So MUCH catching up to do!

I was thinking about all the catching up on the blog I have to do for the past month and it has made me NOT want to post. At this point I'm tired of watching Hulu, I work ten days in a row starting tomorrow and the house is semi-how-we-would like it to be. So I'm not going to start from where I left off. I'm just going to start from now and maybe add some of what I haven't been posting in the last two months in.

Guess what?!?!? We live in New York City now. "I" live in New York City. I didn't ever think that statement would come out of my mouth. Alas, here I am working, homemaking, supporting and enjoying. I can't believe all we've done so far. I could mention stuff like Times Square, Central Park and Statue of Liberty but I want to talk about the smaller things. The things you just might not know about unless you lived here.

First the food.... ahhh it's amazing. We had a few chances to get out into our neighborhood and in Manhattan. Here are the places we've been to that are awesome...

Shake Shack in Madison Square: http://www.shakeshack.com/ The burgers were awesome but I really liked the open WIFI in the park. You can eat your sit outside, eat your burger and surf the net all at once.

Sarah is allergic to Gluten and we stumbled upon this cute little cafe in search of Shake Shack: http://www.mozzarellis.com/ Once we actually eat there we'll post more but we went in and it looked amazing and has excellent reviews.

If you're looking for dessert this Italian Ice stand is AMAZING. If you come and stay with us it's 1.2 miles away. Without a doubt I will take each of our guests here: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en&expIds=17259,17315,23628,23670,25221,25834,25870,25901,26087,26182,26224,26328,26446,26512&sugexp=ldymls&tok=TvB_PpwaJep6G4AfRMJyew&xhr=t&cp=11&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=lemon+ice+king+of+corona&fb=1&gl=us&hq=lemon+ice+king+of+corona&hnear=Corona,+New+York,+NY&cid=6673501518966045762&pcsi=6673501518966045762,1

Last night we had our good friend Maya staying with us for the final night. We were looking for something authentic and after researching and word of mouth we ended up going to:http://kababking.com/index_2.html Kabab King specialized in excellent diverse ethnic food including Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Turkish and Chinese Cuisine.

While at Lemon Ice King there's an awesome park right across the street known to locals as spaghetti park. The Italian guys play Bocce Ball for money into the wee hours of the morning. They are also pretty comical with playing for money and how passionate they are.

Lastly we went to this local Thai place:http://maps.google.com/maps/place?hl=en&expIds=17259,17315,23628,23670,25221,25834,25870,25901,26087,26182,26224,26328,26446,26512&sugexp=ldymls&tok=lrkdHWGnUI9nL_yvgnqpFQ&xhr=t&cp=11&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=best+thai+queens&fb=1&gl=us&hq=best+thai&hnear=Queens,+NY&cid=6321189272816675302&pcsi=6321189272816675302,1 T The food and atmosphere is awesome. I had the phad thai and although it wasn't the best I've had I did think it was decent. We will be back.

So those are just a few places we've eaten here in NYC since moving here. I hope the next post won't take so long. I hope to find you all well. Thanks for keeping up with us and all of your support.

Last days in NM!

We are down to our last four days in Santa Fe, NM. We said our final farewell to Artie and Brenda today. (Sarah's parents) They've played a vital role in the success of our trip and being able to save money. They opened their doors to us for the last month and the hospitality has been much appreciated. Our last few days will be full of visiting friends and family, last minute road trip planning and an oil change. We take off from Santa Fe around 10am on Wednesday, July 28th. Sarah wrapped up her job today as well. Yesterday the movers came and picked up all of our furniture and other items. They are on the way to New York and are expected to arrive at our apartment between the 2nd and 4th of August.

I look forward to posting more information regarding our route to New York and the road trip its self. Thanks again for reading and all of your support.

Nambe Falls

In an effort to do a few last minute things before exiting New Mexico on July 27th we took the short trip to a local waterfall, Nambe Falls. http://www.nambefalls.com/ Artie, Brenda, Sarah and I embarked on the trip. The hike was steep at times but the views were worth it. There's a trail to the lookout and then a lower trail to the bottom of the falls. The lower trail requires you to walk through the river to get to the bottom of the falls. That water was very chilly, however once your feet are in it for a few minutes you begin to adjust. Here are a few pictures from our visit. Once again I hope you enjoy and thanks for taking time to read the blog!

Arches National Park

On our way home Sarah and I stopped at Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. Neither of us had visited the park before and although it was HOT we went for it and had a blast. Here is the link to the park if you'd like more specific information: http://www.nps.gov/arch/index.htm. The two of us had a blast visiting. The park has over 2,000 sandstone arches and a lot of spires. I can't even find a number. We took the short hike up to the Delicate Arch which is the famous arch that is featured on the Utah license plates. The detour was worth the time and we had a great time. Below are a few of the pictures I took while at the park.

Long time no blog

Finally a breath of air. I'm going to try and get us caught up on the blog. Also going forward I'll try to keep up with the blog. I'm going to start with the Montana trip.

The first week of June Sarah and I took a road trip to Missoula, MT for my sisters graduation. Congrats to Kylie on her graduation from Hellgate High School.

The trip was full of sitting around the fire, hanging out with family and visiting interesting places. I was able to catch up with a lot of friends and family that I hadn't visited with in years. For those of you that don't know I was born in Missoula Montana and my Dad, Step-mom and Sisters still live there.

It was nice to see my Mom again. She did live in Albuquerque but moved back to Montana to be closer to my Grandma and to enjoy a slower paced life. Here she is sporting the local University sweatshirt. GO GRIZ!

All in all it was great to see my family and introduce Sarah to all of them. Of course they loved her and I really enjoyed spending the week with her. Here are some more pictures of the trip below. As always . . . Thanks for reading!

Quick update!

Hello! It's a beautiful, sunny but blustery day in Santa Fe NM. Today we did brunch at a local restaurant here in Santa Fe with Sarah's parents. (Artie and Brenda) We sat out on the patio before the wind started picking up too much. The experience was awesome and the company was great. Right now we're just working like crazy and saving as much money as possible. We are gearing up for our trip to MT from June 3rd to June 10th. It will be a long drive but we are headed up there to see my youngest sister graduate from high school. During the trip I will post pictures and keep you all updated on our adventure.

Preliminary New York Info (First of many I'm sure)

I, personally, have never been to New York so once I found out for sure that's where we were headed I quickly ran off to our local Travel store, http://www.mapsofnewmexico.com/, with Sarah in tow to find some sort of book that would tell me about this place I'm moving to. I originally wanted to purchase a book about NYC from the Lonely Planet series. However, after searching through the books I ran into the NFT series. Formally known as Not For Tourists Guide to NEW YORK CITY. Here's the link: http://www.notfortourists.com/. Check out the site. It's pretty awesome!

I also found a Transitwise map of the NYC Subway, LIRR, Metro North Trains, NJ Transit, Path Trains and Amtrak.

I'm sure these types of maps can be found for free in NYC but we wanted to know where mass transit was in relation to where we would be living. Sarah also found a neighborhood map of Queens. http://www.law.cuny.edu/student/StudentServices/Housing/HousingMap.pdf. We plan on living in the NW part of Queens as the law school is currently in the middle of Queens but next year will move to neighborhood of Long Island City. So for one year she'll be going to school in Flushing and then in 2011 she will move to http://www.law.cuny.edu/news-events/SchoolNews/two-court-square.html. On the right hand side of this page under the learn more you can read some interesting information about the green features of this building.

So we've been scouring through craigslist looking for apartments and wondering what our rent budget should be? Where am I going to work? What is the best location for us? Will it be safe?Can we park the car? As time draws nearer things will become firm and these questions will be answered but for now we just keep looking and hoping we'll find something that fits us.

Blog the Second

So I'm Sarah. Kara has already introduced me (that's my face up there, on the right), and as interesting as she claims I am, right now I'm just a hostess at a fancy restaurant I'm not allowed to mention by name (no seriously, I signed a piece of paper and everything). (Expect many parentheticals. I like them.) I went back to hosting because after a few years of trying to save the world and take care of everyone in it, I was burnt out. Now I just worry about when the Romero party will be joining us.

Santa Fe is definitely my home. Most Santa Feans my age will tell you our relationship with the city is complicated - it's beautiful, and cultured, and a total small-town feeling backwater. Oh sure, it's nice for the Albuquerque kids to come visit, with its temperatures in habitable range and everything, but living here means you get hit with the high cost of living, tourists all up in your grill half the year, etc. Still, it's hard to imagine anywhere else. I went to college in New York, a short train ride from the city, and I can't believe I'm going back. For years, I've said I would never live in New York - too expensive, too difficult, no interest in being poor there - and now I'm returning to live on a grad student's budget! In Queens! I hope this isn't a sign of things to come and my attitudes about ever becoming a teacher.

Meeting Kara was not in my plan. It's cliche, but last summer I was getting over a broken heart, and part of that was doing every social activity thrown my way - including a trip to lake where I met a blond smart-ass who interested me. And, well, here we are - a few adventures and lost passports later, and we're doing pretty okay. There have been lots of things I didn't expect, and I can only look forward to whatever I don't expect next!

First Blog Part B

I thought I could wait but once I made the first post I was like why didn't I post this or this... blah blah blah... I'm going to post a couple pictures from around town in ABQ. Also I'm going to read my XHTML book again so I can write my own HTML and maybe CSS as well. Not sure if it will allow it. So here's a couple pictures from around Santa Fe and NM. Thanks to everyone who has subscribed so far.

We went to Ruidoso for a some to train some advocates and it turned out to be a very beautiful town. To my surprise there was an actual river running through town, a lot of deer and very green pine trees.

Sarah and I at the lookout in White Rock New Mexico. We took a day trip to Los Alamos to check out the Atomic Museum and stopped at this little town on our way home. The view was amazing!

I had attended a match before moving to NM but since moving here I've really gotten into attending Derby Bouts. That's my great friend Angela on the left.

An awesome local hangout. Although the more local I get the less I hangout at Flying Star. Regardless, it's a great place to get coffee and some goodies.

So here's a few things about my/our past in NM. I will continue to post up to date things but wanted to get a little history on here.

First Blog

Here's how I'm going to start this off... Kara's life is super DULL. Now Sarah, on the other hand, has a super interesting life. I like stuff like reading, listening to music, exploring museums, going to the Opera to name a few. As for Sarah I will let her introduce herself with her own Blog. It will formally be known as Second Blog. *Note to self. . . Let Sarah know what to name her blog.

Ok more seriously. I'm starting a blog to help our friends and family keep up with us moving across the country and many travels. Facebook is super fantastic but not everyone has a facebook (AKA Sarah's Parents) cough cough! Alas I still thoroughly enjoy Artie and Brenda and this way they (and YOU) will be able to keep up with all of the pictures we post and what's going on.

We are about to embark on a journey together and I'm very excited. We are currently residing in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The land of entrapment. I love it here. The sunsets are beautiful and the diversity is amazing. I've been in New Mexico since December of 2008. I moved here on a whim and 10 thousand dollars. Although what brought me here is no longer meaningful (VZW) I met Sarah and that has made the journey worth while.

So with that being said I plan on blogging our last two months in Santa Fe, our week trip to MT and our time in New York. At first I was only going to do the first couple months but I have a feeling that this may be going for longer then expected.

I'm excited and I hope you are as well. Feel free to comment on the stuff, correct my grammar and make fun of me. I'm really comfortable with myself. I can take it!