Friday, January 6, 2012

January Musings

1.  The last time I bought a formal dress I was pregnant.  I just bought another one.  Someday I would like to shop for a formal outside of the maternity department.  I thought about calling Angelina Jolie and just asking if I could just borrow one of hers (since we're like BFFs), but luckily I found one on clearance and didn't have to ask Ang.

2.  As 'almost' home owners we've been spending a lot of time in Lowes and Home Depot.  At first I felt like a kid in a candy store.  However, as more projects get added to our 'to-do' list I'm starting to see it more like a Vegas Casino - you know, even though it keeps taking all your money you just can't help going back over and over and over again.

3.  I'm tired of laundry mats.  I want my washer and dryer back.

4.  I'm in love with Turkish food right now.  John took me to a Turkish restaurant which was brave and daring on his part since I'm pregnant.  When I was pregnant with Porter he took me to a Vietnamese restaurant and I'll never touch Vietnamese cuisine again (this includes with a 10 foot pole).  Same thing happened with the soup from Cafe Rio when I was preggers with Gabe.  The horrid, horrid memories  I have from those experiences.  So the whole Turkish thing was iffy, but magically I loved it and we've even been back since.  Seriously, the best food we've had since we've been in New York.  If you come to visit, we'll be taking you to Ali Baba's!

5.  It was strange spending New Year's Eve in New York knowing we were only two hours away from Times Square.  I kept telling John, "We could still make it!  If we got on a train right now, we could still make it in time!"  But then he kept reminding me how we had kids . . . and how they were asleep in their beds. . . and it just wasn't going to happen.  Someday maybe.

6.  We did celebrate New Year's Eve by dining out at an Irish Mexican Restaurant.  Interesting combo don't you think?  The food over priced, but yummy.  The service was crummy.  I had fajitas and John had bacon wrapped pork with ratatouille.  I always thought ratatouille was French . . . not Irish or Mexican, but whatever.

7.  New York drivers suck.

8.  New York drivers probably think Utah drivers are even worse.

9.  The garbage truck comes by sometime between the hours of 4 and 6 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  However, I think they drive by everyday of the week and purposefully bang the dumpsters around just for kicks.  Did I mention the dumpsters are literally in our bedroom?  Okay, I know they aren't in our room, but it sure sounds that way at 4 AM.

10.  I am currently in love with a hemp based soap called TOKE that I got at the Farmers Market last week.  My skin has never felt so good!  My husband had to explain 'toke' to me : )   We also bought pickles, cheese, and a jar of headache relief cream that come to find out does absolutely nothing for a headache.

11.  I came home from church on Sunday and cried because I missed my Ohio friends so much.  It's lonely here and we need to find some friends.  Even Gabe keeps asking me when we are going to find friends.

12.  When I asked Gabe what he thought we should name the baby he said, "If it's a boy, we'll call him Zero.  If it's a girl, we'll call her One.  And Mommy, just so you know, if we get a baby girl I'm totally not going to her birthday party.  I'd just send her a present, because I don't like girl birthdays, unless she chooses a Star Wars party because Star Wars has a girl in it and then I'd go."

13.  You know how in every area there is that one coveted school district that everyone wants to live in so their kids can attend the great schools?  Well, it's no different here.  So get this, the house we bought (and I kid you not) is on the wrong side of the street from those awesome schools.  Yep, the street we live on is the border of two school districts and we are on the wrong side of the street.  While the kids across the street are being bused to educational greatness, my child will attend a mediocre school, in a crappy school district.  The school district we are in doesn't have a school bus system for the kids.  Kids can ride the public transportation system if they need/want to be bused to school.  Do you think I'm going to send my kindergartener to school on the city bus next year?  Um, no.  Luckily our house is only half a mile from the school so I can walk with Gabe and it's just a quick drive when the weather is bad.  (I'm sure I'm making his school sound worse than it really is, but it's funny to be so close to the 'golden calf' and yet so far away.)    

14.  I cashed in all of the rewards points from our credit card the other day.  It was a nice pay day.  I like feeling like I'm getting free money : )

15.  PEZ is obnoxious.  Why can't the candy just lay flat and stay flat when I put it in the dispenser.  Why doesn't PEZ sell dispensers with the candy already in it?

16.  90% of all Christmas items at Target today - wahoo!  Too bad the only thing left was Justin Beiber wrapping paper.  Okay, that's not true, I did get some cute gift bags for $0.19 each and the PEZ dispensers for the kids.

17.  Conversation I overheard between Gabe and Porter today:
Gabe: Porter, do you want to box?
Porter: Yes, box!
(Porter runs down the hall to where the big box is thinking he and Gabe would play in the box.)
Gabe: No! No! No!  Let's box!
Porter:  Yes, play box!
Gabe: No, let's punch each other in the face!

18.  The other day I was complaining to John about how I feel like a fat cow right now.  His response, "You are NOT a fat cow.  You're more like a potbelly pig."

19.  I love that my husband makes me laugh - especially at myself!

20.  It was above 32 degrees outside today, so I took the kids to a park to play.  Gabe started playing with another boy there and pretty soon I heard him yelling at the kid, "Vamanos!  Vamanos!  Come on,  move your frijoles!"  I walked away and pretended he wasn't my kid.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Monday, December 26, 2011

Our First Christmas in New York

We took the kids to see Santa at the mall.  Porter wanted nothing to do with the man in the red, so he's not in the picture : (    Gabe on the other hand enjoyed his visit with Santa!  We made sure we told Santa we moved and that he needed to visit us in a hotel this year.
And sure enough he found us!
  
 
Our family's big gift this year was a Nintendo Wii.
You can see how excited the kids were when they opened it!
Unfortunately, the TV at our hotel wouldn't allow us to play the Wii.  John spent a very frustrating day trying to get it to work.  Thankfully, the kids had a great day even without their main present working.  So John decided that today we would just buy a new TV so they could play.  Done.  That just made an expensive Christmas present really expensive, but they're happy!  John's so much nicer than I am.  I told the kids they'd have to wait until we moved into our new house and unpacked our TV.  What a nice Daddy.
Porter tucked in bed with his new teddy bear after a long day of Christmas fun!
Our Christmas was wonderful, even in a hotel!  
We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas too!

Saturday, December 24, 2011

2011 Family Pictures

We had these pictures taken clear back in August.  I knew we had to get pictures done before we left Ohio or else it just wasn't going to happen this year with the move and all.  Thanks to Caitlin Justiniano for doing a great job!

  
 
 

Friday, December 23, 2011

Bennington, Vermont

Now that our ducks are all in a row in the housing arena we finally had a free day to get out and do a little exploring.  We drove 30 minutes to Bennington, Vermont and did a little sightseeing there.  Vermont is beautiful, even in the dead of winter.  I can't wait to go back in the summer and especially the fall!

One of the three covered bridges I made John drive me to today : )
The kids LOVED honking as we drove through the bridges!

Battle of Bennington Monument 
Battle of Bennington was a Revolutionary War battle fought on Aug. 16, 1777
Statue of Major General John Stark of the Continental Army - "The Hero of Bennington."
His motto: "Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils."

Cool drinking fountain.

 Old First Church Est. 1762
 In the church's cemetery we found the grave of the famous American poet Robert Lee Frost.
 Porter and Gabe each toss a penny on his grave.
The last couple of weeks have been stressful and unfun to say the least.  Even though it was cold, it was nice to get out and do something fun today.  It also has me excited to get out and do more exploring in the area! 

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

News!

We found a house, made an offer on it, and it's under contract!  We should close in January.  We can't wait to be in our own house!  I guess we've been talking a lot about finances in front of the kids throughout this process, because yesterday Gabe came up with the following idea to help us pay for our house.  "How about every time we see someone with dollars we just ask them to give us one to help us pay for our house?"  Do we have a future democrat in the house?  
In other news, John started working full time today.  He's been off work during the move and while we've been house hunting.  I'm going to miss having him around all day.  Thankfully, he'll have more time off with Christmas and New Years.  Then it's back to reality : (  But then we get to move into our new house : )
I've also decided that people who are parallel parking challenged like I am, should never live in a city.  I look forward to being able to pull into a driveway again!

Friday, December 16, 2011

Hello New York

I finally broke down and bought a new card reader for the camera.  It's one of the things I didn't think to bring with us.  We will now have 42.  I never seem to have one when I need it.  So I bought yet another because a post about our first week in New York would be rather boring without pictures, don't you think?  So here goes, week one, with pictures and all.  This may not be interesting to many of you, but it's mostly for our families so they can picture where we are.  

This is Troy, New York.
  
 

This is the building we are staying at in downtown Troy.  It is very old, but it works for us.  Troy has a bad reputation and there are some parts that are not very nice (I didn't take pictures of those).  However, I commented to John today that we don't hear police sirens here.  Where as, sirens were just part of the nightly ambiance in Dayton.  

We walk down this street everyday to where our cars are parked.  Supposedly a scene from "Age of Innocence" was filmed here in 1992.  I wouldn't know, I've never seen the movie, I've just seen the plaque.  Sirens or not I'm always relieved to see that our cars have not been broken into over night.

The view of the square in front of our apartment building.  Did I mention we are living here only temporarily while we look for a house?  House hunting is how we have spent nearly all of our time the past week.  

John did check in at work and has gotten a few things taken care of there.  His office is in this funky castle looking building.  I did not take this picture.  I've only seen this building once and I was too busy freaking out that there was a Mo's Southwest Grill across the street that I didn't get the camera out to take any pictures.  I'll admit I've been genuinely concerned about New York's lack of Mexican Cuisine.  Not that Mo's qualifies as good Mexican, but it was the first place other than Chipotle I'd seen that even served chips and salsa.  And I'm not allowed to eat at Chipotle since I can't pronounce it and I think it's gross.  I fear it's going to be a long hard quest to find a good chimichanga in New York, but I will not relinquish the search!  Anyway, John's office building at RPI.
The lobby of our apartment building.
The kids check for any mail.
This is the elevator in the building.  It's an antique and it scares me.
I call it the Tower of Terror.
This is inside the Tower of Terror.  John assures me it's perfectly safe and proceeds to rock it back and forth as we travel up.  I pray we don't plummet to our death. 
 Having survived the Tower of Terror we enter our apartment.  This hallway is like a football field long and the kids love to run up and down it.  Thankfully, we are above a store so we don't have to worry about neighbors below us.  Having a herd of elephants above your shop can't be good for business though.
View of the Hudson River from the kid's bedroom.
Kitchen area.
 Our Holiday Decorations!
(I didn't pack a card reader, but I packed Christmas decor!) 
And lastly, our Christmas tree.  Thank you Cheryl!!!  When we set up the tree Gabe was adamant that we dance around the tree.  I was eating dinner and he declared, "Every family who believes in Jesus dances around their Christmas tree, even if their dinner isn't all the way gone."  So we put on some Christmas music and danced around the tree.  I've decided as long as there is a Christmas tree and presents the kids don't care where we spend Christmas.  
 Merry Christmas!
We hope you all take some time to dance around your tree!