baby kev and brooklyn

i am a blogging machine these days. 

may 10th 2012 sweet baby kevin was born.

 his life was very short but his impact on our family was not. 

we are so grateful for him and wanted to celebrate that boy on what would have been his first birthday. since all of us are so spread out we decided to have a pizza and ice cream party wherever we were in the world. mine was kind of sad - i had been on a bus for 7 hours (i thought it would only be 4) so i didn't get to brooklyn until pretty late. we found a dominos open and a random ice cream shop and decided that was as good as it was going to get. i was glad we were able to make it happen and i'm glad grace (and not pictured dave and sleeping alta) could join. happy birthday baby kev!

those friends are moving next month to california so a friendship weekend was a must. 

saturday morning we woke up and went to the brooklyn botanical gardens and it was BEAUTIFUL. it had been raining all night so everything looked and smelled so good. 

we missed the blossoms at their peak but it was still real pretty

(i guess now that my friends are all having babies we will have to 

figure out how to pose in pictures in a way that doesn't make us look like lesbians)

everything happening behind grace was UNREAL. these pictures don't do it justice.

this tree house was made entirely from trees that were felled by hurricane sandy and irene. it's nice when creative people can make something nice out of something sad. 

no one really knows why but alta was hating her life most of the weekend and looked like this more times than not haha

match teams

we went to a nice mexican place for lunch and then as soon as we got home it started to rain again (three cheers for great timing!)

the rest of saturday was spent napping, talking, youtubing, and enjoying a nice walk around their brooklyn neighborhood. 

sunday was fun because i got to see these old provo friends! they were in our ward when we lived in the yellow house back when they were just dating. weird that they are coming up on their 5 year anniversary..how was it that long ago?!?! is the question i ask myself.

sunday afternoon was full of forced self-timed pics, dave showing us the panoramic feature on our phones, me completely ignoring all of his instructions and making the most terrible ones, a gangnam style mini dance party for angry alta, a nice dinner by dave, and some park time with my gals. 

and then just like that my weekend in brooklyn was over. it was so nice to be with them and i will really miss having them as my east coast friends! grace is definitely a big reason why i even moved to boston so i will always be grateful to her for that. 

(and also - when i said my weekend in brooklyn was over i really meant to say that i then got on a bus and talked to two german guys, one guy from boston, and a 17 year old for the next five hours about being a mormon. i was ready to finally have my international mary-kate and ashley moment and have a summer fling with one of the german guys (he is here to do research for three months) because i thought he was so nice looking and kind and respectful but half way through the bus ride i realized he was married and it blew everything. but yet, explained why he was so kind and respectful haha. k bye.) 

early november

or maybe end of october? my memory fails me. 

anyway.

since fall wasn't completely over natalie and i decided to give ourselves the gift of autumn every chance we got until it decided to really leave us. 

it mainly happened at mount auburn cemetery atop this tower that overlooks all of boston

 it was absolutely lovely. 

 ..so we went back the next morning before work. the clouds!

so. many. trees!

we also attended our vecna conference at dave and busters. this included dressing like adults and watching all the people we work with forget they were adults as they went crazy over all the video games. i was in charge of this conference (for over 200 people!) and felt like a stress case the whole time and am way glad it is over and already feel stressed about the one i will be over in twenty thirteen. 

as soon as the conference ended i dashed (yes. dashed!) to south station to get on a bus to new york. 

saturday the three of us (our friend felipe joined us) walked and walked and walked. we went to chinatown to get wintermelon tea and dumplings then walked over to little italy, soho, and washington square park. after a weird few moments in a bar to visit some coworkers of felipe's we rested for a bit and then went to some random ysa halloween party or something. i didn't really love that but i did like that we were near times square so we walked through it (all the while playing ellie goulding's hit single "anything can happen" very loudly on my phone) and ended the night with accidentally eating at the snazziest mcdonalds i've ever seen. it was a very laid back ny day which i'm going to go ahead and say was enjoyed by all! 

sunday was kind of a crazy day because everyone was freaking out about hurricane sandy (including myself) and much of the day was spent trying to figure out how i was going to get home since most buses cancelled all of their trips going in and out of new york. i finally found a bus that left around 5 so we were able to still head over to grace and dave's for a quick meal before i went back to boston. it was nice john stayed so close to where they live! one of the many (and by many i definitely mean few) out of town boyfriend brightsides.  

i should have known the chinatown bus would pull through when all other buses failed me. since it left from chinatown we went a different route than i usually go and it was the luckiest because i got to see this great cemetery in the foreground/city skyline in the background moment happen above. 

 and thennnn this was my life the next week so i'm glad i got to and from new york safely and wasn't stuck there for days!

boyfriend works in new york and friends live in jersey

so yeah. j-man has been working in new york since june and was going to be finishing up on november 2nd. i, being the way good gf that i am, went to visit him for the first time three weeks before he ended the project. the nicest thing about boston and new york being four hours away from each other is the many buses that go back and forth each day for less than what it would cost in tolls to drive yourself (not that driving myself is even an option but i appreciate that it is cheaper nonetheless). 

so after staying at work way too late and not actually giving myself enough time to get there i ran ran ran to the terminal and luckily they were a little late themselves so i didn't miss my bus! but i did feel real hot from running, forgot my water bottle, and didn't have time to grab food so that was a slight bummer. still real glad i got on the bus though so i wasn't too concerned about all that other stuff.

after arriving john and i headed to an italian restaurant right off of times square and then perused the m&m store (and lucky us the blue m&m was dancing again!), and then went to shake shack for a treat that i ended up hating so so bad and had to throw away. somebody please stop letting me order for myself because i'm incapable of ordering things i like and instead order something i know i'll hate just because everyone else likes it. 

the next morning we got up bright and early and did a session at the manhattan temple. i absolutely loved the different rooms and was pleasantly surprised at just how beautiful it was. 

i was also pleasantly surprised with all this fall harvest goodness going on right across the street!

and then with giant-sized wonka candy. we all know if bottlecaps had been in there i would have bought them immeeeediately

after grabbing some lunch we picked up the bikes i rented for us and headed to central park. 

it was so lovely and green! renting bikes was definitely the way to go, we got to see pretty much every inch of that place in just a few short hours. 

who knew there was a baby castle in the midst of all those trees with the name of belvedere? it made me reminisce fondly of "mr. belvedere" and then feel sad that no one ever knows that show or what i'm talking about when i bring it up.  

and here we are just being happy as clams near the end of our biking time. it was such a delightful afternoon, biking always reminds me of taiwan and never fails to make me happy. 

not pictured but also worth noting - we were going to be late getting back to the rental shop so we had to ride through new york streets (instead of walk our bikes like john made us do earlier haha) to get there and while he was being a stress case about it i was thrilled as can be. it felt just like i was in taiwan again with all of the cars and taxis everywhere and having to weave in and out of people. gosh i miss that so much. 

after dropping off the bikes we walked down 5th avenue, shopped a little bit, then headed over to rockefeller center and the lego store and then back over to the hotel (which was the fanciest btw) to grab our things and then jump on a train to nj! 

but before jumping on the train we had to stand around waiting to see what terminal we would be at forever. this gave us the opportunity to watch everyone that just came out of the anime convention and also talk about how great the guy above's outfit was and have a visual for how awful john's favorite cross trainers are. one day those things are going to come up missing but until then i will continue being a nice girlfriend and keep my annoyed comments about them to a minimum. 

after a short train ride to new jersey we were met by these friends! christine and paul took us to their favorite greek restaurant where we had nice food and nice conversations. so nice that at one point i started crying because i was laughing so hard. i still can't get the image of that lady's breast cancer awareness card out of my mind. 

that night we headed back to their house for an adult slumber party of sorts and then  went to church with them the next morning and thennn got to see the passion puddle (that is the real name people) in the flesh! so many awful words in one sentence. 

then we made lunch and realized as we were eating that both christine and i grew up listening to michael mcclain's cd "the collection" which instantly became the best moment of our friendship and resulted in us serenading john and paul with all of our favorite hits. 

after lunch and michael mcclain time we dropped paul off at his lab to do a little studying and then went on one of the better walks of my life through princeton university. it was so warm and the sun came through the trees perfectly and the architecture was beautiful.

and there was even a cute asian family to creep!

sickest picture but look at how long my hair was getting before it got cut to death! seeing this saddens me. 

ivyyyyyyyyy

and then this miraculous moment occurred when a bunch of freshman came by with "party with meg" tank tops on. many of them had on jackets or sweatshirts so when my picture with two people turned into a picture with six it was the best surprise. all photo credit goes to christine since she is good at making me be in pictures with people rather than just stand close to them and take one secretly. 

credit can also go to this tree looking just like the tree on instagram filters because if we hadn't been standing there photographing it we wouldn't have crossed path with our party with meg friends. 

sadly it was getting kind of late so we had to leave that beautiful place but happily just headed right over to another one! 

paul and christine love this little towpath and we were happy they shared it with us.

and then we ate again! because that is what friends do. 

and then after some photography lessons and political discussions it was time for us to head back to new york. we loved spending time with them and getting to see a glimpse of their new jersey life. 

we also loved christine for taking us to staten island (and for letting us stay with them of course) so we could ride the ferry back! which happened to be john's one and only request of the trip so we definitely granted it. and then the next morning i was headed back to boston and just like that our nice nyc/nj weekend ended and we were back to working our lives away.