December 15-24, 2001

Home for Christmas! Well, almost. We had to return to NY Christmas Eve because Casey was originally required to work on Christmas Day. A few weeks before we left, however, his manager told him, "By the way, you don't have to work Christmas Day now." - and the tickets were not changeable. Anyway, we had a wonderful time visiting family, seeing Casey's new nephew for the first time, and even getting in a half day of skiing on some fantastic snow. And boy, did we ever get spoiled for Christmas.

November 22-25, 2001

My brother was able to come up for Thanksgiving - despite his protestations that "he had to study". And study he did - I know I certainly didn't inherit any of that discipline. Once the homework was caught up with, we played "Worms" until we were in tears from laughter. If any more relatives come to visit, I just know we'll get evicted.

September 29-October 1, 2001

Casey's best friend (and best man from the wedding) Mark flew out here to visit, brave soul that he is. The Empire State Building observation deck was open for the first time since 9/11, so we decided to go see the changed view. Quite a bit warmer up there since the last time as well. Casey and Mark were also able to walk down to a point a couple of blocks away from ground zero. Both views were a sobering experience indeed.

September 11, 2001

I think at this point there's not much more that can be said than what is already on the news and been said thousands of times already. This is more of a grief outlet for us than actual information bulletin. More than anything, we would like to convey how God protected us, and thank everybody for their prayers and concern. WTC thoughts.

September 9, 2001

Casey's friends Jo and Nathan (remember them from our stop in PA on the way up here?) invited us to spend the weekend with them on the south Jersey shore. How could we refuse? It was a gorgeous weekend, warm sun, warm water, and plenty of wave action to play in. I think we could get used to this.

July 7 thru July 14, 2001

Time to introduce Tonya's parents to the big city, hehe. We did some of the same things - go to Jones beach, take everyone out to a fun Brazilian restaurant like the one from our anniversary, running around Manhattan. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, had dinner in Chinatown, and of course, took them to see Bloomberg. It's great to have family.

June 30 thru July 7, 2001

Char and Greg arrive to spend a week with us. We stayed in Port Washington the first night just kind of lazing around and deciding what to do for the rest of the week, and then yesterday drove out to Montauk Point, the far eastern tip of Long Island. It's 107 miles from home, and we drove all the way out to the lighthouse on the tip... and it started to pour. We sat there for a while, looking at the lighthouse and the ocean, and finally decided to head back because the rain wasn't going to stop anytime soon. Stopped at a Clam Bar on the way back and Casey and I had steamed clams for the first time. You ever wonder just who looked at those things for the first time and thought they were edible? Somebody starving, I bet. They're pretty good though, especially once you get the trick of cleaning the sand out of them so you get more clam than sand. The next day we ran around Manhattan while Casey was at work (oh yeah, he's back to day shift now, woo hooo!). We went to Sak's 5th Avenue and found a great sale on a suit for Greg, looked at the spider art (ewww) in Rockefeller Plaza and then stood in line to get tickets for a broadway show that night. The next day we basically did the same thing and went to another Broadway show. Went to Jones Beach the next day, to get good and sunburned. Found Char's old house she grew up in, and then picked up Tonya's parents at the airport for their week at the Wren Inn.

June 2-3, 2001

Casey fulfills his husbandly duty to remember the wedding anniversary and has a whole weekend planned out. First he takes his wife to see "Les Miserables", then he takes her out to dinner at a wonderful Brazilian restaurant called "Chiarroscuro", and then he had a nice hotel room reserved (hooray for Priceline). The restaurant was a fun experience: after your trip to the salad bar(which is no ordinary salad bar by any means) you have a bunch of side dishes brought to the table in little bowls, along with an empty plate in front of you, and an explanation about the little disk at the table that is green on one side and red on the other. Then you notice there are waiters running around the restaurant with all different types of meat on skewers. You turn your disk over to the green side, and they all begin to come by your table and offer you slices of what they have on the skewer. When you don't want them to bug you because your plate is full, you turn it over to the red side. It then becomes a game as you watch for the waiter circling with the prime rib and quickly turn it to green, and then back to red once he leaves to avoid the waiter with the salty ham that has been by your table 15 times already and you don't want any more. And then there's dessert - Casey had a wonderful chocolate mousse that just about knocked you over with the strong chocolate taste and his wife had an incredible flan with cinnamon sauce. We were so full we decided to walk back to the hotel because we didn't think we could sit down for much longer... and now it's the wife's turn to remember the anniversary for next year.

Saturday April 7, 2001

We decide to head into Manhattan for the day since the weather is finally turning nice enough to be out and about in. We were looking for some fabric with which to re-cover the infamous Pepto-Bismol chairs, and then also decided to head down to Chinatown and Little Italy for some lunch. When we came up out of the subway on Grand Street we wondered just what country we had come up into. Every sign around us was in Chinese, and we were suddenly the tallest people on the block. Saw some of the strangest things hanging in restaurant/market windows - cooked chickens, ducks, squid, pig heads... They have a great bunch of fish markets on Saturday though. We kept walking up to Mulberry Street and the scenery suddenly changed within half a block as we entered Little Italy. Found out that Little Italy now consists of a few blocks of Mulberry Street, and the rest has been converted to Chinatown. We ate at "Benito #1" for lunch, which had incredible Italian food. Across the street was "Benito #2", which we didn't see until we left, and we're still not sure what the difference was. Maybe next time we'll be brave enough to go in one of the Chinese restaurants and try to communicate enough to order. This place is still a bit intimidating for a couple of Colorado kids.

Monday February 26, 2001

Tonya starts her OB/Gyn rotation at Queens Hospital. Since Casey is still working nights, we see each other about an hour a day - he gets home at 5am, she leaves at 5:30; she returns at 5:45pm and he leaves at 6:15. Well, at least we have weekends together.

Saturday February 24, 2001

Tonya returns from Florida, amidst general rejoicing.

Saturday January 13, 2001

Tonya leaves for Florida, Casey starts his night shift the next day.

Friday January 12, 2001

We doubled our furniture holdings in one day... On the way home after dropping Casey off at the train station for his last normal workday, Tonya noticed an antique dresser set out on the curb for the sanitation workers to pick up. Since the only furniture in the house at the time consisted of a bed and a futon, she figured it would be useful and loaded it into the truck. That afternoon she found out that chairs from a local Alzheimer's center were available because they were remodeling, so she was able to snag 6 Pepto-Bismol pink chairs and play jigsaw puzzle trying to fit them AND the dresser into the back of the truck. (The camper shell needed one more inch of clearance in order for her to have put the chairs on top of the dresser.) Fortunately, the Garment District also includes fabric stores with upholstery fabrics... pink is not exactly our color. But just about anything can be beautiful when it's free.

Saturday January 6, 2001

Went to Manhattan to get in line for "standing room" tickets for the Metropolitan Opera's production of "Fidelio". Okay, so Casey only came for moral support, Tonya was the one who wanted to see Fidelio. After securing the ticket, we went to Bloomberg to watch our wedding video, and then Casey wandered around Manhattan entertaining himself while Tonya was at the opera. Went home shortly after the opera ended so Casey could get some sleep before heading in to work for a midnight-8:00 am shift. He's in training now, so most days he's working normal 9-5 hours, but shortly he'll be starting his regular 8pm-4am shift. Low man on the totem pole...

Sunday December 31, 2000

Real live confetti from Times Square Michelle and her fiance arrived to spend New Year's with us. They were supposed to have arrived the night before, but La Guardia was shut down due to the blizzard. We headed into Manhattan that night to be in Times Square for the changeover into the "real" millenium. We stopped at the World Trade Center ($13.75 to go to the observation deck there!!) to see about viewing the Statue of Liberty but decided that was a bit much. On the way to Times we went to the Rockefeller Center and saw the Christmas tree - guess we don't have to wait until next year now. Arrived at Times Square shortly before 7:00 and decided to get our spots before everything else was taken. They started doing a countdown right after we got there, and we didn't understand why - until we realized that they were celebrating 5 hours to go. Yes, we stood there for 5 hours to see the ball drop. Are we crazy? Well, if we weren't then, we certainly are now after standing there for 5 hours. It wasn't as cold as we thought it would be because we were packed like sardines with everyone else, but that also meant there wasn't much room to move around and keep yourself entertained. All in all though, we were glad we did it, the fireworks and confetti and drunken people wishing you "Happy New Year" was definitely an experience. Next time we'll take chairs, games, kerosene heaters... New Years pictures

Saturday December 30, 2000

The Blizzard of 2000 hits, dumping 14 inches in less that 12 hours. We stayed home, warm and snug, and shoveled snow every so often to keep it from building up too much.

Friday December 29, 2000

We celebrated Christmas with a great meal and opening our gifts that had finally arrived at our new address.

Monday December 25, 2000

Merry Christmas!

Friday December 22, 2000

Tonya headed into Manhattan again to find some fabric stores (found some beautiful stuff, and some expensive stuff, which was usually in the beautiful stuff category as well). She and Casey met after work to spend some time together. We walked around Times Square, froze to death, and then ate dinner in a small (but warm) greek restaurant. Next we decided to go to the Empire State Building, and ya know what? It's just as cold up there as it is down on the street. It was also another one of those "culture shock" moments - can you believe it costs $9.00 to ride an elevator to the observation deck?? We were going to go to the Rockefeller Center and see the Christmas tree but ended up not having time to do it. We suppose they'll have one next year though, so we're not all that disappointed.

Monday December 18, 2000

Casey's big first day at work - and we moved into our apartment that night. We got nearly everything moved in that night, and then collapsed into bed only to realize that our mattresses had been equilibrated to the U-Haul trailer temperature: around 25 degrees. Fortunately they came to room temperature... by morning.

Saturday December 16th, 2000

We arrived in New York after spending the night in Boyertown, PA, visiting college friends of Casey's the night before. On their recommendation, we stayed in a wonderful bed and breakfast and were very well rested for the drive in. Which was good, because it is quite stressfull driving around Brooklyn with a U-Haul trailer on the back of your truck. Tonya navigated while Casey drove, and we really knew we were here when we drove across the Verrazano Narrows bridge and saw the Statue of Liberty in the distance.
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