Come and Knock on Our Door... (a photo tour of our new world)

Welcome to Bancroft Hall! (it's the one closest to you on the left)

This is our new home sweet home...

Yay- you made it past the security desk and into the lobby. Hop in an elevator and come on up!

Here's our living room and dining nook. Too bad you couldn't wait 'til next week when I'll have some super cute curtains up.

Through here, you can see our bedroom- looking eerily similar to our previous one...even though the apartment was furnished I found a way to bring my beloved bedroom set! (maybe you I Spy fans can find a baby somewhere in there).

Take one step back and you find yourself in our "den" with Rhys's room to the right. He apologizes for not cleaning it up in time for you to get a closer look.

Direct your eyes upward and you'll catch a glimpse of one of my favorite features in this place...the coiffeured ceiling. Love it!

A quick 180 will assure you that we were quite serious when we said the refrigerator is in the living room. Come with us to the next stop and you'll see why...

Here's our kitchen...ette in all its glory. I'd invite you in, but only one of us can fit. What's that you ask? The rest of it? It's in the living room, remember? What's even funnier- in my gigantic townhome kitchen complete with dishwasher, garbage disposal, microwave, side-by-side fridge w/ icemaker and attached laundry room- I always complained about the ugly outdated cupboards and countertops. Well, I've got some pretty good looking cupboards and countertops now.

Now that you've seen our place, Rhys can't wait to show you around the neighborhood- let's go!

This is a beautiful Catholic church and rectory just a few doors down from us- one of our favorite nearby landmarks!

A little further up the street is Riverside Chapel and behind it is a gorgeous park that runs along the Hudson.

This is why our neighborhood is called Morningside Heights. The area you can see below us is Harlem. Or as we like to call it, New Obamaville.

This is one of the ways you get down into Morningside Park. It has beautiful trails, rock structures, great playgrounds, ponds, and lots of birds and squirrels! We saw a jet black squirrel there the other day. On another note, don't drink out of the Hudson river.

Keep going- we're almost to the bottom!

One of those ponds we were telling you about...

Hey look, a pre-school group strolling along in front of us. You may have asked yourself previously the best way to wrangle preschool kids. Well, here's the answer...chain them together like a dog-sled team.

Finally, we'll take a quick peek at David's world. This is Teacher's College (the name of the education grad program) and it's where he spends most of his time away from home. That's not as bad as it sounds since it's close enough that he can actually look into our neighbor's windows from several of his classes. It always reminds me of Hogwarts for some reason...

And finally, we'll cut through the Columbia main campus on our way home. This is just one of about 17 or 18 of the libraries on campus (you might recognize this one from movies like Spiderman and Hitch).

Wow- that was some tour! Rhys is ready for a nap...hopefully you're not asleep already. Next time we'll venture more than 2 blocks from our house. Thanks for visiting us.

Hopefully this has inspired you to pay us an actual visit, although you may now be asking yourself "Where the heck would I sleep?"

Derek Jeter, Eat Your Heart Out!

So, the words I dread hearing the most in this life are "Hey, let's go to a baseball game!" I think a dejected Homer Simpson said it best while watching a game sober for the first time, "I never realized how boring this game is."

But can you really say no when your husband comes to you all doe-eyed and says "Honey, wouldn't it be great to be able to say that Rhys's first sporting event was one of the last Yankees games ever played in the original Yankee Stadium? You know, the one where guys like Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gherig, and Mickey Mantle played (just to name a few)?" Even if you think to yourself, "I thought that Babe Ruth was just a candy bar..." or "I would rather watch an entire day of professional golf than spend an evening watching a bunch of big-bottomed men stand around scratching and spitting," you can't really say no.

So we spent $60 on scalped $10 tickets to the sold out 4th to last game (not to mention the $20 they squeezed out of my death grip for 2 hot dogs and a soda) and we took Rhys to a Yankees game..

All sarcasm aside though, it ended up being a really fun family outing. As I've mentioned before, New Yorkers are super nice and can't get enough of our cute little boy- which apparently holds true even when they're sloshed on Miller Lite (at $8.50 a can!), we got to see the requisite marriage proposal over the jumbo-tron, David got to speak Italian with a grandfather who was here visiting his family seated behind us, Rhys absolutely loved all the excitement, lights, and noise, AND since he fell asleep after 4 innings we got to leave before my athletic ADD kicked in. And I guess 20 years from now, I will think it's pretty cool to say I saw a Yankees game in the original stadium (but seriously, who the heck is Derek Jeter anyway?)

David and Rhys couldn't wait to hear "Play ball!"

Historic Yankee Stadium with the Bronx skyline behind, and the new stadium on the left side.

Rhys got to see Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Ken Griffey Jr. play- he was more interested in the bright lights and all the nice people!

"Derek Jeter, eat your heart out!"

By the bottom of the 4th, it was all over (for Rhys anyway). The Yankees won 9-2, but we were all tucked in bed by then!

Waffles with Adam and Eve

So, yesterday was a pretty nice Sunday for us full of interesting moments and lots of opportunities for free food. Getting home from church took 45 minutes longer than usual since two Harlem motorists got into an accident and decided to blame it on our bus driver for cutting them off (which is even funnier when you consider that cutting people off is almost a requirement of NYC driving). They decided it would be a good idea to block the bus from leaving by standing in front of it Tiananmen Square style. We were finally rescued by another bus and left our driver reading a newspaper behind the wheel while the two angry motorists continued to stand in front of the bus yelling at him, each other, and any unwitting passerby who tried to step in and mediate.

After that, we got to enjoy some southwest fare at a social given by a really nice Texan couple in our building, and then it was on to a new ward member waffle social at our Bishop's home. For a while now, we've been trying to figure out why our Bishop looks so familiar to us. We'd finally contented ourselves that he was a Mitt Romney look-a-like. Over waffles with strawberries and whip cream, however, we finally figured it out. For those of you reading this who are endowed members of our church...remember the temple video with the dark haired Adam? Guess who our new Bishop is... A few minutes later, his wife volunteered to hold Rhys while I finished my waffle. As I talked to her, I couldn't help but feel like I knew her from somewhere too. Then it hit me. Remember the dark haired Eve? Yep, you guessed it... So that's how we ended up being served waffles by Adam and Eve on our 3rd Sunday in Manhattan.

So with that and the fact that our ward posts "bouncers" at the door to keep out the street hustlers...church here is turning out to be pretty cool.

Take time to look up...

Tonight, we had to make a trip downtown in the rain to pick up something for our computer. This was the view waiting for us as we emerged from the subway on 8th Ave and 33rd St. It was gorgeous. All the tourists were huddled together in the rain trying to get a good picture, while the veteran New Yorkers walked on by under their umbrellas and never even glanced up. I felt sad that something so beautiful and majestic had become so commonplace for them. I hope we never get so used to living here that we forget to look up!

The other nice surprise we had this week was getting to stroll through Central Park. We made a trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond near the Lincoln Center and realized we were just a few blocks from the park. We walked through it for over an hour and couldn't believe how beautiful and varied it is. There are so many different "areas" to see, and each one of them has its own charm. You really feel like your walking through a movie set.

As we strolled through "The Mall" we passed a Bulgarian Olympic athlete and his coach, a Broadway understudy practicing a song as she hurried by, and a flock of little birds taking a bath in a rain puddle! We felt like we were in a scene from Enchanted.

There are bridges and lakes like this all over the place! They are so beautiful! The city skyline behind the trees looks like a movie backdrop that might blow over any minute. It's really hard to make your mind believe the two scenes actually co-exist.

The zoo was closed by the time we got there, but we still caught a glimpse of the sea lions having an after-dinner frolic.

In addition to resolving not to travel through life with our heads down, we're also going to be sure to carry a camera with us from now on since we keep getting surprised by wonderful views like this while we're out running errands (as you may have guessed, the pictures in this post weren't technically taken by us...but if we'd had a camera, our pictures would have looked pretty much the same ;)

"Please sir, can I have some more?"

So for the past week and a half, Rhys has been hungry all the time, and I mean ALL the time. We're talking nursing every hour all day long and not sleeping well at all. I figured it was just a normal growth spurt, I should feed him on demand and my supply would increase in a few days...no problem, right? Wrong. After the 8th day I realized the kid is just not getting enough from me. At his 4 month checkup, his doctor told me I could start him on a bowl of rice cereal a day, but I really wanted to hold out until after six months. Apparently, 8 days of feeling like a 24-hour dairy cow was enough to change my oh-so-noble convictions. Although seeing the "end result" of this wonderful solid-food experience about 10 minutes ago might be enough to change them back...you're welcome to thank me for not including a photo of that little milestone :)

David turns 29! Woah!

We decided there would be no better way to spend David's first birthday in New York City than to pay a visit to Lady Liberty. We had a blast. Rhys loved riding on the ferry and flirting with all the tourists in line with us. David spent most of the time thinking about when Cobra launched an airstrike over the statue and G.I. Joe saved the day.

Ever since 9-11 they don't let you go up to the crown but you can still tour the museum inside and walk around the pedestal (however, the view from there is mostly of the city skyline across the water since you can really only see up the good lady's skirt!) Still worth a trip to the island just so you can say you did it, but she's much more impressive from the ferry as you approach. All in all, it was a nice way to christen our first week in NYC.

We made it!

After lots of planning, packing, unpacking, and STRESS-- we finally made it to New York City. Rhys slept through the entire flight and cab ride into the city, while Pandora (who was on a double dose of valium) yowled incessantly. Our little apartment is adorable and we've just about got it the way we like it.

We've had some major and some minor adjustments already. The technology, space, weather, and convenience of New York leave something to be desired but we've been overwhelmed by the outpouring of kindness, service, and friendship of the people here. We get stopped on the street several times a day by passersby wanting to admire Rhys, strangers on the bus have paid our fare when we lacked the right method of payment and refused compensation, carried our gigantic stroller down the aisles for us, and given up their seats so we could sit with the baby! The owner of the hardware store down the street opened his doors to us after closing and gave us every kind of allen wrench he had free of charge since we weren't sure which we needed to put our bed together, and just asked us to bring back what we didn't use the next day. It's amazing what a sense of community and friendship there can be in a place where no one has any idea who you are!

More news and pictures to come. No pictures yet as we're still experiencing technical difficulties with our computer :(