July

No time to blog! Went to NYC first week of July, had sister and her family the second week in July, my Mom is here right now, and the Muir family will be here the last week in July... I may or may not blog again till August. We shall see.

NYC Weathers Style

Three of my sisters have real jobs that pay them a real salary so they get to do some real traveling. They all met up in NYC a week ago and are heading to France, Germany, and Austria for the next 2.5 weeks. I met up with them in New York last Wednesday and spent a couple days with them.

My first train ride. (From New Haven to Grand Central.)




We hit up Time Sqaure, Empire State Building, Manhatan Temple, old Public Library, and a few other places...








But, probably the highlight of the trip was...


Center orchestra seats 6 rows back at the Met for the ballet. You could see ever muscle and every drop of sweat. It was beautiful.

House Wife

This summer I have been "working from home". Which, in all actually means I'm waiting for my boss in Rexburg to give me work. I half heartedly looked for a part-time job here in CT, but with no avail. During the school year I am the primary bread winner so it's really weird right now not to be the one raking in the dough. Feeling guilty, I take my role as a loving house wife. Here is what I do for Tyler while he works:

- Clean
- Laundry (he helps with this one)
- Grocery shopping
- Pack him a lunch
- Make him dinner
- And occasional cook up some breakfast
- Wash all the dishes

I try not to let him help me out because then I feel like he contributes way more than me ;) This may not seem like very much to most of you, but it is very different for me. While I work 40 hours a week and Tyler goes to school we usually take on all these responsibilities together. Equally. Well, he never makes dinner, but he usually does all the dishes afterwards. I guess it's good practice for when I'll be staying home with the little ones in the future...

Vintage

My darling sweet husband of mine loves old cars. He loves them so much he owns two, a '76 Cadillac something, and a sixty-something Lincoln, I don't know the specifics :). They both run great, but look nothing like these beauties:




Half of this car is made out of solid wood. I can't imagine how heavy it is...



I like the color of this car...


We went to a car show yesterday afternoon. There were probably a couple hundred cars there at this local park by our apartment complex. Most of them were amazing! Some were...funny. We saw a few souped-up cars from the 80's and even some "fast and the furious" type cars. But, mostly it was just really nice vintage cars from the Ford Model-T to that Charger muscle car at the top of this post, (one of Tyler's favorite cars ever) and everything in-between.

Maybe someday I'll get on the show Over Haulin', so at least one of Tyler's cars can look real nice...for free.

Love

There are a few recent loves I would like to share with you today...

First, cities:






Although, I loved my first visit to New York and Boston, I have to admit that I like Chicago better. It was funny because Tyler has been to New York several times while one of his good friends was going to Columbia and when we were walking through the city he was like, "I like Chicago better." I was thinking the exact same thing. We are soul mates ;)

Second new love:






Connecticut is beautiful! My only wish is that there were big huge mountains with the same trees currently covering every part of the state.

And last, but certainly not least, my husband:



It's not as much of a recent love as a continual love since the day I laid eyes on him summer of 2006, when my dear friend Brady introduced us. It was our one year anniversary this past Saturday! I can't believe how time flies. I feel like we just got married a week ago.

Like the Good Ol' Days

One of my very favorite old roommates/good friend came into town recently. Her hubby is working out here with Tyler while she stays in UT to make some $$. Well, the boys work about 50 hrs a week so it was just us girls during those times. She stayed at our apt because her husband lives with a bunch of guys, so it was just like we were college roommates again. We played a lot of tennis, laid out at the pool, ate out a bit, and experienced Hartford.

Playing tourist downtown.



I'm sure this fountain is much prettier with water running through it.

State Capital Building.



Civil War monument/arch.

Lots of old Catholic churches...here is one of many.



On our walk back to our car we went by where the circus was. Some security guards close to the entrence asked if we wanted to go. We were like we don't have tickets. Then they were like well we could change that. Anyway, they gave us two free tickets. It was pretty funny...the two of us mid-twenty girls going to the circus together, but we had a blast.







There were lots of other acrobatics, but I was too busy watching to take any pictures. I loved the acrobats.

We, also, hit up Mark Twain's house. The tour was a little pricey, but it was cool. We weren't aloud to take pics of the inside :( His house is right next to Harriot Beecher Stowes house, but I forgot to take a picture of hers. It was also beautiful.

That's one of the things I've liked the most out here, the houses. There are lots of old houses and I LOOOVE them. Someday we will live in a house from the late 1800's...

The one day the guys had off we went and saw Phantom of the Opera. Chelsea has some pics, but I don't. It was fun.

Summer Home

Well we are all moved in, for the most part, to our home for the summer. APX furnishes the apartments for us, but they don't provide TV stands, desks, things like that. So, we put the TV on the end table and the lamp that was on the end table onto an ancient suitcase we brought. I think it looks kinda cute. Vintage. I found a Goodwill in the area and purchased a beautiful desk for $14.99 to put our computer on. This summer our complex provides free cable and internet! I'm glad we didn't have to get those on our own. The only downsides are our bathroom is small and no washer/dyer in the apartment. We have to go down to the basement and pay to do laundry. Lame. But, it's cheaper than having to pay for cable and internet every month.


This is the front room. It's pretty big for a one bedroom apartment. It's hard to tell in this pic but, the computer screen is twice the size of our TV, ha ha! We left the big TV in Rexburg because it's not a fancy flat screen that can easily be packed into a car.


Below is the dining room and to the right is a small glimpse of the kitchen. Our table has been cleaned off since I took this pic, but it will probably look like that again soon...


Part of the view from our balcony.

I was a little disappointed the drive out here because everything was dead. Pennsylvanian was the worst. It was just hills and hills of dead trees! After about a week here things started the green up and now we have a pretty view from our balcony.

I'm really liking it here so far. I've driven around a bit, but our apartments are just surrounded by houses, apt complexes, and a golf course. Last summer we were really close to stores, restaurants, a big mall, six flags... It might take me a while to get around town. Tyler needs the GPS every day for work so I'm going to have to google map everything. So far, I have found a mall, a grocery store, Goodwill, Target, Walmart, Redbox, Bed Bath & Beyond, Costco, and some restaurants. That's all I really need, right?