Vacation preview

Photo Dump III

                       
Paul's brother Stephen was in Utah, so they ran a 5k together.

                                

    

This is my adorable niece watching the race with me

For our first anniversary, we stayed at a bed and breakfast in Huntsville.  It was only 45 minutes away, but it felt like a whole new country. No smog! Snow that is actually pretty! A whole valley free of freeways and factories! The place we stayed at was super rad. It's run by this semi-retired California beach volleyball player who is living the dream by running the bed and breakfast in the mornings, and skiing and hanging with all his friends that fly out to visit for the rest of the day. He skis every day. Inspiration.

We mostly hung out at the place, playing pool, eating, and watching The Empire Strikes Back. We also went snowshoeing. It was breathtaking, with fresh snow, beautiful views, and hardly anyone around.

                            

We also went out for barbecue, which I should have taken a picture of, because it. was. unbelievable.

I was so grateful we chose Huntsville for our anniversary.  I had wanted to try and go somewhere warm, because I was so sick of winter in Utah.  I hated it. This was not helped by the fact that the morning before we left, I got hit by a car sliding out of control on the icy freeway.  But even though our beloved car was totaled and my mouth was full of glass, I didn't have so much as a scratch. And insurance payed for everything, including an awesome rental car! It all shook me up pretty badly, though, and left me longing for the day when we could move far away from Utah winters.  But instead of escaping it, we ended up in in the beautiful Ogden Valley. Waking up to gorgeous snowglobe snow falling outside the window, eating lazy warm breakfasts, taking beautiful hikes, and driving through gorgeous canyons ended up being the perfect solution. There were people at our place from all over the world, totally thrilled at the landscape and weather. How cool to live only forty-five minutes away.

Photo Dump II

Other highlights from the beginning of the year:

We ran a Valentine's Day 5k.  It was my first one, and I was a little apprehensive, because I have studiously avoided running with Paul at any time. I did bike with him once while he ran, which just goes to show our athletic differences.  I wasn't sure if I was mad or relieved when he sped off into the distance at the beginning of the race, but he finished quickly and came back and jogged with me for my second half. It was perfect. And I got to eat most of his prize.

Date night at home:

I was so happy when it started to be sunny again.

I learned that unless you love shoveling snow, north-facing houses are the pits. Not a speck of snow on the south side.

Dinner with some awesome friends. This is the picture that made me think that I should consider doing my hair a little more often.

Photo Dump

Today I'm going through my camera photos. May is the perfect time to post Christmas photos, right?

I met Grandma Russell on our drive out to Virginia:

 Matthew had bought all the guys bow-ties for Christmas, and they spent an afternoon learning how to tie them (Note: Paul didn't want to change his shirt, so he looked rather ridiculous, which I think he enjoyed).  This turned into a family photo-taking extravaganza.

Tomatoes and Boo Radley

First, there can never be enough garden tomatoes. But the (pre-existing) garden at our new place is doing very respectably.  The Watsons haven't left on their mission yet, so we had held off pillaging, but this week they kindly gave us free rein.  HOLY COW, so many delicious cherry tomatoes.  Those little things are some  of my favorite snacks.  They are the perfect mix of sweet and fresh, crunchy and juicy, don't produce any crumbs (although the risk of tomato geysers is an ever-present issue), don't make you feel gross in twenty minutes, and are right on the line between salty and sweet. In other words, they are the perfect airplane food.  Another aside about tomatoes: when you compare the garden to the store-bought, the store-bought are not good. Not even "kind of lame," but in a side-by-side comparison, store-bought might be described as gross. But you have to forget about that comparison most of the year.

So naturally, our Friday night meal revolved around tomatoes. We made crispy cheese ravioli (all time favorite), with a garlic, cherry tomato, balsamic vinaigrette,  and basil sauce.  We also had big slices of tomatoes that were roasted with mozzarella and parmesan on the top.  So yummy. After that, we watched "To Kill a Mockingbird."  We hardly ever watch movies together (I can probably count them on one hand), but last week we went crazy on the library website (my hold list keeps getting longer).  I've been re-reading that book, but had never seen the movie.  First off, what an amazing book.  It's almost cliche, how good it is.  I haven't read it in a few years, so every page was just unfamiliar enough that it was just as much of a delight as it was the first time. I finished it late the night before, just in time.  The movie was pretty good, too. The book was better, surprise. Spending time with Paul was the really wonderful thing. Turns out "dinner and a movie" is kind of great.

Random highlights

Shake Shack, before Potted Potter.  No, we don't eat oatmeal with our hamburgers.  It's ice cream, and it was delicious. 

Along the High Line.

Blurry monochromatic books at the Film Biz prop store.

Whenever I'm out of bed before he leaves, Paul makes the bed. 

I love him. 

Hello again!

Isn't it sad that when my life gets more full, I feel like I don't have time to write about it? Like, for instance, my engagement and wedding? Big mistake. I've worked on fixing that a little bit. . . a very little bit, in all honesty. But yesterday I decided that I was not going to let that happen to this little month of my life, which has been shaping up quite beautifully.  No pictures of my own yet, sorry. The reason for that is part of the adventure, I guess.  This is going to be one of those journaling-for-myself posts, not a what-a-cute-blog posts. I'm sorry, I hate those too.  But hopefully the little devil-thought that someone else who is not my distant offspring may read this will keep me on track with actually explaining things in a clear way, and help me refrain from other weird tendencies of my middle school journal days (so many emotions! so much boring stuff!).  I just read that last really long sentence and decided that "explaining things in a clear way" can be one of those long-term goals, because it's not happening so much in the short term. 

I'm in New York! Sort of.  I'm actually in New Jersey, in the house of the friends we're staying with, sitting on an ornate brass bed. Maybe I'll take a picture of it someday. In the meantime, picture this:

                                    Only ours is much prettier, and doesn't have the canopy thing. 

This little town has a nice little train station with lots of direct trains into Penn Station, so that's where we've spending most of our time.  Paul is doing a month of work training downtown, and I am enjoying summer vacation.  I arrived here last week with my brother David, who stayed for a couple days.  He is pretty much the ideal traveling companion, by the way. I highly recommend him.  He left on Friday, and Paul and I got to party in the city over the weekend.  It was great. We went to the last temple endowment session before it closed for cleaning, ate pizza, did a little bit of shopping, and walked through Central Park, which is particularly lovely on a Saturday early evening.  However, I think that eating ice cream from the tub and watching Food Network in the hotel room may have been the part I enjoyed the most.  Funny how life is. 

This dude won two episodes in a row.  All-star episodes, at that.  

Sunday was. . .interesting.   The big take-away was  that I left my purse on the train.  Contents of purse included:  iTouch (our only camera for the first three months of marriage, that I haven't been able to back up), cell phone, meds, my favorite pair of sunglasses, and my wallet (i.d., cash, hundreds of dollars in gift cards).  Yeah. It was nice to have a husband who could talk to lost and found offices without  a voice that would get perpetually higher and occasionally sob-hiccup-breathe.  One of the results was that instead of going into the city on Monday, I stayed at the house. I wasn't loving the idea of going into the city without a phone when the lost and found office could call Paul at any minute, who could then email me. It gave me a chance to do laundry and other sundry things that had been piling up (such as a couple episodes of certain television shows). Finally. . . .ta-da! "The pocketbook that you put in a request for has been returned."  Wait, what? Pocketbook? What does that word even mean? Turns out, according to the internet, pocketbook definitely means purse, not wallet, which cleared up a misconception both Paul and I had. Learn something new every day. Anyway, its return was definitely an answer to prayer.  Let the Amy-partying-in-NYC-during-the-day-by-herself adventures begin!