superbowl party!

we hosted our first get together tonight at the apt for the superbowl and it was a lot of fun! we were about 16-18 adults, two adorable toddlers, and one newborn, though we had enough food for 40 people. LOL. a miscalculation on our part.

yuki and hiro were the first to arrive around 4:30pm to make their delicious fresh guac, and the others started arriving shortly afterwards. glenn brought three boxes of korean fried chicken wings (which i didn't get to taste, darn!),  elyse prepared a roasted teriyaki cauliflower, and daisy brought the instant sensation: little pie company sour cream apple walnut pie. love. 

kevin and i prepared a huge batch of spinach and artichoke dip, chili con carne, baby kale and quinoa salad, hotdogs, and tater-tots, and ordered 4 pizza pies and a bucket of wings as well.

for the most part, people hung out around the island where the food was, and to be honest, i think some weren't actually there to watch the game :) slowly after stuffing ourselves silly, we migrated to the dining table - living room area and our monster-size boxes kept the game interesting!

during half time, we popped some champagne (which uhm uncorked itself into our ceiling leaving a mark!!) and celebrated somia and glenn's recent engagement with a delicious red velvet cake from silk cakes (thanks, yuki & hiro!). glenn proposed to somia in hawaii in january and we hadn't all had an opportunity to get together to celebrate (still missing somia!).

our close-knit group of college friends has really grown through the years. it started with just a handful of freshman year, mudge c-wing, ground floor. then we graduated together (over the course of a few years), most of us moved to new york city, got involved in the dating and relationship scene, engagements, weddings, and now, little ones are beginning to sprout, left and right (estella, benjamin, kaira, and sydney on the east coast; austin, bryant, and hudson on the west coast). and during this time, especially the last few years, our friends are starting to spread out, leave manhattan, and leave new york city altogether.

this support network, this group of friends to bounce ideas off of, travel with, and celebrate with, it makes me realize how lucky we are to have met, and how important it is to welcome new friends into our lives. looking forward to many more get-togethers, hangouts, and celebrations together.

the game ended with two pivotal interceptions in the last few minutes by the seahawks first, and then the pats, with 26 seconds left in the game. sad. a poor call by the seahawks' coach resulted in a loss for our seahawks, 24-28. at least it was a pretty exciting game, but poor seahawks.

getting to know our neighbors

today kevin did the unthinkable - he accompanied me to the divine trinity: bed bath & beyond, container store, and home depot, all in one trip! hahaha ... walked into bbb with the intention to pick up some pillows and sheets, and came out with those, as well as a red kitchenaid stand mixer. yay! last weekend when daisy and i made cookies, we used a mixer that i'd purchased straight out of college which probably cost me less than $15 and felt like it had the power of a construction tool, not a kitchen appliance. haha. time to get our bake on! kevin was grimacing the entire time - sorry hubbs! :) apple red, on sale, i basically SAVED him money by buying it.

also, CHA-CHING! found my bath waste baskets at containerstore! for some reason, public bathrooms (yuck) and waste baskets in general have a huge ick factor for me. so when it came to choosing a waste basket for our baths, i was having a difficult time. the opening on top has to be the perfect size! not too large or you'll be graced with a view of its contents and not too small because then it's impractical for nonchalantly tossing items in. no lid, because then you actually have to touch it every time you want to use it (ick), and to find a waste basket that's actually proportional with the size of the modern one-piece european-style toilets is actually not easy. it felt like everything we saw in bbb and container store were quite large - "american" style. most of the openings weren't much smaller than the toilet bowl itself lol.

anyways finally found these simple white plastic square waste basket from the containerstore. i removed the flip-lids and they go pretty darn nicely with the toilet brushes we got from muji too. done!! woohoo ~~~ mini challenge complete.

enough about baths and waste baskets. kevin and i spent the majority of the morning cleaning, setting up the guest bedroom, and stuffing packed boxes into every closet possible so we could make the apt somewhat presentable for friends in the afternoon.

oh and kev found time to make us this simple yet delish soba lunch :)

around 2pm, the doorbell rang and we were greeted by some cold guests: vadim, monica, john, sonam, thinley, and pema! kevin gave the adults the tour while i hung out with thinley and pema. they are so much fun to be with - not shy, very open and happy kids. afterwards we all naturally gravitated to the island (or perhaps it was due to the cheese, grapes, and olive bread), with the kids perched on the stools. it was really nice to see everyone, since the last time we really all got together was wow over the summer.

a little later in the afternoon, we had our second set of chelsea neighbors, kris and jessica, swing by for wine and yumm maison kayser desserts! they are about to remodel a loft just two blocks north of us so it was fun to hear about their process and hopefully pass on some lessons learned from our process (so that no one has to go through that again)! it turns out that jessica has a good amount of experience managing these types of projects in line of work and she seems much more level headed than me so i think they will be just fine.

rest of the night? pecorino, gouda, proscuitto, pears, apple, and gilmore girls. winding down and ready to start one of the last weeks of 2014!