Longest Blog Post Ever...Our First Few Days

What a Weekend...

We did it! We are now official residents of New York. This weekend has been full of love, laughter, space bags, and just a little bit of homelessness. Oh yeah... It's all there! Just so you are well aware this is KYLIE blogging right now, Steven said that he had to write about our first day here but I told him i got to write about BEFORE we got here.

And this is how it goes...

We decided that the only way to get the most out of our packing was to get these wonderful things called Space Bags. They are this genius idea that takes any large size of clothing/bedding and turns it into an inch thick brick.

What you do is vacuum out the air and you are left with this fantastic little bag that is easy to store! Let me demonstrate....

This is Sheets (a full set), Towels, and two pillows

Every piece of clothing I was packing...

All fit nicely in this bag thanks to Space bags!

Now comes the fun part. We had to pack as lightly as we could and only check three bags, (one will be sent home with my mom when she visits halfway through the trip) So this is what we ended up with!

Two entire wardrobes, six bags and a full 24 hours to go and we were finally ready for our trip! But the fun doesn't start quite yet...

My very best friend in the whole world was married to her cute man on Friday May 28th. We were able to squeeze it in before we left and it was wonderful! She was beautiful and so was her wedding! We were able to attend the Ceremony that morning, which was so great... They even were married in the same room Steven and I were married in! We attended everything else, of course because our flight didn't leave until 11:30 that night! But we love you Lauryn and hope you and Mike are doing great!

Attention please...this is Steve blogging now. Who said only my wife can blog? I have things to say too! In fact, I'll have you know we wanted to come up with some cute, catchy name for our blogging adventures this summer and my vote was to name our blog, "Sex and the City" but the wife wouldn't let me seeing as there would be Grandparents and such reading this thing. So I lost that battle. Let me take you through our first couple of days here in the City of Brotherly Love...errrr wait...I mean the Windy City....no, that's not right...The City of Lights? No that's Paris...oh yeah, I remember! The City that Never Sleeps!

We became "the couple from Utah that never sleeps" when we arrived in this town. We took a Jet Blue red eye flight leaving Salt Lake at 11:35pm the night of Lauryn's wedding. That plane ride was the most dreadful night's sleep I've ever had. Was it the adrenaline knowing we were just hours away from a new adventure? No...it was mainly the crappy leg room, the seat that reclines 1/2 inch, and the fact I had 36 channels of Direct TV in front of me distracting me from sleep.

Anyways...we arrived in New York at 6:00am and took a SuperShuttle bus to our hotel. (We had to spend our first night in the city in a hotel, not our apartment due to some scheduling conflicts...by "scheduling conflicts" I mean I got the dates wrong). We arrived at our hotel around 7am, the world famous St. Mark's Hotel!!!

This was the dumpiest hotel I've ever seen. The room itself was about 40 sq ft, barely enough for our bed. It was relatively clean from bugs and mice, but I'm fairly certain that's only because not even the rodents wanted to stay there. To be honest, we didn't even care what the room looked like, we were so tired! There was only one catch though...we couldn't check in until Noon! That meant we had to spend from 7am-12pm experiencing New York City the way it was meant to be experienced....HOMELESS! (And boy did we ever experience that...keep reading....)

Since our world class resort was willing to at least hold our bags for us while we aimlessly traversed the city, we didn't have to carry our luggage. We began our pilgrimage down Cooper St, which later intersected with Canal St in Chinatown. Now we've both heard that Chinatown was a cool place to visit...but I think that's only during realistic hours of the day. Walking down Canal St at 7am was a bit scary as we were the ONLY people out on the street and Canal St is filthy. Kylie looked over at me about halfway down and expressed her concern for our living in this scary city but I reassured her this was only one part of the city, and fortunately NOT the part we would be living in. Note to everyone reading...when visiting New York for the first time, please don't walk in Chinatown at 7am to get an accurate first impression of the city.

We quickly found Broadway and started walking...that's when the light in my sweet wife's eyes began to shine as she began to see designer stores and cleaner areas. We walked and walked trying to kill time. We finally found ourselves in the middle of Washington Square Park. You know the park you always see in TV and movies with the chess sets sitting in the middle of the parks with old men playing chess? Well, this is it. We snapped this picture of a young Asian boy beating the pants of this black man in chess....classic!

Here is us in the park as ZOMBIES!

Our intention on entering the park was to find a spot on the ground under a tree where we could fall asleep. As luck had it, the entire park was recently re-seeded with new grass so there were signs all over that told us we couldn't step foot on the grass. There was one small little section that had no such signs...however it was already taken by the other NYC bums. We were SO TIRED by that point that we found a comfy park bench, and Kylie laid on my lap while I laid on her back and we both fell asleep. Just like the homeless people do! There are so many tourists here and this city has so many tours, we're thinking about starting one of our own. We could call it, "The Homeless Experience" and charge people $40 to come walk around Chinatown at the crack of dawn, sleep in a park, then later we can go harass people on the subway for change!

There are definitely a lot of scary/shady looking people in this city but we've noticed one difference between crazy people in Utah vs crazies in New York. In Utah, if you see a crazy person walking down the street, brace yourself, because they are GOING to talk to you. In New York, we pass crazy guy after crazy guy and loads of shady looking people and every time we do, I grab Kylie's hand a little tighter expecting someone to beg or talk to us, but every time they just ignore us! I'm certainly not complaining! In our 4 days here, we literally have only been approached once, and it was by a man in the subway who matched a striking resemblance to Jim Henson...except without so many clothes on.

But alas...even though our first day in the city was a bit crazy, we have finally moved into our apartment on campus at NYU and we LOVE it. It's bigger than we thought it would be, and has an incredible view of Broadway right outside our window. We live in a very clean, very safe part of town.

We love our NYC Ward! On Sunday we walked 20 minutes to church and had the Empire State Building in our view almost the entire walk! There are many young couples who are in our ward who are in the exact same situation as we are, interns in the city for the summer. One little couple, the Garretts, invited us over for dinner last night. They're great.

Even though we've only been in NYC for 4 days, we've already taken a taxi, the subway, a bus, and even a boat. On Memorial Day we took a 3 hour cruise around the entire Manhattan Island. It was great to get off our feet and see how big this city really is! We took some pretty good pictures of the city. We're not in a lot of them because the lighting made us look like shadows, but the shots we got of the city are great!

Today was my first day of my new job working at the Times Square Alliance. I'm really going to enjoy this summer working for them. They are a great company who knows what they are doing and the people I work with are great. Right now we're planning for a huge event that happens this upcoming Monday, June 7th called "Tastes of Times Square." 54 Restaurants in and around Times Square will be setting up booths and showcasing between 1-3 signature dishes. People can buy Taste Tickets, which will allow you to go to each booth and exchange a ticket/tickets for a taste of their food. There's a lot still left to get ready for the event but I'm excited!

Well...if anyone actually made it this far and is still reading, I'm shocked. This was quite the blog session. Don't worry, most of the time my cute wife will be doing the blogging. I'll make brief cameos here and there. Day by day, we are falling more and more in love with this beautiful city and more and more in love with each other. Awwwwwwwwwwwww. Love ya babe!

Here are some random pictures of us eating our first slices of New York pizza, our boat cruise, and playing around the FAO Swartz toy store.

P.S. None of these pictures of the city are fakes. We got a sweet new camera for our trip and apparently it's paying off!

Nothing Better Than This

Ok so I'm becoming a bit of a blog whore this week. But I cant help it.

I love My Husband.

He is just sleeping away on the couch, and I can't help but let the whole world know how much I love him.

He is so good to me!

Love you babe!

The Great White Way Countdown

Well if anyone has been keeping up with us you would know that there are only 18 more days until we leave this desert and head for the concrete jungle! We are getting very excited. Also if you know us you know that Steven and I are planning on seeing a lot of Broadway shows. How many might you ask? Well let's just say that when people say, "Oh you guys should go see a show!" We reply with, "Pffff a show... we are seeing 20!" ...And that's no lie either.
In case you think we are lying I have decided to list each and every show we are thinking of seeing this summer, and it goes like this.
(In no particular order...)

1. The Addams Family
2. Chicago
3. Jersey Boys
4. La Cage Aux Folles
5. Lend me a Tenor
6. Mama Mia!
7. Mary Poppins
8. Next To Normal
9. Phantom of the Opera
(We have already bought these tickets for our One Year Anniversary)
10. Promises, Promises
11. Rock of Ages
12. South Pacific
13. West Side Sory
14. Wicked
15. The 39 Steps
16. Blue Man Group
17. Banana Shpeel (Cirque du Soleil)
18. Stomp
19. Tony n Tina's Wedding
20. Screwtape Letters

Now I know after reading that list you are probably thinking to yourself, ok these two are Poor Students, how can they come up with enough cash for twenty shows? Well thanks to my cute Steven we have been able to find student rush tickets for most all of these shows! We can get into a standard Amazing show like Phantom for something like $35 bucks!
So we decided to go for it and pretty much see every show we can think of! If we were to calculate how many shows we have to see to get them all in, you're looking at about 2 shows a week.... so who knows just how many we will see, but thats our goal! One thing is for sure, we will be posting about each show we see so stay tuned to find out how The Great White Way Countdown pans out!

It's Official!

Well the time has come... It is now official...

We are moving to New York!

Steven got an internship with Times Square called the Times Square Alliance. We are so pumped to move out of this city! We have had these plans made for months now. Steven started applying to internsips in October and just NOW something came! It was almost getting to the point where we felt we were going to New York with or without an Internship. We are certainly glad there is one though.
We are leaving Salt Lake on May 28th, (right after my best friends wedding.... it will be one heck of a day!) on a red eye flight. We leave Salt Lake at 11:30 and arrive at NY at 6:00 am! I have a feeling we won't be sleeping much that night... But quite frankly I don't think we care one little bit!
We found an apartment on campus at NYU on a street called Mercer Street. (doesn't that sound so cute? I can't wait to send mail home with our cute little address on it! ha) We still don't exactly know what room we are getting but its a studio apartment, complete with a bed, desk, kitchen and bathroom. Oh, and did I mention its a whopping 400 sq. feet. Yep, you did that math right... Your thinking right now "Wow thats the size of our walk-in closet." It will be tight. But we are already planning on spending as little time there as possible. I mean with a place like New York who would want to stay indoors anyway!?


This is just to give you an idea what we are dealing with here. (Notice there is one small closet... and if any of you know me, you'll be crying for me right now.)

Ok I know this pic is tacky but this is the only thing we have to go off of! ha

The only thing we are thinking of though is how much fun we are going to have spending 11 weeks in such an amazing city. We are already starting a list of everything we want to do while we are there. If anyone has been and knows some cool restaurants or places to visit let us know! I'm planning on being a diligent blogger when we get there! I'll be sure to post everything and a lot of pictures. I want our family to see what we get to enjoy every day.

38 more days!
Hopefully with that much time left we can still plan and pack everything we need to! But who knows... with a husband like mine, he'll be packing the night before.

Crazy Week

Today was Steven's birthday and we had a lot of fun today. It's always good when you have a birthday on a Saturday because you don't have school or work! Although Steven hasn't gone to work this entire week because of PTO, we'll still pretend it was better because it's Saturday. We decided to go see How to Train Your Dragon earlier... we were the only adults without children there... ha we were ok with that! We saw it on Imax 3-D and it was actually really good! Then we went to the new Deseret Book flagship store and killed an hour or two in there. Steven decided he wanted to eat at Famous Daves for his Big day, it was good but I felt like I ate like a man... haha I had enough meat to feed one that's for sure! Steven is a funny boy because he actually didn't even want a cake today, so I made him cupcakes. Haha I guess they are easier to eat anyway. Of course because I was in charge of the day I didn't even take any pictures. I am such an awful wife! How does someone get into caputring the moment? I never know exactly when to take pictures either... I partly blame my mother because she always had the camera out so I just got used to smiling instead of being the one doing the picture taking! I am promising to be better at that.

So this week I have been working my butt off to try and make as many headbands as I could. My mom took them all yesterday and sold them at her booth at a dance competiton in Syracuse and I actually did pretty well! This was my first time selling anything and I made $150! Hopefully I'll be able to keep up this business. I am going up to Park City this weekend to man my Mom's booth at some boutique so hopefully I'll be able to sell some more!

The Start of Something Wonderful

I did it! I finally started a new idea and am following through with it! It must be a sign that I am growing up. I was sitting at work the other day and my other receptionist had on a super cute headband. We got to talking and she said this girl made it and it cost her $25 bucks. I thought wow... that doesn't really look like $25! haha I took a closer look at it and I decided it looked easy enough to make myself. Two days later I got the supplies and now I have finished 4 cute headbands! I am super excited about them and I hope to put them in my Mom's shop/basement because so many laides come down there everyday! I hope people will like them. I feel so proud of myself that I was able to come up with these ideas! They acutally are kinda time consuming... And Steve thinks he should quit his job because I'll be making so much off of these... haha yeah right. So who knows! I hope that it will grow into something I can be proud of! I'll still be on the lookout for more ideas and supplies, these are just the start of them!

Creative Splurge

So I have been itching to make something cute lately. My mom is such a great jewelry maker and I would like to say I had something to do with her starting that business. Well now that I'm not at home my creative juices are just fizzling out. So yesterday while I was sitting at my desk at work with nothing but time I decided I want to make fabric flowers somehow. I have been going crazy looking at some beautiful blogs that these crafty moms have posted. I hope that someday I can be just half as amazing as those ladies! I'm still not sure what I will be crafting but Steve has to work all day on Sautrday, which means I'll be heading up to Syracuse and using my mom's sewing machine! I hope to get really good and possibly sell some of it. But first I need to know what I'm making! haha I'll be sure to post some of my creations.... who knows exactly how it will turn out though!

6-11-2009
The day we got married was of course the best day of our lives up till now. We had such a romantic wedding and I loved everything about it! Our photographer was amazing and our reception center was beautiful! I don't have time to go into detail about all of it but it was breathtaking. There was so much going on that day I can hardly remember it all! The one memeory that was engraved in my mind forever was our sealing. What a special moment. I remember feeling almost out of my body. The spirit was so strong and the air felt almost hard to breathe! Steven was so cute when he cried, which made me cry.... it was just perfect! And with that kiss it was done... We had finally made it! I love everything about that boy and I can't believe we are almost at our 6 month mark! We have had a typical time as newlyweds. We stay home all the time and just love being with each other. It was certainly a change but we are now used to living with each other. We love traveling and have already taken several trips in our six months! In October we took a trip to DISNEYWORLD and that was the best trip ever! We ran around like little kids while laughing at the parents disciplining their kids! We have the best life right now. We only have each other and thats the way we intend to keep it for now. We are so excited for our first Christmas and can't wait to get our wii :) haha
This past year has been such a dream. I look at girls who aren't married and I just feel so bad for them! They are missing out on the greatest expierence you can ever go through! I hope this love and infatuation stays right where it is because we are both so happy. Steven is teaching in Elders Quorum and I am the Nursery Leader. We are liking our ward and enjoying getting to know new people. School and work are a bore but we know they will be over soon enough! My new years resolution is to keep up on our blog! I'm starting a little early but its better to start now then to procrastinate!