Chatham New York

My boss has a country home in Chatham New York. So on Friday July 27th we took the day off and all drove up there. It was an awesome day and here are a few pictures to document the day.

The house is just spectacular. This is a view from the front.
This is a view from the back from across the pond.

The view (they have a 100 acres)

The door into the master bed room

the view from the dining, through the entry way, past the living room, into the sun room, and ending in a bedroom.

Sun room

stairs up to two bedrooms

living room

dance dance revolution game (Amy and Erika)

Playhouse

tennis court

dock on the pond (Morgan, Amy, Bethany)

Karen (Bill's wife) and Liza (Bill's youngest daughter) (Bill is the main boss)

Morgan, Karen and Saritza

Me, Bethany, Bill, Oliver, Alex, Erika, and AmyBeautiful pool and pool house

Joelle, Erika, and Doreen

Joelle and Morgan

Lucy (Bill's middle daughter) and Bill

Amy and Bethany

I love my new camera. The landscaping was amazing.

It was so peaceful and quiet. Such a nice day away from the city.

Bill's Ferrari

I got to go for a ride. It was crazy!

They have two beautiful sitting area off the back of the house. Both house couches and chairs. One is enclosed with screens and the other one is open air.

They have a row boat on their pond.

Tim

We barbecued steaks and corn and all sat together and had dinner.

It was Joelle's birthday so we celebrated with a Barbie cake. It was perfect

Almost a month later

I am sorry it has been almost a month since I have written. It has been a busy few weeks. A few of the things we did were: a day at the beach, fondue dinner at a restaurant call Dipped, work summer outing in Chatham NY, Ryan worked a part time job for three weeks, dinner at Daniel with my Aunt Vicki and Laurel, drinks at the Peninsula Hotel rooftop for my coworkers birthday (can I get a Sprite please ), and flying to Utah to try and help my Grandma and Grandpa. My Grandfather has Parkinson disease and about a month ago my Grandparents had travels to Logan Utah for a family reunion. While they were there my grandpa feel and broke two vertebrae in his neck. He had been in the ICU for three weeks. The doctors were not sure how much he could take so we went to see him help my Grandma. It has been an emotional rollercoaster and it is hard to see him going through this but he is amazing and I was so happy we went. They finally got him home to California last week but he still has a long road of recovery ahead of him. I am going to give more details about the past month with pictures.

Weekend Adventures

We had a wonderful weekend. It all started with us buying a new camera on Friday night. I will post pictures as soon as it is all up and running. To get the camera we took a little journey into Queens to go to Costco. I LOVE COSTCO. Saturday I was so proud of us because we got up around 9, got our junk together and went to the beach. (Usually on Saturdays we don't get up and going until noon.) We went to Long Beach and it was beautiful. The weather was perfect, the water temp was just right, and it wasn't too too crowded. We had a very relaxing day. Saturday night we went with a few friends to see the new Harry Potter. I am always a little disappointed because they are just not the books but they are always fun to see. I enjoy seeing how they visualise the book. Even though it is not as good as the book it was a great movie. After the move we went to Mozart's Cafe and had desert. Ryan and I shared a chocolate brownie sundae and it was delish. Sunday we went to church, took a nap and then went for a bike ride. (Now here is the real reason for this post...)
Ryan and I took a Sunday ride around Central Park. As we came around a corner I noticed a small family gathered around a large tree. There was a teenage boy standing right at the trunk of the tree with his right arm stretched up towards the branches. He was rubbing his fingers together as if he had a treat in his hand. About 8 inches above his hand on the tree was a small squirrel slowly inching his way down the tree head first. The entire family was watching and the dad was posed with his camera ready to snap the shot. When the squire was about 6 inches away he stopped but continued to watch this boys hand as it enticed him down from the tree. All of a sudden the squire JUMPED down onto the boys hand, the boy screamed, threw the squirrel on the ground, and preceded to hold his hand cry and run around.
1. Don't feed squirrels
2. if you are going to feed them have food in your fingers so when the squirrel bites down he bites down into the snack and not into your fingers.
3. Don't feed squirrels out of your hand.
4. Squirrels have rabies.
5. Don't do stupid things.

Bolo

Thursday night we went to dinner with my cousin Laurel to Bolo. It is a Bobby Flay restaurant and it was super yummy. It is Spanish style with tapas and dessert tapas. I am not a big fan of Spanish food (from Spain) but this was a bit Americanises and it was excellent. The atmosphere of the restaurant was also fun. I loved the bright colors.

Magical Walk

Sunday we went for a walk and instead of turning our usual left and going to the park we turned right and walked along the river. It was magical and a whole new part of the city that we never knew was there. At first we had the river on one side and FDR highway on the other side but as we walked further north we walked into a beautiful park and walkway the is above the highway. It was really a nice evening with people walking with their families and dogs. The best part about this walk was the fireflies were out. Ryan has never seen then and I have seen them once before and they are awesome. They are mesmerizing and I would watch them for hours. My co workers were shocked that we have never seen them before. Then they were shocked that we don't have fireflies in the west. (I wont get into it now but we have discovered that a lot of the people on the East coast are a little closed off about the rest of the United States. They seem to not realise that some things are different and New York is not the standard it is the exception.)

Transformers

I want to tell people about a strange phenomenon in New York. In Time Square there are two movie theaters that are cool, clean, and big. But there is some funny energy that is created in these theaters. Let me explain. I have never been in a theater where the crowd erupts into applause and cheering several time during the movie. Last night Ryan and I went to see Transformers. (Usually we try to stay away from movies created by Michael Bay, but we were celebrating Ryan's great GRE score and it is so stinking hot here we needed to get out of the heat.) The movie was action packet but the best part was the crowd. Every time Otimus Prime would say his name or every time the robot would transform the crowd would go nuts. It was really funny. And if this was the only movie this happened in then I would just caulk it up to the exciting action flic but about a week ago we saw Ratatouille and it was the same thing. It is so weird. I have been in a theater where people applaud at the ending or in a very important moment but never several times throughout the movie. It cracks me up. Oh yea and everyone should see Ratatouille it is really cute.

4th of July

Caitlin, Me and Jill
Half of the people in our apartment

Brad, Ryan, Cory, Dan

This was the first 4th of July in my memory where it was cold and rainy. It was a little sad because our great plans to go to the beach got thrown out the window but it was still a nice day. We had a ward doughnut breakfast in the park, then we had a nice relaxing day at home. In the evening we had 20 friends from our ward over for dinner. Surprisingly everyone fit in our little apartment and we had a great time. After dinner we went to another apartment building and watched the fireworks from the roof. Because it was a little cloudy and rainy the smoke got a little thick blocking our view but they were still pretty cool. Hopefully the view will be better next year.

Congrats

Anna (Ryan's Cousin) and her fiance Tim just sent out their save the date and set up a wedding website. This picture is courtesy of their site and it cracks me up. We are looking forward to their wedding at Tahoe next July.

Adventures with Kipp & Kyle

On June 20th Ryan's little brothers arrived in New York for a crazy week in the city. They are studying for the SAT and Ryan is studying for the GRE so the hope was that they would all study during the day and get out and about at night. I could have bet that flashcards would have stayed in their suitcases the entire time they were here. But I was wrong. I was very proud of them. But we also packed a lot of fun stuff in. On Thursday they recovered from their late flight and jet lag. Thursday night we went to dinner downtown at a little dinner in the West Village and enjoyed a cupcake from Magnolia. Those cupcakes are De-lish. Friday I took the half day off from work so at noon we went to a yummy Indian restaurant for lunch. We picked up the best cookies in the world form the Bouchon Bakery and enjoyed them in front of Radio City Music Hall.

After the great cookie we went to the taping of the Conan O'Brian show. It was totally different from the way it looks on TV but it was funny.
After the show we walked up 5th Ave and did a little shopping and the enjoyed the free night at the MOMA.

(Kipp)

(Kyle)

After the MOMA we walked and checked out some of the architecture on the upper east side. Then we enjoyed Papaya Dogs for dinner. Brad (a friend from our ward) just had a birthday so his wife Jill invited us and some other couples over for cake and ice cream. It was a very fun night. Saturday morning we had a hard time getting up and going so we didn't get to the beach until later in the day. But it was a nice after noon. The water was beyond cold but the beach was really nice.

(Long Beach)

(the train ride home)

After the beach we ran home, showered quickly, and jumped on the subway to go to the METS game. We were a little late but nothing had happened. It was 0-0 and already the 7th inning. So at the end of the 9th inning and the last 5 min of the game the METS scored and won the game. So we were a little sad we were late until we realise that we saw the only exciting thing that happened. The stadium was really cool and we had great views of the city. After the game we walked around Time Square and people watched which is always fun. Sunday we went to church and Kipp and Kyle helped us in the nursery. We came home had lunch and all fell asleep for 2 hours. Sunday afternoon we walked through the park and checked out the roller disco and drum circle and enjoyed the good weather.

Sunday was really nice. Monday the boys were super lazy and didn't get out of the house until I came home from work. After work we went to Canal street and walked around. We had dinner in little Italy which was really fun and then we went to see Ocean 13. Tuesday was our anniversary so Ryan walked them around the city during the day and we left them at home so we could go to dinner that night. Wednesday the walked around some more, went to the movies again, and we met up after work at Shake Shack for dinner.

I love that place. It is very good. It was super hot and muggy but it was nice to be in the park. We did some more shopping that evening and then went home early. They flew out early early Thursday morning. It was really fun to have them in town, I hope they had a good time.

One Great Anniversary

Ryan and I have a love for Mario Batali. So for our anniversary we decided to go to his main restaurant downtown. It is right next to Washington Square park and it is call Babbo. It was seven courses of yummy goodness.
starter: chick pea brochette yummy thing
1st course: prosciutto ham, cheese, and fiddleheads
2nd course: wide homemade paste, morel mushrooms, with a butter and sage sauce
3rd course: duck and goat cheese puree in a ravioli with a tomato sauce
4th course: small pieces of lamb with faba bean puree
cheese course: goat cheese with honey and fennel
5th course: a pear cake thing (sorry hard to explain)
6th course: a scoop of gelato covered in chocolate sprinkled with cookie crumbs
7th course: a warm molten chocolate cake, and Ryan had a lemon tart cake thing.
then they brought out 3 little cookies to try
It was a crazy amount of food but it was wonderful. I was a little worried about having the tasting menu because I know that Mario Batali makes some really crazy things. But I loved every bite (even the mushrooms and I don't like mushrooms). One of the hardest things about New York is that there are so many restaurants. You find one that you love but it is hard to go back because there are so many new ones to try. But Babbo is one restaurant that we might have to go back too.

June 26th

Three years ago today was the big day. Happy anniversary

Houston

We have been pretty busy which is my lame excuse for not posting lately. So I am going to try and catch everyone up to speed. On June 13th Ryan and I flew to Houston to see my parents and big sister. It was a great trip and the best part was seeing how well my dad was doing. We did a lot of watching tv and relaxing, but we also drove around Houston, saw the temple, went for walks, watched the US Open, watched the sun set, watched the rain and lightning, played Yahtzee, and went to dinner. It was so fun to be together. It is hard to be so far away from family sometimes. Two days after we got back Ryan's little brothers come to visit us. They are still here so I will post on Thursday about all the fun stuff we have done.

Another Weekend update

I need to start posting in the middle of the week because I only seem to add things after the weekend. Oh well. We had a nice weekend filled with doggy sitting. Remember the the little dog we watched a few weeks ago. Well we had her all weekend. She is pretty cute and it was a little sad to say good bye but it was nice not having her wake us up last night. Friday night we went to dinner and a movie with my cousin. We went to an Italian restaurant that had good food but strange waiters and then we went to see Shrek 3. Which I though was great. I really enjoyed it. Saturday we slept in and enjoyed a lazy Saturday. We went to a farmers market right near our house and walked though a street fair that was ran up 1st Ave. Sunday we had a nice day at church. My dad was released as Bishop after almost 8 years and the bishop in our New York ward was released on the same day. It was actually really special and helped me not feel so far away from home. We are getting really excited for Wednesday because we get to go to Houston and see mom and dad. I will post pictures of our doggy weekend as soon as I download them.

New Look

I sometimes get very frustrated with Mr. Blog because I see everyone creative blogs and I want mine to look cool also. So Ryan and I sat down the other night to give our blog a new look. This is a picture of Florence when we were there two years ago. I am going to keep playing with the options on Blogger.

Under Construction

We have been playing with our little blog and are still trying to work out a few issues out. But hopefully in the future it will be looking nice again.

Weekend update

It was a nice weekend but it went by too fast. Friday night we went to a Persian restaurant around the corner. It was super yummy. It is really fun to try new things. Saturday was very exciting. We ventured into Queens and went to Costco. I LOVE COSTCO and I miss it. After we discovered they didn't have the air conditioner we wanted we wandered around and had a hot dog for good old times. It is starting to get really hot in New York so went to the movies on Saturday night. We saw Pirates of the Caribbean. It wasn't great but better than the second and the ac was blasting. Sunday we went to church and relaxed for the evening. I worked a little on my painting that is slowly coming along and a new skirt pattern that i bought and Ryan went home teaching. Now it is Monday again, it is pouring down rain, and the ceiling in our bathroom is leaking. It has been a rough start to the week. I hope it get better. Oh yea and my cousin Laurel who lives in the city just got a promotion at her work and she is moving to London on July 1st. I am super excited for her but I would be lying if I didn't say I am a little sad. But Ryan and I are now hoping to plan a trip to London and Finland in the late summer early fall.

Flat Iron Building

I forgot to add Ryan's awesome picute of the Flat Iron Building

Memorial Day Weekend

We have almost experience New York in every season of the year and by far spring is the best. The weather has been amazing which make life just that much more pleasant. It also makes you want to get out of our apartment and see New York. We didn't have anything really exciting planned for the weekend but I was proud of us because we went and did new things. Friday was a quiet day which was really nice because we were exhausted from being up all night with the barking dog. Ryan walked the dog to the office so we could hand the dog off to my boss and so Ryan and I got to go to lunch. We went to a really yummy inexpensive restaurant called Eatery. I got off of work early but we took it easy and watched old Scrubs episode.
Rusty (Ryan's little brother) loves the show but we haven't really watched it until we borrowed the first season and we are hooked. It is pretty funny. Or maybe we just really like it because we are starved for TV. We don't have a TV so sometime we miss watching it. We went to bed early on a Friday night the first time in a long time. Saturday morning we woke up and got a few little thing done like laundry, buy an air conditioner, and buy little thing that we needed like soap. Saturday night we went to a play that had only been open for a few weeks and now it is closing. It is call Coram Boy and it was amazing. It did really well in London but it is pretty dark so I guess the New York crowd didn't like it. We went with one of my work friends Morgan and one of her friends Josh. We had a really fun night. We hung out in Time Square after and man are there some crazy people out there. Sunday we went to church and relaxed the rest of the day. I loved knowing that I didn't have to go to work the next day. I think every weekend should be a three day weekend. My cousin Laurel came over for dinner and the start of a movie. Then we all started falling asleep. Monday we slept in which is always fun and had a fun day downtown. We walked around Soho which we really haven't done. I found a fabric store that I really wanted to visit called Purl Soho and it was as cute as it looks in the pictures. We wandered up to NYU area and walked around. Everyone was out and about because of the good weather and it was nice to just walk around. We walked through Washington Square Park and then hopped on the subway and headed up for another 15 blocks to the Flat Iron district.

We had a wonderful lunch at the Shake Shack. It is a Danny Meyer restaurant that serves hamburgers, hot dogs, and shakes. (He owns many of the best restaurant in New York.)

I have been wanting to go for a long time but it is always super busy. But when we walked by it wasn't to long of a line. The food was great and the best part is that it is really cheep for New York. It is on Madison Square Park so we sat outside under all the trees and it was wonderful.

After dinner we rode the bus all the way up Madison ave. We enjoy riding the bus because one the are cleaner and two we get to see the run streets of New York. It was a great weekend.

Doggy Sitting

Thursday night we doggy sat my bosses dog. Her name is Moxi and she is a toy poodle. She is pretty funny but not so funny when she was awake and barking at 3 in the morning.

The Best Concert Ever

On Monday night Ryan and I went to one of the best concerts I have ever been to. His name is Damien Rice and he played at Radio City Music Hall. It was an outstanding performance. His vocals were incredible, the staging was cool, the music was great. It was one of those performances that was so good that now his CDs don't sound as good. It was a fun night out with my little Ryan.

A little show we call The Office

I am so sad that the Office is over for the summer. So this post is a tribute to the show that I love. For those who don't watch it, you need to. It was a great season finale.

The weekend with the Bailey's

We had a wonderful weekend. My aunt and uncle came into town this past weekend to visit my cousin and they invited us out for Friday and Saturday. We had a really nice time. It was great to see them and catch up. We went to dinner on Friday night at the MET opera house. Then we went to the Ballet. It was beautiful. I can't remember the name right now but I will look it up. The dancing to exquisite. The run part was during intermission we went back up to the restaurant (the ballet and the restaurant are in the same building) and had our dessert. It was very civilised. On Saturday we went to dinner at The Modern. It is the restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art. The food was amazing. The reservations were at 5:30 and we didn't leave until 9:00. It was a long dinner but we didn't even notice. With great food and even better company we didn't even notice the time. It was very nice thank you Steve and Vicki.

Mother's Day

I have a lot to catch up on. So I will have to post a few times today. For mother's day weekend we went home to Reno for a few days and it was WONDERFUL. It was such a fiasco getting there but once we were there we had a great time. It was really nice to be with the Stodtmeisters. Saturday we watched Kyle in his track meet, we went to a wedding, ate yummy Mexican food, and enjoyed mom and dad's new jacuzzi. Sunday we got to talk to both of Ryan's brothers who are on their missions, we went to church, had dinner at Ryan's aunt Rhonda's house, and watched family videos. Monday we decided to stay and extra day so we could run errands, be with the family a little longer, and watch more family videos. It was a really great weekend. It is good to because we got to see Nicole and Chris. We were sad that Mom and Dad were in Houston but we are glad that Dad is doing so well.

Robin Hood Benefit

Last Thursday everyone at my office went to one of the biggest benefits I have ever seen. The foundation is call Robin Hood and its goal is to stop poverty... "to significantly affect people living in poverty you have to attack its root causes. That’s why Robin Hood focuses on poverty prevention through programs in early childhood, youth, education, jobs and economic security." (from their website). It is an amazing foundation and all money raised goes 100% to the foundation. Last Thursday was their large benefit and it was amazing. There were over 4,500 people and the majority of them were very very wealthy. It started with cocktails and Hors d'œuvre while people wandered around large castles and tents constructed out of famous New York coffee cups. Then they moved us into the dinning area.

(Bethany, Morgan, and Me)

(We all match, kind of funny)

Dinner was fun to all sit and chat. After dinner they talked about the foundation and started the auction. Robin Hood raises their money by auctioning off large packages of goodies. (example: one of the packages was a trip to the 2008 Olympics in China and along with that you get to do all sort of fun things and stay in cool places. That went for $2.2 million). It was crazy so see people dropping that much money. It is wonderful because it is all going to a great cause but it is still crazy. Jon Stewart was the MC and there was an actual auctioneer. All in all the foundation raised $72 million last Thursday night. WOW. What an amazing cause. After to finish the evening Aerosmith played for about and hour. They would not be my first choice in bands to see but it was still fun rock out. It was a magical night. So Surreal. It is a blast to spend time with the people I work with outside of the office. Everyone is great and we all have a really fun time together.

Great Adventure

April 26th was a day this will go down in my books. Great Adventure is a Six Flags amusement park in New Jersey and on April 26th our company took over. The park was closed to the public but was open to our company and our 400 closest friends. It was unbelievable. This is how the day went...
The bus picked us up in the city around 1:00pm and the adventure began. When we arrived in the park there were a total of 4 buses and 7 cars in the parking lot. It was empty. It was crazy.

There was a small ribbon cutting ceremony. The tall man in the grey sweater is my boss. The little girl in the pink stripes is his daughter Lucy. She helped cut the ribbon and it took a little effort.

Me and Bethany

All the Loony Toon characters were there. Here is the crazy part everything was open and everything was FREE. The food... FREE. The games...Free. The pictures...Free. It was so fun. We had ice cream, Cotton candy, more ice cream, popcorn, more ice cream and really anything we could get our hands on.

Me, Morgan, and Bethany

We went from ride to ride and it was almost creepy how quiet it was at the park. Sometimes you wouldn't even see other people. It was deserted. But it was super fun.

Morgan on the bumper cars

It is embarrassing to say but I almost got sick to my stomach. I guess I am getting old. After about 8 roller coasters I was done for the evening. I also learned to appreciate lines because it gives my stomach time to settle down and get ready for the next ride.

We had an awesome special concert just for us. It was Ali and Ajay. (Don't worry I didn't know who they were either, Disney special) They are sisters that sing and play instruments. After the concert we ran around and played as many games as we could and carried home arm fulls of oversizes stuffed animals.

The end of the day was topped off with a fire works display. It was a perfect ending.