New York CIty

Michelle and I spent a few days with my cousins Abbie, Claire, and Alysson. We got to their place in Brooklyn on Wednesday night. We spent the day with all of them and a few of their good friends on Thanksgiving. Michelle and I took the subway to Times Square and walked around Manhattan on Thursday night. On Friday, we slept in and went to the Museum of Modern Art. To our surprise, Friday is "Free Night" at that museum. We had to wait in a long line, but we got to go for free. As a bonus, there was a Van Gogh exhibit that we got to see. We got to see a several of Van Gogh's paintings, some of them famous and some of them not so well-known probably. To be honest, the only Van Gogh painting I recognized was Starry Night. There is a picture of Michelle next to a Picasso painting and me in front of a bunch of Campbell's soup paintings. I am not sure who drew the soup cans, but I thought it was interesting. There were some interesting pieces of art at this museum. We also walked around Rockefeller Center and went inside the NBC store. We left to drive home late on Friday night and arrived a few hours later. We had a great time. It was nice to see my cousins. I hadn't seen them in over a year i think. Michelle and I had a great time just spending the time together.

Thanksgiving in NYC!

Michelle and I are going to drive to New York City tomorrow to spend Thanksgiving with the family we have out here on the East Coast. There are not a lot of us, but we are going to be together. I have cousins who live right in NYC, and another cousin who goes to school in Virginia. So we will all be together. We have family a little but further west in Ohio as well but unfortunately that is just a little too far for us to travel this year. I haven't been to NYC for a while. It should be a lot of fun. Michelle and I are excited to spend the long weekend together. She is planning on "sleeping in" because she doesn't have to work. I hope she does get to sleep at least a little but I am afraid there might be so much going on that she might not get to. It should be a lot of fun. Last time Michelle and I were in NYC was just for a day while we were interns in DC. That is where this picture is from. I just looked a little closer at that picture of us from the Statue of Liberty and I realized that i need to lose some weight. I have put on a few pounds since the time that picture was taken, hehe.

Winter's Here!

The Syracuse winter we have heard so much about is finally here. A lot of people have told us about how miserable and awful it is with freezing temperatures, winds, and more snow than most cities in the U.S. Others have told us it's really not that bad. We are about to find out and I hope it's really not that bad (although my instinct tells me that compared to the mild Boise and Provo winters I'm going to freeze). It started snowing a few days ago and it has snowed every day since then. The city changed from fall to a winter wonderland overnight. There is about 6 inches of snow on the ground and everywhere you look trees, cars, lawns, etc. are covered. I'm guessing this is how Syracuse will look for the next four to five months. So far it's just pretty and I haven't minded scraping the snow off the car and the cold too much. The good news is there are supposed to be lots of fun places to sled around here, so that will be fun!

Ouch

Ouch. Anyone who watched the BYU Utah football game knows what I am talking about. It was fun watching it with our friends at least. There are a surprisingly (a pleasant surprise that is) lot of BYU alumni out here. A bunch of us got together at one of our friends house to watch the game on a projector. We had a god time. There is always next year I suppose.

Harry Potter

We checked out the first book of the Harry Potter series from the library and last night we started reading it. Well...I started reading it...out loud to Michelle...until she fell asleep :) Michelle works very hard and wakes up early to go to work so I had a feeling she might not stay awake very long. I got about half way through the first chapter and to where Dumbledore was walking down the Dursely's street and then I could just tell she had fallen asleep. It was kind of cute. We will just have to resume reading a little bit earlier in the evening or afternoon when we read again. I would like to get really into the Harry Potter series because so many people have said they are so good. Even though they wouldn't probably be my first choice otherwise (i am not really into that genre of books generally). Again though, so many people have recommended them that i think i would like them.

Big Brain Academy

We have this game on the Nintendo Wii called Big Brain Academy. Its one of those games where you have to solve puzzles, memorize things, visualize things, calculate things, etc. It is a lot of fun and you have to think had while playing. I bought the game for Michelle almost a year ago now actually, I ave it to her for a Christmas present last year. We have periodically gotten really into it for a couple weeks or maybe a month and then just kind of stopped playing it altogether. Right now i would say is a time where we are really into it. There are all kinds of games and competitions. I don't think it would be possible to ever master the whole game...there are so many different activities on it. There are a couple head to head competitions though that Michelle and I really enjoy the most. One is like a race to see who can solve all the problems (or beat all the games) the quickest. Michelle and I have a fun time trying to beat each other. Of course it is all in good fun though and we both laugh a lot and whatnot. Here is a picture of me focusing really hard while playing a couple nights ago. I will put some video footage up of us playing so you can all get the real effect of what this game is like.

Halloween Fun

After going to the pumpkin farm, Chad and I carved our big pumpkin for Halloween. It was a lot of fun. I forgot how much gunk is inside pumpkins. It took so long to get it out! We decided to make it a happy pumpkin and I think it turned out well. We also made gourmet caramel apples on Sunday. My family made them and sold them at the farmer's market one year, so I wanted to share them with Chad. We decorated them with white and milk chocolate and nuts. Chad didn't think it was going to work when I started to melt the caramel. He does have too much confidence in my candy making skills due to some earlier mistakes. He was very happily surprised though that they turned out great. They were a lot of fun to make and so yummy! They are so hard to eat though! Chad demonstrates in the video below. We loved them so much we made more the next day.