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A Couple Outings with Friends

One reason I am grateful for our church is the fellowshipping aspect. No matter where you move in the world, you will be greeted by other Mormon families. We are so lucky here in the Jersey City area to have a great group of women who have come together and become friends. But as new people move in so often, people are always leaving too, especially in our ward where the turnover is great. A friend of mine just moved away (not too far… just out to the ‘burbs), so we had a little get-together one night at Grimaldi’s.

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Another night I was walking through the mall when my friend called and said she was at the mall too… so we treated ourself to pedicure (which turns out is the best thing to do with a friend… how come I’ve never done that before?). I was so tired that night but she was going to go into the city afterward for a movie with another girlfriend. Jenny convinced me to channel “college Katie” and to forget about “mom Katie” for the night. So, since “college Katie” used to do spur of the moment things all the time and stay out late, I went for it! I was dead by the time I got home (1:30 am… yikes! And don’t worry mom, I took a cab home from the train so I wouldn’t get raped/murdered). But what a fun night!

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A New Friend in the City

When I was a Junior at BYU, I had an awesome Relief Society president over my singles ward, Ashlee. I was engaged at the time so I wasn’t too social with everyone, but she was just the best! Well, wouldn’t you know it… Ashlee recently got married and just moved to NYC! We’ve kept up through the years on social media so we met up one afternoon in the city and caught up! Who would have thought five years ago we would be walking around in Manhattan together! Crazy world!

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Babysitting Brooks

One afternoon, late in February, Eva and I watched Brooks for a couple of hours. It was such a nice day. Brooks just hung out with me while Eva played at the playground. For a minute, I thought… I guess this is what life feels like when you have two kids… not too hard! Guys… that is PROGRESS! Haha no, I am not announcing ANYTHING nor will I be announcing anything like that for a while. But at least I’m getting out of the I’m-just-going-to-have-one-child-because-Eva-is-already-so-much-to-handle mindset. Baby steps.

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A Visit from Hannah (Tuesday)

On Tuesday, we had our day all mapped out. We were going to go to the Met, Central Park, and Serendipity 3 for their famous frozen hot chocolates. But we woke up to pouring rain and had to improvise. I wasn’t thrilled about bringing Eva into the city with all the rain, so Hannah took the subway to the temple and did a session there. She’s pretty much a champ and conquer anything now that she did the NYC subway without any problems. One of her trains was broken down, but she still made it to her session in time!

Afterwards, she explored a bit and saw an area where You’ve Got Mail was filmed and picked up a cookie from Levain Bakery.

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That night, I took Hannah to Chelsea Market for tacos and gelato. What a great ending to a wonderful trip!
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It was great to have you in town, Hannah, and to show you around a bit! I hope you had a great time and didn’t want to kill us after staying in our tiny apartment!

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A Visit from Hannah (Sunday & Monday)

On Sunday, we went to church and had a relaxing evening at home. We went on a little walk around the neighborhood and had fun playing with Eva.

Monday, we headed over to Hoboken for a little morning exercise. The line at Carlo’s Bake Shop was long like usual (I can’t wait until the tourist season is over so I can walk in like I did early this summer without a wait), so Hannah just got a picture in front instead. With all the eating out and bakeries we went to while she was here, it was probably a good thing the line was so long!

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My favorite place in Hoboken are the piers that go out over the Hudson so you can overlook the city. Such incredible views and it’s always breezy from the river.

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We then mapped out a couple must-sees on Hannah’s list and spent Monday evening in the city. We started off at Mood, a huge fabric store in NYC where they do a lot of filming from Project Runway. I’ve only seen an episode or two, but it is one of Hannah’s favorite shows so she was in heaven. Scranton would be my Mood.

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The dog above is in the show a lot, I hear. So, that was the celebrity Hannah saw while she was in NYC.

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So many buttons! One day I will own a sewing machine. And when I do, I will go back to this place and go crazy! Oh, one last thing about going to Mood. You have to take an elevator to get to the store and it’s from the olden days! There was an elevator man and everything, opening and closing the big metal doors. It made me so nervous feeling him stop the elevator manually. Yikes.

Next stop… Bryant Park. It’s no secret that this is one of my favorite places in the city. It’s just so charming. Eva and Hannah rode the carrousel together and then we read some books in their kid corner.

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Nice face, Eva.

Right next to Bryant Park is the NYC Public Library. One day I will have to go inside, but I don’t want to take Eva and worry about her making noise. I wish I could say I’d like to go in for all the books but let’s be honest. It’s really because I’m a huge Ghostbusters fan.

DSC01309DSC01311A couple blocks east of the library is Grand Station Terminal. Wow. Just wow. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to see this place. But what an amazing building. The architecture. The ceiling. Just it’s overall grandness. It’s beautiful and the hustle & bustle of the place is so exciting. We met T.J. for dinner there and had dessert at Magnolia’s. Their banana pudding changed my life.

At this point, T.J. took Eva home and Hannah and I walked through Times Square to end our night at the movies. We saw World War Z at a huge AMC right off of Times Square in a building that was once an opera house. I’m a little disappointed we didn’t get to see a musical together, but it was too hard planning it out with Eva. So, seeing an awesome movie in such a neat building made up for it!

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A Visit from Hannah (Saturday)

As I mentioned earlier, Hannah-my roommate from college, came to town to visit and to see NYC. We saw a lot while she was here, so I’m going to divide it up into different posts.

First, Saturday. We took the Path to 9th street and had a picnic in Washington Square Park. See those red brick apartments in the back? Have you ever seen I Am Legend with Will Smith? If yes, then they should look awfully familiar!

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I had never been to this park before but I have added it to my “favs” list. There are street musicians and dancers, lots of interesting (crazy) people (we saw a man covered in pigeons and another man who had a pigeon as a pet), and it’s right next to NYU’s campus.

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We made our way through the stores in Soho, walked into one shop and realized I have no idea what fashion is anymore, and walked right out. There are so many stores filled with clothes that look like they’re from the 90s. TOO SOON! Am I right?

We briefly walked through Chinatown – just long enough for Hannah to see gross chickens hanging in a storefront. We then went over to Little Italy so we could devour some legit cannolis. “Best in the city,” they say, and I sure believe them! So good.

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At this point, Eva was in need of a nap. So, T.J. took her home (he was such a good sport during Hannah’s visit… he took Eva so much so we could go out and have fun!) and we took a train to the World Trade Center to see the memorial. We reserved our tickets right on our phone, so we didn’t have to wait in much of a line at all or wait to get in. So, word to the wise… if you visit NYC and want to see the WTC memorial, get your tickets online instead of waiting in line. And don’t bring much with you because you go through security. It was so nice not having to bring Eva and the stroller through security.

This was probably my favorite thing we did during Hannah’s visit because I hadn’t seen it yet. The memorial was beautiful and felt like a sacred place. It’s sometimes hard to think of what happened on 9/11 and to be in the exact place where it happened, it’s unbelievable.

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After the memorial, we had dinner at the Shake Shack, and then walked on the Hudson, through Greenwich Village (one of my most favorite areas of Manhattan… such beautiful tree-lined streets, cobblestone, and brownstones), and ended the night at the high-line.

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Bachelor Nights

As I’ve mentioned before, each Monday night, a couple of my girlfriends come over to watch The Bachelor. Just when I get depressed about the weekend being over, I remember that on Monday night (after FHE, of course) it’s Bachelor night! It’s not actually about the show, because let’s face it, it’s pretty lame and so strange. But watching it together is so fun! We make fun of the whole thing, start to really care about the relationships even though we pretend not to, and eat lots of treats.

This week there was a special bonus episode on Tuesday night. Everyone came over again last night for round two! T.J. is busy with school, so it’s nice to have the company and not be alone all night. Plus, last night we had a craft night at the same time and made valentines!

What could be better than a craft night, delicious treats, and watching The Bachelor with your besties? Not much! Hey… if you watch The Bachelor, you should come watch it with us! Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll give you the deets.

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Besties Unite

I’ve shown this picture before and I’ll share it again. (Please ignore my Buckle sweater… it was a different time then… NO JUDGING!) My bestie Danica is coming over for an Office marathon/catchup-on-life-date tonight and I cannot wait. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen her.

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And it wouldn’t be a post about Danica if I didn’t share a Michael Scott quote:

I’m friends with everybody in this office. We’re all best friends. I love everybody here. But sometimes your best friends start coming into work late, and start having dentist appointments that aren’t dentist appointments, and that is when it’s nice to let them know that you could beat them up. 

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Blair and Anna Visit

My good friend from high school, Blair, and her little sister, Anna, stopped by on the Thursday before Christmas. Usually we get together often when I visit but Blair was busy going on a cruise with her boyfriend. Lucky duck. Anyway, here are some pictures of the afternoon. My little niece Claire always has loved Blair, so all morning long before she came over, Claire kept asking when she’d be arriving. Pretty cute. We spent the afternoon playing games, going to Target, and listening to Claire play instruments for us.

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GNO: MoTab Christmas

On Thursday, December 13, I went up to Salt Lake with three of my girlfriends to see if we could get standby tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert-Dress Rehearsal. My mom went last year and was able to get tickets without any problem, so we decided to take the chance and if wouldn’t work out we planned on walking around City Creek and getting Cheesecake. Win/Win either way.

We were able to get two tickets, but there were four of us and we didn’t want to split up so we decided to watch the projection of it in the Tabernacle. It was still a great concert and so fun to get out for the night with my friends.

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