My tax refund at work!

I have been telling myself since I moved here that I was going to buy a new tv after a year of living here, but I caved and bought it early after I got my tax refund (don't worry, I saved some of it!). I bought a 42inch Sony Bravia and I love it so much. Now I can watch all of my shows in HD and I am especially excited to watch playoff hockey in HD!!!

Here is a picture of it, I usually have my TV on TLC so I think right now it is showing A very Duggar wedding, which I think I've watched like 10 times but still can't get enough of.


Look at how clear that picture is!!! When I first got it I was a little addicted to watching tv because I could not get over how nice the picture was, but I've broken the addiction. I'm still blown away by the picture though!

I was going to buy a nice stand/entertainment center for it also (time to get rid of the dorm bookshelf dad made for me) but I ended up spending a little more on the tv than I wanted so I decided to wait a few months to buy the stand so right now it is just sitting on an end table, and my cable box/dvd player are on the floor, sort of hilarious to have this really nice tv and nothing nice around it!

The GP three take on NYC

A couple weeks ago, I spent the day in the city with a couple friends from way back. My friend Molly's parents moved to the city a while ago and they were in town visiting them during a weekend that I was in NJ visiting Matt. Since I usually drive up to NJ on Thursday nights, and Matt works on Friday anyway, it worked out really well to let me go into the city for the whole day to see them. Molly Jenna and I have been friends for a really long time. I've known Jenna since kindergarten and live really close to her in GP. Molly and Jenna have known each other since they were babies and I've known Molly through Jenna since elementary school, so we all go way back. We all managed to go to Michigan together and stay friends through all of these years. It was also exciting because I got to see a lot of the touristy NYC things that I hadn't before such as Rockefeller center, more 5th avenue, and the statue of liberty/Ellis island.

This was the first day of spring and I woke up to a snow covered outside. It was very disappointing because I had thought I'd seen the last of the snow for the season, but it did get warmer toward the end of the day.

First we saw this fountain wall thing that was kinda cool looking:

Behind the NY Public library, this is Bryant Park, where fashion week is held:

Jenna and I on the steps of the NY public library:

The three of us waiting in the subway, Molly is the queen of taking self portraits:

Molly and Jenna on the ferry going to Ellis Island

Lady Liberty in all her glory

It was very windy so my hair is a little out of control, but I wanted a picture with Liberty:

The GP Three (I just made that up, that's not what we call ourselves):

In front of the Immigration museum:

This graph shows how many people immigrated to the US over the years since 1800, the big dip is the great depression:

This chart shows the number of slaves that were brought to the Americas way back. Only 5.6% were actually brought to the British colonies, which I was thought was surprising:

These are Jenna's great-grandparents, Rose and Vincenzo!

Me with Manhatten in the background and bright sun in my eyes:

Us and Liberty:

World Trade Center Ground Zero, it looks as if they have barely done anything to the sight:

Mural near ground zero of the buildings on fire

Looking through the fencing you can still see the foundation of the building below ground:

It was a really fun day, we got to see a lot of the city and shop on fifth avenue. It was nice to see my friends from home whom I haven't seen in a long time.

p.s. I would like to thank Sara for suggesting I compress the images, it made making this post a LOT easier and way less of a headache. Thanks!

Weekend in NYC...part deux

I went to Jersey last weekend to see the boy and we spent most of Saturday in the city because the weather is finally getting nice and because Matt wanted me to try "chicken and rice". There is this guy who runs a gyro stand on some random corner in the city that Matt has had a few times and has wanted me to try for a while so we sort of planned the excursion in the city so that we could be there at 7, when chicken and rice goes on sale. Here is a rundown of what we did:

First thing we saw coming out of penn station in the city, proof that the correct word is "pop" even on the east coast, it felt nice to be vindicated :)


I took this picture from central park, the reason I took it was because I am pretty sure this building (the tallest one in the picture) is the building they always show as where Chandler works in Friends, but maybe I'm crazy

Sitting on the fountain in central park, I took this because it seemed like a pretty famous area of the park, I seem to remember some Home Alone 2 scenes from this area
We went to FOA Schwarz and played with the toys, and I had to take a picture of Matt with his favorite bad guy!

Walking down 5th avenue, to my utter delight and surprise, we happen across the World of Disney store! Matt knew when I saw it that we were definitely going in. I didn't even know there was a disney store in NYC and it was neat because they had all sorts of NYC Mickey and Disney stuff that I don't think you can get anywhere else. I bought an NYC pin!


Continuing down 5th avenue we saw Radio City Music Hall, I figured that was worth a picture:

After that, we waited for about 45 minutes to get chicken and rice, I have to admit it was quite tasty! Then we just lounged around for the rest of the weekend.