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Saturday was a great day! In the morning, I was invited by my wonderful visiting teacher to brunch at her apartment. Sadly, all of the other v-teachees were unable to attend, but that just meant more crepes with Nutella for yours truly. But seriously we had a great time. Best VT visit ever!
In the afternoon, we went up to Manhattan to see the Canstruction exhibit at the World Financial Center. I'd never been to this particular part of Downtown, but I'm glad we went. To get there, you walk right by the World Trade Center site, which is always sobering. Then you come to three gigantic square buildings with pyramid-shaped roofs. This is the Financial Center. In the middle is the Winter Garden, a huge open area with amphitheater steps leading down to palm trees and floor to ceiling windows overlooking the docks on the Hudson. It was something else. The can sculptures were made to benefit some food drive thing and we accordingly dropped our two cans of tuna into the bins.
My favorite dessert!
Elizabeth liked this one. Do you love how big Adam's hair is? Don't worry, we cut it later that night.
Views from outside:
Adam took this one.
Looking towards New Jersey
There's something about city lights at night that just make me feel happy. After we got home, we had dinner, put Elizabeth down for the night, then cuddled up and watched Pixar's "Up" for the first time and absolutely loved it. All in all, a great weekend!
I haven't ever posted about a book I'd read. (Have I?) But I enjoyed reading this series so much, I can't help but spread the good news. The Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace chronicle the growing-up years (from 5 yrs old to young married life) of Betsy Ray, a girl from a small town in Minnesota in the early 1900's. I first heard of these books not long after I made one of my first friends here in Brooklyn, but didn't take her advice to read them until Adam brought home these brand-spanking new editions from work. The books start when Betsy is very young and are written to be read by/to a 5 year old. So reading the first one was enjoyable, but not particularly thrilling. But each novel goes up in reading level as Betsy gets older. And by the time Betsy started high school, I was hooked. All the inner-workings of the teenage girl mind are delightfully detailed with humor and empathy. Who will take Betsy to the dance? How will she get that Joe to take notice of her? It's so much fun! And just as addictive as any ol' teen vampire love novel, but without the squeamish stuff. And Betsy won't even consider letting a boy get "mushy" with her (by holding her hand.) It's so refreshing. But it's not old fashioned or stuffy.
Lovelace based these books on her own life experiences and that, I think, makes all the difference with these books. You get to know the characters so well. All the details about life in the time period really transport you there. I found myself looking up all the old songs they sing so I could hear the melodies in my mind as I read the lyrics. And we're talking OLD, like "By the Light of The Silvery Moon" old. (Which is also a wonderful movie, BTW. "Marjorie's old petticoat!!") And because it's autobiographical, there are photographs of all the people she based the characters on at the end of the books. Plus, the illustrations by Vera Neville are beautiful. Are you convinced yet? Maybe if Adam can find more copies, I'll do a giveaway. But until then, go to the library and CHECK OUT THESE BOOKS! But you don't have to take my word for it.
And this:
Both favorites.
This face:
Elder Johnson and family. (He's in the pink tie.)
I love visiting my Aunt Jill's. They live in a quiet, tree-lined neighborhood not too close but not too far from Washington, DC. Her home is warm and welcoming, cozily decorated with her famous quilts and Relief Society crafts. Her three sons are all teenagers, but they're not terribly annoying. In fact, now that we have Elizabeth, they are even more excited to see us when we visit. (Though they still have to be dragged away from the Wii to greet us when we arrive.) My uncle is very kind and quick to laugh and always has interesting things to talk about. My aunt is wonderful. Like a second mom, only without all the baggage. (Love you, Mom.)
Most of the weekend revolved around Philip leaving the next week for his mission. We had a family BBQ, the essential trip to Rita's, Philip's farewell talk on Sunday, then an open house later that night. The farewell was actually for three young men so the house was packed! I think there were more people in my aunt's house that night than there are in our entire ward here in Brooklyn. We're really happy for Philip and excited to hear all about his adventures, spiritual and otherwise, in the Amazon.
Our little trip also gave us a chance to get a jump-start on celebrating Halloween. Here are my cousins as Mario and Luigi:
And here's Elizabeth at her very first Trunk or Treat:
We even managed to get to a real, live pumpkin patch. 
Unfortunately, the patch itself was closed so we had to pick our pumpkins from a wagon by the barn. But Elizabeth still enjoyed it.
It's my birthday present to me! I'm so happy!!
Blowing out the candle (with a little help from friends.)
Before . . .
After!
After getting cleaned up, Elizabeth showed off all her loot.
Valerie, Tito, Birthday Girl, Daddy
At Sunset Park
People ask if it's hard to believe a year has gone by. I've always looked forward so much to each milestone that it does feel right for her to be one year old. What I don't think I'm ready to accept yet is that, before I know it, I'll turn around and she won't be a baby anymore. We still rock her while we sing lullabyes at night, but she's getting awfully heavy. (19 lbs!) She eats with her fingers and drinks from a sippy-cup. She toddles along with just one hand barely holding onto a finger. And even her baby-talk sounds like real conversation. But even with all the growing-up, it's hard to feel sad when I'm so overwhelmingly grateful that she's been a healthy and happy baby all these months. So shout out loud, Elizabeth, I am I! And I may not know why. But I know that I like it. Three cheers! I AM I! You are you and we love you, too.P.S. If you just can't get enough, (I'm talking to the grandparents) here's the links to the videos of the birthday song and Elizabeth eating the cake.
I don't know how I neglected to say this, but while I'm thanking Adam, I need to also thank his wonderful mother, Margaret, for giving us the rocking chair, the same one Adam was rocked in. I suppose I should also thank her for raising such a great son. Thank you!
(I know, so cute, right?)
Adam made this last night and left it on the desktop for me to see this morning. I hadn't really given my "coveting" list that much thought. (Find the original post here.) But little by little, through hand-me-downs, improvisations, and then a generous anniversary gift, we've acquired almost all of them. What touched me, though, was that Adam had payed so much attention to my wishes. I knew he was bugged by the post (which was, I admit, whiny.) But seeing this made me realize how much he cares about me, even in all my whiny-ness. I guess I don't understand as much as I should how important being a good provider is to men.
So I want to publicly thank Adam for the wonderful digital piano and for working so hard to not only make sure I have the things I need, but also for trying so hard to get me the things I want. 
Thank you, Adam!
WARNING: Long Post
When we first came to NY, we had only a vague idea of where to look for an apartment. We'd heard good things about some neighborhoods, bad things about others, and absolutely nothing about Queens or the Bronx. We had no money to pay a broker, so we ended up getting the first place we could find, here on the border of Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace. We actually get a lot of square feet for our rent. And we're two express stops from Manhattan. But as time passed, my list of why I didn't like our place got longer and longer. After a few months living and working in Brooklyn, I'd gotten around enough to know which neighborhood I really wanted to live in and often talked about moving, if the right opportunity came along.
But then I started to "nest." We bought a rug to cover the hideous commercial-grade carpet. We rearranged the furniture. We scraped the pink paint off our faux fireplace (only to reveal ugly and now scraped stone underneath.) We put up a room-dividing bookcase. Throw in some pillow covers and matching lamp shade and our apt started to feel like a home. With every screw Adam drilled into our walls, I felt less inclined to move, and more inclined to put down roots. So I met the neighbors. Joined community groups. Started walking to the tiny grocery stores instead of driving to the supermarket. I got brave and started venturing into bodegas and restaurants and bakeries where I'd previously been too shy to go into. (It takes a certain amount of courage to go into a cramped, little store filled with stuff from floor to ceiling, not having a clue where to find what you need and ask for help.) We even joined a community-supported agricultural co-op thing. I was resigned, content, even, to reside here indefinitely.
But every once in a while, the dissatisfaction starts to bubble up, like a bad taste in the back of my mouth. I spent hours one Friday looking up apartments on Craig's List. I looked in Brooklyn, in Westchester, in Jersey, all the while growing more and more discouraged. Then we left to go up to visit Adam's parents. They live in a small, rural town north of Syracuse. As we drove around the main drag of Mexico, NY (pop. 5,181) I kept thinking to myself, where do these people work?!? That's when it hit me: the crux of the matter.
As far as I can tell, the NYC metro area, which basically covers anywhere within an hour and a half commuting distance from Manhattan, is extremely DENSE. People are packed in like, well . . . like straphangers on the 4 train at rush hour. For the rich, there are two options: (1) live in the city in the nice neighborhoods in nice, albeit small, apartments. Or (2) live someplace "normal" (ie. a house in a suburb) and commute to the city. The closer you get to Central Park, the more expensive it gets. The farther away you get, the cheaper it gets, until you hit some sort of cusp where the rent starts to go up as things get more spread out and, in a word, normal. This confused me at first. As I was surfing through Wikipedia articles and cross-referencing them with Google maps to calculate commute times, I kept thinking, well, if I go a little farther out, it will get cheaper, right? Wrong. More suburban, yes. Cheaper, no.
When we first moved here, we had no idea how long we'd stay. If we had to predict, as people often asked us to, Adam would say 5 years at least, while I would say, "you better be kidding." To me, this was just a step. Make it here so you can make it anywhere. But then the economy tanked. We were lucky just to have a job—any job—let alone one with such great benefits doing work that Adam actually enjoys. So when people ask how long we think we're staying (it really is a constant question here), now I say, "There's no way we'll think of looking for another job until the economy turns around." So here we are, anchored to a job in Midtown Manhattan for who knows how long. Will we be having another kid here? Will Elizabeth start school here? These are the questions that are always floating in the periphery. Along with, will we ever own a home?
You see, with half of your salary going to rent, it doesn't leave much room to save for a down-payment. So maybe we should live someplace cheaper. But there is no place cheaper. (Is there? No, really; is there?)
Okay, so you don't worry about home-ownership for the time being. Just be happy to rent. But for how long? We already had to move into the living room to give Elizabeth the bedroom. (See previous post for reasons.) What happens if/when we have another baby? Even without that, having had a few people stay with us since moving our bed out here has really opened my eyes as to how not-cool it is to live in a studio. And I'm almost looking forward to the winter when we can shut our windows and the noise of the street OUT. For now, every car alarm, foul-mouthed pedestrian, and cart-clanking trash picker make it that much harder to sleep.
So do we look for a new apartment? A two-bedroom? With cost-of-living pay increases at Adam's work postponed indefinitely, there's no way we can afford to pay more rent. Plus, our landlord hasn't raised our rent at all since we've been here. I'm afraid to leave and find out that's not normal for NYC housing. Then there's that feeling we get, each time we come back from visiting family. The last few times, as we'd exited the BQE and turned onto 4th Ave, Adam has sort of sighed and said, "Why do we live here?" Don't get me wrong. I've worked hard and long to come to appreciate city life. It definitely has it's perks. And it's never boring. (Well, unless you're home with a baby who still takes 2+ naps a day.) But what about trees? That aren't encased in cement. What about grass? Space. Just space. Being able to SEE space. Stars.
Maybe it's the oncoming winter, but right now I just really don't want to be here.
End of whiney post.
I've never been a "purse girl." Every handbag I've ever used has either been given to me or something I've found lying around the house. I never understood the fascination with purses. (Or shoes for that matter.) They all looked the same to me: flashy or frumpy. When we moved to NYC, I'd see women carrying enormous leather bags with big buckles and clasps and all sorts of bling and I'd wonder what on earth they needed such a big bag for and why they were all so ugly. (Now I know why the big bag—city girls on the go carry everything from their high heels to their gym clothes and a book or magazine to read on the subway and everything in between.) So I continued on my merry way, slowly but surely wearing out every satchel, tote, and diaper bag I came across.
But I was always endlessly digging, digging, digging. Where is that stupid binky? Where are those blasted keys?! Where, oh where, is that @#$%! PHONE!?!?! Thursday night, I'd had enough. I'd fished for my phone only to miss the call for the last time. It was time to grow up and get a real woman's purse.
So on Friday, Adam and I made a trip to Burlington where I figured the prices would be low enough and the selection relatively small enough that I wouldn't feel completely overwhelmed. We searched and searched, Adam occasionally showing me one he liked ("Ugh! So ugly!") while I would look wistfully at the messenger bags with embroidered flowers ("That's SO junior high.") When I was about to give up and go back to the hideous diaper bags, I saw a purse that was semi-attractive and didn't look like its owner rode a motor cycle or had airbrushed acrylic nails. But it was purple. A beautiful, subtle purple, but still, I don't ever wear purple. We took it halfway to the register, but then my heart plunged so we turned back, hoping we could find one like it in a neutral color. Adam gets all the credit here. He found the exact same purse in a lovely silver-gray. And it spoke to my soul. It has so many POCKETS!! A pocket for my phone. A pocket for the binky. A pocket for diaper stuff and another for my planner. A veritable plethora of pockets. And it was cute.
I know this might be a strange thing to blog about, but I felt that it was a small turning-point in my life. I now have an honest-to-goodness adult lady's purse.
Gaaaaaaaa! What's next? Wrinkle cream?
P.S. Adam reminded me that it's gray and I usually wear brown so it will hardly ever match my shoes. One thing at a time, I say.
It's been three years since Adam and I were married. It's hard to believe so much has happened in so short a time. We've had 7 jobs, lived in 3 apartments, moved 2 times, and had 1 baby. And we've traveled from one side of the country to the other. Through it all, Adam has never wavered in his love, devotion, or faith in me and the Lord. Though we've had our ups and downs, I count myself lucky to be married to such a wonderful man.
Adam loves music. One of the first of many gifts he's given me was a CD he mixed of his current favorite songs. (They change all the time.) He's introduced me to so many artists I now love. And he's taken me to more concerts in the four years I've known him, than I'd been to in all my years previous. Here's us on one of our first dates: The Aquabats.
My fondest "rock show" memory, though, was the first ever at a small juice bar in Provo where we saw a friend of his in a local band, The Handsome. I started feeling under the weather in the way only a woman can, and, much to my mortification, had to tell him I needed to go buy some Ibuprofen or I'd die. He wasn't grossed out; he didn't even flinch. He just walked me to the nearby Albertson's, paid for my medicine and a Coke, and sat with my on the curb while I waited for the pain to go away. I felt so comfortable with him. It was so refreshing.
The following Spring, after a brief but important hiatus, Adam proposed to me. He enlisted the help of half a dozen of his friends to put together one of the most romantic nights of my life. His roommate blindfolded me and drove me up to this:
where I found Adam and this waiting for me.
I said yes.
We sent out announcements. I planned and stressed and shopped. We planted some flowers.
And then we were married.
August 24, 2006. Mt. Timpanogos Temple.
And our life as husband and wife began.
Happy Anniversary, Sweet Pea.
My favorite dessert!
Elizabeth liked this one. Do you love how big Adam's hair is? Don't worry, we cut it later that night.
Adam took this one.
Looking towards New Jersey
There's something about city lights at night that just make me feel happy. After we got home, we had dinner, put Elizabeth down for the night, then cuddled up and watched Pixar's "Up" for the first time and absolutely loved it. All in all, a great weekend!
