Holiday Festivities

Well Thanksgiving came and went and before Christmas does the same... well, here's November.

This has nothing to do with November but there are black squirrels everywhere in our neighbourhood and I am so fascinated by them because i've never seen a black one!

 Since we live in NYC, we decided to go to the Macy's parade.  It was a pretty day, we weren't too cold, we were surround by a billion people, and people brought ladders to see the parade.  When the parade started, suddenly all these kids in front of us were hoisted onto their parent's shoulders causing a lot of blockage.  Most of the parents got tired after a while and the kids slowly came down.

It's funny how you just start taking pictures of every single balloon and float... don't worry, I'll spare you the entire parade and show a few of my favorites.

Snoopy's balloon looked extremely overused and old.  He had patches all over him and he was fraying.

 Neil Diamond!

 Tim Burton's creation.  This was a new balloon.

Cute elves signaling that Santa's float was coming next!

 Santa!

Thanksgiving dinner on the Sunday after.  What was left anyway. We forgot to take a picture before cutting everything up.  But this is what we ate.  It was missing a lot of color but we're poor so we didn't have any greens.  And we don't like stuffing. Or yams. We did have a pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving day but it was eaten by Sunday so we had pumpkin cookies for dessert.

We finally got a second bookshelf to get ourselves more organized and make some space for our Christmas visitor.

Our living room/dining room/kitchen room disaster area.  

Adam organizing the books (maximizing space)

It was a big production to empty those 15 boxes.

The finished product!  Yay us!

So I never took a picture of the spacious room we now have.  So stay tuned for the next post.  Which probably won't happen for another month.

where has time gone?!

 September came and went.  October came and went.  It's almost mid November so I thought I should catch up a little. Here's some of what has been going on since my last post... almost 3 months ago.....

Our first visitor, Clarence, came to NYC at the end of August!

 Above here is a corner of our living room/dining room/kitchen.  The way you see it now is still pretty much the way it still looks.... That cooler there, that's what we use as our kitchen table.  I've not put pictures up of our apartment because it still looks like we just moved in 2 weeks ago.  This pic below is the bedroom by the bathroom door.

 We went down to Battery Park and saw the Statue of Liberty. There she is! Yup, that little speck in the middle of the pic. One day we will hop on a ferry so we can see her at a closer range.

 Clarence didn't actually stay with us.  He was here for an oral surgeons conference.  He would've stayed with us before he left but the threat of a hurricane approaching caused him to skip out of town a day early.  The hurricane was graded down to a tropical storm by the time it reached us.  But it still managed to do a little damage in our area. 

 We went to the park nearby and there were lots of downed trees.

 One day we took a walk around Central Park and there was a lot going on all over the park.  We saw this delightful man dancing with a whole lot of other random people.

 And his dog.

 We went to occupy wall street on day 1.  Adam had heard that it was going to happen and wanted to just check it out.  There weren't a whole lot of people on day one, maybe a couple hundred at most, and I didn't actually think it would get much bigger.  But it did, and it's still going.  I've not been down in the area since so I don't know what the scene is like these days.

We also wanted to go to the new 9/11 memorial site.  But when we got there we discovered it was indeed free but you had to get passes online beforehand to enter.  We had no passes and we haven't been back since, but we'll get there.  Maybe when the freedom tower is done.  Here it is in construction.   

A few weeks ago we went to The Cloisters.  It's a branch of the Met in northern Manhattan displaying art (mostly religious) and architecture from medieval Europe.  It was pretty cool.  This pic is a view of the George Washington Bridge (i think) from outside.

 Inside looking into one of the chapels.

 Part of the structure outside.

 

One of the courtyards with original and replica columns.

 We also went to North Carolina for a family event one weekend in October.  We flew in a small plane and Adam experienced his first time boarding from and getting out on the tarmac at JFK.  Unfortunately, I failed to take any pictures in North Carolina.  I know, shameful.

So that sorta catches up our lives to this point.  We've enjoyed the city thus far. Although we really haven't been able to do much that has any costs attached to it.  One day we'll make it up to ourselves.

east coasters once more

So we moved. Here's our 6'x7'x8' cube before leaving Provo.  It had too much space for all our things.  But it's ok because in the end, we don't have a ton of space in our apartment.

 Adam listening to a pod cast while driving through... Wyoming?

 We didn't take a whole lot of pictures on our drive.  Basically the first day we drove to Des Moines, IA, slept a few hours at a rest stop and drove on to Ann Arbor.  We stopped in Michigan for 2 days to hang out with Clarence, Annie and family.  I guess I didn't take many pictures here.  But here are the kids at the raspberry picking farm we went to.  The van key mysteriously disappeared while we were here and we had to hang out at this farm for an hour before Clarence arrived to bring another key.  The girls at the barn gave the kids otter pops while they waited.

Then the boys happily watched Adam play a game on his phone.  And James took comfort in Adam's fluffy hair.  hahahaha.

Meanwhile, Annie attempted to hot wire the van from instructions she found online.  In the end, there wasn't enough information (and we didn't know what some of the car parts were) to make this successful. 

 After those two fun days, we headed down to North Carolina for a week to visit family.  And uh, I apparently didn't take any pictures while we were there. But we had a great time anyway.  We arrived in New York on a Saturday afternoon.  That evening we took the metro to The New School mostly for the parents so they could see where the school was and what it looked like.  This is just one of the buildings spread out around a few city blocks.

 Through our first week here we did some unpacking and some exploring each day.  We visited Central Park, Chinatown, our own little neighborhood, and also ran errands around downtown for things we needed in our new place.  Pictures of our place to come when we are a little more organized....  This past Saturday we went to Times Square.  The busiest place of Manhattan we've seen yet.  The first thing we saw upon entering the area was a free Syria rally happening.

Times Square!

And just in case you were wondering who Hello Kitty really is....

We actually came to see a Broadway musical called Memphis.  We got tickets from some friends who were unable to make it.  This show won a Tony for best musical last year.  And it was really good.  

So far so good.  Now I just need to find a job...  Today Adam went to orientation.  It's been... oh never... since we've been apart for so many hours at once since we've been married (almost a year!).  I'm not sure what to with myself.  Pathetic huh?  haha

bug bites

Does everyone get mosquito bites that swell up? 

And if one of those bites happens to be on your ankle does it makes it look like you have just one cankle?

 Meh, it's probably just me.  I don't know if it's clearly visible in this picture, but my right ankle swelled up and was much fatter than the other.  The worst is having the bite right on the parts that bend, it makes it hurt.  Boo hoo to me. Oh well.  It's one of summer's downfalls... for me anyway.

PS. We're leaving Provo (forever maybe?) in the morning and will be off on vacation on our way to new adventures in NYC!

Camping

FYI: this might be a bit of a lengthy recap of our camping adventure... So we decided to go to Zion National Park at the beginning of this month. I'd been once before but adam hadn't.  We left early Friday morning so we could claim a camp spot in the park.  We were going to camp on BLM land but we didn't know the rules on leaving your stuff there all day long or what so we went for a camp site in the park and got lucky and found one!

Our first order of business was to hike Angels Landing while we were fresh.

Maybe it wasn't the best time of day to do it but it turned out to be quite pleasant. The hike round trip took us 3 hours, and that included some time at the top to enjoy the view and eat a clif bar.

View from the top.  So crazy how high you get up there!

It's us! The person who took this wasn't a very good photographer.  She got the guy standing in front of her on the edge of this picture!

Going back down....

Gazillion switchbacks. I will say that think I was in better shape than last time I did this hike.

 

Back at the bottom we went to take a looksy at the Virgin river. The rivers all over Utah are flowing pretty high and fast. In fact the Narrows were closed because of that. 

After that hike we decided we could handle another easy hike. This one was just half a mile round trip.  This is Weeping Rock.

On Saturday we decided to get away from the crowds and do something different.  The Frommer's guide suggested doing this hike called the Hop Valley Trail that starts kind of in the upper mid region of the park and goes up to the Kolob Arch.  Frommer's says that this hike can be a day hike, 13 miles round trip with an extra mile one way to the Kolob Arch.  So yeah, we thought this would be great.  We were told there was some sand involved but we didn't think it would be too bad.  And it wasn't.  At the beginning anyway.  And it was definitely not busy, we only saw about 10 people all day.  Here we are all chipper and enthusiastic about our choice of hike.

We saw lots of little bug tracks in the sand, enjoyed the scenery, chit chatted for a few miles until we got into the meadow.  Then we started having to cross this river bed that had some very shallow water flowing through.  The river snaked along through this canyon so we crossed over it about four billion times. My shoes started getting sand in them and my feet started getting wet despite gortex shoes. Well we had been following footprints and just continued to follow footprints for a while. And then eventually after seeing some drop offs and no where else to go, we figured we must've followed the wrong prints. We found our way back to the right path, somehow we missed the trail mark.  So then we walk up this mountain and then down down down all while getting attacked by flies. Finally made it to the end of the trail and found the sign that pointed to Kolob Arch. Started walking a ways till we ran into some campers who told us we'd gone too far.. "go back a ways and cross the river..."  Um, cross the river... There really was no where to cross and the river was moving super fast. We saw some guys looking for the arch and told them about the river crossing.  We all searched for a place to cross and they eventually decided to take off their socks and shoes and just cross... The river turned out to be pretty deep, up to their mid thighs.  I probably would've been swept away. But we ate a little lunch still deciding what to do and found this little log to cross...

Yeah it wasn't very stable or thick but we did it anyway because we were so close to the arch and we read that it was the largest freestanding arch, possibly in the world.  So, river crossed, we hiked on. And got to a point that said, Kolob Arch, look up.  So here it is, the Kolob Arch.  Still miles away, and looking like a postcard.  This is a zoomed in picture.  Good grief, how disappointing!

So we turned around, crossed the river again, got attacked by flies and journeyed back to the car. In the heat of the day.  With limited water left. And tired wet feet.  And a lot of up up up up up hill to go. Honestly, it felt like we were never going to get out.  Adam kept up an overly positive attitude as to not give into despair.  He said that he thought that if we stopped for too long, we would probably die in the desert. He kept pointing out familiar landmarks so I would know we were making progress. At this time, the sand was also getting fluffier in the heat making it harder to walk on.  Also, most of the trails we walked on were sand, not just some. We finally got out with Adam having zero water and i had maybe half a liter or so.  Our 13 mile hike turned into a 15 mile hike with the arch part and turned into an at least 17 mile hike with our getting lost and back tracking. All in all, we were hiking for 9 hours.  Dear Mr. Frommer, you shouldn't recommend the Hop Valley Trail as a day hike. 

Turned out that those flies buzzing all around us all day were biting flies.  Lovely. Adam got two gross bites that turned into pus balls basically, and i got one.  But I got my fair share of regular looking bites on my shoulders. Well, we laugh about this hike now, but at the time, it was tiring. We kept asking each other what were we thinking doing this as a day hike!

Well the next day as to rest a little, we did 3 easy hikes. All paved. All short. But still nice views. This is the Pa'rus Trail.

All the flowers I saw on cacti were pink but this one was yellow so it was worth a picture.

This is a wild turkey on the trail to the Lower Emerald Pools.

The Lower Emerald Pools. Not so emerald.

And this is somewhere... maybe the Riverwalk Trail.

Before we left the next day, we decided we should do one more hike.  The Hidden Canyon Trail. It was a pretty good hike and the end of the hike takes you to a canyon. It was neat-o.  The sign at the mouth of the canyon said it was the end of the maintained trail and that we could continue further and that there was scrambling involved and that there was no outlet and that we could see an arch too.  So exploring we went.

Trying to figure out the best route.

We walked about 30 minutes into the canyon, so probably at least a mile, and never saw an arch anywhere.  And there was lots of scrambling involved.  Here's adam deciding if we should go on or turn around. There didn't seem like there was much further to go so we went back.

Coming back down the canyon.

It was a nice hike because there weren't any other people in the canyon.  We passed a few coming back to the mouth but that was it. We never saw the arch.

We looked it up later when we got home.  Apparently the arch is just a half mile or so in so we definitely passed it.  It also said it's at ground level.  So i'm not really sure how we missed it.  We probably walked right through it!  Here's a picture of it I found online...

Anyway, here's us coming down the trail after we left the canyon.

Oh and here is our little camping site. Our little 2 man tent that barely holds two people.  Also, there is adam doing what he did in all our free time in the evenings... reading a book on Continental Philosophy.  I played cards.

And that is the end of our trip.  We left the Zion area with an ice cream cone in hand. Yum!