What a weekend!!! I can’t believe it’s already gone. On a whim last Thursday I checked out fares from NYC to London for a weekend trip, as I’m wont to do sometimes. The prices were pitiful, as you might imagine for a last minute trip. The lowest that pulled up was over $600/person on Virgin Atlantic. But then I noticed a small box at the top of the fares marked “Last Minute Deal”. It claimed Air + Hotel + Tax for $336/person. “Too good to be true!!” I clicked on it, and it took me to the hotel selection page, where it offered me the Holiday Inn Kensington Forum, a 4 star hotel in London, or a number of other hotels that I could choose, and it would add on a per person charge accordingly. I told Kristi about the amazing deal and we kicked the idea around, but in the end we decided to be responsible and not chuck a bunch of money at the travel industry. Friday morning, Kristi was talking to her mom on the phone. She told her about the deal, and her mom was shocked that we weren’t going. She pretty much told us we were dumb to pass it up. I overheard them talking about it, and I wandered over to Travelocity to see if the fare was still available. Lo and behold, there it was!! So we talked about it some more, and it must have been painfully obvious that I really wanted to go. So we said, “why not?”, and booked ourselves a pair of tickets to leave for London at 9pm that night. Needless to say, the rest of the workday was painfully long. Complicating things was the news that I got on Thursday night that one of my clients was going to sign up a new company that could have a VERY significant impact on Neovest’s revenue, and everyone was in a snit to get it all done. I felt a little guilty about leaving with that going on, but it was Yom Kippur weekend, so the market was going to be pretty dead on Monday anyways. So I got everyone here lined up with what they’d need to do in my absence, and Kristi got all of her work taken care of too, and we were on the 3:40 ferry home to pack.

Let me tell you that carrying on is not the only way to go when flying domestically, but it’s even better when going over-seas. I HATE waiting for luggage after sitting on the plane for hours on end. None of that for us though. We were only going to be gone for 2 days, so we made quick work of packing. The good news is that my mother trained me well, so we took a larger than necessary second bag, with a backpack in it, so we’d have enough room to bring back out haul after plundering the high streets of London. We finally rolled out of the parking lot around 4:45. We had to get gas before we got on the Turnpike, so that plopped us into Friday afternoon rush hour at around 4:55. We were supposed to be to the airport at 6pm to make our 8pm flight. (It takes about 45 minutes under optimal conditions.) No, it did not look good. I had the bright idea to try the back roads in Jersey City and Bayonne. Hard to say if it really made a difference. We kept moving, but not very quickly. At least it wasn’t through too “scenic” a part of town. The roads through Staten Island were ok, but the Verazzano Narrows Bridge and the Belt Parkway around Brooklyn were brutally slow. We finally made it to long term parking at JFK, only to wait around for another 15 minutes for the bus to show up. I think that we finally checked in around 6:50. Perfect timing in my book. We breezed through check in (no luggage – woo hoo!!!), grabbed a bite to eat, and made our way through security to the gate. The flight was fairly full, but at least we were sitting together. It was a 777, so it was a 2, 5, 2 configuration. We had an aisle and middle in that middle 5. Poor Kristi was stuck next to some stinky Spaniards. Smart girl took some Dramamine though, so she passed out for about 4 hours. I think I probably got 3 – 3.5 hours of sleep. That flight really isn’t too bad. We were only in the air for about 6 hours, which is about how long it takes to fly from JFK to SFO. The flight was uneventful though – the best kind, really.

We got to London around 8am, and got to spend a nice amount of time in the passport control line. I can’t remember having seen one that long, but in retrospect we usually land a couple of hours earlier, so they wouldn’t have as much time to get backed up. This is a good time to mention another one of the reasons that we had originally decided not to take the trip. Kristi hasn’t updated her passport since we got married, so it still has the name Kristi Janell Loveridge on it. I was a little nervous about flying overseas (especially since September 11) on a passport that didn’t match the rest of her ID, but we just booked her ticket under her maiden name, and everything went off without a hitch. We filled out 2 landing cards in the UK and USA just to avoid any problems, but noone questioned us at all. We breezed past the luggage carrousels and headed down into the bowels of the airport to catch the tube into town. Our hotel was conveniently located around the corner from the Gloucester Rd. stop on the Picadilly line, so no transfers were necessary on the Tube, and there was an elevator at the station, so it was easy to get our bags up to street level. The map I bought (London Streetwise) showed that the hotel was right across the street from the Tube stop, and after peeking around a corner, sure enough, there was the Holiday Inn sign. However, the young man working the check-in desk couldn’t find our reservation. Turns out that there’s yet another Holiday Inn across the street (we would have run into it if we’d turned right out of the Tube stop instead of left). He said, “That’s the biggest Holiday Inn in the world – we’re the nicest.” I was kinda bummed out by that, but we headed over to the right place. It was about 10am, and we were hoping that they’d just let us dump our bags somewhere until check-in time, but the nice German girl working the desk there found us a room that was already available. Queen bed (we’d reserved 2 singles, since that was the cheapest option from Travelocity), 18th floor, with a GORGEOUS view of the museums, Big Ben, the London Eye, and St. Paul’s Cathedral .

View from the Hotel room window of the London Eye

The room wasn’t huge, but that’s to be expected in London I imagine. The hotel was only 3 years old though, so it was very nice. Nothing particularly fancy, but it was nice and clean, and certainly of above average quality. And the shower worked. There isn’t really too much that can help you regain so much of your humanity after a trans-continental flight as a nice hot shower.

Cleaned up, we were ready to hit the city. It was a little strange to be in London just a few hours after deciding that we were going to go. We didn’t really have any preconceived notions of what the trip was going to be like, nor did we really have plans of what to do. In fact, about the only thing I knew that I wanted to do was go to Coffee Republic and get some hot chocolate. That was a lovely little place that we discovered on the last trip, since it was right across the street from the Allen House. Their hot chocolate blows away anything you’ll ever get at Starbucks, so we availed ourselves of their chocolatey goodness a couple of times over the weekend.

Looking for the hotel, I saw a billboard that gave me one goal for our time in the UK – the Lord of the Rings exhibit at the Science Museum.

Lord of the Rings Exhibit

I’d read briefly about it online, and all I really knew was that it was a hot ticket, and internet pre-sales were going crazy. Since the museum was only a 10 minute walk down the street I figured we’d stick our heads in, see if we could get tickets for the next day, and then head on. A few seconds after we got in line, a man came up behind us and handed us 2 tickets for 11:30, explaining that a couple of his friends hadn’t shown up, and that we could have the tickets. Face value was about $19, so not only were we pleased to have tickets that would let us enter the exhibit in less than half an hour, we saved almost $40 bucks. Everything’s better when it’s free. It was a really cool exhibit. It was all about the making of the movies (the first 2 only – I guess they didn’t want to give anything away about the last one), so they had lots of costumes, weapons, props, and films about how they did the special effects. Too cool! After a quick bathroom break we pounded the pavement again. Actually, it was more like a very nice stroll up the street to Harrod’s. Kristi found a bracelet that matched perfectly with her wedding ring (only £22.50), but it was a little large, so she decided to sleep on it. We went into the Food Halls to check out the first UK Krispy Kreme (just opened a couple of weeks ago), but neither of us were in the mood for the intense sugar rush. I bought some raspberry candies, and we continued our wanderings through the store. Last time we were there we saw a pram that Kristi loved, so we set out to find that again. There it was – all £900 of it. Ouchie.

By this time we were getting pretty hungry, so we left Harrod’s in search of nourishment – or at least something to fill our growling tummies. We wandered in the direction of “Buck House” (Buckingham Palace), our next intended stop, and found Pizza on the Park, a nice little restaurant across the street from Green Park. We split a mozzarella and tomato salad, and a margherita pizza – yummy stuff! Energized, we continued on down to Buckingham. It’s a big pretty building, but not really much to do there, and as we’d already missed the changing of the guard, we moved on down the street to Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament. We’d only been to these places a little over a year ago, so we didn’t really need to do a full fledged tour, but Kristi was a little hazy on what she’d seen the last time, so this was a good opportunity to cement everything into her brain. We started to catch some rain (amazingly enough, this was the only time it rained on us the entire trip!), so we ducked underground into the Tube.

We rode the Jubilee line up to Picadilly Circus.

Piccy Circus

Kristi wanted to try to find a baby-sized soccer uniform for our soon-to-be-nephew, and we just happened to be standing in front of Lillywhites (huge sporting goods store). Turns out they had just what we needed – a miniature uniform of the English national team, complete with tiny red socks. The day was starting to wear on by this point, so our options of what to do were winding down. I didn’t want to go back to the hotel and pass out (had to fight the jet lag), so we cruised through Boots, the Body Shop, and the Virgin Megastore. (Boots yielded a new and exciting treasure – Zesty Berry Fanta, which turns out to be Black Currant flavored soda. Yummy!) There was a matinee performance of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) playing at the Criterion Theater, so we got some cheap tickets to that and headed downstairs. It didn’t have the same energy as I remembered when I saw it in NYC, and Kristi didn’t like it as much as their performance of the Complete History of the United States (Abridged), but it was still a great show. When the play let out, we were conveniently in front of the Picadilly Circus Tube station, which happens to be on the same Picadilly Line as our hotel. So a quick ride east, and we were back at Gloucester Road. One of the first things you see when you leave that station is a bright red KFC sign, so we picked up some greasy “American” fast food to take up to the room. I use that term “American” very loosely because they didn’t even have biscuits! It was a crime against KFC’s everywhere. My Zinger Twister was still tasty though. The tub was not the best I’ve ever seen in Europe, but it was still light years ahead of anything here in the states. I’m lucky that I’m here to write this and that I didn’t end up sucking a gallon of water into my lungs, since the water was so wonderfully warm, and I was so super-drowsy. Somehow I pulled myself out, and managed not to fall asleep until 10pm – one of my key to avoiding jet lag.

I really liked the area where we were staying. It’s in Kensington, so the neighborhood is great. The area right in front of the Tube stop had a number of restaurants, grocers, fast food joints, etc., that really gave you a lot of options if you didn’t have dinner plans, or want to shell out big bucks for a hotel breakfast. I’d recommend the area to anyone not lucky enough to be staying in the Allen House.

Apparently one of the other keys to avoiding jet lag is to make up for the sleep that you missed on the plane ride on the way over. That would probably explain why I woke up a little before 10am. Breakfast was another marshmallow filled Hot Chocolate from Coffee Republic (can you say, “Withdrawals”?), this time accompanied by a tasty muffin. I’d also like to take a second here to mention what an absolutely GORGEOUS day it was. Not a cloud in the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it in London. If it hadn’t been for the constant light breeze, I wouldn’t even have worn a coat. It was really a one-in-a-million day.

This morning we had a chance to do something totally new to both of us – not the easiest thing for me to say in London. We tubed up to Notting Hill Gate and strolled down the market street of Portobello Road. It was not at all what I expected, for the most part. It’s a gorgeous area of town, similar in quality to Kensington, but with a very different feel.

Just as you enter Notting Hill

The street was lined with shops, which kind of surprised me. I assumed that it was going to be more of an open air market, but there were only a few tables on the sidewalks. There were plenty of European tourists out and about, but there didn’t seem to be many Americans. We nipped into a grocer and picked up some Star Bars, which will hopefully be making their way into the mail soon. The only vendor that really had anything of interest was at the very end (beginning?) of the street. (We walked up one side, and back down on the other.) He had all kinds of knick-knacky things, including some cool astronomical antiques (astrolabes, telescopes, etc.) If I knew more about that stuff, or we had somewhere to put it, I think we would have made a purchase since it was fairly inexpensive. But we opted to save our pennies for later. We did manage to pick up a Christmas present though (can’t say what, since there’s no telling who will read this), and a little metal plaque that says “Loo” that we are going to attach to the appropriate door at home. It was still pretty early in the day when we finished off the Portobello, so we went back to the hotel to ditch our baggage.

Leicster Square is also on the Picadilly line (noticing a trend?), and was our next stop. Our target was the British Museum, and if Foyle’s just happens to be in between the two, then who am I to complain? Actually, there was a specific book that I was looking for – the paperback version of the Patricia Cornwell book on Jack the Ripper, Portrait of a Killer. I’m reading it right now – creepy, but fascinating. We also admired the enormous section on chess. Yes, I said Chess. I’ve seen bookstores with fewer books than this place had on chess. Frightening. A few more blocks, and we arrived at “The Brit”. I love free museums. Have I mentioned that everything is better when it’s free? Last time we were in town we came to the British Museum, but we neglected to visit the Rosetta Stone. We didn’t really want to shell out the £2 just to buy a map (especially after getting in for free), so we just wandered through the Egyptian hall until we came across it. Pretty cool to think how much knowledge has come from that little piece of rock. We also went into the temporary exhibit “Medicine Man: The forgotten museum of Henry Wellcome”. Apparently he collected all sorts of medical stuff from through the ages. All I can say is that the dude was messed up in the head. Anybody who owns that many pairs of obstetrical forceps has got to have something wrong with him …. But I digress. Upstairs is a nice little café where we had afternoon tea. Not the best I’ve ever had, but it was an excuse to smother a scone with clotted cream and jam, and drink some more hot chocolate. And to sit down – let’s not over look that little fact. The café was on the upper floor (easier to say “upper” than confuse myself trying to figure out if it’s the first or second floor – crazy Europeans) which is where the Lindow Man resides. He’s the mummified guy from the 1st century AD that they found in a Peat Bog. The theory is that he was the victim of human sacrifice by the druids because of the way that his head was bashed in, his neck garroted, and the blood drained out of his body. Ew. Of course, Kristi loved it.

The museum is just a couple of blocks back from Oxford Street, so we wandered down past some of the shops. The dollar has been struggling against the pound for a while, so there weren’t really any bargains to be found. We really saw that what dad always said was true – the prices are the same as they are in America. Except in the UK, that means you have to add about 50-60% to the price. Brutal. Not that that stopped us from going to Hamley’s. Yes, I’m 28, but I still love that store. Sticker shock notwithstanding, it’s an amazing place. At the end of Regent Street is Picadilly Circus, where we caught the ……. You don’t really don’t care how we got home, do you? I didn’t think so. We watched some British programming on the telly to wait for our appetites to kick back in after the late tea, and then headed out for dinner at one of the local places. There was a pub right there, and we’d hoped to get some pub food, but there was a football (not American) game on, and the place was packed. Apparently they’d stopped serving food a little earlier, which was a major downer because the special of the day was either roast beef or roast turkey, served with Yorkshire pudding; makes me sad even as I write this. Maybe I’ll try my hand at Yorkshire pudding this Sunday….. We ended up at Garfunkel’s, a chain type restaurant that’s like a cross between TGIFriday’s and Marie Callender’s. Nothing special, but fairly safe. Then it was around the corner, and time for bed.

It’s now our final day in London, and our time was fast ticking away. But that wasn’t going to stop us from our Full English Breakfast. It was still over-priced at £9.50, but if they hadn’t given us vouchers when we checked in, it would have been £14. Each. It was decent food though, and we filled up enough to make it through the day without needing a real lunch. We checked out of the hotel, dropped our bags in the luggage room, and we were off to make our last few stops. Our first stop was Westminster (Circle and District line, for those of you keeping score at home. No, it’s not the Picadilly line, but the C&D also stopped at Gloucester Rd.). We’d been over here on the first day, but Kristi wanted to walk across the bridge and past the London Eye. We snapped a few pictures of the Eye, Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament, and a great one that nobody else is likely to think particularly amusing. In the last James Bond flick, there is a scene near the Westminster Bridge where he sneaks in through a doorway and heads to a secret underground base. When we first saw the movie, we both recognized the exact location (on the southern side of the Westminster Bridge) from when we were there last time. Kristi tried to convince the people on the other side of the door that she really was MI6 , but I guess they hadn’t seen the movie.

Jimmy Bond, watch out!

We walked past the eye, and then crossed back over the Thames via the Golden Jubilee Bridge. It parallels the train tracks that run over the river from Charing Cross station, and was just built for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Another Tube ride along the river, and we ended up at Tower Hill. Some might think that we were there to go see the ancient fortress first built by the Romans, or the invaluable Crown Jewels contained within the Tower’s vaults. They’d be wrong. We were there to gawk at the spectacle that is David Blaine, the American “magician” that decided to hang in a box over the South Bank for 40 days without food. What an idiot. But we dutifully marched ourselves across Tower Bridge to go and gawk with the rest of the folks. Kristi pretty much summed it up with a look .

The Look

We walked back along the South Bank to the London Bridge station, but the Tube stop was shut down due to an “emergency”. We had no idea how long the station was going to be closed (gates barred and really annoying siren/sign flashing the word “Emergency”), or when we’d be able to get out of there, so we headed upstairs and hopped into a taxi. We rode back up to Oxford Street and had him drop us outside of Selfridge’s. At the time I couldn’t really remember why I asked him to take us there – there wasn’t anything in particular that we wanted or needed from there. But was we walked out of the store and down the street, I thanked my subconscious for it’s hard work, for there in front of us was the Belgian waffle stand. I could never hope to accurately describe the yumminess of the caramelized sugar, or the ooziness of the rich Belgian chocolate swimming in the nooks and crannies of that wonderful pastry, so I’ll just leave you to dream and drool. A few more stops on the Tube and it was back to Harrod’s. Kristi wanted to give the bracelet one more shot, but it was just too big to be comfortable, so we moved on. We had a little more time to kill before we needed to head for the airport, so we went upstairs to ogle our phone. It’s a beauty made by Bang & Olufsen that we saw last year. Sadly, they don’t make it for the US market, and I assume that their phones wouldn’t be compatible with our system. And I don’t think we’re ready to commit to shelling out 500 bucks for a phone either.

Our final stop was a grocery store right next to the hotel. We wanted to pick up some sandwiches for the trip (hoping they’d be cheaper at the supermarket than the airport), and I needed to re-stock on my Cadbury’s hot chocolate mix – the next best thing to Coffee Republic’s delightful beverage. Then we gathered up our bags, and hit the Tube for our ride back to Heathrow. We made pretty good time, and we even got there early enough that we could have made the earlier 4:30 flight back to NYC. But they wanted to charge us $200 per person to change our tickets, so we figured that we could hang around the shopping mall inside the terminal for a couple of hours. The funny thing is, that’s where we got some of our best shopping done. Kristi picked up a ring and a scarf, and we stocked up on some more supplies (candy & soda) for the flight home.

The flight back was great! It was probably only half full, at least back in steerage where we were sitting. So we each had 2 seats to ourselves, which was just enough space to get some wiggle room. We got a huge treat before we were even off of the ground. Two or three places in front of us in line to take off was the British Airways Concorde on its way to NYC. (I always love seeing that!!) Once in the air, we both caught a short nap, and read our books. The only thing I can think to complain about with the entire trip was the 30 minutes that we spent waiting for the shuttle to pick us up and take us back to long term parking. Traffic was totally dead at 9:30 at night, so we made it home in a reasonable 45 minutes. Two showers later, and we were back in our own bed, dreading the morning, and the ferry ride back to work.

Time for Andy to contribute to this thing again. I've been tasked with writing about our adventures in Gettysburg and Baltimore. We actually went to Gettysburg a couple of months ago I think. Now I've got to find out the date, or it's going to bug me..... Looks like it was the first weekend in August. We went down on Friday night and spent the night in King of Prussia, PA, just outside of Philly. The mall there is huge, but more importantly, they have a Cheesecake Factory. I'd never eaten there before, but it was great. Huge menu, good food, and decently priced. Great combination! Got to say though, I've never been into cheesecake (nasty stuff that cream cheese). Kristi got the brownie cheesecake to go, and back to the hotel. She was raving about it so much, I figured I'd give it a shot. Big mistake. That stuff was AWESOME!!!! Great. Now I'm addicted. I drag the poor girl there every chance I possibly get. The good news is that we branched out and tried the Godiva chocolate cheesecake, and it was WAY better than the brownie one, and that's saying something. Our nearest Cheesecake Factory is about 30 minutes away, so it's not like we can eat there everyday (phew!), but I'm confident they'll get to know us.

John Faust sent me a CD with 3 albums worth of Brazilian MP3s a couple of weeks ago. This Tribalistas CD is pretty kickin'. Not usually my sort of thing, but this is some good stuff. Passe Em Casa - great track.

So, on to Gettysburg. We wandered westward across southern Pennsylvania on Saturday morning. I had to make a little detour through Amish country (Bird-in-Hand and Intercourse, to be exact). It was fun to see the nice Mennonite lady (traditionally dressed) out with her leaf blower. Actually, I don't think that we saw any true Amish while were there - I'd be surprised if we did anyways. We probabably got to Gettysburg around 1pm. When I came here a few years ago with my family, we did a tour with a battlefield guide that actually got in our car and pointed out everything as we drove around. It was one of the coolest things I've ever done. Kristi's family did the same when they were out here at the 4th of July, and their guide was kinda dull. So we were a little concerned with what we were going to get - it was really up to the luck of the draw what kind of guide we would get. We decided to go for it though, and we definitely came away pleased. I think the guy was actually in the Civil War. Older, unkempt, ragged hair, blind in one eye. I took one look at the guy and knew we were going to have fun. Kristi told him that she was more interested in human interest stories, and he certainly disappoint. He was constantly interrupting his narrative with some little story that he'd just remembered about an event that happened at the location that we were driving past. He was a hoot!

After we finished up the tour, it was time to head back to Jersey City - about 3 hours. I wasn't looking forward to it after a full day of driving, but we toughed it out. We even made a little time to detour through Hershey so Kristi could see the town, and the fun little street lights shaped like Hershey Kisses.

Our last excursion was to Baltimore to check out the Inner Harbor. That was another place that I'd been a few years ago with my family. (We did all of that stuff with Dave & Pam when they lived out in Harrisburg.) The central attraction of Baltimore's Inner Harbor (very cool place) is the National Aquarium. They've done some work on it since I was last there, and they are adding on a whole new wing (Australia) that is supposed to be finished in 2005 - guess we'll just have to go back.

National Aquarium

The drive down to Baltimore wasn't too interesting. Lots of traffic after you get off of the Delaware Memorial Bridge as it collapses traffic down to 2 lanes - stupid. Then we passed a column of motorocycles (going the other way, thank goodness) that had to be a couple of miles long. The police were holding up traffic for them, so it was obviously some sort of ride for charity, or something like that. We tried to swing an early check in at the Renaissance in Baltimore, but since I'd gotten the room for so cheap on Priceline, they weren't going to let that slide - we didn't actually get checked in until around 5:30pm. Anyways, we wandered around the harbor for a while - there's lots of shops and junk there - just stuff to see. Sunday morning was the aquarium, and then we took the long way home. We wandered south of Baltimore a bit to Annapolis. When I lived in DC I'd heard that it was a pretty cool place, but we never went. I just wanted to take a peek at the Naval Academy. Turns out that it's this really cute old town, with a fun mainstream, and a cool vibe. I imagine that we'll end up going back some weekend and staying in a B&B down there. We crossed over the Chesapeake Bay, and drove back up through eastern Maryland (which is all farmland, in case you were wondering.)

I think that our next trip may not be until our Anniversary. We're heading up to Vermont for the weekend - that's gonna be a blast. But we've spent a lot of dough on travel this year - all of the trips to UT, the trip to Austria, Greece, and Israel for early next year, and today I just blew $760 on flights for Christmas. So we're going to try to be good for a little while. We'll see how I hold up......

Andy and I knew that we'd get some good church callings since we are from Utah and everything!! But I wasn't quite prepared for the call that I got!!! I was called to be the early morning seminary teacher!!!! It was a bit of a surprise! After discussing it with the CES leader though I think we've determined that it may not work to have it early morning. We are probably going to do it homestudy where they study on their own and we meet once a week for a lesson. It's not the ideal situation for the kids, but because of where they live and their income level, it's not really feasible for them to come every morning. They didn't have a teachers manual or enough student manuals though, so I'm not really even sure when I'll be able to start. The kids already started school last week, but we'll have to wait a bit longer. It sounds like there are only 4 kids. I only know who one of them is and he seems like a sweet kid. These black kids are going to have to learn to love their white bread teacher!!!!!!

Nothing too exciting for this blog! (thank goodness) We were able to go home to Utah the end of Aug and first 2 days in September for Labor Day. It was a great getaway! We got to Utah around noon on Friday and ate some Brand X hamburgers!!!! Yummy! Saturday morning we drove up to Fairview with the whole family. Greg brought his parents 4-wheelers and we had a good time driving them around. I'm kind of a chicken, so I wanted to head back earlier than Richele and Greg, but oh well. They were sweet about it. We played games, and cards, and ate, and talked, and slept, and just relaxed. It was great because it was slightly chilly which we weren't used to. It was nice to have to bundle up a bit. We played with Chad's paintball gun, and horseshoes, and wrist rocket. Needless to say, there were plenty of things to keep us busy!!! We made some dinner and smores and then crowded into the trailer to watch a movie. We all went to bed that night and had a great night (at least I did!). We woke up and had a big breakfast and then packed up and went back. We got home and just cleaned up in time to go to church. We had a nice regular Sunday afternoon and evening. Monday everyone had off of work so we ate at Red Robin and went to a movie. Andy and I did a little bit of shopping in the meantime. We are now the classic non-Utah Mormons who go to Deseret Book when they go to Utah!!!! What can we say!!
We caught a flight home Tuesday morning and got back late that night. It was a great trip home and so fun to visit the family. Hopefully my next visit there will bring a baby!!!!!

The Great Blackout of 2003, as it is now known, included yours truely and my loving husband Andy! Poor Andy was stuck in a subway car when the power went out. He sat there for about an hour before they finally opened the doors and got out. They walked down the tracks in the tunnel to find their way out while lighting their way with their cell phones. Andy popped out in Grand Central and had to think of what to do next. He decided to try and catch a ferry home. He went to the nearest ferry stop which had massive amounts of people all crowded together waiting for the same boat. There was no structure or order to it, so he bagged that idea pretty quickly. He then figured he'd be stuck there all night, so he started walking towards the Red Roof Inn. About half way there he had a better idea of walking to the World Financial Center ferry to try and get home. He figured the boats came more often and were closer to Jersey City, so he may have better luck. Well, he was a smarty pants and it worked. He only stood in line for an hour before catching a ride home. He got home around 9PM. I was lucky enough to leave work early (everyone else was gone by 4!!), so I was on the boat home when the power went out. I had no idea anything was even wrong until I went to our leasing office to pick up a package. All of their lights were out and they told me that the power went out, probably only our block, and would be on soon. Boy were they wrong!!!! I was just hulled up in our apartment by myself all night trying to not get bored. I read and looked for candles and matches and took a bath in the dark. I kept trying to call Andy or my parents, but the cell lines were all full and it was touch and go for getting through. Mostly we talked through messages.
Our power finally came on about 1 minute after Andy walked in the door. It went off for about an hour around midnight, but we were in bed by that time, so it didn't matter. I guess we can just add this to our list of adventures in New York.

Another one that I can add would be going to the eye doctor's today in China town. I woke up yesterday with what I thought was an eye infection. I thought this morning it would be better, but it wasn't so we decided I'd go to the doctor. This was the closest doctor I could find that wasn't just an optometrist. It was in the heart of China town!! Everyone in the office was Chinese, spoke Chinese, all the customers were Chinese......except me!!! Thankfully sweet Andy came with me so I didn't feel so out of place. It took a little longer than I anticipated, but I was just an emergency walk-in, so it wasn't too bad. The doctor was a sweet Chinese girl who sounded more American than anything else! She was very helpful and put my mind at ease by telling me it was just an allergic reaction and prescribing some medicine. I get to go back in 2 weeks to check on it. It was an interesting experience though. I've never felt like such a minority!!! Overall though, people were nice. Just another crazy story from New York!

Another exciting adventure in our New York journey occured last Saturday (July 26th) when our apartment building caught on fire!! It was on the opposite end of our apartment, so aside from the burned smell in the hallway, we were totally unaffected. We were minding our own business doing some Saturday cleaning when the fire alarm started to go off. Now this had happened to Andy one Saturday around 7am, so we thought it was some sort of drill. We poked our heads into the hall to try and smell smoke, but there was nothing. So, we went about our business trying to ignore the screeching of the alarm. I stepped out onto our balcony and a couple of people that were across the street started waving me down. "Um, your building really is on fire, you may want to get out.". I was very grateful for them taking the time to tell me. Andy grabbed his wallet, I grabbed my wedding ring and my purse and we were out of there. Around 7 fire trucks showed up along with many policemen. The whole complex was out on the sidewalk watching. It was quite the sight. It didn't take long for the fire to be put out and the mayor of Jersey City even showed up. He had a man delegated to taking care of those whose homes were ruined. We only stood outside for a little while before we realized it was totally safe for us to go back inside. A little bit later we went into the garage to leave in our car and we noticed that water was pouring in from under the fire spot. The good news of it all is that noone was hurt. It was a nice reminder for us to get renters insurance!!!!
On a fabulous side note......my plant has tomatos!!!!

We just had a great 4th of July weekend. My family (mom, dad, Richele and Greg) came out for a visit before they continued on their journey of seeing the East. I think that we thoroughly worn them out, as well as ourselves. We had 2 days full of wandering around the city in hot, hot, hot, humid weather!! Noone was free from the sweat!!
They arrived in the morning of the 4th of July yet we didn't leave the apartment until around 11. It's really hard to wake Mac up!!! Once we got out the door though and got going, it was great. We went downtown and wandered around the Financial District and just enjoyed all the fun happenings associated with the 4th. My family was able to see where we work and like to eat lunch as well as a nice view of the Statue of Liberty. From there we made our way uptown and wandered around there (honestly, I don't remember much of what we did!!!). But around 3 we headed up to Queens for the Yankees/Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium. Now that was an experience. It was really a fun time in spite of the heat and the major whopping that the Yankees got!! We left in the middle of the 7th inning stretch. By the time we got home to Jersey City, we were all so tired and sore and dirty, that a trip to the park seemed silly! We all took our turns in the shower cleaning up and making sandwiches for dinner. We ate our food in the nice cool house and turned on the TV. As soon as Andy heard some fireworks going though we slowly made our way out there. We could stand in the park right near our house and see 2 different sets of fireworks. One from the East River (Macy's Show) and one from near the Statue of Liberty. Both were a lot of fun and very pretty. The nice thing was how close we were to home. Just a walk across the street!! Afterward, we all fell into bed and enjoyed a great nights sleep.
The next day we got going around 10. That's kind of what happens when there are 6 people sharing a bathroom!! But it was fine. We went to Rockefellar Center, Central Park, 5th Ave and the surrounding area. We did a lot of wandering and some window shopping. We were able to get a great picture of mom holding her famous NY hot dog with Radio City Music Hall in the background. She seemed to be loving every minute of it!!! We tried to catch a matinee of a Broadway play, but there were no tickets available for the show we wanted. I guess that just means that my parents will have to come back again!! Oh well! ;-) We had dinner reservations at Times Square at 6.30, so we were able to see that as well. It was such a yummy, fun dinner. Family style Italian food that we knew had to be enjoyable as we watched Sue drinking the gravy!!!! I think she'll want to go back there! It was another fun, tiring day.
Sunday Andy and I decided that we would travel down to Philadelphia with all of them and spend the day there. Philly was cool from what we saw. We tried to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall and everything, but Andy and I weren't able to. We did get to go to the brand new (open 2 days) Constitution Museum though. It was very cool! But I must admit the highlight was the Philly Cheese Steak sandwich!! Sooooo yummy with all the Cheese Whiz!! Andy and I left soon after that and made our way to Six Flags Park for a Collective Soul concert. It was one of the best concerts that I have been to. We were front row and I was able to snag a guitar pick from the lead guitarist. Quite enjoyable!!
We just finished recovering from the intense weekend, but I must admit that it was all worth it. I think the family had a really enjoyable time, and mostly it was just fun to see them all again.

Oh the disgusting things we'll see here! I (Kristi) need to remember to keep my eyes forward while walking down the street in New York City. Or sitting on the subway for that matter. I won't go into the details of what I saw in just in a few days, but close family has already heard the details......and are probably scarred for life as I am.

The apartment is 99% done now. Thanks to many trips to Bed Bath and Beyond, IKEA, and Target. And also hundreds of dollars. But, I think it is all worth it since the place looks very good, and it feels like home. It's a bit smaller than our last place, but it doesn't seem to be a problem. Andy still has a corner little nook for his computer, and I have my bed. The two places that make us the most happy!!

We have found out that probably by this time next year we will have a temple within 20 minutes of us! The Manhattan temple is scheduled to be done in February of 2004, and within a few months it should be dedicated and ready to go. It will be so nice. We kind of took for granted the many temples we had so close to us in Utah. Hopefully we will have learned our lesson and attend the temple more regularly.

Work is going well for us. My accounting program works WAY too slowly which causes me much frustration. I have tried to enlist the help of my IT staff in Utah, but they all say it is too expensive. The positive thing is that my boss is realizing how debilitated I am without Peachtree working at full strength, and she is going to petition for me. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Andy has had a few meetings with clients while still helping the Utah staff with his old position. Everyone just wants Andy in their department! That's all there is to it.

The weather here in New York has been quite interesting. It has been raining more days than not since we've been here. And it makes it so hot and humid!! My hair has been slightly out of control! The curl is untamed, and along with it are the frizzies. I'm trying all sorts of creams and lotions to tame it, but it just may not work. I could have a perma-ponytail for the next couple years.

Kristi and I accepted Neovest's offer to move out to NYC and take a position in account management. It was the 3rd try by Neovest to get us out here, and finally it was the right deal. The timing was right, and it's tough to turn down an offer to double your salary, even if it is to move to NYC. Too bad I'm going to have to get a New Jersey driver's license - ugh! Not many things I can think of that I'd rather do less than stand in a DMV line in New Jersey.

The dirve out here was pretty uneventful, with one minor exception. To start, it was a 24' Ryder truck with the Passat on a trailer behind it. So that took some getting used to. And it was understandably gutless. But once we got out on the road, it went pretty smoothly. In a truck stop in eastern Illinois a friendly trucker pointed out that we were leaking axle oil on our rear passenger tire, and that we shouldn't really go too far like that. We kept on until Terre Haute, Indiana where we called Ryder to report the problem. They sent out a mechanic, and after about an hour and a half or so, we were on our way again.

Family and friends saved the day on that drive. Kristi's friends Leslie and Bobby offered to let us stay with them in Denver. Dave and Pam put us up in Kansas City. (Actually, it was just Pam, since Dave was still in Hawaii ... jerk.) And then we stayed in Columbus with Kristi's cousin Jennifer, and her husband Chad. Everyone was extremely gracious, and even provided us with snacks and lunches for our day's adventures. Thank you all so much!

Todd and Brandon helped us unload the truck in JC. Amazingly, everything made it here in great shape - nothing broken. There was an incident of a broken table during the move in, but it turns out we wouldn't have had room for it anyways, and it only cost 30 bucks to begin with. Let's hear it for Ikea! We are mostly moved in now - it actually looks like home at this point. Tomorrow will be our Ikea run to get the last few items we need to totally utilize our space. We have to be pretty creative since we are in a much smaller space with fewer storage options.

Work has been slow for us, though for different reasons. I simply don't have much to do yet. Kristi is tied to our VPN connection which has been MISERABLY slow, so it just takes her forever to get things done. We've got some ideas on how to solve it, but they are dependent on 2 or 3 different IT staffs, so we might be in trouble ;-)

Tonight will be our first attempt at relaxation. We're only going out to catch a flick, but hey, at least we're not rifling through boxes and hoping to find some unexplored nook or crannie of our apartment where we can hide that one last item.