Mailers, Ice Cream Makers and Many Friends

What a week at work! Not only did we have several large conference groups move into the building and we cleaned out the office and painted, but we finally completed the summer mailers to students in housing about their room assignments, roommate info, move-in details and all that good stuff. Thank goodness it's all done! Everyone's got a bed and my work here is complete. But, I have to say, I couldn't have done it without my fantastic little worker bees. Grace was particularly helpful and is seen here with some of the envelopes. I hope her tongue has recouped from all the envelope sealing!

Then, on Thursday we busted out the ice cream maker. I bought one for the office and we had a trial run. Here's Amaker making the freezy magic happen. Truth be told, it wasn't half bad, but we all had a gut ache from all the sugar before it was all said and done.

Thursday Chris and Eliza (old staff members from Shippensburg) came to visit and to see the Friday Yankees game. We went to my favorite wings place, Blondie's, and caught up over a double order of scorchin' buffalo wings. Then we decided to check out the Empire State Building, but on the way Ryan saw this super cool pavement-eating machine! Okay, maybe Ryan was a bit more excited about it than the rest of us, but we caught this pic of the machine eating up a stretch of Broadway.

Then, we did the thing that officially made us New Yorkers, we went to the Empire State Building and took in the amazing views. It was really enjoyable because now that we've lived here a while, we were able to identify all the different buildings and areas of the city. Here is a picture of us with Chris and Eliza at the 86th floor observation deck.

Then, today, we met up with my cousin Becky. We started by doing brunch at Good Enough To Eat, a wonderful restaurant on the Upper West Side. After that we made a beeline for the Guggenheim. Right now they have an exhibition on Louise Bourgeois. It was amazing even though parts of the permanent collection were closed due to construction and renovations. I was bummed that the Kandinskys were not on display. But, it was wonderful exploring the museum with two artists on my side. It was fantastic. After that we introduced Becky to Meri, and she promptly taught the dog to fetch! Becky is the the next dog whisperer. Then, before we parted we caught a light dinner of tapas at my favorite NY establishment, Kashkaval. We shared a plate of assorted cold tapas, including the best artichoke dip and baba ganoush, and said goodbye.
Here's a picture of me with Becky and a look at our great tapas. The red stuff is stewed Elephant Beans! Sooooo good!