Clarify

I want to clarify something in my last post. I meant when your talking to people who are casual friends. It would be unhealthy to only say positive things all the time but you should only say not so good things to your close friends or family. I just think sometimes we say bad things about the people we love to people we don't know all that well that was the prompting for the last post.

My birthday and a random though

It was my birthday last week and I got to celebrate for several days. The weekend before we went to West Yellowstone with Brandon's family and I couldn't have asked for a better trip. The boys went fishing while we girls went shopping, to the West Yellowstone museum and into the park for a day. Our day in the park was so relaxing and fun. We had huckleberry ice cream and hung out at the old faithful inn after a yummy lunch and i bought a christmas ornament and an adorable stuffed fox. I have a stuffed animal problem. Im not afraid to admit this problem I've loved them my whole life. Sometimes it takes everything i have not to buy them and sometimes I give in and buy myself a birthday present stuffed fox. On my actual birthday Brandon and i went to dinner and then to Costco so we could buy a coffee table book with pictures of the west with little stories about the picture. I really like it. Next weekend we're celebrating my moms Brandon's and my birthday.

Now for my random thought. I have a friend who wrote a very positive blog post about her new baby. At first i sort of thought oh come on it cant be so great but then i thought shes really great for posting this. Why dont more of us say positive things about the things and people we love the most. Obviously she mentioned it wasnt always easy but at least she was grateful and positive. Before we got married everyone told me how terrible marriage is that i actually wrote a list of all the things i love about brandon so that if it got as bad as everyone said it is then i would always remember why i love my husband. Guess what, it never got bad, so why do we always say negative things. Is it because we dont want to be the person who says my life is great? Is it because were truly unhappy? If thats the case then im sorry but heres my thought, maybe if we see someone is happy we shouldn't say negative things just because we are not. anyway thats my thought for the day. We should all (myself included) try to say good and positive things about the people we love even if they are bugging us :-)

Small update

We're back in Pocatello yay! well maybe not the whole pocatello part but were back out west, YAY!! Just kidding I'm actually growing to like Pocatello. I got my same job back so it's back to work for me and back to school for Brandon. I'm liking working again but do sort of miss having an entire summer off. Since we got back we've been visiting family and getting settled back in. We went to the lake with Hansens and Streators, went hiking and to dinner with my family, went to Wendover for a random short trip where all we really did was see the big cowboy eat dinner and drive home and bought a Costco membership. I feel more grownup by buying a Costco membership than anything else thus far. I really like shopping there, I don't think its saved us money because I like shopping there so much I buy stuff we don't need. We were going to Costco like 3 nights a week just for fun but I think that's tapering off now. That's about all we've been up to, I've been trying to lap swim before work but I'm lucky to get there once a week. It's tough getting up at six AM to work out. I wish my body would remember how much I love how I feel after swimming when I wake up to go swimming. I've been trying to start playing my violin again and I've been loving painting even though I'm really awful at it. I got some books from the library that will hopefully bring my skill level equal to the desire I have to paint and if that doesn't work I might take a class in October :). I'm reminded of a quote from the movie Amadeus where the man says why would god implant the desire and then deny me the talent. I keep telling myself as long as I'm having fun thats all that matters but it would be nice to paint something that looks good. My painting actually looks good but I can't seem to make it look 3D or pop from the page, it just doesn't look like the mountain scene I'm trying to paint. It does in the sense that there is a nice mountain scene but not in the sense that it's a canyon and it should have depth etc. Anyway hopefully mo\y books will help a little.

The friend date

Tomorrow I'm going on a friend date. I'm more nervous for my friend date than any date I went on with a boy. It seems like once you get married, meeting new friends is like dating all over again. Usually one of you finds a person you like and then hope that your spouses will like each other too. It's dating but instead of two people you have to find four compatible people. Usually it's best to choose a neutral activity like dinner, or dessert and games to test the waters before you try and spend a whole day with them or maybe even go on vacation together. Normally Brandon and I don't participate much in the friend dating ritual. We like to hang out with each other, that's half the reason we got married so we could always have a friend and someone to spend time with. We usually just hang out with our families if we need friends, it's safe and I know I like my family. Anyway about a month ago a new couple moved in to our ward in a very similar situation to ours, they will just be here for a few  months on an internship and the wife isn't working. it would then follow suit that she and I should hang out because we're in the same boat, Great right? Only problem with that is I tend to be a loner, I like to go places by myself (or with my family members) so I can do whatever I want. I'm also slightly awkward around new people especially since I got married because I don't have to try all the time to meet people. I honestly don't mind doing things by myself but I have been a little lonely this summer so I decided that it really will be fun to hang out with her and it will be good to get some interaction. Ever since that decision I've been feeling like a man planning a date. I worked up the courage to finally ask her to hang out, then I had to plan the friend date and now I'm all nervous about it. We're going on a food tour which is combination history tour of a certain area and then eating from local restaurants. Now I feel like maybe I chose the wrong activity, what if she's a picky eater and doesn't like different foods? what if we decide to share something on the tour how will we pay for it? What if the tour ends and we still have time before we meet our husbands, will we keep hanging out, what will we do? What if we have nothing in common? What should we do if everything is going well and we'd like to keep hanging out? Is this what its like for a man planning a date??? If so I'm so terribly sorry for you, its very scary. I really don't know why I'm so nervous, I'm sure it will be perfectly fine and we'll have a lot of fun, she wouldn't have said she wanted to come if she didn't think it would be fun right? I'm excited and antsy all at the same time so wish me luck, I'll have to follow up with a post on how it goes. 

Some things we've been up to

I'm going to call this good for our entire trip here :) and just let the pictures tell what we've been doing. It's extreme opposite of the last post I did with no pictures and a long list of things we've done. Just pretend I'm a legit blogger and I put them all in one post and it's really cool ;). These aren't really in order I just thought they were fun pictures that show what we've been up to.

Battery Park: the globe that used to be in the world trade center plaza is in the background as well as the new world trade center, the tallest bluish building.

Awesome cemetery in Brooklyn which was huge and the coolest cemetery I've ever seen. It had several famous people buried there like Boss Tweed. I'm a history nerd, I think stuff like that is cool while everyone else is probably saying who the heck is Boss Tweed.

Zoo trip

I wish I could have gotten this gorrilla sticking his tongue out. Every time someone would come up to look at them he would stick his tongue out

Love Madame Alexander at FAO Schwarz

Lego Jack at FAO Schwarz

Pond in Central Park where they do all the boat races

Random tall ship we found while wandering around

on the tram to Roosevelt Island

I went to Hoboken NJ for no other reason than I could. While there I saw the birthplace of Frank Sinatra, the cake boss site, awesome playground and pier walk, great views of the city, the first official baseball game site, and pretty houses and streets, it was surprisingly a lot of fun.

Hamilton Mansion

Anniversary celebration at Radio City Music Hall seeing Cirque Du Soleil's Zarkana. It was a ton of fun

Red Panda from the Bronx Zoo, my favorite zoo animal, well close race with polar bear I just couldn't get a good picture

Coney Island

View of the City from Brooklyn

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Princess Castle at the Disney Store in Times Square

Belvedere Castle in Central Park

Roller Blading in Central Park

Grove apartments which was part of my walking tour. These were once servants quarters

Michelle visits and we had Hot and Crusty Bagels which were super yummy

911 Memorial

Grimaldis pizzeria

Brooklyn Promenade

I just thought this picture was cute :)

We rode the Central Park carousel

Super amazing fancy lunch we got lucky to get

Coney Island again.
That's just a few pictures that show the fun stuff we've been doing. That being said we are so so so ready to come home :)

Momma comes to visit

Last week my mom came to visit for 10 days (8 full days 2 half flying days) She got in late Wednesday night due to crappy flight delays so even though she payed extra to get in early that day it did not work out. We did a lot of things I had already done but we also got to do a few things I (and Brandon for some of it on the night and weekends) hadn't seen yet.

We saw Alexander Hamilton's grave and the historical sites of the Financial District

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was way better than I expected it to be, I sort of envisioned walking around for hours staring at endless pieces of art but As you can see it was lots of artifacts, furniture, musical instruments, artwork, statues, carvings and much more. It was also absolutely huge! we spent about 5 hours there and we missed an entire wing plus we hurried through the rest of it. I think you could spend the entire 5 hours in one exhibit. They had Egyptian, Asian, American, European, Island art/artifacts and that's not even half of it.

We had a visit from my cousins and we went to Coney Island where the Kiddies took a few rides and we all had a blast watching them. We went to Toys R Us in times square which isn't as fun as comparable stores like FAO Schwarz or the Disney store but it was still fun, just busy and a little overwhelming. After that we got some dinner and some yummy cheesecake and walked up to Central Park to enjoy some outdoor and treat time. We are glad they have free flights and were able to join us for a day in the big city.

This is when we went to the statue of liberty and Ellis Island

I really enjoyed the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It always seems like you can get a good enough view because you can see it all over the city but there's really nothing like getting right up next to it. Ellis Island was super cool but by the time we were done we were exhausted because like everything else in this city it's HUGE

We went to Economy Candy, this picture doesn't do it justice because it is floor to ceiling candy. Imagine the background of this picture but an entire store of it where you can barely move because it's so full of candy. As you may have guessed this trip with my mom was all about treats. We spent about 20 bucks on candy here and then proceeded to the Italian pastry store in little Italy where we spent another 20 bucks on amazing pastries. Economy candy is fun because it's not a tourist destination so the candy is decently priced unlike the candy sections of FAO Schwarz and Toys R Us etc.

holding our loot

we saw the narrowest house in NYC. Look closely and you'll see in between the white door and the brown one a small black door which starts the narrowest house and then follow it up and you can see the edges. I found this in a book (thanks Michelle) which has self guided walking tours that I've loved going on because its all about history and the sights of NY you would only have time to see if you have two months with nothing to do but see NYC.

we did the big piano at FAO Schwarz

 We visited Dylan's candy Bar which is a giant candy store much like the stores you would find in Times Square but its not in Times Square. It's all about the decorations and overly priced candy. It had soda fountain and ice cream shop upstairs with these cool cupcake booths

I love the game Cut the Rope and found this giant stuffed Om Nom. Knowing my love for stuffed animals I thought it best to just get a picture so I didn't have to spend a mint on this guy.

We went to the Bronx Zoo and saw these weird warthog guys. This zoo trip wasn't as fun as when I went the first time because it was much more crowded and took forever. We couldn't even see some of the animals because it was so crowded. Kind of a bummer but I love zoo's so much it didn't really matter :)

We rode the bug carousel (my mom hates grasshoppers hence the face)

We saw Grant's tomb in Harlem and went to the Hamilton Mansion which is the home of Alexander Hamilton (Brandon and I checked it out earlier and I thought my mom would love it so we went back)

Lastly we went to Grimaldis and ate pizza and went to the Brooklyn Promenade which offers this awesome view of the city.

We did lots of other stuff too and ran ourselves ragged running all over the City. Now if I could just post the pictures from Michelle's visit and the rest of our pictures I'd be sitting pretty, alas I tend to be lazy so it might not happen. I think I might have the gumption to do one more post with things Brandon and I have been doing.