U-Haulin' to Texas

Kathryn and I finished our trip down to Texas a week ago. We left Sandy, Utah after sacrament meeting and stopped right outside of Denver and stayed with Josiah Roueche's parents.
Leg 1: The trip across Wyoming and down through Colorado took about 10 hours. As we got closer to northern Colorado, the drive was really green and luscious. Leg 2: The second portion of the trip continued through Colorado, across Kansas (extremely very boring), down through Oklahoma and eventually into Texas. Leg 2 was about 14 hours.
The trip wasn't so bad to be honest. The worst part was the ease of driving with our U-Haul. It was very easy to turn, which would be good normally, but made it very difficult to drive straight on the highway going 75 mph. At times it was a bit dangerous.
One thing Kathryn and I decided as we drove was where we will never live. We will never live anywhere in Kansas, anywhere in Wyoming (except the south-eastern tip or maybe Flaming Gorge, Wyoming), probably not Oklahoma and probably never New Mexico (it's just not that much better than the first Mexico to be honest). We didn't travel through New Mexico, but I have before, and we aren't living there.
In total, we took two days, 24 hours, and around $600 of gasoline. And the U-Haul wasn't cheap either. If you are thinking about moving, talk to us first and we can talk you out of using a U-Haul or Pods or buying a bunch of junk and hoarding it like starving squirrels.

Friends + Haircut = LOVE

While we were in Utah, I tried to see as many of my lovely friends as I could. Alas, I could only really see the people who came up to Salt Lake, but of course there is always room for Aaron, Ryan, and John's house.

Can I just declare my love for my friends? I seriously would be lost in life without these two wonderful girls: Becca Weed Severson and Kellee Leandra Fremming. Two of the most amazing girls ever. They make me laugh like no other and while others think I may be odd, these girls actually think I'm funny. At least they make me think they do.

Another group of girls I love: 344. My roommates in 344 of The Colony were AWESOME. That was one of the best years of my life. I got to see Miss Chrissy Barnes while in Utah because we were going to Bev's wedding reception. Oh, and we watched Last Comic Standing the night before. I also miss Liberty Baker, who made me laugh so hard we would cry. If only our walls or Turbo could talk, they would bust out laughing. 'Cause we were crazy.

Anyway, that's my tribute to some of my best friends.

On to the next topic...

I got a haircut!! That's right, after a year and a half of not going near a haircutting salon, I decided to cut and cut big. It's way different from anything I have ever done, but I'm getting used to it. Drew especially likes it when I curl it. Plus Bec, Kellee, and Chrissy all stroked my ego by telling me it looked cute.

The Last of the New York Fun.

Well, the time has finally come. We are officially done with the New York experience. It was definitely fun to go, but Drew and I agreed that we would never want to live there. We are now in Utah and have been since Wednesday night. It seems completely dead around here. Where are the thousands of people wandering around like in NYC? Oh well, I like it better like this.

For the last week in NY, Drew's parents came out and stayed with us. We had so much fun with them. I think they kind of wore themselves out, but I think all in all they enjoyed themselves. We showed them around, taking them to Times Square the night they came, to Grant's Tomb and Rockefeller Center and the American Girl Store (which was AWESOME) and the Empire State Building and the M&M store and the Hershey's factory (kinda lame) and then they went and saw Phantom of the Opera that night. The next day they had to wander around by themselves. Then we just kind of showed around. Sunday we went to Harlem 1st ward and Central Park and Little Italy. Lots of fun. And this was all a week after Drew's mom had surgery. She is a fighter.

Anyway, New York was good to us. I'm so glad we were able to go. Although Drew didn't LOVE his internship, I thinks it's better that we went. It looks snazzy on a resume.

Well, our next adventure is.........

TEXAS! That's right, we are officially going to Texas to work before Drew can apply to UT-Austin or BYU. We want to establish residency and since the standard of living is wayyyyy cheaper than Cali, we thought Texas would be more affordable.










Left: Drew;s parents licking a sucker at Dylan's Candy Bar. Center: Us at the Manhattan Temple. Right: At an awesome Italian restaurant in Little Italy.

That's it for now! More updates from Mansfield, Texas.

Carnegie, Canal, Lion King and Darcypants

The latter part of the week was pretty good. We went to a performance at Carnegie Hall, visited Soho and Canal St., and saw Lion King on Broadway.

Carnegie Hall
We saw the BYU Chamber Orchestra perform at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday, which was amazing. The building was beautiful and the Orchestra played splendidly. It really was good. It was a 'good relations' PR stunt for the Church, actually. There were more than 100 ambassadors and dignitaries from more than 30 countries, and then the rest of us were members and other people that came. BYU has about 650 music students, with 400 performing in orchestras. There are five in total, and the BYU Chamber Orchestra has the best 49 students. They were pretty good. They performed Copland, Dayley, Rossini and Beethoven.



Canal St. and Soho
Canal St. is an area at the southern end of Manhattan infested with little shops with tons of stuff. When I say tons of stuff, I mean tons of the same stuff. Every shop is about 5 x 15 feet, with each shop owner selling perfume, purses, watches and shirts. I'm not sure if the merchandise is fake. Or if its stolen. Or if its fake, stolen merchandise, but it was cheap. Kathryn bought a few purses, we both bought some smellgood stuff, and I got a shirt. It was kind of fun because you get to bargain with everyone. They want your business so bad, that you tell them what you are willing to pay, and they will agree to sell it to you or not. If you can't agree, you just walk away. Kinda fun. Soho is one of the swankiest places in NYC (probably second to Fifth Ave.). The Tommy Hilfiger store had about ten racks of clothing and a live DJ spinning Usher. Naturally we went in to go check it out. Soho is filled with little shops and restaurants and I think we walked past Jay-Z and Beyonce. Not 100 percent sure on that, though.

Lion King
We saw Lion King on Saturday night. It was the one Broadway play that I wanted to see when we were planning what we wanted to do here (Kathryn's was Wicked). It is kinda different because the play is designed with muppet-like puppets and people. You have to use your imagination a bit to imagine the people aren't there, but its still pretty interesting to watch from an artistic point of view. Much of it is the same from the movie, with a few added songs. One of those songs is "He lives in you," which Kathryn and I saw performed by the BYU Young Ambassadors on our first date. It's originally about Mufasa, but BYU performs it and then sings "I am a child of God," focusing the message more on your relationship with Heavenly Father. It's cool.

We decided this week we will be leaving NYC. We want to go live where we can establish residency and pay in-state tuition for when we begin graduate school. We are still debating the pros and cons of going to Texas or California.

P.S. I watched 'Pride & Prejudice' (2007) for the first time ever tonight (I promise). To be honest, it was not that bad. I thought it was worth my time to understand why women go crazy about this book/movie/whatever else. And as an added bonus, once we start earning some money, I have a new idea for my new wardrobe. You can't be wrong if you can find a million ways to annoy a million women in such a short time, still end up with the girl in the end, and look this good doin' it.