Wicked!

Guess what I saw today...
Go on take a guess!
It's pretty gosh darn phenomenal! That's fo sho!
And it's wicked awesome!
So today Julie and I go to the Wicked lottery for the 5884092397174858989320 time. We figure, it's crappy weather and it's a matinee=not as many people=more likely to get picked. We were wrong, there weren't as many people, but we were still not picked because Wicked hates us. 

We decide to go to TKTS and get tickets to another show. Fantasticks is the longest running off-broadway show and it's fairly cheap at $43 a pop. We purchase the tickets and go into Olive Garden to get the yummy salad, soup and breadsticks lunch. We dine and stuff ourselves silly on those delish breadsticks when a woman comes up to us and asks if we'd like tickets to go see the Wicked matinee. Our jaws drop and we stare at each other. ARE YOU FREAKIN SERIOUS! Apparently the lady and her daughter's names were both called but the people they were going to go with in addition to themselves were unable to attend. Julie and I ask if we can talk about it for a minute and we'll come and get her in a few minutes. She says yes.

"Julie, it's Wicked."

"I know but then we'd be spending like $70 on tickets today! And we'd be wasting the Fantasticks..."

"Okay it's up to you, I know you've seen Wicked and it is a lot of money. Whatever you want to do I'm okay with."

"Dang Maddie.... I don't know what to do!"

"It is Wicked... and we have been trying forever..."

"You know my brother once asked if he could exchange his tickets for Fantasticks for a different night... maybe we can do that! Okay let's get the Wicked tickets and see if we can go another weekday night to Fantasticks!"

"YAY!!! WICKED!!!"

And thus we found ourselves the owners of a pair of tickets to Wicked and fully exchangeable tickets for Fantasticks (to be used this Friday). Wicked was amazing. Life is good. 

Randomness

I love a bookcase crammed full of books. Books make me really happy. You should go read. YOU, now! Go get your nose in a book! They're good for you! End of story. 
Tonight I made a Rachel dinner. I made her delicious enchiladas (not pictured here) and a pan of her made from scratch AMAZING! brownies (which are pictured here). I also included a salad of wholesome greenness thus making the meal a true Rachel feast : ) 
Dan enjoying brownies and ice cream... I don't know, don't ask.
Julie and I showing how we are totally friends. 

So tomorrow is going to be a crazy day. I don't have to go into work until 10 instead of 9, but that's because I'm starting my first therapy group which will be interesting. I'm a bit nervous, but it should be good, at least I hope so. Also tomorrow I have to present a case to the staff in my department and ask for their input. This is a great learning opportunity but it's also a bit scary because everything I've been doing is out on the line and what if I've been a complete idiot? Then what I ask!? So I have 2 big things at internship tomorrow, so wish me luck! I hope it all goes well, I'll let you know tomorrow what happens : )

Sorry no fun pictures. Dan and I haven't been doing much lately, which I hope is going to change because I am booooooooooored as I expressed to Daniel this weekend. So stay tuned, I promise something exciting will happen sometime soonish : ) 

Shoes

Kinda loves these for my wedding shoes... j.crew gets me every time! At least these are better than the last ones only $265 : ) 

Facts

1. My hair is getting long, not as long as it's been known to be, but long none the less. 

2. It has been snowing ridiculous amounts (at least in Greenwich it has). If you ask Dan how many times he shoveled the driveway this weekend be prepared for an angry outburst (it's somewhere around 3 or 4) 
3. I purchased some cute brightly colored bowl at Anthropologie this weekend to make me happy. It's so dreary and grey here all the time now, I need a little cheering up. And I decided if I could have my entire kitchen supplied from Anthro I would always be happy to cook lots and lots of food. I even told Dan he could buy me kitchen supplies for anniversary gifts as long as they're from Anthro : ) 
4. School starts tomorrow. Gross. I guess I had better look over the syllabus once before I head in tomorrow. I just have to remember, this is my last semester of school ever (unless I get my doctorate of course). I'm halfway through my grad school career! That's something to be pretty excited about right? : ) 

We're idiots actually

At the beginning when we can still somewhat feel our faces...
me on the Mall, real fashionable right?
Ack! It's freakin cold!
Julie in the pretty tunnel
"Negative, I am a meat popsicle"   Name that movie : ) 

A Calm Central Park

The Mall (the promenade where all of the rich snobs walked around in their finery to "see and be seen") but it's gorgeous and full of twisty trees
Think Enchanted : ) 
The Boathouse the lake was frozen.
In The Rambles (central park's attempt at a wildlife sanctuary) 
Yesterday Julie and I were crazy. We decided to go on a walk, get outside, not sit around watching Law and Order: SVU all day... that sort of thing. We decide to go to Central Park (CP) and walk around and take some pictures. Neither of us have really adventured that much in CP so we thought it'd be fun, and we both have wicked awesome camera's which makes it even more fun. It was freezing and beautiful. There were hardly any people, just crazy tourists (we're totally not tourists, I promise). It was somewhat erie how still the park was, especially in The Rambles. But we got lot's of beautiful pictures, I think I had over 100! But here are a few of my fav's : ) I'll post some pics of me and julie too. 

These are a few of my favorite things...

super cute new wallet : ) 
A stack of new books and of course a wedding magazine
The lights on college walk at Columbia (yet another reason why my school is awesome)
Chic black nails and listening to my ipod
Cute jars to hold my flour, sugar and something else in : ) 

Observations on life

1. I love Trader Joe's. Their prices are great, and all of their frozen meals are perfect for one or two people. It's wonderful. But then you get there and the people are crazy! 1st: there are women walking around in a fur coat. Honey, if you can afford a fur coat, why are you in Trader Joe's? 2nd: people just stand in the aisle. It's somewhat bigger than typical New York groceries, however, not THAT much bigger. Get your big tooshie movin' honey! But I do love Trader Joe's, it's just the people that frequent it are a bit odd sometimes. 

2. I wish I had a picture for this one because this woman was priceless. What is a woman wearing enormous sunglasses (fyi, it's another Dreary day in NYC, not sunny at all), a fur vest, a fur purse, fur shoes, Dolce & Gabbana jeans and a very tan and leathery face with collagen injected puffy lips doing in the subway?! It was an incongruous sight to behold. She was lost, that was obvious. She kept getting up and down and checking the map and I couldn't stop staring at her freaky lips...

3. Today as I walked to the subway I listened to my ipod (I don't do this much as I enjoy listening to what's going on around me). I was listening to some awesome girlie "let's kick some trash" kinda songs and I just wanted to dance! I think in New York of all places it should be perfectly acceptable for people to walk around dancing to the music on their ipods. When Mom and I go grocery shopping at home we always comment on how we feel like we're in a musical at the grocery store with the music playing. You just want to grab onto your cart and start dancing! Wouldn't that make grocery shopping more fun? and life in general more exciting if we all just danced down the street every once in a while? I think yes.

4. Sometimes I'll be walking home carrying 50 lbs of groceries on my poor back and I'm thinking "what in the world am I doing here? I hate this. I'm far from my family, I have to walk everywhere, errands take 3 times as long here compared to any where else in the world...etc." But then, I look up and I realize "I'm in freakin New York City! Who in the world doesn't want to be here?!" And I crank up my music and re-shoulder that 50 lbs bag and look into the face of the amazing city I get to live in and I'm happy : )

Once there was a Snowman...

So Thursday night Julie and I went out to have our weekly girls night, which we haven't had in a awfully long time. We of course went to the Wicked theater to see if we could get tickets in the lottery there. I believe it was our 4th time going and we still have not made it. sigh maybe someday. So we went and saw Yes Man instead. It was fantastic!! We'd both read the book and were a little worried about how Jim Carey was going to pull off the wonderfully witty British humor but the movie is different enough from the book while still maintaining the core idea that it was really great. I highly recommend the book and the movie. But I warn you, it will change your life : )

Saturday night, Dan and I were going to play games with our Barney friends and us women were gonna kick some man trash to the curb. However, it poured snow all day long and it was a bit treacherous to go out even a few streets away to their house. Instead we decided to play in the snow and build my first ever snowman. 
Here is Buster (because he's a bust, not a full figured snowman) Corncob. Jan had this little snowman kit which was awesome. The snow was very powdery and wouldn't stick very well so we just made a bust.  
I also made a snow angel for the first time. Dan made a snow man to accompany my angel. 
Oh that Dan always getting into trouble : ) 

I hope everyone has a great week!! Wish me luck as I head back to my internship after a 3 week absence, should be interesting!!!

Update

My group came in 3rd! wa-hoo! apparently the prize is "memories." That's why I'm paying $30,000 in tuition, to receive memories for a prize. awesome.

Oh Capstone

So I turned in my capstone paper yesterday. We were way ahead of schedule and the lady we turned it into was very impressed. Today we had our presentation, and apparently my group made it to the final round! Amazing! So in a little bit we'll be competing against a few other groups to see who has the best plan for Casa de Esperanza. Winning is no big deal really. I heard that last year the winners received paper weights. riiiiiiiight. But anyways, it's kind of cool that my group got into the final round. Go us! : )

Sigh

If I had an extra $750 laying around and I could handle the thought of wearing such heels for an entire day of standing. I would totally get these to wear on my wedding day and I would be blissfully happy. 

And I'm back in the game...

Picture from the date night Dan and I had on Saturday. We went and ate Mexican food and saw Seven Pounds (the new Will Smith movie). Wouldn't really recommend it. You know how the trailer is super confusing? Well the movie is like that up until the last like 10 minutes... and I guess it's a good message... but then again kinda weird and not really a good message... a weird movie after which you will want to play Wii Fit to get your endorphins going again : ) 

Dan and I played Wii Fit at his friend AJ's house and now we're obsessed. We want one. We are registering for one. If anyone wants to spend that crazy amount of money on us, please buy it for us, and know that we will then be the absolute happiest newlyweds in the entire universe. end of story. 

Tomorrow. I start capstone which is my replacement project for a masters thesis. Upside: I don't have to write a really long paper which I don't enjoy doing and I know nobody will enjoy reading. Downside: We're in groups of 18-20 people and we have 2.5 days to write an 8-10 page paper and compose a 10 min. presentation which will be presented as part of a competition. Ummm 18-20 people writing a paper together in 2.5 days? This will be interesting...

Wish me luck!

Well Hello 2009

AJ amazed us with his awesome dancing moves. Some titles: the shopping cart, doing the hair, volleyball... you get the idea of his amazing-ness

dancing with streamers

The boys

The gals

yeah we're totally cool

Saying Goodbye

la madre
el padre
los padres
on the plane which we boarded early in an effort to be helpful only to be told once everyone was settled that we wouldn't be taking off for another 45 minutes. awesome.
Dan trying desperately to open our recently purchase headphone splitter packaged in that ridiculous plastic that not even superman can open without a pair of scissors. Thankfully my fiance is more amazing than superman and opened it for our listening pleasure. 

The holidays were lovely. I will miss my lovely warm California, my boring ole Fres-yes, my crazy looney family, and being constantly adored and loved. I am so glad that Dan and I got to go home for a little while and he and the fam bam could get more closely acquainted. 

Top 5 amazing things about Dan during the holidays:

1. He got Spencer to laugh and smile more than anybody in the family.

2. He let my darling little cousins pile on him day after day, hour after hour.

3. He only snuck out of a wedding conversation once (I'm taking your phone away when we talk about weddings from now on)

4. He was chill and laid back about me ditching him multiple times to go do wedding dress junk

5. He was just amazing and fit in so well : ) love it, love him.