Blogiversary

Monday is my one year blogiversary. I must admit, I enjoy blogging a lot more than I thought that I would. It's so neat to look back over the past year and see all of the places I've been, the things I've learned, people I've seen and how I've grown.

Believe it or not, here are all of the places I've been in the past year - Orlando, Florida; Galveston, Houston, Amarillo, Dallas and El Paso, Texas; Kansas City, Missourri; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Washington, D.C.; New York City, New York; and Taipei, Taiwan. (I provided links so you can read about the adventures you may have missed out on!)

Some other big changes include a job promition to Director of Media Relations, moving offices from the Harrison House to Packer, moving out of my apartment and into a house with a new roommate and my family moving from Canyon to El Paso.

I feel like this past year I have grown a lot in my relationship with the Lord. I'm learning more about who God is and how He loves me. I'm also working on figuring out His plan for my life. That's definitely a process that I know will continue the rest of my life, but God's given me a new confidence in who I am in Him, which has really changed my perspective.

Lots of new people have come into my life - new friends, a new pastor in my church, a new president at my school, a new Sunday School class.

Not to mention I joined the Quarter Century Club in November - being 25 has rocked my world! I'm in my mid-twenties. Whoa.

It's definitely been a pretty big year in the life of me! Thanks for being a part of it! I look forward to the next year of blogging - sharing about my trips, my thoughts on God and life in general, updates and just for fun stuff too.

So, here follow me as my Tales of Wanderlust continue...

Bright Lights, Big City: Part Two

Now, to continue my escapades around New York with my mom - on Saturday we headed to the New York Public Library where mom was able to acquire a very special card. Can you guess what kind of card it was? You're right! It was a library card! She was thrilled beyond belief that she was eligible for such a rare jewel and proceeded to try and use it the rest of the day to purchase things, much to her delight and my chagrin. Also, while we were at the library, we saw the original manuscript from Voltaire's book Candide, which was celebrating it's 250th year in publication. Mom was thrilled to see this because Voltaire is one of her favorite authors.

Then we headed to Greenwich Village, just to roam around and see what we could see. We walked by the NYU campus, stopped in Washington Square park and then saw the Washington Mews which are these quaint little homes that were once stables in the 1930s and were converted (for strange some reason) into residential living. The street is gated and still has cobblestone roads, a sweet little glimpse into the past. Apt. 14A was to home to artist Edward Hopper and several other notable people that have slipped my mind.

Washington Square Park Arch

The Washington Mews

After our little exploration, we headed back to the Upper East side (have I mentioned that this is my favorite part of NY?) to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka the Met). Here was saw four more Vermeer paintings - which made a grand total of 7 on our trip which is really rare considering there are only around 34 known Vermeer paintings in the world! We also saw more paintings from Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir, Manet and went to my favorite room - the Temple of Dendur which is from c. 15 BC and has been reassembled to appear just as it did on the banks of the Nile. This room is incredible and I could sit and stare for hours.

A painting by Vermeer

The Temple of Dendur

But alas, we couldn't stay for hours because we had to head back to Times Square to see another Broadway show, this time a play. We saw "A View from the Bridge" by Arthur Miller. It was starring Scarlett Johansson (who is making her Broadway debut) and Liev Screiber (one of my new favorite bad guys - from Defiance and Wolverine). The play hasn't opened yet, so it was kind of like a rehearsal for them, and it was so good! Since it was written by Miller it was naturally tragic (Death of Salesman anyone?) but it was so dynamic and interesting that I found myself very wrapped up in the plot and forgetting to try to figure out what was going to happen. Liev was AWESOME and Scarlett was really good too. Being the big celebrity fans that we are, mom and I stood outside after the play to get photos and autographs. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get as close to them as I did to Paul Rudd (back on our first trip in 2001), but I did get Scarlett's autograph and Liev's picture. Here's an interesting fact that I learned about Scarlett (I learned this by going to imdb.com after we met, haha). She is one week younger than me! I'm so thankful that my worth is not measured by my fame, fortune and celebrity status, because I've got nothing on her. Another free fact is that she is surprisingly pretty short - 5'4. I know that's not really THAT short, but she was a lot smaller than I imagined that she would be.

My official autographed Playbill
(her autograph is over the word bridge)

If you look closely, you can tell this is Scarlett, I promise!

Liev Screiber

This was pretty much the end of our fantastic trip to NYC. We were up the next morning at 4 a.m. to make our flights from LaGuardia to Chicago to St. Louis to Dallas. Then I drove the three hours home and crashed. In case you can't tell, I had an awesome time. I am so thankful for my mom and our shared love of travel. We had a great time talking, laughing and enjoying the sights. I couldn't have asked for a better travel partner! Maybe we'll make this an annual trip!

Bright Lights, Big City: Part One

My mom and I just got back from celebrating my Christmas present- a trip to New York City (the concrete jungle where dreams are made of, according to Jay Z) and we had an amazing time! We flew in on Thursday and left at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning, so we really only had two days to take in all of the sights, and believe me when I say we crammed the weekend full! My dad found us a great deal on a hotel just four blocks away from Times Square and only a block from Grand Central Station, and so we were really in the center of everything! The weather was pretty cold (I don't think it got above 28 degrees while we were there) but it was actually colder in Canyon, so we were feeling pretty good! :)

When we arrived, we checked into our hotel and then headed straight for Times Square. On our way there we stumbled upon our first adventure. We saw these big lights and camera crews and realized we were on the set of some kind of filming. We asked one of the crew members and he said that they were shooting a scene from the new CBS show "The Good Wife" with Juliana Marguiles. We didn't actually get to see any of the famous actors from the show, but we did see some guys dressed like Chicago Police Officers storm into a building!

Somehow on Friday morning, I convinced my mom to get up at 6:00 a.m. to run down to Good Morning America (did I mention that it was 20 degrees and snowing too?) so we could be on the set. There weren't many people crazy enough to do this, so we were able to get inside and see the taping of the whole show. We saw Emeril, George Stephanopoulos, Robin Roberts and Juju Chan. It was a lot of fun!

Then we went to Grand Central Station where we grabbed some lunch and headed to the Upper East Side to go to see the Frick Collection. This is an art museum which belonged to a really rich guy from the early 1900s named Henry Clay Frick. He built this incredible house on 5th Avenue across from Central Park and filled it with amazing works of art. We saw painting by Vermeer, Renoir, Degas, Manet, Monet and Gilbert Stuart, to name a few. Needless to say, it was pretty awesome.

The rest of the afternoon we spent walking around Central Park and 5th Avenue, which was neat to see in the snow. Some stores still had their Christmas lights up and it was really beautiful.

Ice skaters in Central Park

More Central Park

Christmas Lights on 5th Avenue

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Rockefeller Center

As I write this blog, I am listening to the soundtrack from the Broadway musical, Lion King, which we were able to see that night and it was truly FANTASTIC! I've heard people say it is like nothing you have ever seen and I have to agree! I had chills from beginning to the end!

This pretty well sums up Friday. I will try to blog again tomorrow about all of our adventures on Saturday. It involves more celebrities, so you won't want to miss out!

NYC: Merry Christmas to me!

I just got my first Christmas present! My mom booked plane tickets for us to go to NYC the first weekend in January and I'm so excited! I love the city that never sleeps and will jump at any opportunity to go there! I get to pick the musical I want to see, so I'm thinking "The Lion King." I have wanted to see it for a really long time and have heard wonderful reviews, so I figure I better see it while I have the chance! Mom wants us to go see a play by Arthur Miller starring Scarlett Johansen and Liev Schreiber. Sounds good to me! I love famous people! :) We'll be taking a tour of the New York Times, per my mom's request. I'm not sure what else is on our agenda yet - maybe Ellis Island or the Statue of Liberty (I've never been to either!), there's no telling - which is really exciting. In case you can't tell, I'm thrilled! Yay for traveling! Yay for New York! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!