Mt Vernon

 

 

We spent Thanksgiving in Maryland this year. We're really glad to have family close enough to spend holidays with. We went to Mt. Vernon while we there and I loved everything about it. Especially the view of the Potomac from the back porch/lawn. I could have stayed there all day but we had Five Guys and leftover pie to get back to.

I had a birthday

I'm 27. That feels okay I guess.

But you know what feels way better than okay? Talking to lots of family and friends. And singing voicemail messages! We went to dinner at a friend's house and when we left I had 4 of them and they each made me very happy.

Also of note: A perk of marrying a designer- custom/coordinating wrapping on all my gifts. Which is something I truly appreciate. And Regan made his first cake (solo) and it was DELICIOUS. Pear Oatmeal with this gooey coconut/walnut stuff on top. Has he been hiding this skill so as to not step on my baking toes? Secret's out.

We're heading to DC tomorrow after work for a long weekend! Please bless the traffic isn't bad, that I can make the sweet potatoes as good as Linsey did, that our bus has steady wi-fi, and that baby Colette still likes me.

We've been married for 8 months.

just cute things

- Regan doesn't know how to roll his eyes. How do you get to be 26 without ever rolling your eyes? I think I've been doing that since I was 2.
- We realized the other day that we got married on the 1-year anniversary of our second 1st kiss. We didn't even realize we were doing such a cute thing!
- We're slowly making some real friends here but for the most part, we're still kinda all we have in this city. I'm glad that isn't getting old at all. I was a little nervous that it would, ya know?
- We watch a show and play a board game almost every night. Sometimes we read a book. And make/eat lots of popcorn. Sometimes I get sad that we only have 3-4 hours to hang out each day and then I think about people with kids and/or jobs and I guess we've got it pretty good for now.
- One time (tons of times) I made a list of things I wanted in a husband and "he plays with my hair" was right above "he loves me" (I was young). Point is, Regan LIKES to play with my hair and does it without even noticing that he is. Bonus.
- Gmail keeps yelling at me because I'm running out of storage space and I need to delete things. I didn't know where to start so I just started choosing a person, typing in their name, and deleting all my correspondence with them. Mostly old boyfriends and stuff. Talk about entertaining/depressing. I read through a few things and I do not understand what I was thinking/doing. And I certainly don't know how I ended up married (to such a good person). We talk about that a lot. How being married has not given us any more insight into how people get married. We re-cap our entire courtship about once a month and laugh about how it somehow got us here. It's just a crazy thing that happens. I still agree most with Cousin Rob's theory: "find another person who wants to get married and spend time with them until you want to marry each other." It sounds so unromantic/practical, but it gets more romantic the more I think about it.
- Autumn is in full swing. The trees glow when the sun hits them, it's awesome. I'm trying to let this make up for the fact that it's dark at 5pm. I'll try to get some pictures before it's all gone.

p.s. I'm starting a job at paper source tomorrow. Please bless I like it, and that the discount is good.

Sister Sister

Shortly after Carrie's departure, my sister came from DC to visit and see New York for the first time. It was nice weather and I think we hit a pretty good foundation of this place. Next time she comes we can take it to the next level. We walked a lot and ate a lot. Here's what I remember: picking her up from the bus (and waldy's pizza), the high line (and doughnut plant), Strand bookstore (and falafel), NY public library (and shake shack), The Met (and those cupcakes from the cute cupcake cart), getting pretty turned around in central park, Brooklyn Bridge (and grimaldis), a fancy haircut (and that pie!), trying to fix our bathroom sink and instead discovering a hole-filled pipe (and take-out thai food), church (and lots of leftovers). We were bummed the Statue of Liberty tours were all sold out because it's closing for a year and we really want to go in that museum inside the base of her! Obviously we loved having her and it felt so nice to know that she's close and can come back again so we weren't stressed about doing every single thing and could just take our time eating and walking.

Boom

I convinced myself I didn't care about winning. Until we won.

carrie!

A few weeks ago, we had our first New York house guest. Carrie came to see us! It was so fun to have a different kind of vacation life than I usually have. And further motivated me to get some friends that live in this city because it was so fun to have someone to do things with. Imagine that! Anyway, we mostly shopped (I think we went in 5 H&Ms) and ate (We're getting a pretty serious list of favorites) and walked and neither of us are picture takers but we've got this one of us not looking like ourselves in a rainy Prospect Park:

 

And this one of Taylor Swift outside of Macy's to promote her new fragrance. We waited for so long but this is as close as she got. Close enough for us to want her dress and see that she was wearing tons of makeup. Which is pretty good I'd say.

 

Come back soon, Carrie! 

p.s. Regan was so excited for our visitor to come that he accidentally cleaned our whole bathroom in SHOUT! stain remover. I thought that was pretty cute.

Toddlers & Tiaras

As I watch my 26th episode of Toddlers & Tiaras, I am having these emotions:

Disgust/sadness- Fairly obvious but it really grosses me out to see how many moms will put fake hair, teeth, nails, tans, eyelashes, etc. on their 3-year-olds. Not to mention the physical and psychological stress. These ladies are crazy in so many different ways and they're kids are paying the price. That's really how you want them to think life works?

Smugness- Because 1. my unborn children already have such a better chance at a healthy normal life than any of these kids and 2. any of my nieces or nephews (oh yeah, there are boy divisions in these things) would cream any of the ones on this show without any of that fake junk. Easily.

Confusion- 1. Their names are usually something like Eden, Sparkal, Diamond, Kragen, Angelle, Jaigen, etc. 2. At least half of the kids hate doing it and are completely miserable and rotten to their parents. and 3. They spend crazy amounts of money to go these pageants and the highest cash prize I've ever seen awarded was $750 and that's only for 1 girl. Such a waste! Put them in rec center soccer if you want them to learn some life lessons without ruining them forever and without getting yourself a 3rd part-time job to pay for it.

Fear- Our netflix wedding gift subscription is about up and I am scared 1. no one will ever let us bum off theirs now that they know the trash I watch. 2. I'll never find anything as entertaining to keep me company during my silent, lonely days and 3. once in a while there's a really cute girl that stays natural and actually likes doing the pageants, and then I think it's all really cute.

Loyalties

We think we're Mets fans/not Yankees fans
We don't think we'll ever be Red Bulls fans cuz their fans are rude

We're forever IKEA fans but that doesn't mean I'm excited to figure out how to turn these and a stack of plywood into a dresser.
So far, definitely fans of autumn weather in New York. Everyone told us and I think everyone was right.

This guy is our #1 fan. He hangs out on our fire escape or in our tree all day long.

Oh, and 6 months of marriage, we're major fans of that.

Fashion Week

In honor of fashion week happening a few miles away, I've been shifting my netflix viewing to fashion based shows/movies. Here's what I've seen so far:

Sort of a stretch but hey, the mom is a fashion designer.

 About the high-fashion modeling industry, I liked this one. Even though it's sad.

 This was just meh. But it was sorta a Project Runway movie so I loved that aspect.

 I could watch this movie every day. She's so fascinating to watch.

 Ditto.

My new nephew is cuter than your new nephew

Anders is here! He's been here for 11 days and we're all so excited. I can't get over his perfect coloring and round everything. Adoption is a miracle on top of any baby being a miracle. It's just incredible. Anyway, we love him a lot and I can't wait to see him in real life and not just on a computer screen.

(Regan said that post title was too annoying to use so I used it.)

Rockaway Beach Baby

For Regan's birthday/day off we went to Rockaway Beach (it's to the south/east of us in Queens and about 75 minutes away by subway, not bad at all). It wasn't very hot but I'm sure glad we went when we did cuz it's rain on the forecast for as many days as we can see now. We like the beach for being the beach but, admittedly, our main motivation for choosing Rockaway was this taco stand. And it did not disappoint. We ate there walking to and from the beach. Really the beach in between was more of a technicality. (okay not really. but sorta.) They also had italian ice and a veggie stand and a surf shop. All attached to each other. But we couldn't really be bothered by those when we had tacos to eat.

When we got home we got Thai take-out and ate it on our roof (so new york, right?). It felt so good up there (we don't have AC) that we both accidentally, promptly fell asleep after eating and woke up in a panic that it'd been hours. And anyway, I think it's safe to say that this September 5th, our lives are better than they were last September 5th. Here's to keeping that trend going for about infinity more years!

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Saturday we wandered around all day. Starting at the farmer's market and ending at an over-priced mexican dinner (but they had the best/teeniest empanada appetizer thing). I'm starting to think everything we eat here will be 'over-priced' and I should just get over it. Our least favorite part was 1800mattress.com store and our favorite part was the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I haven't figured out how to bring a camera everywhere we go so here are 2 phone pictures.

Check these out! I have no idea what they are but they're growing out of the ground and we loved them.

 

Regan defiling nature for the sake of love

p.s. the brooklyn IKEA is the craziest scene I've ever been a part of. Hopefully that's just cuz it was Labor Day Saturday?

And Now

The perfect way to spend a very breezy yet peaceful Sunday after a hurricane. Cinnamon waffles with fresh peaches and an entire season of Project Runway. Maybe some unpacking if we get ambitious.

(We woke up a few times in the night to check out the crazy winds/rains but no major damage around here. Just a new giant pond for Prospect Park and a freezer full of frozen water bottles for us. Pretty lucky cuz we still get to say we lived through a hurricane but we haven't actually had to deal with anything unpleasant. Please bless that continues.)

Who's Next?

Chatting with Baby Milo- best way to pass the time waiting for a hurricane to hit us. Hands down.

The Last Wedding

I can't believe we're all married. We had 5 weddings in 5 years then none for 7 years then 3 in the last 18 months. It's just crazy that we're all paired up now. I love it. Anyway, here are a million pictures: (mostly of babies. the real ones I stole from Lacey)

 

Maggie wins this one. Or maybe Will. Or John.

 

Classic

 

Not sure why I can't stand normal

 

3 Cheers at the luncheon

 

Liza Loo

 

Charmer

 

I think these guys should always wear bowties

 

girl cousins

 

Only answers to Buckwild

 

Shaggy Cute Owen

 

Part of something much greater than this

 

Maddy always shows Bear a good time

 

Grandma teaching Anna some moves

Things I'm Learning (part 1, I'm sure)

I don't care for humidity (silver lining: I don't need any lotion here)
I need an iphone
"Close" is a very relative concept
How to not be freaked out by the fact that there are always going to be lots of people around me
Even "nice" air mattresses aren't that nice
I may have brought too much stuff (still, somehow, even though it's about 50% of what I owned 3 months ago)
I don't own comfortable shoes
I really like parks (in the daylight)
I'm not much of a solo adventurer
It rains a lot in New York in August (but "Just wait for Fall!!" They tell me)
Being a mormon is probably going to really save my life out here

There are so many things I am not believing

John and Lacey are married.
Our family reunion was awesome but obviously way too short.
I have a husband again!
I live in New York now.
I need to find a job somehow.
Our place is perfect minus the gunk that comes with really old buildings. For example, we have a wooden toilet seat. But we're working on that.
Everyone in our ward is so nice. And mostly from Utah. And everyone has awesome careers.
It's been pouring rain since I got here and I haven't minded at all.
I have no idea how we're going to get our 1600 pounds of stuff up our 4 stories of stairs.
Regan committed me to go on one individual venture today but I don't know if I'm ready for that.
Groceries are expensive and grocery stores are tiny.
Sleeping/living on an air mattress feels a lot like sleeping/living on a water bed. I bet.
So far, I feel like I'm just on vacation.

I'm Living in a Pile of Piles

To sell to strangers
To sell to family
To pack for wedding/reunion
To pack for New York
To give to family
To give to friends
To give to DI
To store indefinitely

Sure is fun!

Park Slope-original home of the Brooklyn Dodgers

Just when we'd basically hit our breaking point of a. being apart and b. having basically every part of our life an big unknown right now, Regan found us a place to live! Isn't it amazing how one piece of progress can change everything? Phew. So it's in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, New York. That's probably not how you write that. And I keep calling the subway the metro. I've got a lot to learn. Anyway, Regan knows how to sell me on a place because the first thing he sent me about the area was the "Baseball History" blurb from the wikipedia page. I'm a sucker for baseball. Especially from way back then. Anyway, our street looks like this:

And we have an intercom to buzz people up. And a ceiling fan. And a costco 2.2 miles away. And a Target 1.3 miles away. (Just ya know, for when I need a familiar face.) So I'm sold.

honeymoon

Did I ever tell you about our honeymoon? No? What kinda blog is this? Let's do it. We stayed a night at the Aria in Vegas (coolest place. mostly because it had a master room controller thing so we could turn so many things on and off without hardly moving. I know they aren't new but I'd never seen one.) Then we flew to San Diego for the week. Mostly we just hung out on our cool deck eating our room service breakfast basking in the fact that this scenario will probably never happen again. (berry french toast. every morning.)

 One day we went to the zoo. Turns out flamingos were our favorite. Those swirly necks don't get enough credit.

 This giant panda was a close second.

 And here's Regan with his best friends. He couldn't get enough of those La Jolla seals. I'm not being sarcastic. Also, it was rainy and windy and cold and we didn't care.

 Here's a group shot some lady made us take.

 We ate Thrifty ice cream at every opportunity. Hasn't changed in 20 years. And obviously neither have their store graphics.

Sometimes we just went here cuz it was in our parking lot. I debated about the same shoes every time and never bought them. Still think about them. Learn your lesson here, folks.

 And here I am with my best friends. The ranuncula fields in Carlsbad. I was SO excited to go and it was pretty disappointing. This one display area was cool but the 55 acres were pretty barren. I guess we were too early to catch them like THIS! I'd probably go back at least 5 times to try to catch that though.

 There was a maze you could walk through made of sweet peas. Mom- you would have loved it.

 I stole one for the drive to Long Beach because it was the best colors I've ever seen.

Then we hung out with Rory at the airport/flew home/wished it could last forever.