Ashville, NC

Last weekend, Jason and I flew to Asheville, NC for my cousins wedding and it was a quick trip ... to say the least. We were scheduled to fly out at 9:30 Saturday morning but didn't end up leaving until around 12:30 (I'm really getting sick of all the delays out of NY) which gave us a total of 18 hours to spend with my family.
Asheville was beautiful. Very similar to Connecticut, but the trees seemed more green and much more dense then up here in the north. When we arrived we were rushed to the hotel, checked in, and had just enough time to rest before we were off to the wedding.
Asheville is home to the largest home in the U.S., the Biltmore Estates, and I can't describe to you how beautiful the home (castle) and grounds are. I felt like Elizabeth Bennett staring at Pemberley for the first time (I love Pride & Prejudice). The estate sits on thirteen thousand acres that include an Inn, Winery, two restaurants, several gardens, ponds and a waterfall. Before the wedding started we walked around the house and through some of the gardens and then on to the Deerfield restaurant for the wedding.
It was so nice to see my cousins, the last time I saw them was 12 years ago, and introduce them to Jason. The wedding venue was amazing, the couple was married in an old stable house followed by dinner and dancing in the courtyard in the middle of the restaurant. Despite a little fainting spell by the groom, all went well and the bride was beautiful. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera to the wedding, but I took several pictures of Shea to make up for it.
We had so much fun seeing my family and playing with Shea, she has changed so much since the last time I saw her. It took her a minute to warm up to us but after that we were instant friends. She loved giving us kisses (especially Jason) and our favorite was when she would fall down and then stand up and "brush it off" (while literally brushing off her clothes) to show us how tough she was.
It was so nice to be with our family and see our cousins again. Thanks for the trip, Dad.

The Main House





The Family


Shea and Na'ma (Grandma)


When you tell Shea to smell the flower she blows on it


The Gardens






Shea pulling her fishy face before kissing her puppy

memorial day weekend and my first nyc race

This summer is going to be a busy one for Jason so we decided to take advantage of the three day weekend and treat ourselves to a little fun in Florida. Last year we went to Miami but this year we just wanted to relax on the beach without fighting the crowds. We heard Fort Lauderdale was a little quieter than Miami so we decided to give it a try.
We had such a nice time; we literally laid on the beach all day and ate seafood for dinner and nothing else. We found some great seafood places along the intercoastal waterway and it was so nice to sit out by the water while watching the yachts float by, secretly wishing we were on one.


Our hotel was only five months old with condo style rooms so it was fun to stay in a new place and pretend, for a couple of days, that it was our apartment, instead of the 500 sq ft. studio we are currently living in. One afternoon, right after we got back from the beach, they had a little tropical rainstorm so we decided to sit out on our balcony and listen to the calming rain. I've always loved summer rainstorms, it's still warm outside and the rain always seems so relaxing, unfortunately these types of rainstorms never occur in New York. In New York it just pours and you get soaked while sloshing through all the garbage on the streets, you never get that clean rain smell in the city. But I guess this is just one of the few faults of living in this practically perfect city.
Before our weekend began I was able to run in my first NYC race and LOVED it! KPMG is a sponsor of the AHA Downtown 5K run so I was able to invite some of my runner friends to join me for the race. I was a little nervous going into it, I have never ran in a large race and I didn't quite know what to expect with 12,000 other people running through the streets of New York. Luckily, my wonderful friends are frequent runners and knew exactly what to do.
It poured all day on the night of the race so I was a little worried that we were going to have a bad experience but it cleared up just as we were about to begin. It was so fun to run along Wall Street and around Battery Park while the crowds cheered us on, and having thousands of other runners around me made the race go by a lot faster. We ended on the World Financial Center esplanade where we were able to watch the sunset on the Hudson River. I had so much fun running with my little group of friends and hope that we can run in many more together.

After the race with all our bags of goodies

bookclub shower

When I first moved to NYC I was invited to join a bookclub and I am so glad that I did. The women in our bookclub are fabulous!! Each of these ladies bring so many different opinions to our discussions and it's amazing where our conversations can go when discussing something as boring as the Oxford English Dictionary. But lately, no matter what the book is, we always end up talking about scary labor and delivery stories. You would think with several pregnant women in the room we would try and avoid this subject but I guess they want to hear the good, the bad and the ugly.

Since joining the bookclub we have had many women come and go but we've had even more babies and we will soon be welcoming twins into our group. My friend Addy is having twin boys in July and to celebrate this exciting adventure we through her a bookclub baby shower. We had such a fun time chatting, playing games and seeing her "double" gifts. I am so excited for Addy and her husband Matt, they are going to be AMAZING parents and I can't wait to meet their "twinks".

Some of the ladies


"double" the gifts




BreAnna's cute favors

two down ... one to go

It's official ... Jason is FINALLY done with his finals. He took his last test this morning and then jumped in a cab and went straight to his first day of work. There will be no break for Jason this summer but he is very anxious and excited to be working at White & Case.



I really don't know who is more excited for finals to be over ... me or Jason. For some reason I have had a really hard time with his finals this semester, I've never thought of myself as a selfish person but my true side came out this past month. I hated that he was studying so much and all I wanted was his attention, I know it wasn't easy for Jason but I am so excited that I only have to go through this for one more year. We haven't done anything together for over a month and a half and I can't wait to finally be able to get out of our apartment and enjoy the city this summer.

gothamist

Jason found this blog, Gothamist, that keeps you up-to-date on all things NYC. Each day they post a picture of the day and I loved today's. Isn't the fog rolling across the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges amazing? Enjoy.

showers and shae

Two of my favorite people are starting new adventures in their lives so I flew to Utah last weekend to celebrate with them. My friend Britni is getting married in May and unfortunately I won't be able to make it home and my other friend Michelle is having a baby in June, so we coordinated our schedules so that we all could go home at the same time to throw both of them showers.

I flew in Wednesday night and spent some time with family and then got ready for Britni's wild bridal shower on Friday. Michelle flew in Thursday night so Friday was spent all day preparing for the shower. Michelle's sweet mother-in-law let us take over her beautiful new home for the shower and it turned out so nice.

We had wonderful food and Michelle made the cutest favors but my favorite part of the night was spent chatting with old friends that I haven't seen for years. Some of us joked that it was our 6 year class reunion and there were a couple of people there that I hadn't seen in about that long. After showering Britni with gifts a few of us went back to her parents house so see her beautiful wedding dress. She is going to be the prettiest bride and I'm so sad that I won't be there to celebrate her special day.

The infamous tissue pom-poms



The Favors


The Bride


Friends




The next morning it was Michelle's turn to be showered. We all met at Britni's apartment for a wonderful baby shower brunch. Once again, I had such a nice time visiting with old friends and talking baby talk. Michelle looked so cute with her Little belly and I can't wait to see baby Hutchison.

Michelle and her baby bump


The girls with Burton and Chase


Chase




The rest of the weekend was spent with family. I had such a nice time visiting with everyone and playing with Shae. She is sooo cute. She talks so much and runs around a million miles an hour. She is talking so much, my favorite was when her dad would pull in the driveway and she would immediately start saying "hi daddy", while I was there she learned how to say "piggy" and she loved the way it sounded when she said it so she would say it and then laugh. I loved that she wasn't shy with me and would come right to me when I wanted to hold her. I'm so excited that we get to see her again next month and I can't wait to see how she has changed.

Shae and her olives




Laughing with daddy



Cuddling with uncle Trevor


Shae and her pretty flower


Kissing her Hello Kitty chair


It was so nice to see family and friends and even though it was a short trip it was so worth it to see everyone.

mama i'm coming home ...

I'm flying to Utah tomorrow to see friends and family but most importantly ...

HER


I can't wait to see you Shea!!

writing my story

Last night for the Relief Society Birthday Party the lesson was focused on preserving our families history and they had several women talk about the different ways we can record our history (i.e., scrapbooking, keeping a journal, blogging, working on family genealogy and creating photo books).

After enrichment I came home feeling like I needed to do more to tell my story. I have loved looking back and reading my high school journals and sometimes I have even looked back at my first few posts just to remember what we did when we first moved to NY. I will admit I can be a bit cheesy when I write on my blog but hopefully some day my children will appreciate it and love hearing about my life(Who knows, maybe they will think I'm cool because I kept a blog). But I realized that I'm not writing enough and that my family is missing out on parts of my life. So I am making a goal to write more, not just for my future family but for me, so that I don't forget all of our adventures.

When I got home my new Ensign was sitting on the coffee table. I love when I get the Ensign, I usually spend the night reading the first presidency message and other articles. Ironically I opened the Ensign and the first article I saw was titled "My Journal, My Testimony" by Salli Hollenzer. I was thrilled, after such a wonderful lesson at enrichment and now this article I new that this was something that I needed to start doing.

In the article Salli quotes President Spencer W. Kimball as saying, "begin today and write ... your goings and your comings, your deeper thoughts, your achievements, and your failures, your associations and your triumphs, your impressions and your testimonies. We hope you will do this, ... for this is what the Lord has commanded, and those who keep a personal journal are more likely to keep the Lord in remembrance in their daily lives."

I loved this quote. It's so inspiring and amazing to think that when I am pondering my thoughts and feelings and trying to put them on paper I do have the Lord in my thoughts and it helps me to realize how grateful I am for all that I have been given. It truly is a testimony builder for me.

I just wanted to share this amazing quote with all of you so that maybe it will motivate you to start writing your own story.

Thanks to all the enrichment sisters for such a wonderful evening.

mystic, ct

Last week was Jason's spring break and because I had to work, he stayed home and studied. So we decided we needed to have a little break before the finals frenzy begins so we planned an Easter weekend getaway to Mystic. We didn't know much about Mystic, other than the fact that everyone in the ward has been there, so it had to be cool. We just wanted to rent a car and get out of the city, a place were no honking cabs could be heard and a view of something other than buildings. Mystic was just that.

I got off of work a little early on Friday and we were off. I was a little nervous to navigate us out of the city but it was quite easy and luckily there was no traffic. It was so fun to drive through Connecticut and remember the nanny days. I haven't been back since I nannied so there was a lot of things I had forgotten.

After 2 1/2 hours we had finally reached Mystic, and of course, our first stop on the list was the infamous, Mystic Pizza. The restaurant was completely different from the movie. They had all the pictures from the movie on the walls and of course the movie was playing on all the TV’s throughout the restaurant. Sadly the pizza wasn't what it was in the movie so we were a little disappointed, obviously it was missing the secret ingredient in the sauce. I think we've been spoiled with all the NY pizza and now no other kind of pizza tastes as good.



The next day we relaxed, ate breakfast and got our tickets to the Mystic Aquarium. Now you're probably thinking it's quite childish for two adults to go to the aquarium without children, but if you know Jason and his obsession with anything that has to do with the ocean then you will know that it was more like one adult and one child going to the aquarium. We had such a good time, it's not tourist season in Mystic yet so there weren't any crowds to fight (something we have become quite good at since moving to NY). We got to watch them feed the whales, play with the sea lions and Jason got to touch his first sting ray.




After our adventures at the aquarium we went to Main Street and explored all the little shops. The Mystic River runs right through the center of town and in the middle of Main Street they have a giant drawbridge. We walked around town, got some ice cream, walked up and down the river and then we decided to go for a drive. Why walk when you can drive, right? (As you can see we took full advantage of having a car)




It was so fun to drive around. Mystic is this picture perfect little town that you always see in the movies and wish you could live there. We checked out all the big homes along the river and I even spotted a few I wouldn't mind living in one day. That night we ate dinner at the S&P Oyster Co. and had the BEST seafood I have ever had. Our lobster bisque was the best we've ever had and our scallops were amazing. We were seated right by the windows that overlooked the river and we had a nice, quiet romantic dinner.

One of the homes I loved.


The next morning our hotel hosted a large Easter brunch with everything you could imagine. After stuffing ourselves we walked around the little seaport village they call the Mystic seaport. It's a museum that runs along the river that is literally a little town that they have preserved from the late 1800's. We got to see the little stores and homes of all the people who lived in the village, the shipyard, how ropes are made and we even got to climb aboard a few of the whaling ships and check out the sleeping arrangements. I think there's a reason why people were shorter back in those days; tall people could have never lived on one of those ships for months at a time. In fact, Jason was getting claustrophobic after 5 minutes.

The Seaport Museum




We had such a nice weekend relaxing in Mystic and would recommend it to any of you New Yorkers who are looking for a quick getaway.