Sunday, March 10, 2013

P.S. We went to Disneyworld!

We took a much needed four-day vacation down to Florida with Kit's parents and sister's family. I had not been to Disneyworld for over 15 years and could only remember that there was a big golf ball and that I saw barbie and she had a limo. Well I am SOLD. I had a great time and look forward to more vacations there in the future!



How can you say no to that face jumping in your bed and waking you up at 7 am?



Day one was Animal Kingdom and the Magic Kingdom. Expedition Everest is awesome! Plus it was pretty great going with company who had figured out all of the child-swap, fast-pass line management strategies AND knew where to go when. 



You can barely see Abby's face, but it's pretty cute.


When we go to the real Mt. Everest we'll take another one of these arm's length photos.



That spin-y dinosaur ride. 



Safari











We were all jealous of sitting in that stroller in the end.













Bugs Life 3D experience!


Little Alligator - or should I say, "Crikey!  Look at the size a' that sheila!"



We really liked the bird show.


The ferry to Magic Kingdom



Sunday we drove for two hours to get to a gulf-side beach that is famous for shark's teeth. I think we were all pretty apprehensive that we would find any, but then we did! and we were all obsessed with looking for more.








This guy walked around the beach showing everyone his huge collection of big shark teeth.  Apparently you can do scuba dives in the area specifically to look for these.








We ended up finding something like seventy shark teeth all together! 



too funny.


Abby [exasperated]: "Julia! You're taking my water!"








lunch break at epcot.





The new Test Track at Epcot is really really fun, btw. 



Waiting for the Norway ride





Kit was quickly reminded of his Holland America days and wants everyone to know that in Tlinget, his name actually means "Thunderbird Clan".




Question:  Which of the people in this picture was most excited to be at Disneyland?  Hint: His name starts with K and ends with it.



The special effects tour at Hollywood Studios.



Lights, Motors, Action




the troop.


And then we realized we only had one picture of the two of us, taken on the first day at the first ride, so we quickly got another one, taken on the last day after the last ride.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

February: a two year success story!


We got some free passes from the Warren Miller movie to a small ski resort in Connecticut. (It actually might have been Massachusetts (?) All the small states run together for me.) Kudos to Kit for organizing the whole shindig and inviting some of our friends. 

We got up at 5 am Saturday and were skiing by lunchtime. We stayed overnight and drove back Sunday morning. We played hooky on Stake Conf weekend--which is good because church wouldn't have functioned without the people on the trip: the organist, three sunday school teachers, YM president, YW president, Primary pianist, and bishopric member.


And...this is what it looked like where there weren't snow machines.


The resort was pretty small and you were down the run in like 5 minutes. About 10% of the time you had good powder, 70% of the time you were on rough, icy snow, and 20% of the time you were on solid, clear, could-break-off-and-use-in-a-soda-glass ice.


I skied on my first ever black diamond run. It wasn't pretty, but I didn't break my leg either. It probably definitely wasn't as steep as the ones in UT, but it was 132425% more icy. So I'm still proud of it. 


Poor Kit couldn't bring his hockey sticks into the hotel lobby.



Snowmageddon came and went, snarling up my commute, but bringing us 8ish inches of beautiful, wet, heavy snow!


We got up early to shovel off the car and walked into Toys-r-us the second it opened. We snagged a $6, 125-lb maximum tube and were off to meet up with our friends and their kids. The. most. fun. I've. ever. had. sledding. I took out a big black man (who was texting at the bottom of the hill) on my first run and we broke 4 sleds/tubes, but we were laughing the whole time. Anika blogged about it here. (The video Kit took is on Anika's blog)


Anika's 18-month old fell asleep on the way and stayed asleep the whole time. People kept asking us if he was a real baby.


The patriarch of the Fortune family got baptized a few weeks ago. It was quite emotional for the ward. We've been really involved with the three youth and were thrilled to see their dad become a member. 


We went to a NJ Devils hockey game (thanks groupon!) with one of my coworkers and his family. We sat on the very top row of the arena, but still had a pretty good view. 


We decided not to go out to eat on Valentine's day because of the crowds. Kit surprised me by coming home early and making a delicious grilled shrimp meal and buying me tulips.


And Martinellis. Can't forget the Martinellis.
He surprised me with Strawberry mochi for dessert--yum!


We also celebrated our 2-year anniversary! Can't believe it's been that long. We made it longer than Scarlet Johansson and Ryan Reynolds! Kit got us box tickets to a concert performance of Ragtime at Lincoln center.


Neither of us had ever seen the show, but we were blown away. Since it was only one night, they had some amazing vocalists (including Lea Salonga), a full orchestra and a huge backup choir. It was incredible.
  


For all those wondering, we did have a fanTACHEtic Valentine's day.


One of the perks of my job is that I get to be in schools occasionally. I went to one of the black history month assemblies that featured traditional African dancing. The kids were incredibly cute and it reminded me why I go to work everyday.


Kit's "baby" from his Good Humor days. In stores now!


Kit's "Urban Professionals" Volleyball team. He is the team captain this season and they just had their first victory! He plays in the city once a week and really enjoys it.


We decided to see a bit more of the city next door and went to the Guggenheim museum. Our favorite piece was the art that went across the big middle part. It was just plastic tubing with colored water, but it looked pretty cool. It was originally staged in the trees in Japan (which would have been really cool), but still looked good in NYC.


Art


We really loved the building, but the current exhibit was only so-so. 

In between all these pictures has mostly been church, work, sleep, eating.  Wednesdays I rush straight from work to YW, Fridays Kit rushes straight from work to YM, one of the other weeknights is volleyball, so we get two nights together each week--and we capitalize on that time by cooking.

Here's a diary in food: We made pesto last week and a good chickpea pasta dish. We made lasagna on Sunday and invited some friends over for food and boggle.  Two weeks ago we made Navajo Tacos and had some friends and the missionaries over for food (no one had ever had navajo tacos before!) and Nerts. We kicked the missionaries out after an hour so they could get home, but played Nerts with the Larsons for awhile.  We had the missionaries over for correlation on Saturday morning and I made monkey bread and eggs/sausage. Kit pulled together an asparagus pizza (better tasting than it sounds) when I had a late night at work. We had vegetable/feta quiche for dinner tonight.