hopefully this works

hey crowd, james here. elise and i are trying to take the videos on the camcorder we received as a wedding gift (thanks mahaffeys) from HD to mpegs and post them online. i give you: first dance.

this is elise's favorite video, other than the slightly strange entrace of greg before we were through dancing. of course there is a good explanation for it; mr. hose thought it was daddy-daughter-dance time (DDDT?), but was a little early. c'est la vie.

We've Finished Week 1 of School and Work!!

James and I just finished our first week of school and work. James' first week was more work than he expected but he's feeling confident. For me, work is different than what I was expecting, but I am enjoying it. Pre-schoolers are adorable!

We now have bar stools for our countertop (we've been eating at our coffee table), and will be enjoying our first gourmet meal on them tonight! I've been cooking more and more; tonight I made meat loaf, and James made potatoes au gratin from scratch. Newark is feeling more like home every day, but we both miss Salt Lake and everyone there.

Back home in Salt Lake, Tara just celebrated her 25th birthday and Stephanie started the 9th grade. We wish we could have been there to be a part of it. On October 7, James' older brother Dave will be getting married to the lovely Tracy. James and I will be in town for at least a couple of days. We'll let you know when we are coming in!

Remembering Hurricane Katrina

As you all may know it has been three years since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. My family finds its roots in Biloxi, Mississippi. Relatives of mine live from New Orleans to Georgia along the coast. At the time the hurricane hit, my grandmother was in a care facility on the coast of Mississippi, and my mom had just returned home from caring for her. The night the hurricane found land I could actually feel the earth change. I remember watching the news in my mom's basement, chills up and down my arms, and weeping at the devastation. We didn't have contact with the coast for over 3 days, and had no way of knowing about our grandma. Many of the care facilities were abandoned while nurses fled the hurricane site in order to save their own lives and their families. People, like my grandmother, were left with few or no people to care for them. My mom took the next flight out of Salt Lake to Mississippi. My grandmother's condition worstened, and shortly before her birthday on October 12, she passed away in my mother's arms. That weekend my cousins, aunt and uncle, and my sister and I flew to Mississippi to meet my mom and prepare for the funeral. As much as I had prepared myself to bury my grandmother, I had not prepared myself for the absolute destruction of the coast. The landscape mirrored my families feelings of loss and sorrow. Moss covered trees and flowering bushes, were all burned from the salt water. Two story homes were washed away leaving nothing but pots, broken dishes, water damaged photographs, and memories. Cars were hanging out of trees, or were crashed into the sides of homes. My grandmother's home, less than a block from the shore, was lost. The first floor had been gutted by the storm, and all that remained of my grandma was her bedroom and the guestroom on the second floor. The treasures I found in those rooms I will keep today and forever.
Before we flew home, we spent time in the neighborhoods surrounding my grandmother's home volunteering. We picked up debris from people's yards and the street. In the end, many were dead, and many more were displaced or lost. On this third anniversary, people have still not been able to return to their homes, debris still litters yards and streets, and another hurricane threatens to make landfall on Louisiana.
I share this story not for sympathy of me and my family, but for support of those who have given their lives to rebuilding the south.

Rhythmic Gymnastics and a Red Couch

Our internet and cable have been down this whole week. Yesterday I waited for 12 hours for the cable guy to show...he never did. After an interesting phone call to the cable company this morning, the cable and internet are now up and running. While I'm typing this blog, the Rhythmic Gymnastics for the Summer Olympics are on in the background. Apparently they've just begun the ribbon twirling competition??

James starts school on Monday, and I begin my new job as a pre-school teacher. I'm expecting that the pre-schoolers will be better behaved than my sixth graders. I'm also expecting that law school will be a whole new world for James.

We have had a very exciting week. Before we became "residents" of NJ, we figured we had a week to still be tourists, and the Statue of Liberty was our destination. Besides the soot on our clothes from the belching smoke stack on our ferry, the trip was just what we needed to remember how blessed we are. Back in Newark, orientation began at the law school. Our apartment building is filled with other law students, and it's almost like being back in the dorms. We have made friends with two different sets of people who live on floors 29 and 30, and both have balconies with gorgeous views. We even made an appearance at the bowling alley, located in the basement of our building. James is making friends, and has already started his readings for class. (I have to admit, it makes me want to go back to school!)

Our apartment is slowly becoming furnished! In the center of it all is our new IKEA red couch (James picked it out!) Things really are getting better one week at a time.

things are getting better, one sunday at a time

last sunday, elise and i rolled into the newark/oranges area at about 3 am local time. we couldn't find a hotel anywhere between pennsylvania and new york city, and ended up sleeping in a church parking lot - for an hour and a half - before getting into our building and sleeping on the floor until the movers showed up.

today, i rolled out of bed at 11:30 to find coffee and peach crepes waiting for me. working the french press isn't that difficult, but elise still had to give me a refresher on it a few days ago. and for all my rye-gifting over the past three or four years, i don't know anything about making crepes.

i made a few cracks before the wedding about my favorite meal elise can cook being popcorn; that's because she doesn't cook very often. fortunately, this morning i got a chance to eat my word. and the word was delicious.

Living in squalor in the most expensive building in Newark.

You wouldn't know it by looking at our plush apartment building. In fact I often have forgotten that it's an apartment, and when calling home will call our building a hotel. The valet and concierge are helpful enough to make us feel like we live in a 5 star hotel. But, when we walk into our apartment we are reminded that we are just starting out. Our make shift coffee table is made of cardboard moving boxes that James has strategically place together. We are still surrounded by boxes full of our stuff, because we have no where yet to store it. Despite all this, or because of all this, I am having the greatest time of my life. Currently James and I are watching the Olympics, eating "egg-in-a-hole" and drinking delicious coffee from our french press. We are living the life :)

To market, to market...

I think I was born to live in a big city. I love all the people, the traffic noise that lulls me to sleep at night, the bright lights. . . What I did not expect from the city life: the lack of grocery stores. James and I went to every grocery store in our neighborhood (provided by google search) and found them to be only delis with a small selection of Vitamin Waters and Doritos. Or my favorite grocery experience, the day we made it our goal to buy food for our bare apartment. The four, yes four, stores we found were all small Spanish markets. With only dried rice, beans, and Goya grape jelly, we thought we were never going to eat again. Armed with a GPS Blackberry, we set out for a third time to find a grocery store. Thank God for GPS, we have to make it! Somehow our GPS is in on the great grocery store joke, too. We found ourselves staring at the back of a warehouse in the scariest part of Newark I've seen (right next to the garbage dump). Exhausted, and on the verge of starvation, we made a u-turn to head home. In the distance the familiar brick silhouette, shopping carts, and sprawling parking lot. . . the grocery store!