an extreme day... but so much fun!! 

The rest of the weekend was full of more fun adventures and I'm so thankful for the time I was able to spend with my NYC/Texan friends :)