Well, we made it...

We have arrived! We flew in to New Jersey late Saturday night (Feb 28) and spent the night at a hotel near our new apt. What did we wake up to the next morning?! SNOW! After leaving 65 and sunny, warm weather we were immediately confronted by the cold. What a welcome. At church we met some very nice people. It was such a small ward that we really stood out and many friendly people came and introduced themselves. One quite funny story was that the first couple that introduced themselves, upon hearing we were from California proceeded to tell us they knew someone from California. As you all know California is HUGE. The lady said the person they knew was from Oroville...Oroville! Of all places. Of all the little cities in the whole state of California, she knew someone from the itty bitty city I grew up in. Crazy! So The family they were related to in Oroville is from my home stake, and my family knows their family. What a small world!
After church we checked out of the hotel and we were homeward bound, at least to our new home. It's a nice two bedroom apt on the 2nd floor of a house. The only problem is that the heating is on the bottom floor, so we have to heat the entire house before it warms in our apt! But we really do like the house. I will post pictures as soon as we get our stuff. Right now all we have is an air mattress, blankets, and clothes! Ahh, the simple life. Yesterday, we woke up to 6 new inches of snow and it snowed most of the day! What is a California girl to do?! I'll tell you what, I stayed in bed a lot of the day. Yes, I am a lazy and cold person. Today there is no snow, except the leftover of yesterday, and the temperature is only 14 degrees! How will we survive? We are excited for our new adventures here, but want warmer weather IMMEDIATELY! Check back to see if we survive the harsh cold of the East.

Cowtown meets NYC...

Vacaville vs. NYC. If you concentrate and look really hard, you can distinguish between the two.

As many of you already know, Allie and I have already spent 8 months in Vacaville, which means it is time for my next job transfer. We are being sent to the cold, cold, cold, east coast state of NJ. Although its a little different than California, we're looking forward to the new adventures to come. On v-day weekend, Allie and I did a little apt. hunting, then spent the rest of the time enjoying the signts of NYC.

This was our hotel, just 2 blocks from times square. You gotta love Hotwire. We also got a super deal from Lindsey, who works for Marriott--thanks Linds!! Be sure to let us know when your in need of Band-aids or tylenol...we'll hook you up!!

On Sunday, we were able to meet up with some friends from our BYU married ward. Morgen and Taylor, who are NYC pros, were so kind to take us to thier ward and feed us lunch. This is the Mormon church that we went to on Sunday. It may look a little Catholic because the church bought the building from the Catholic church--and made a few renovations. I guess land is so hard to come by out there.

For all you Seinfeld nuts...Allie and I made a pilgrimage to Monks. Too bad the food sucked, but it made for a good photo opp. We also may have visited the site of the soup nazi, but it was hard recognize. No soup....

When we went shopping on Fifth Ave. to satisfy our Gucci and Prada tendencies, Allie tried on a purse that was a mere 35k!! You would expect it to be dipped in gold and diamonds, but it was just a plain hideous purse. But on the cool side, we found this HUGE apple store that is actually underground. We had to get a picture for Chad (slowly, we're coming to the dark side)

Believe it or not, Allie and I went to a musical, and strangley enough, I kind of liked it. That Mary Poppins is a charmer! We got tickets from a place that sells broadways at huge discount (called tkts). They sell tickets for same day performances, but like 50% off. Although we waited in line for almost 2 hours, we got $38 tickets--which is really good.


Allie and I had something of an unwritten agreement; I would go to a musical, and she would visit Wall Street. Aside from being the coldest weather we have felt since being out of Utah, it was fun to see places I've seen on the news. Above is a famous statue of the bull. We also saw the Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve. Next time we go, we'll actually have to go inside these buildings.

By March 1st, we will be living in NJ and praying for spring to come quickly. Our new apartment is in Somerville, NJ, which is about 1 hour from NYC. We would love to have visitors, and we even have a guest room! SO if your headed to the area, be sure to stop by--we'll even take you to the Federal Reserve!!

Fun with my Family!

We have thoroughly enjoyed our time here in California! I love living so close to my family! It has been a lot of fun. We have gone to Kings games with them, Marine World, San Francisco, Jelly Belly Factory, Temple, basketball games, camping, graduations, holidays, Wii parties, and more! I love my family!

King's game for Sarah's birthday!

Dinner afterwards. Of course we needed the yummy volcano dessert
We love chocolate! Pier 39--those Sea Lions are sure loud Hard Rock Cafe--crazy rockers...
Jelly Belly + Sisters = Wacked Out
Fort Bragg crew
Oh, those silly kids
Janice loved her fishing pole
Yosemite!!! Natie has a gun--look out!

Pizza, pizza, pizza!Everywhere you look, more sisters!

Natie's graduation

JJ's Farewell--He's in England serving a mission!

Ice Skating in San Diego, who knew?!

The Swings! Natie found her bf here, and Katie...well, she's Katie

Aww...

Fun on the Wii

Christmas 2008

It has taken us a long time to post our Christmas pictures, but better late than never. For Christmas, we went to Ohio with Matt's family. Although it was VERY, very cold (below zero with wind chill), we had a great xmas with the fam.

Ahh, yes! The happy couple!

Mary and Joseph for our nativity reinactment

Before Christmas, Carter loved playing with this Barbie car...We may have to use this as blackmail in 15 years!

Carter with the manly car we got him for Christmas to replace that girlie man's car!

Matt playing dress up with his princess, Graysen
We went to an indoor playground at Sharon Woods. Because we had Graysen and Carter with us, we had an excuse to play on the equipment. Matt with his brother in a Nature Center tunnel

Carter having a blast in the balls!
Those Crazies are still out there...beware!
Matt and Chad at Nature Center where they did their Eagle projects

Graham-cracker house-making...Amber's rendition of the Dubai's worlds tallest building and Matt's candy train.
Papa with Graysen
Are they doing Tai Chi or Michael Jackson's "Thriller"? A little exercise to work of the loads of Graeter's Ice Cream we ate!! (we actually went 5 times to Graeters)
We visited this HUGE model train museum that had miles of tracks. This is Matt with his mom taking it all in.We went to my parents' for New Years and went to the shooting range. Matt hit some dirt with my dad's shotgun
I liked the little one

Matt and I with Grandma Kay. She is 94 and always loves to see her favorite grandchildren.

Thanksgiving Travels

For Thanksgiving this year, we went up and down the length of California! We traveled north to my parent's house for the actual Thanksgiving Day. It was nice to be with family. This was Matt and my first time being at one of our families house's for Thanksgiving! That morning we played soccer and volleyball with my mom, dad, Katie, and Natie. Then we got together with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandmas and ate a fabulously delicious meal. The next morning we skipped Black Friday shopping to drive to Southern California to spend time with my sisters and Matt's cousins. We were able to see Jennie's new house--it was GORGEOUS! So stylish and nice, and I can't wait to decorate one of the rooms with all of my Xmen action figures! :) We went to the beach, went ice skating, and visited my Grandma's old house. One of the coolest things we saw were 4 or 5 dolphins playing in the waves really close to the shore, about where someone would be getting ready to boogey-board. Brittany, you'll love those!
We then trekked north to visit Matt's cousins who had just returned from Utah. It was lots of fun seeing them. Matt lived with them one summer while we were dating and I stayed with them while visiting Matt and we love visiting them. We ended the Thanksgiving weekend stuck in traffic on a journey that took us 9.5 hours instead of the 7 hours it was supposed to take. But it was fun and worth it all! Thanks Jen, Jan, and Schoessows for letting us stay at your place!

A Wagon Ride in Old town San Diego. Linds got hit on by 2 drunk nasty men...

The Beach in Carlsbad

More lovely beach--and the weather was perfect!

Hopefully you can see the red circles I made to show the dolphins. They are just chillin and playing in the waves!

I can't believe how close to the shore they were!

It was fun to see so many all at once

Old Town San Diego Ice Skating outside...The sun was shining, and there were puddles everywhere of melted ice. If you fell, you were soaked. One kid tried to trip me!

We got to see the San Diego Temple! One of my favorites. My family took a tour of it before the dedication many years ago!