The Fourth of July

Last night we were attended a 4th of July event at our friend's house. We know him and his housemates but since our local friendship circle is pretty much limited to those 6 people, we try to attend his house parties in order to continue to get to know his friends. Plus, its a very cool house, they have a big second story deck, everyone plays cornhole and beer pong and the food cooked in that residence is amazing.

My husband has been on a big cornbread kick ever since we made vegan chili last week, so we brought 2 kinds of cornbread; sweet and green chili. We also brought some Wacko Beer which is our current summer drink of choice, it's made from beets!

For dinner the group had made, buffalo and beef burgers with onion, garlic and peppers, homemade mac and cheese, stuffed mushrooms, cornbread, roasted pepper dip, bruschetta, a amazing grilled carrot and wilted greens with goat cheese salad and a toffee banana cream pie.

After stuffing ourselves to the brim we climbed up the ladder and watched the Capitol Fireworks from the roof. It was great.

Happy Fourth of July!

Note: I will be traveling until the 19th so the blogging will be limited. Instead I hope to have shared adventures with most of the people who read this in the first place!

Rockefeller Christmas

Friday night we went to a Ben Allison concert in Queens (for more on that check out one of Ryan's blogs) and on the way back uptown decided to stop by the Rockefeller Center to see what all the fuss is about.

They really fancy that part of town up for Christmas. I suppose that it is famous and it is a major tourist center but the amount of people within a 4 block radius was staggering. First we went to see the tree (of course) and then we made our way over to look over the ice rink. It's much smaller than I had expected. The ice is also pretty far below street level so it is a little like looking into the seal pit at Seaworld.

Right as we arrived someone was proposing in the middle of the ice. Somehow everyone else had cleared the ice and this couple was in the middle. She thankfully said yes and then they took a very awkward turn around the rink before the Zamboni came to clean up. I wondered how he got everyone off the ice without her noticing. Then I wondered how much 15 minutes of time at the Rockefeller ice rink costs. Probably a lot.

We took a turn up through the angels and watched the light show on the building at the top of the walk before walking over toward Radio City Music hall to look at the huge balls. I mean, huge Christmas ornaments. I tried to count the number of Santa's and quickly gave up. How do you think parents explain all those Santas to their kids?

Another NYC tradition off the list. Check.

Onward and Upward.