Christmas time again!

Merry Christmas! We love the Christmas season. This year we lucked out and got a decent sized tree and filled it up with our ornaments. Of course, as you can see, our real Christmas present will arrive on April 6, 2007! In the meantime, little Charlotte is keeping me warm this winter as the wind unleashes its fury on unsuspecting subway riders. She's been amazingly good so far and hasn't made me sick at all, and just loves to kick and bounce around when we are at the movies. Maybe because she is trying to sleep...

We look forward to visiting Arizona which is the place to be during the winter. 

Weekend Fun

On the way to church each week we walk through part of Fort Tryon Park. Lately it's been really pretty so we got a shot in before the leaves are all blown away. In other news, I found a recipe for Jamba Juice's Pumpkin Smash smoothie which we love. At BYU, my roommate Christianne and I collected "buy one get one free" coupons for Jamba out of all our neighbors' recycle bins and enjoyed half price Jambas most of the year. This was one of my favorites. Here is the recipe:

1/4 cup Pumpkin Pie mix
2 cups vanilla frozen yogurt or ice cream
1 cup soy milk
ice

So simple! I had always thought I was getting a healthy treat from Jamba - I guess not with all that ice cream! Oh well, it is a fun fall treat.

Another fun outing we had recently was to the Garden State Mall, 6 miles over the bridge. Heretofore it had seemed inaccessible, but we found a lesser-known mini-bus line going from our bus station to the mall for just $2.50! The best part was they leave every few minutes. They drop you in the parking lot and when you're done, they are usually waiting for you out in the parking lot. Better than a taxi service! And definitely better than driving a car through that maddening traffic. We're just bummed we just found out about this great resource and haven't been using it for the two years we've already been here! 

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween! This year we carved a pumpkin named Wolfe

and watched a scary movie.

 

Fall Pumpkin Festival in Boston

Summer's over and fall has blown in quickly. Before it got real cold, we took a little trip to see our friends Aaron and Shara in Boston. We took the Chinatown bus on Friday after work. It is definitely the cheapest way to travel! There was a pumpkin festival in Boston Commons Park which was perfect because we love to carve pumpkins. They provided the pumpkins and people just showed up to carve. Unfortunately, most people focused on the quantity of the pumpkins (they were going for 30,000 this year!) instead of doing quality work. So our pumpkins put them to shame as you can see.

Aaron and H in a pumpkin patch. Working hard! Me and H at Harvard.

It was a fun festival. At Boston Common with George. It was a spectacular sight to see all 30,000 pumpkins lit up. I'm not sure who lit them all, but it must have taken a while! Some had Christmas lights in them, but most were lit with little candles.

Kona, Big Island Adventures

Our next stop was Kona, on the other side of Hawaii, the big island. We traveled up to a ranch which claims it produces 39% of all beef consumed in the US, with over 89,000 head of cattle. We didn't see any cattle, but took advantage of the huge expanses of grassland to ride their ATV fleet, which has replaced horses in rounding up cattle, which makes sense. The ATVs can go anywhere. Up and down very steep hills, through mud and sludge. On one hill, the guy in front of me took a corner too fast and the ATV flipped over on top of him. He was okay though. Helaman, Julie, Leroy and I made it out alive and unhurt, although covered with dirt.

Hilo, Big Island

On Hawaii, we took a tour of some of the volcano sites, a botanical garden and waterfalls.

Kauai

Kauai is the island where they filmed Jurassic Park, because it is sooo green and lush. They say it is always raining on some part of the island, and we got a small dose of it (not too much though!) when we went ziplining through the trees and over the ravines. It was a ton of fun!! At the highest we were 200 feet above ground.

Afterwards, we rented mopeds and once we negotiated our way out of busy traffic, rolled through some great, open countryside and down to some falls with a swimming hole.

Oahu

Our first stop in Oahu was Sea Life Park, where we got to swim with dolphins! Afterward, we checked out the huge turtles and amazing views.

Maui

Our first day of the cruise was spent in Maui, where we went to a luau at the Maui Prince Hotel.

New York News

Mark and Steve came back to New York with us and we wore them out in two days worth of walking around the city! This is all of us at the Brooklyn Bridge (to tired to cross it!) and then on our roof next to the George Washington Bridge.

Virginia Vacation

Last week Helaman and I took the bus from New York to Washington, D.C. and were impressed with the speed (thanks to an aggressive busdriver) and ease of the journey! It beat driving any day. We had a good time in Virginia in the Shenandoah Mountains (pictured) relaxing. It was great to get out of the city for a little while. We did some grass skiing, horseback riding, and pool games.

Harlem Happenings

Greetings faithful readers. First off thanks for your support during my hermetic study days. I can breathe a small sigh of relief now that the boards are over. I guess this is the first sigh in a two part sigh. The final sigh will come on the day that I receive my score, and hopefully that sigh is not my last breath. Anyways, moving along with my summer.
Today I started a rotation at Harlem Hospital in Oral Surgery and Physical Diagnosis. The hospital is located on the corner of 135th St. and Malcolm X Blvd. It is very interesting working in an environment where you are the minority. I must say I enjoyed my first day very much, especially the discussion on Spike Lee movies and the "black experience." Seriously though, the residents are very helpful and always willing to teach and I am sure my next three weeks will be very educational.
In other news an old TV friend resurfaced. The food network has a show that is hosted by Marc Summers. That's right our favorite Double Dare host is back and not surprisingly this show also highlights various colored whipped toppings. Double Dare always bugged me when the bright orange flag would be sitting on top of the whipped cream in plain sight, while the contestant rolled around in it. In the end though that is really what Nickelodeon was about in the 90s, some sort of slime, goo, or whipped topping dropping, flinging, or flying onto some kid trying to win a kareoke machine and a new bike. Until next time, have a relaxing summer.

First, a picture of Helaman in his natural habitat as of late. He studies downstairs because at home I distract him. On July 10 he will take his test and be a free man, so wish him luck!
The study room is awesome because if you go out those doors on the balcony, the next picture is what you see. I can't get enough of living on a river!

I got up early this Saturday to go to breakfast with a friend. I didn't want to sacrifice my sleep in day at first, but getting up and out was great, and no one was around! I think a ton of people have skipped town due to the 4 day weekend (only the grinchiest of workplaces are open on Monday!) and the others I guess slept in. We had a great day wandering up and down Columbus Avenue - if you are wondering, the 70th Street Banana Republic is closed! We found this out after an hour of searching. Giving us the chance to work off the french toast and pancakes, of course... 

happy summer

Summer nights are getting to be very beautiful, especially if you can get to a roof to see the sun set over the Hudson or this view from a harbor cruise in lower Manhattan. I finally got around to setting up a space in my room to do scrapbooking - turning our catch-all desk into a very enjoyable place to spend time going through pictures from the last few years. Another project that I have finished up is the reading of "Middlemarch", mainly while on the train to/from work. What a great book - this quote is from the main character Dorothea who comes across as moderately eccentric at first, but definitely wins you over.
"If we had lost our own chief good, other people's good would remain, and that is worth trying for. I seemed to see that more clearly than ever, when I was the most wretched. I can hardly think how I could have borne the trouble, if that feeling had not come to me to make strength."

In other news, Helaman and I have sworn off ice cream (our favorite treat) for two months in the hopes of not appearing as beached, pasty white whales on our trip to Hawaii. Just the pasty part.

cupcakes for sale

Inspired by Julia's post on scratch vs. box mix cupcakes, I decided to try her recipe. Well, I didn't decide, I was forced into it by a raging thunder storm which was great to listen to, but not so fun to march out into to get the treat I was craving Friday night. Magnolia Bakery would charge $4 a pop for these cupcakes, EXCEPT Magnolia's wouldn't be HALF as good. However, they would definitely have better presentation which proves anything will sell in New York based on packaging alone. In fact, at a firm party a year ago, we had some absolutely fabulous looking cupcakes which everyone was raving about, and it felt like an illustration of the Spiral of Silence Theory (Comms 201) where everyone is thinking something but no one is saying it. I thought they tasted like they were a week old. They were way too dense and for some reason no one was saying it for fear of offending these beautiful cupcakes. A cupcake is supposed to be light and airy, so you don't feel like you ate an entire cake afterward. The "gourmet" bakeries in the city fall woefully short in this area. Julia's recipe, however, produces possibly the creamiest batter and lightest cupcakes I've ever tasted. Don't be scared off by the ingredients, I used regular sugar and salt and no cardamom, but they still tasted great, so imagine how they'd taste with the proper ingredients.

rainy saturday

Carmine's is one of the places we love to take friends from out of town because it is a crowd pleaser and so far no complaints. We went there tonight with some people but didn't have the camera so here is a picture from last year when the Buchanans and Blaydens came to visit. On the table you'll see the masterful "Titanic" dessert, made with a brownie base, a very thick layer of high quality chocolate and vanilla ice cream, bananas, strawberries, whipped cream and three smokestacks made with those round wafer type pipe things. Anyone know the name of those things? I can't think of it. The dessert is fabulous and perfect for a group to devour. The main dishes are also very tasty.

We went to see The Da Vinci code to get out of the rain today. It's a fun story/murder mystery and the movie is well put together.