Coney Island

We had the best weather this weekend! It was absolutely gorgeous outside.

My friends and I went to Coney Island where we relaxed on the beach, ate hot dogs, rode roller coasters, ate ice cream. It was the best Saturday EVER!

Steve, Rachel, Ryan, Ladd, Rachel, Jenny, Shilo and Stacy
Me and my roomies on the boardwalk!

At the "original" Nathan's hot dog stand.

A Birthday Blog

Happy 24th Birthday to Me!

After watching General Conference all day at church, I went out to dinner with some of my friends, to a BBQ Restaurant called Bubby's. I broke my "no-meat- for-Lent" fast and ate a delicious pulled pork sandwich! Yum!
I had a great time!!

Jill, Rachel, and Steve (Manhattan Bridge in the distance)

Dave and Rachel

Me and Amber

Introducing Jenny- our new roomie!

Philadelphia Freedom!

Weekend Getaway: We decided that since NY is so close to everything, we would go on mini-vacations to nearby cities. A few weeks ago we decided to go to Philadelphia. (President's Day Weekend... how appropriate!)
Erin, Rachel and our friend Amber took the "Chinatown Bus" to Philly. (The china town bus is a $20 bus; roundtrip from NY Chinatown to Philadelphia Chinatown) It was only a two hour bus ride, then when we got there, I got us lost... The problem with being right all of time is sometimes you have to be humbled and be wrong once in a while :( We were trying to find Race st. and we thought we might ask someone for help, but everyone we encountered happend to be a different "race" than us, and we were worried that they might take it as an inappropriate comment! Luckily we found it and it was pretty close to where the bus dropped us off.
Then there was a problem with our room and they moved us twice! It was a fiasco and I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the hampton inn about our experience!
The highlight was the indoor pool and spa. I haven't been swimming in months and I found it very comforting to be in a pool after all this time.
The next day we went to see all of the historic sites: Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Betsey Ross' House...

We also went to the world famous "Geno's" for a Philly Cheesesteak. It turned out to be another fiasco as it started to snow pretty heavy and we were stranded in this strange neighborhood in South Philly! Luckily we grabbed a cab and took our cheesesteaks back to the room.

We ended up having a great time!

Happy Birthday Leilani

Leilani (my adorable neice) turned 2 years old February 3rd! Happy Birthday :)

Family Home Evening and other sad news

Erin and I are in charge of "Family Home Evenings" on Monday night, and this week we decorated cookies! My cookie was in the likeness of Van Gough's "Starry Night"... It tasted better than it looked :)

Also, in case you wanted to know, it is FREEZING here. I don't know how to deal with it. I am bundling up as much as possible, but it is this wretched wind chill that is killing me! But I will survive.

On another sad note, my roomate, Erin has decided that she is going to move back to home at the end of the month. :(

Baby It's Cold Outside

After weeks of "mild" weather, it is begining to feel like winter here. It hasn't been THAT bad yet, at least not as bad as I imagined. New York in the winter isn't so bad after all! Look at all the pretty views of the city this winter...

The other morning we were dusted with a light coat of snow. It was beautiful!

The Brooklyn Bridge


The Manhattan Bridge

Happy New Year!!

Welcome 2007!!

We rang in the new year with a small gathering at our apartment . Rachel's Sister Jill and our friend Steve from Church were our only guests. But that didn't stop us from having a blast! We made some delicious appetizers, played games like twister, catch phrase, and scrabble, then at 11:30 we walked down to prospect park for the countdown.

There was a band playing, then at midnight there was an amazing fireworks show. We brought our Martinelli's and cups for toasting at midnight.

Merry Christmas!

What an exciting week I've had. The girls came up to visit and we've been having so much fun! We've gone to see a show, saw the tree walked through Central Park, attended church (to hear Erin and me sing in the choir) shopping, eating, where does it all end? This is my last blog before I leave New York for a week. I will be home visiting family and friends in California. I can't wait to see everyone. I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday. God Bless!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

A celebratory dinner after decorating our tree. That's Sparkling Cider... not Champagne!
Erin and Rachel outside Radio City Music Hall (Waiting on line)
The World Famous Rockettes...

What better place to be than New York City for the holidays? There is so much to see. I don't know how I am going to do it all before I go home. But I think I am off to a fantastic start. Just roaming the streets you can feel the Christmas-ness in the air. Lights, and wreaths, shoppers, window displays! I can't even begin to tell you about the amazing window displays. Macy's and Lord and Taylor put so much work into these brilliant window displays. There is me at one at Macy's- kind of blurry though.

We were also lucky enought to get free tickets to see none other than the world famous Rockettes!! The show was absolutely amazing- as you might imagine. It really brought in the holiday spirit :) And Radio City Music Hall was just gorgeous inside.

I plan to do many more NYC holiday activites, when "the girls" (Ash, Shan, and Britt) arrive tomorrow. So, until then...

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've had the best Thanksgiving Holiday. I went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!! I seriously watch it on T.V. every year, but there was something about seeing it in person. It was freezing and raining though. We were soaked and numb but we didn't care! Then we went to New Jersey to have Thanksgiving dinner at Rachel's Grandparent's house. It was really nice.
Friday my parents came up! I went with them to stay in Connecticut for the weekend at this beautiful resort. We had a really nice time. I am so thankful this time of year for friends and family. What a wonderful year it has been!

CANstruction

I went to this annual New York City event with my boss; its called CANstruction. Basically it works like a canned food drive but MUCH cooler. Instead of just collecting the cans, they have these designers construct these awesome displays! Cost to get into this exhibit... One canned food!

Gobble Gobble

Last night Rachel and I went to a Thanksgiving Potluck party. I brought funeral potatoes and Rachel brought Pistacio Couscous. It wasn't too far away, but walking down the street on a Saturday night with a large, hot casserole dish, wasn't exactly"fun".
Almost everyone attending the party was a musician or a theatre person, so needless to say there was a lot of entertainment. We had a great time! I am really excited for Thanksgiving though. My parents are coming up to visit me and I can't wait to see them.
By the way, it is starting to cool down here! Its strange because last week it was really warm... unseasonably warm. But today is starting to feel more like November. I am not taking any chances though. Last week I bought a nice long, warm coat for the winter coat. (Actually my parents bought it!)

No Other Road, No Other Way, No Day But Today.

Last night I went to see "Rent"- the musical, on stage. It was SO good!!! I loved it! (Although, I don't really recommend it for young children or some of my churchy friends)
Rachel and I bought tickets last week. She's seen it three times, and didn't mind going with me for my first time. We had really great seats. The theater was small, so all the seats were pretty good. The music was great and the cast was amazing. (Maybe Roger was a little scary) I was smiling the whole time because I couldn't believe I was actually there. I hope to see it again sometime, but there are plenty of other broadway shows awaiting...

Happy Halloween!!

So, I realize my last blog was really whiny and I apologize. I am, by no means, deprived while living here. I love it and there are so many great things about it. Like tonight for instance. They shut down our street and had all kinds of people, kids, and families walking along the street and trick or treating at the store fronts. It really was a fun sight.

Last night we hosted our ward young single adult (YSA) Family home evening (FHE) and we carved pumpkins. Rachel and I created this witch profile holding a jack-o-lantern.

This is me and my friend Manny at work. We were both in the holiday spirit today.
BTW I work on the top floor... you can kind of see our great view!

A Different Way of Life

So everyone "back home" asks me what it's like to live in New York City. The standard answer is "It's very different..." so I'd like to elaborate on the differences and the modern conviences I miss from back home and things I feel like compaining about...

• Dishwasher- we don't have one, we wash and dry ourselves!
• Washer/Dryer- another appliance we don't have access to. We actually have to lug our laundry bags down the street to the Laundromat and bring lots of quarters!
• Garbage Disposal, everything goes in the trash instead which brings me to the next point...
• Trash- picks up twice a week, but we cant just throw it in a dumpster any old time.
• Microwave- Something else we don't have :( No TV Dinners, No Popcorn, No way to reheat certain leftovers.
• Plumbing- don't worry we DO have indoor plumbing, the drains are just very slow. Plus we can only use 1-ply toilet paper.
• Air conditioner- this only applied during that first month we were here, but we should probably invest in a unit before summer arrives
• A Car- enough said
• We just barely got our cable hooked up, but for three months we watched everything in static
• 3 girls + 1 bathroom= Chaos
• BTW its freezing here now.

Those are just some of the things I've had to adjust to. But the people are also very different as you can imagine. Instead of saying wait IN line, people here say wait ON line... which is bizarre to me! They also have accents but they don't realize it. Some guy at Bloomingdales asked if I was from the midwest because of "my accent"- what is that supposed to mean. Then last night this older, bigger, italian guy at the security desk of a building said I was "beautiful, bellisima!" His son, who is 22 apparently brings home "skeletons", and he doesn't understand why he doesn't bring someone like me home. He was very difficult to understand but I got the jist that he appreciated my "healthy" figure. It was really funny to me. People are nicer than I expected, there are a lot of helpful people here, so hopefully that breaks your stereotype of typical "new yorkers".

Well, I've gone on far too long. I am off to a ward chili cook-off right now.