obsessed

I know. It is just water. But I love it. I hate soda and sparkling water. I don't really like juice, milk or any sports drinks. That leaves plain water, which I love, but it gets boring.MetroMint is the perfect solution (besides the price...Henry's has it the cheapest-2 for $149). No sweeteners, real or fake. Just "essence" of this or that mixed with mint water. There is another new brand of flavored water called "Hint" that i like as well.

first cut

at first he wasn't so sure about it, then he wouldn't leave the chair for P's turn.

The city

Our trip to NY included dinners, shows, friends museums, graduation, shopping, central park and tea at the plaza. Everything a visit to the city should entail. I just need a 4 day trip there 1-2 times a year to make my life complete.

Pics of grad to follow. (pictured above- slandrea's new apt)

More?

The munchkin found this and begged me to open it for him. He sat down and drank it in a gulp....half going down his stomach, then asked for more.

We are in NY for 4 days without the kiddos (left them with Laurie, the saint). while the flight felt like a drool free heaven, I already miss miles' grin and P's laugh.

crafty

I started sewing a lot the last 6 months or so. I think it happened because I knew we were moving so I didn't want to do any more apt. related projects and this was a good place to channel my creativity. All day long ideas of things to create pop into my head-most of them relating to our future home. Since we don't have a house yet, I'll have to keep sewing and making photo books, etc.

Here are a few of my creations....headbands, an apron dress  (i designed this in my head and wanted to wear it so bad, i sewed it in one night, no pattern), a pheasant dress that jemimah sewed for me, but i designed all of it after finding this vintage print material in the fashion district, and a little quilt i made miles for his birthday...you can tell hit was his favorite present.

I love what President Uchdorf said about creating something in this talk.

Missed the memo....

....on the dress code for the BYU vs. UCSD game (these are the christensen's- my sister-in-laws family. I love them.)

first steps

i heart NY (10 of 10) -part B

#1 Our Friends

of course. OF COURSE the number one thing I will miss, and have missed like crazy the last 2 months, is OUR FRIENDS! we were incredibly blessed to have an unbelievalbe group of friends while we lived in the city. we somehow formed this deep bond with a group of people that was so tight, they became our family. They were people that went from strangers to people that we will know and love the rest of our lives. It's hard to desribe how close we became because it was the type of friendship that most people usually don't experience (especially with a big group) after college and never after marriage. We were a bit of an odd mix...married, married with young kids,married with college kids, dating, single....who would have thought we'd become best friends. It was the type of friendship were we had met each others parents and knew their names, were we went on vacations together, were we sometimes had breakfast, lunch and dinner together... in the same day, were we always had a continous email exchange going when we weren't together. While out on a Friday night, we would be planning where we would meet for saturday brunch, and at brunch, we would be planning what to do saturday night. we celebrated holidays and birthdays together, bought scooters together, and these were the people i called when i went into labor with miles, so they could go into a rotation of watching parker (slade's first diaper change...a #2 on a 2 year old-what a guy!) and visiting us at the hospital. They came to every birthday party for my boys and pretended that a one-year old birthday was important for me, and they loved our boys and each had a special relationship with them-the quickest way to my heart. Our friends were the reason i HAD to have a table that sat 14. There was a group we saw almost daily and quite a few others we loved just as much, but maybe only got to see weekly (they evidently had something called "lives"). Last spring, when we were still having a blast, but knowing that it would change soon, as summer travels started and as our move date approached, we would all talk about what a perfect thing we had going and how lucky we were. I can remember Jon saying more than once, "these are the days we are going to look back on and remember as the good ole days."

Here's to the good ole days.
    

                                                                         halloween '07

 

rock climbing in the catskills jul '07

                                                    off deck at McGarryBowen nov. '07

                                                                wiffle ball in CP july '07

                                                               painting our apt oct. 07

                                                             Hamptons film fest oct. 07

                                                              Christmas party dec. 07

                                                      park's 2nd bday in CP may '08

                                                           surf camp in costa rico may '07

                                                            rock band on the 4th of july '08

                                                             baby shower for miles july '08

                                                                  baby miles july '08


              polynesian culture center jan. '09



                                                                          long beach july '09->

                                                     going away party at patsy's june '09

                                                                      lake winni july '09

                                                  surprise bday/going away party aug '09


love you guys!!!

Elder Case

my little brother, stephen leaves on his mission this week to the Chile Vina del Mar Mission. I am so excited for him and proud of him. i had to post this while he is still able to check my blog (there is going to be a big hole in your life stevo). He has been preparing his whole life to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and I am in awe of him, his maturity, his knowledge and his faith. We are going to miss him like crazy, but i am so thankful for his example in going on a mission. Parker talks about stephen all the time and tells me frequently that he is going to go the chile on a mission when he is big like stephen and wear a white shirt.

good luck! we love you!!

ps is he one handsome missionary or what...
pss the picture should answer all questions regarding whether or not #2 is a drooler

the catch

craig went scuba diving with his brother and friends friday night at midnight to catch lobsters. i still don't quite understand why they went at midnight. being 30 ft under freezing water, in the middle of the night does not sound like fun to me. i did enjoy the BarBQed lobster.

i heart NY (10 of 10)-part A

the last* 10 on my list of 100 that i'll miss about the city-i've had this written forever, but i needed to find the pics to go with it. here goes...

10. wash and fold. imagine never having to wash or fold another piece of laundry. i went months without entering the laundry room in our basement. the dry cleaners was 2 doors down. I called them in the morning before 10am, they came within 2 minutes, carried away 2 huge bags of dirty clothes, and brought it back by four, washed and folded. really, it was like magic.
9. proximity. i have brought this up a lot in this series, but i really can't quite explain the wonders of this. because manhattan is only 13 miles long (9 of which we frequented) and 2 miles wide, everything is literally at your fingertips. within 3 blocks of our apt was the natural history museum, children's museum, central park, my gym, pinkberry, post office, shipping place, 2 grocery stores, about 20 restaurants/take-out places, the grade school park would've gone to, and about 20 boutiques/stores. everything else is a short scooter/subway ride away. craig and i were late for a concert at Carnegie hall one night and we hopped on the scoots and got there in 5 minutes. i felt like we lived in the suburbs of manhattan, but could be downtown witnin minutes.
8. jemimah and jane. oh, i love those ladies. we becaem friends with jemimah while i was pregnant with parker. and i met jane through YW's. Jemimah started babysitting for us when parker was 2 weeks old and either her or her daughter jane, babysat for us at least 2 nights a week for the next 3 years. they gave me freedom to keep living life in the city even with kids. i will miss all the babysitting and having jemimah sew for more, but mostly i'll miss jemimah's hugs and jane's smile and the love they have for my boys.

                                                            jane, jemimah and michelle
7. sunday nights in central park with the gang. a few years ago we all started meeting every sunday afternoon at the southern tip of the great lawn, spring through fall, whoever was in town and their visitors, if any. we layed on blankets chased parker, then the next summer chased miles, and the guys played hours of sick, dying, dead, until the sun went down.

                                                      

6.www.freshdirect.com - if you have used it, you get it. if not, i can't even explain the wonders.
5. summer nights out on the town on the scooter with craig and friends. there is nothing better. cruising down 9th ave. on the back of the scooter on a summer evening, with my arms around craig, en route to meet our friends, would find me with a smile of contentment on my face.

4. concerts. not that they don't have concerts anywhere besides NY, but we will never attend half as many concerts now that we don't live there. i think we attended around 50 concerts in the 4 years we lived there. because of craig's old job (assistant music producer) we got free tickets all the time and because he loves music and i love going out, concerts were perfect for us. my all time favorite concert experience was the Billy Joel concert (s)(those are links to 4 different blogs about the awesomeness that was that night. a few of the reasons that the concert will go down as one of my favorite experiences of my life include: all of our best friends were there with us, we were all working as PA's to a film director and had walkie talkies with ear pieces and ALL ACCESS passes and I talked to Paul McCartney. if you see any pics of me on those blogs, keep in mind that i was 9 months pregnant-i delivered miles 2 days later).
there were a lot of other great concerts...andrew bird, faith hill and tim, al green, imogen heap, the teddy bears, neil diamond-2x, and in the video craig took, the avett brothers.

avett bros live from uh huh yup on Vimeo.
3. running in central park-whether by myself, with the boys, with friends, for fun or in a race, i loved running in that park. if i had the boys, we would stop at one (or 5) of the 22 playgrounds throughout the park. if i was by myself, i would head straight to the reservoir cause I couldn't take the stroller on the path. i ran miles and miles in that park and i still have not covered every trail. the roads were perfectly paved for the stroller, without sidewalks to have to go up and down on, plus no cars or stop lights. if you are ever in NY, take a run there for me.

2. central park. ok, maybe i've already talked about central park more than a dozen times in my top 100, but it still needs one last shout out. there is just something magical about that place. maybe it's the fact that it is in the middle of such a crazy city and when you are in the middle of the park, you can't hear the traffic and forget the city exists. maybe i loved that it was steps away from our apt and i thought it was our backyard. the achitecture and layout of the park are so extrodiary, i never ceased to be in awe of the place. it will always be one of the great loves of my life.

*you are going to have to stay tuned for the #1 thing i miss about NY. this post was already way too long.

P's horse

Blue angels

During half time in General Conference today, we went to the miramar airshow. It was awesome. One highlight was watching a harrier jet take off, which they did by hoovering straight up, till they were in the air, then they took off. The landing was the same, too. The announcer siad there are not many harrier jet demos because they all get deployed. Theblue angels were of course the highlight. There were 6. Two of them did tricks and Four of them stuck together like glue from the second they took off on diamond formation. Kind of like the Craig and his mini me pictured above.

Endless summer

I no longer feel ripped off about the June I experienced (the wettest in NY history). Today is oct 1st and we spent the day swimming, surfing and watching the sunset. I got back from phx yesterday where the average high while we were there was 103•. We went to lake and it felt like July.

Park has basically worn a swimsuit everyday since July 2nd and turned into a brown bear.
While in phx, the babysitter was putting park in the tub and she said, "You are so tan"( a phrase he hears often lately). He said, "my bum's not." and turned around to show her. My niece Katie , a red haired, pale skinned beauty, said, "I'm tan,too." Her sister MJ replied, "no you're not. You look like parker's bum."