Walkenhorst

One Year Older

2011-12-01T21:49:00.001-08:00

Happy Birthday Dusty!

This year Dusty got a surprise party, which is sort of a big deal since we really aren't super big birthday party people. I think we even managed to surprise him. I called some friends and we all waited, and waited, and waited for Dusty to come home from picking Preston up from the airport. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity he came home and we surprised him out on the patio. We ate pasta, drank apple cider and topped it all off with some ice cream cake.

Hey friends - Thanks so much for helping us celebrate, decorate and have a great night!

Dusty, happy birthday and thanks for being so awesome! This past year went by super fast and was a blast, thanks for sharing it with me! xoxo

Presto!

2011-11-28T08:16:00.001-08:00

Is it just me or did November go by in a flash? Earlier this month Preston came to visit us in Nashville. I can't believe it was almost 4 weeks ago! What I really can't believe is that my younger yet taller brother is graduating from High School this year and is starting to apply to colleges. We were so lucky that one of the schools he's looking at is Vanderbilt right here in Nashville!

At the top of Preston's "to do" list, after a campus tour of course, was to get some BBQ. So, on Saturday night we headed downtown to Broadway to try out Rippy's. It was a really fun atmosphere with live music and football games on big screens. We had ribs, pulled pork, and some really yummy fried pickles. The guys didn't waste anytime digging into the ribs!

We were so lucky that Saturday was nice and didn't rain! We headed over to a park by our house to play football and go for a little fall foliage walk. It was really awesome having a person to take our picture for us, thanks Preston!

This flag is for you Mom :)

We had a fun time messing around. Hey Mom, here are some "senior pic" shots of Presto :) he was really hammin' it up.

This is what I got when I was walking behind these guys and said " Hey guys, turn around" I'm not even kidding, so silly.

The boys doing their best "Heisman Trophy" poses.

Playing football with Dusty's birthday football.

Playing some pool back at the house.

Some crazy gourd things we found at the farmers market.

While Dusty was at work on Friday we went and saw the Egyptian exhibit at the Frist Museum. It was pretty cool, they had quite a few mummies. Below, Preston making his very own print on papyrus at the museum. He came up with his own design and everything.

Here are some pics from our tour of Vanderbilt. The campus was so beautiful. We saw a lot of squirrels, apparently they have a 3:1 squirrel ratio, 3 squirrels for every student. Pretty impressive!

Here is Preston in one of the dorms. The dorms were brand new and had super tall ceilings( you know 'cause that is really important when you are choosing a school) but really, the dorm room felt really spacious. All the freshman have to live in the dorms their first year.

Checking out the library

Preston looking very collegiate.

In the library foyer they had this neat projector that projected words all over the floor.

The night Preston got here we went to a late movie. In the theater about to see Puss and Boots in 3D! The movie was super funny and we basically had the theater to ourselves!

Thanks for coming Preston! We had so much fun seeing you!

Brick patio (part 2)

2011-11-09T20:09:00.000-08:00

Ta-Da!

After we finished laying all the bricks we brushed some sand over everything to fill in all the little spaces. Fortunately, the weather has been great so we have been able to enjoy it before it's too cold.

We don't have any patio furniture yet so we just use our camp chairs. A couple Sundays ago we took our camp chairs out and had hot chocolate while we read, that was a lot of fun.

Brick patio (part 1)

2011-11-09T19:24:00.000-08:00

During the summer we decided that we wanted to make a patio in our backyard off the back door. When we bought the house it came with a pile of old bricks just sitting in the back corner of the yard, which we thought was awesome. We spent some time cleaning and counting the bricks to see how big of a patio we could make. We knew that this was going to be a pretty big project but we thought for sure we would be done by the end of the summer just in time to enjoy the perfect southern fall. This picture was taken in July, and yes, it is November and we've just barely finished.

Dusty spent a lot of time digging and digging some more, I tried to help once in a while but wasn't as efficient as he was so I ended up just being the cheerleader. Those are all the bricks stacked up by the house.

This was the day we got gravel delivered, we thought for sure we would have some left over but sure enough it all spread out. After we tamped down the bigger gravel we added some smaller gravel on top.

Leveling...

This is the little stool I found at the goodwill for 5 bucks, and boy am I glad I found it because I spent a lot of time sitting here cheering Dusty on while he dug, and leveled, and tamped. I had been wanting to paint a chevron stripe pattern for awhile and this stool seemed like a good way to get it out of my system.

Laying the first bricks! This was a very exciting moment, and I finally got to help out! Dusty and all the strings he used to level the gravel, (he had to move them out of the way to lay bricks)

what an engineer!

I think this was sometime in September....we thought that once we started laying bricks we would have it done in one weekend, but that was not the case! All the bricks were old and different sizes so it was sort of like a huge puzzle.

Chattanoogie

2011-06-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

This past Memorial Day weekend we went down to Chattanooga,TN. On the way there we stopped at a fun place called Ruby Falls. We took an elevator down a ways into the ground and then walked for a while underground to get to a really tall underground waterfall.

It was really neat to see all the different formations, the one in the picture above is called the chandelier.

They had little lights hidden in the rocks throughout the whole cave to help us see where we were walking and to highlight certain formations, then when we got to the waterfall they had a light show. It was amazing to be underground and see this huge waterfall coming from, what looked like, out of nowhere.

Wildlife Wednesday

2011-06-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

The other day we looked out our bedroom window and saw these deer walking across our backyard. At first they didn't notice us and we watched them wonder around for a while. Then I decided to go downstairs and grab the camera to take some pictures, as soon as I stepped in front of the window they spotted me and ran away. Talk about good senses!

Yakin'

2011-05-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we drove a little ways out of town to a lake and went kayaking. The lake was awesome for a first time kayaker like me! There are no big boats allowed, just little fishing boats. There were a few people fishing and a couple other people kayaking.

It was the perfect day to be out, not to hot just warm.

There was a little island we went around and this little goose was there sitting on her nest. It was so fun to be able to go around the island even though there was only about a foot of water to go through.

Lately we have been dealing with cicadas (si-ka-da). They don't really bother anybody, they are just really really noisy! They come out of the ground in these exoskeleton things and then a locust looking bug comes out of the exoskeleton and looks like the bug below.

Closet re-do

2011-05-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

The first project inside our house that we tackled was the entry closet. We figured we'd start small and move our way up from there. We didn't get a very good before pic, it used to have metal wire shelving in there and it wasn't very functional. The first picture is after we ripped out the shelving and filled in the holes in the wall.

Below is the finished closet! We painted the walls "Dusty Miller", it really is the same color as the plant that is light green/blue and sort of fuzzy called Dusty Miller. Dusty liked it because they share the same name. We added some shelves for our shoes and the buckets hold our gloves and hats.

We have a lot of wildlife here, this is a frog that was outside our window the other night.

And this is one of 2 bunnies that we saw in our yard near the garden! I hope they don't eat anything!

This is what our garden looks like as of late. Sadly, we have already had some losses, something (we think birds) came and plucked half of our corn out of the ground and left them there laying down. You can sort of see them if you look close on the left. Here is what we have so far: pole beans, corn, sunflowers, radish, zucchini, dill, rosemary, squash, peas, lettuce, beets, carrots, strawberries, tomatoes, cilantro, walla walla's, basil, peppers, jalapenos, and fennel. We tried to grow things that we already eat and buy from the store, we still have to plant cucumbers and pumpkins. We will see what we get food from, hopefully everything! We also have wild strawberries and green onions that grow in our yard ( and everyone else's) but we haven't tried them.

Here is a little tomato!

Life in TN

2011-05-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

Okay.... so I guess we are an "update the blog once a year kind of people". Between our last post and now we moved to a new place and so far we really love it! The house we found was only 3 minutes from where we were living so it was a pretty easy move. Here are some updates.

We planted so little planters on our front porch. Don't worry, the planter boxes are attached to some pre-existing fastiners that were already in the porch so our plants don't go flying around when it gets windy, and it does get REALLY REALLY windy. Like, blow the neighbors 4ft diameter tree out of the ground, roots and all.

We have also been working on a garden. We made these raised garden beds that should hold up for awhile. We put weed blocker stuff on the bottom and also chicken wire to keep the moles out.

Above is our yard pre-garden and below is our yard with the garden beds in place. The tall thing with the string is for our pole beans to climb up.

The Move

2010-11-06T16:35:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I know we moved a while ago. But we had a fun time getting from Utah to Tennessee in August. We drove for three days, listened to lots of music, ate lots of food, and saw lots of cows and corn.

All packed up.

We saw LOTS of these oil things.

Who knew there was a castle in the middle of the U.S.?

Yes, that is OUR last name! This by far was the coolest part of the trip, our road! We were just driving and looked up and we both said “What?!”. Then we got off the freeway and right back on so we could drive past it again to get a picture.

We went over some cool bridges.

Overall it was a really fun trip! We only had one tire blow out one time, so that was pretty good. Every time I see a Penske truck now though I say, “ Glad that’s not us!!”

Halloween

2010-11-02T06:12:00.001-07:00

This year for Halloween we went as a beehive and bees (Chelsea) and a beekeeper (Dusty). We had a lot of fun at our ward party! We are the activities committee in our new ward so we got to help set up all the decorations and stuff. We had a little carnival with games, a door to door trunk or treat around the church and lots of fun music. The Elders thought it was awesome because they got to hear some Michael Jackson and Owl City. I knew there was a reason they came to these activities, just kidding!

Harpeth River

2010-10-31T18:29:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we went with some friends from our ward on a boat trip down the Harpeth River. We had fun looking at the fall colors and spotting blue herons. Afterwards we went to a new restaurant called The Stable where we tried catfish (for the first time ever!) and steak and biscuits.

Music City…

2010-08-30T11:01:00.001-07:00

About a month ago we moved to Nashville, TN. We decided to start our own country band, Dusty on the guitar, Chelsea on vocals. Just Kidding! Dusty found a great job out here with a company called Hayward Baker. He works in an office with 2 other guys and has gotten to do lots of fun things like go on site visits. Most of their projects are underground, their slogan is “You never see our best work...”.

Lets start from the beginning. In May Dusty had an interview with the company and in June we went out to spend a few days in Nashville to see if we liked it. We had no idea that they had just had a huge flood, one that supposedly comes once in 1,000 years. The places we went to were all cleaned up and we couldn’t even tell they had been full of water. Some places are still closed like the Grand Ole Opry and some historic buildings downtown, hopefully they will open up soon. There are about 11 families in our ward that are rebuilding their homes because they were close to the river. Here is a video of the flood which also gives you a great sense of the pride people take in Nashville.

Athens of the south:

Did you know there is a full size replica of the Parthenon here in Nashville? We didn’t! It’s pretty cool!

We have learned to plan all outdoor activities as though it WILL rain. We have been caught in many rainstorms. It’s sunny and then BAM! rain and lighting and dark clouds. Here we are driving on the freeway during one such rainstorm.

This is how Nashville looks, trees, trees, and more trees. It’s really green out here. Dare I say, as green as Oregon.

You thought Utah had a lot of church buildings, here is one of Nashville’s 800 church buildings.

We went to this museum called the Frist. They had a Chihuly exhibit going on which was pretty cool!

They give you a little sticker that you put on your shirt to show that you paid. Everyone puts them on this pole outside the museum, Dusty’s is there somewhere.

We spent about three days in Nashville. After that we went back to Logan, saw family and friends and then packed up our truck. More to come on these pre-Nashville events…

Grocery Bags

2010-04-24T13:12:00.001-07:00

I found this neat tutorial a few days ago about fusing plastic grocery bags together to make reusable grocery bags. We had tons of plastic bags so I decided to go ahead and try it. It was so fun and easy. You stack 4 bags together and then put them between parchment paper and iron them until they stick together. Then you chop them into squares or rectangles and sew them into a reusable grocery bags. We tried it out at the store the other day and it didn't break, so that was good!

The bulbs we planted in the fall have really started to grow. We are glad that the winter is most likely over for sure, and spring is here to stay!

It’s Been Awhile

2010-03-20T12:16:00.001-07:00

The first signs of spring at the Walkenhorst house.

We stopped in Jackson for lunch on our way up to Billings.

We stopped by the Billings temple while we were in Billings.

This is a shot of downtown Billings.

I was going a little stir crazy from being stuck inside all winter so we took a winter hike up the Crimson Tide trail.

Snowmobiling up Smith & Morehouse over Christmas.

Kassie & Devan forgot that snowmobiles sink in deep powder.

We went snowshoeing around the reservoir after our turn snowmobiling.

Putting up Christmas lights.

This is the tree skirt my wonderful wife made.

And the delicious Christmas dinner she made for us.

Our second Christmas in our cozy little abode.

Chels does such a good job making sure I look good.

And looking pretty snazzy herself.

Recent Events

2009-10-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend we decided to drive up the canyon and go camping. After a little bit of driving we ended up in Idaho. The leaves in the canyon were so bright! It was a pretty warm weekend but still got a little chilly in the canyon but it was fun to get one last campfire in before it gets too cold.

Making our marshmellow sticks.

The little stream that we camped by.

Here are the pillows I made for our bed with some extra fabric that we had. I think the sewing class I'm taking is helping, seeing as it is becoming easier for me to sew somewhat straight lines :) This week I'm starting to make a skirt from an actual pattern so we will see how that goes!

Also, we have been watching some episodes of a show that starts...

"If you're out on the road, feeling lonely and so cold, all you have to do is call me name and I'll be there on the next train...where you lead I will follow"

Any guesses? It's Gilmore Girls, the show that never gets old!

I think that Dusty is getting a little tired of hearing the theme song, but not enough to stop him from watching it with me! Oh, the witty banter!

Long time, no post....

2009-09-03T08:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm not too consistent at updating this thing. However I did finally add a blog roll (is that what it's even called)? I don't know why I never added one sooner!

We've been back in Logan for about a month. Dusty started school last week and it's going pretty well. We've just been working on some projects lately and going on bike rides before all the snow comes.

We made this quilt ladder thing. It's been nice to have them out and not crammed under the bed!

We were at Home Depot when I saw these cute succulents. I convinced Dusty to let me get some and he eventually was helping me pick them out. Supposedly they are really hard to kill...we'll see. I like them because you can get a few and plant them all together in the same pot.

We also finally painted our kitchen. We found a mistint that was the right finish and pretty close to the color we want for $4! It's a little brighter than we expected but way better than the creamish color we had before!

4th of July

2009-07-08T12:18:00.000-07:00

For the 4th of July we went to Mayfield Lake in Washington with our family.

It was so fun to see everyone and catch up!

Dusty tearin' it up on the wakeboard

Wakesurfing

Daddio O catching a wave

Dusty got up on his first try! Way to go!

Grandma O and Aunt Jeanette

Chelsea and Grandma O

Dusty, Isaac and Dallin on the tube

Sarah looking happy to be out on the water

Isaac, Grandma O and Serena going for a tube ride!

The Overson fam and Self fam waiting for the fireworks to start out on the lake

Still waiting

The Cabin

2009-07-08T11:49:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we went got to go up to my Grandparents cabin in Washington. We had so much fun and the weather was great!

Here is a view from the deck looking out to the cove and the beach.

Having fun canoeing around the cove and to the beach.

We made tin foil dinners and cooked them at the beach.

Here is documentation of our "no trace fire site".

The Beach

2009-06-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

A couple of weekends ago we joined the Walkenhorsts at Cannon Beach . We stayed in an awesome cabin right next to the beach and had a blast. A couple of mornings we went out and were able to catch the low tide. We saw lots of starfish and other fun creatures in the tide pools.

Haystack Rock

Wading.

Later the boys and Kassie got braver and went boogie boarding, bbrrr cold!

Mom W and Chelsea preferred to stay on the beach.

Devan, Kassie and Dad W enjoying a nice walk on the beach. On saturday there was a sand building competition, there were some professionals there that were really good but we don't have any pictures of it due to technical difficulties.

Camera + tidepool = not good, but we are happy to say it has made a full recovery!

Thanks guys for a really great weekend, it was so fun to see you!!! Love you!

Rose Festival

2009-06-22T21:22:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago we had a fun time at the Rose Festival and Dragon boat races with Mom O, Isaac, and our downstairs neighbors Mounika and Jippy.

The boats raced four at a time, a lot of the races were pretty close calls.

Yes, it's summer in Oregon, but you can't really tell yet

Dusty with the dragon

One of the better floats

This is for all you Hairspray fans out there.....

And for all you interior designers........

The group, minus Mom O who was taking the picture

Memorial Day-Mount St. Helens

2009-06-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

Everyone say cheese. No really it's okay to smile, the movie said it's a dormant volcano now.

If you keep taking pictures you might catch it erupting again and make it big with a once in a lifetime shot. If you survive.

Man those girls look cheery after just waking up from their naps.

Are we there yet??

This is some of my best work.

Chelsea's dream pet, unfortunately I wouldn't let her keep it.

Everyone at the picnic got a kick out of this lady. We thought for sure she was going to put a baby in it, but no, this stroller was for her DOGS, she walked them around in it and everything it was pretty entertaining.

"Corn Dog for breakfast GROSS!"-Dusty

2009-05-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

Well, after a kind of long drive we made it safely to Oregon, we didn't even loose anything out of the roof rack! We have had fun so far hanging out in our new place and spending time with the fam.

Here we are leaving Logan :(

Dusty was such a sport.... he drove the ENTIRE way, all 700 miles. I tried to offer to drive but I think deep down he just wanted bragging rights. We stopped only a few times for corn dogs and ice cream (for chelsea) and big gulp refills (for dusty).

Here we are driving in Oregon :) please take note of the green fuzzy things, those are trees.

On Friday we went down to the waterfront for the kick off to the Rose Festival (more postings on that to come in the near future) there were lots of great fire works. It was a fun time.

On Saturday we thought we would take a hike, well, so did the rest of Oregon. We decided to hike up to punchbowl falls. It was so warm and there were so many fellow hikers, I think we were, however, the only hikers without a dog! For real!

Here is a waterfall, Dusty kept telling me stories about how in his Kayaking class he watched videos of guys going down waterfalls and I told him he better not get any crazy ideas!

Some sweet runoff.

Some scenery

The Duster and a river. Oh ya, did I mention that Dusty carried the 5 lb pack for the entire hike, what a stud.

Here is another river....

Oh wait, just kidding it's a water fall!

River in the front, water fall in the back.

Can you spot the water fall....way back there.....

After our hike we headed downtown for a little boatin' with Captian Scott, Presto, and Gilse.

I bet you guys didn't know that the Willamette is known for their vicious alligators.

Ok, actually it is a fake one that some people keep on their dock......scary.

A little skyline.

The tallest building is where Dusty works! On the 25th floor! He is already on a project working with bridges!

The crew

Me and Gilse

Dusty's building close up, it's the tallest building in town.

"That's where I work at" - Dusty

Classic

Some bridges.

Having a fun time.

I bet you are wondering what these are, well they are called VHS (Video in a Huge Square). The guy we got are apartment from left us a tv with a vhs player in it, sweet. So we are freshing up on such classics as Sneakers, Ever After (Dusty's Favorite), Mr. Mom, and Overboard, curtesy of the Overson family ** thanks guys! The one on the far right "Kathala Kathala" we haven't watched it yet but we hear it's all the rage right now in India, we'll let you know how it is.

We don't have cable so we just watch movies once in while which is actually pretty great. This leaves a lot of time for reading books. We have vowed to read a book a week. I have already finished one and Dusty has one to finish by tuesday. If you have any good reading suggestions let us know!

Have a great Memorial Day!

Senior Exibit and Graduation

2009-05-09T12:15:00.001-07:00

We have been having lots of fun lately finishing up school and spending time with friends and family.

Graduation dinner at Indian Oven

The family at Senior Exibit

Now we are headed up to Oregon for Dusty's internship at KPFF Engineering!

The New Year So Far

2009-01-21T21:32:00.000-08:00

I know that News Years was forever ago but I figured it's never to late. We had a great evening with some friends. Lots of fondue and good company!

Yay! Our first New Years together! When we were dating I was always home in Oregon for the winter break. It was fun to get a New Years kiss.

My friends from school, Stephanie and Stephanie.

Then a weekend or two after New Years I was browsing and found these super cute oxfords at Dillards. The ones at the store were closed toed

The only problem was that they were 90 bucks!! So they were just a far off dream until.....

I found these super cute ones that look almost the same at Payless for only 16 bucks!! So awesome, so I bought them! So happy!

Now fast foward to MLK weekend. Dusty's family came up on Saturday and we had a great time hanging out and eating out. They went to the B-Ball game, which we heard was awesome! We had to miss it and instead went to Dusty's work party which was entertaining, Dusty won a set of Pinnacle golf balls. Sweet!

On Monday Kasey and I got together for a little girls night...in. We watched the Devil Wears Prada

and we painted our fingernails. We had so much fun!

Miranda is by far my absolute favorite character.

"Thats all"

Spooky...

2008-10-29T21:35:00.000-07:00

So the other night we finally carved pumpkins...

We knew this extra set of knifes from our wedding would come in handy some day!

Yummy!

The final product! Dusty was very creative and carved a haunted house with a bat. I just carved circles all around mine, it looks cool cause it puts big circles on the outside of our house.

Happy Halloween!

Challah Bread

2008-10-20T11:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Dusty made a roast for dinner and I made Challah bread. I made the dough in the dough maker and then braided it it, it was so fun to make!

Before

After

October!!

2008-10-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's been forever since we updated this thing.

We're back in Logan now. Soaking up some last minute fall sun, going to school and working. Last week it was Kasey's birthday so we went and had cake and cupcakes with her roomies.

She's not a teenager anymore!

Dusty spent the weekend at a Bioneers conference up on campus learning about the enviroment and mushrooms.
Yesterday the weather was super nice so we spent it outside. I worked on a model of the light I designed for the designer that is coming on Wednesday and Dusty washed the cars.

I still have to put it all together.

Yesterday afternoon we went for a really long hike up the canyon on a trail called Crimson. It was awesome and so warm outside!

So, a couple days ago I got this awesome book called Domino: the book of decorating. Domino is a design magazine that decided to write a book and the book is so good! It goes room by room and gives so many fabulous ideas!

Happy Fourth of July

2008-07-06T16:44:00.001-07:00

This weekend was awesome. We each had half days on Thursday for the holiday. And we had visitors! My Mom and Preston came see us for the weeken, we had a lot of fun doing all sorts of things even though it rained off and on.
These are some pictures Dusty took off City Hall, pretty cool buildings

So, these pictures are out of order but oh well. We went and watched the fireworks down by the Brooklyn bridge. At the end there was so much smoke from the fireworks and the clouds from the rain that we could barely see the finale.
This is Preston in the Met at the armor exhibit
even the horses got all decked out
It stopped raining for a little bit so we walked through central park
This was at the Brooklyn Bridge on July fourth, right now they have a water fall display going under the bridge

This was on Saturday, we went and tried a mexican restaurant which was fun, we were all soaking wet from the down pour
My cute mom in her poncho

Patriotic Ponchos
On Friday we went to see the Statue of Liberty, this is the Manhatten skyline
Taking a break to eat hot dogs and other foods of choicee
At ellis Island, we were able to search for some records and find some relatives that came into ellis island. And we took an awesome tour
Preston in front of the flag, it was pictures of americans on one side and the flag from the othereating yummy pizza before the fireworks and the rain

Preston on the Ferry to the Statue Liberty
On the ferry
The Statue of Liberty

This is what the Statue of Liberty would look like if she was a Mets fan
We went and had dinner at Serendipity, fun, fun

Dusty had some pretty cool hat hair goin on

In the subway
At Times Square

At the apple
We had so much fun this weekend! Thanks for coming to see us Mom and Preston!

And on a more scholarly note.....Drum roll please.....

Dusty passed the Fe exam !!!!!! Yippee!!!!

Arrrr Matey

2008-06-23T19:18:00.000-07:00

Well, today was fun I got to work in the showroom all day with Joe the other intern it was way nice to have a break from the normal office happenings and have a change of scenery. This is a fuzzy picture of the full time interns with Vicente, Joe, Jesi, and me in the showroom .

This is Trudy and Josh, they work in the Vicente's showroom.
Vicente likes to design a lot of his own furniture like the sofa above. But most of the things he finds while traveling.
They have gotten a lot of new things in and sold a lot so we worked on rearranging everything to fit in the showroom and make it look beautiful. These are pics from before we started.
Today I also got to go to site visit with one of the lead designers. It is an old Tiffany's building at Union Square. The building is still under construction this is just the model apt. The master bedroom

Bathroom, one of four in a one bedroom apt...interesting right?

Vicente likes to mix new and old and a lot of different things together, but it all works in the end.

Utah State reunion at the concert.

Knitted Corral Reef at this mall where we watched teenagers in a dancing competition for a while.

Outside the mall, we totally walked by Tyne Daly, Mom, you know that older lady from Judging Amy with the silver hair. Ya, that is our biggest celebrity sighting so far...

Irish Hunger Memorial

On saturday we did all the stuff to get ready for sunday, and then we went to the World Financial Center to watch a dance performance, and tour battery park. Later we saw Romeo & Juliet in the park, and finally got to see a Yael Naim concert in Central Park (she sings the song from apple iphone commercials).

This was our captain on the sail boat we went out on

Federal Hall. These are the steps where George Washington was sworn in as President.

Kosher Sub anyone?

On Friday we both only worked half days again (yea for summer), so we had the whole afternoon to explore New York. Chels found a free harbor time on the south seaport museums sail boat, so off we went. Our tour wasn't until 8:30 so we spent the afternoon exploring Wall Street.

Rain Rain Go Away!

2008-06-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

This weekend was pretty low key. We had a nice day yesterday at church, they are really keeping us busy with ward missionary stuff so that is good. We hope everyone had a great Father's Day! We were going to make a special Fathers Day cake but realized that we needed 3 eggs. We didn't have any eggs, we were going to ask our neighbors if we could borrow a few but then we thought that they would probably think " why don't they just go buy some?". 'Cause in Utah if you ask to borrow something on Sunday all your neighbors know why because they are all Mormons too, anyways, I guess it could have led to a missionary moment but we decided to just make the cake today.

On Saturday there was a concert in the park we were going to go to, so we got all ready to go in our shorts and sandels because it was super nice outside. By the time we got to Central Park it was drizzling and we thought it would go away but it didn't! It started to down pour so we waited under one of those apartment canopies for about 30 min but it just kept getting worse. People were absolutly soaked! The doorman for the building we were standing in front of was Hilarious. He was probably about 19 or so and a couple of times girls came along all soaked and he would start talking to them and offer them an umbrella while he flagged them down a cab. It really kept all of us at the door entertained.

On Friday Dusty and I both had half days which was fun. We went exploring around some new places. We found a bunch of showrooms for furniture that we use all the time which was fun! Then we walked to Little Italy and tried some pizza, it was pretty good. It was really nice on Friday so we had a good time just being outside.

We found these street performers at the pier by where Dusty works. They were pretty funny, The guy did all this acrobatic stuff and then fit into this box. The other guy flipped over like 5 people. It was pretty fun to watch!

2008-06-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday Me, Dusty and Deborah, who is also from USU and interning in NY, went to Serendipity for a Frozen Hot Chocolate. It was a really fun,little,crowded place.

Dusty opted to try a strawberry frozen drink, it was all so tasty
This was the upstairs of the restaurant
This is the view from our table, they had lots of different lights and funky architectural things going on.
The menus were Huge and hand drawn so they were really hard to read.
Dusty started working at his new job at Merritt and Harris. He gets to go to a lot of neat buildings and survey the buildings , here are some pics of the views from the tops of the buildings he got to go to this week.

Look at all the tiny little people

On Wednesday we got to go to Carnagie Hall and hear the BYU orchestra play. The hall was really pretty and ornate. At the end the orchestra played Where Can I Turn For Peace which was really a neat experience.
Yesterday ( Friday ) we went to the Museum of Modern Art. It was pretty cool. We saw some really famous paintings, but others looked like they just came straight off the fridge. We had alot of fun out on the patio, they had a water feature that was really pretty to sit by and listen to.

This is the view from the museum you can kind of see the patio below it
Picasso
Part of the floors had this pattern on it that was made from electrical tape it was pretty amazing
There was this hallway that had all yellow lights and it made everyone look like we were watching a black and white tv. It doesn't really transalate in the picture very well though.

This is on the patio at th museum, this is an old subway entrance that was pretty cool.
We got to see a few Van Goghs which was fun, this is one of my favorites.
This was one of Dusty's favorites, it's a painting of olive trees

They had a lot of Andy Warhals paintings, I'm not sure if I spelled his name right. It was so fun to see a lot of the paintings that I learned about in Art Lit.

2008-05-28T19:45:00.001-07:00

What a wonderful weekend. On Saturday we got some laundry, and other domestic things out of the way. We then proceeded to explore the local scene. We found the park that is behind our apartment, and followed it for a couple of miles along the beautiful Hudson River.

On Monday we had our ward picnic in Fort Tryon Park near the Coister Museum this beautiful botanical garden is part of the park.

What a great view of the George Washington Bridge.

On Monday we were also able to go to the Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately Ben Stiller wasn't working.

Gum-Gum anyone

Those New Yorkers and their big heads.

What a long neck you have

Hey Sara ( from land before time) show me some skin. Oh wait a minute you don't have any

Look out Chels that bear has a flashlight.

What a week

2008-05-24T07:58:00.000-07:00

This was a busy and fun week. On monday my Dad was in town so we got to hang with him. On Monday Dusty had an interview and then we just wondered around a little bit. We got tickets to the David Letterman show. It was fun to see how the show works and everything like that. We also tried the local chinese food that is on the street we live on.

Tuesday we kind of just hung around our house. We went grocery shopping and found this cool park behind where we are living. Wednesday was my first day at work, everyone was really nice. After work we went up to Central Park and wondered around. We were going to eat there but the restaurant was closed.
This is a picture of Jesi at our work. We go to the same school so it was fun to have someone that I already knew.

This is a picture in front of Central Park, well part of it at least, Central Park is Huge!

This is Dusty singing "Strawberry Fields" in front of the sign. This part of Central park had a lot of Beatles stuff.
This is a thing for the Beatles too, there were flowers all around it, real ones.

This is a fountain we found while we were walking through Central Park

This is Dad looking Wicked in front of the Wicked poster. Wicked was fun, we loved it!

We snuck this pic of the stage before the show started.

After the show

This is a really fuzzy picture... but you can kind of see Ga-linda, the good witch.

My Dads last night in NY with us, this is Times Square at night.

'After work on Thursday we went and got a "black and white" cookie at Times Square. Then we went home and watched "So you think you can, so you think you can, so you think you can...Dance, dance, dance, dance!" it's one of our FAVORITe shows ever.

Yesterday, Friday, we went shopping/looking/sightseeing. All the stores are like 5 times as big as they are at home, CRAZY! This Forever 21 was massive. And had really cool wallpaper and furniture.

We went downtown towards the World Trade Center site and found this really neat fountain that looks like a huge balloon animal thing.

This is in front of the WTC

On our way to Battery Park where you can see the Statue of Liberty. These next few pictures are all from battery park.

This is the train we take everyday to work. Not usually from the south ferry but it's still the same train

Taking a bite out of the big apple...

2008-05-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

Day 1:
Well we flew in to NY at about six o'clock in the morning and took a cab to our new apartment. We had a little trouble finding our actual apartment but eventually we found it and got all our luggage up to the fourth floor via the stairs, no elevators here :). Then we hopped onto the subway that is near our house and headed downtown. It was pretty early for a Saturday so the trains were pretty empty. We were really surprised when we got downtown at how many people were out and about though.
This is our entry way and lovely kitchen, so far the kitchen has worked great.

This is our dining and living areas.

This is me and Dusty at Times Square, it was so awesome there was stuff to look at everywhere!
I think we are going to start asking strangers to take our pictures so that we can both be in the same picture.
This is a random fountain/park area we found while we were looking for Vincent Wolfs office.

This is Dusty in front of the New York Times and the espn zone. Dusty said " Dev, this picture is for you!" It's a little sunny, can you tell? Our next trip was to find Dusty some sunglasses.
Dusty tried on these glasses at H and M, I practically had to drag him into the store. There were some really cute clothes. I think we will definitely be going back.

This is the Chrysler building, the tallest building in NY, it is also a great example of the Art Deco period. The pic on the left was a mural on the ceiling. We just went in the entryway, I don't think us common folk are allowed to go to the top.

This is in front of the New York Public Library, we might go in later on.

Well, we were walking along and Dusty looked over and was like, "Is that Grand Central Station?" I was like, "Wow, Yes!" Anyways, we went inside and checked it out. For some reason I always though it was this huge above ground building, we almost walked right past it, it was so big and so busy. Overall it was a really fun day, we both found the buildings that we will be working at and did a lot of walking. We didn't really have a plan but we still found a lot of fun things. By 2 pm we were dead dog tired and hopped on the subway to go home. We stopped by the Target buy our house and it was crazy packed. Today (Sunday) was really great. We found our new ward and they were all so nice to us and telling us tips for the big city.

oh ya, this is the parking garage that we rode past on the subway, CRAZY!