New York - Day One - Saturday, October 25th

We got up at the crack of dawn to gather our things since our flight was pretty early.  Jamie had the “fun” idea of walking from our house to the downtown Decatur Marta station so we could ride it to the airport.  We hoped it would be a good way to get accustomed to riding the subway in New York, but it actually wasn’t, I liked the New York system a lot better!

Our flight was to Newark, NJ as it was cheaper than the other New York airports.  We had planned to take the NJ Transit train over to Manhattan.  There are about 5 trains in the first 30 minutes of each hour and then none for the second half of the hour.  Naturally we just barely missed the last train and had to sit and wait for 30 or so minutes.  We were so tired already and felt like we’d been travelling all day.  

We transferred to the subway once we made it into the city and when we got to our stop, we came outside to see rain.  We knew there was a chance most days we were there, but it was kind of sad to have it rain right when we arrived.  We were staying in Times Square at a hotel we were able to get with points.  We couldn’t check in right away, so we dropped off our bags and went a few blocks over to Island Burger and Shakes which we had read about.  It was a ton of food and a very fun, small, local place that kept filling up all afternoon.  Naturally I had to try a shake, so I went with the black and white shake, which was vanilla ice cream and chocolate fudge.  It was great!

We checked into the hotel and it was around 80 degrees in the room.  We turned on the air and then headed out to Times Square.  It was packed since it was a Saturday night, but we thought maybe the rain might have deterred some from coming out.  We made our way around and decided to hit some of the stores instead of just walking since it was frustrating having two umbrellas with all the people on the sidewalk with theirs.  We went into a pretty large Virgin Megastore, a three story M&M store, which had crazy amounts of M&M merchandise and then a 4 story GAP just for kicks.

We were tired and hungry after battling the rain and lots of people, so we found our way to a Pax Foods, which reminded me of Eatzi’s or Alon’s Bakery.  It had healthy, prepackaged sandwiches, made to order salads and pizzas and other things.  It was nice to find something quick and somewhat healthy.  Thus ended our long first day … or so we thought.  We headed back to the hotel and the room was still SO hot.  I went down to the front desk to ask about it and he said that they had already switched the whole building to heat, so AC was not an option.  They would have to change the whole floor back and they weren’t going to do that.  They offered to send up a fan and recommended keeping the window open.  The fan helped, we decided not to have the window open as it was raining and we were on Times Square which was pretty loud.  We were thankful that we would be moving to a different hotel on the other side of town for the rest of the trip.  

Picture Descriptions:

1) Nathan way too early in the morning at the Atlanta Airport Atlanta Bread

2) View from our first hotel

3) Another view from our first hotel

New York

I figured that since it has been two months since we returned from New York, it was about time that I wrote something about it and posted some pictures. It has been a busy couple of months with the holidays and changing jobs, so sorting through our pictures took me longer than normal. I’ll be breaking the rundown from our trip into several posts over the next few days (though you may have already read about it on Jamie’s blog in November!).

Christmas Vacation

This year we celebrated Christmas the weekend before with Jamie's family.  We combined it with birthday celebrations for Jamie's Dad and aunt.  We had a lot of fun laughing and eating a ton.  It is so fun that her family is all within a few minutes drive and we can celebrate with them often.

My family is still in the process of moving closer together.  My dad is in Birmingham and my mom was up for a few weeks to take a break from trying to sell the house.  We were able to go their direction to stay at an amazing house on the Warrior River a little west of Birmingham.  Rachel only had two days off from work, so we were able to celebrate her birthday there, have Christmas and then she headed back early on Friday.  The house was so great, it was on a secluded part of the river so it was so quiet.  There was a pool table, ping pong table and shuffleboard table downstairs that we had much fun with.  We were able to relax a lot, it was so great not having to go anywhere or even know what time it was.  We got to read, play games, watch movies and we brought our new Wii so we had fun playing that with my parents.  Overall, it was a great Christmas week.  I'm glad this week is still a little slow before the busyness of January takes over.

Christmas Shopping

After several days of crazy traffic and crowds, I'm officially finished with all my Christmas/December Birthday shopping.  I chose to mark the occasion with a celebratory Peppermint Chocolate Chip milkshake from Chick-fil-A, it was amazing!  That's all I've got for today, hooray for the weekend!

Traffic Woes

So here's something fun.  Today Jamie and I left work at the same time.  Jamie's commute is roughly twice as many miles as mine is.  Usually it would take us about the same time to get home.  This afternoon however, Jamie went to the gym, worked out and then still made it home before me.  Unbelievable!  I made a poor decision about the way to make it home when 285 is way backed up.  I can say now though that I've learned my lesson, always go with what has the chance of moving at a constant speed, not a route with TONS of stop lights!

Best Meal Ever

That is a pretty bold title, but last night Jamie and I had what we both think was one of the best meals we have ever had.  Several of our friends went in together and got us a gift certificate to Bacchanalia (www.starprovisions.com), which has been rated by the Zagat Guide as one of the best restaurants in the city for many years.  They have a Prix Fixe menu with four courses and each course has 7-8 choices.  We had so much fun looking it over and realizing we'd never heard of several of the choices.  Though you order four courses, they bring you things while you order, between each course and then afterwards.  We also had some of the best wine, my Pinot Noir was fantastic.  It is a really fancy restaurant with AMAZING food, but it is in the restored warehouse area off of Howell Mill, so it doesn't seem too formal or anything.  Another thing was that we thought since it was an expensive restaurant that the servings would be small.  We were definitely wrong.  Each course was filling in itself and by the end of the meal we were stuffed!  That is always a good sign!  Enough with the talking, I wanted to write out what we had as it was a ridiculous amount of food.

Amuse-bouche: Small ball of dough filled with wonderful cheese (not sure what kind though)

Appetizer: 

 - Jamie - Savannah White Shrimp, Lacinato Kale, Fresh Cannellini Beans, Guanciale

 - Nathan - Gulf Crab Fritter, Citrus, Thai Pepper Essence (SO delicious!)

Between Courses: Small "sipper" cup of pumpkin soup - very rich and tasty

Entree:

 - Jamie - Roasted Local Lamb Tasting, Eggplant, Roasted Red Pepper Caponata, Celery Root Puree

 - Nathan - Wood Grilled Local Pork Loin, Pork Belly, House Cured Bacon, Cannellini Beans, Local Apples (I definitely ate pork belly, which really was the stomach of a pig.  It was chewy and very fatty, but tasted pretty good.  The pork loin was wonderfully seasoned and perfectly cooked, therefore awesome.)

Cheese & Contrast:

 - Jamie - Pecorino Romano, Local Arugula, Extra Virgin Olive Oil & Lemon

 - Nathan - Maytag Cheddar, North Georgia Apples, Membrillo, Buttermilk, Fennel Pollen Cracker

Intermezzo: Small "sipper" cup of hot chocolate with a homemade marshmallow and cinnamon crisp - Wow was this ever rich!  Loved every sip of it!

Dessert:

 - Jamie - Honey Rye Graham Cracker, Pumpkin Ice Cream, Toasted Pepitas - this looked like a small ice cream sandwich.  The pumpkin ice cream was absolutely delicious, oh to eat that more often!

 - Nathan - Valrhona Chocolate Cake, Mint Ice Cream - The cake was so rich and tasty, the ice cream was made with fresh mint and it was a little potent for me.

 - Extra dessert to share - Apple Stuffed Pancakes, Maple Syrup, Cardamom Milk - These little "pancakes" were so awesome!  They were small balls of dough that were a little smaller than a hacky sack and flattened a bit.  They were filled with chopped apples and had a wonderful flavor and texture with the syrup.  We loved it.  The cardamom milk came in a small glass with two straws in it too, so cute!  We took a sip and were surprised at how strong it was so didn't drink much of that.

Post Dessert: Small plate with two of each of the following - ginger/chocolate truffle, honey caramel square, star shaped cookie

Post Post Dessert: Madeleines that were warm out of the oven and dusted with powdered sugar.

I mean seriously, how are you supposed to eat that much food?  I don't know, but I definitely did!

To top it off, on the way out, they handed us a bag of cookies from Star Provisions, the little gourmet culinary market in the same building, that was left over at the end of the day.  All in all, it was a wonderful culinary experience, fantastic food, great environment and just an all around great date night with my wife.

In Between Jobs

I finished up my job as Systems Administrator on Friday afternoon.  I didn't leave the office until a little after 6 pm, which was a fitting end to a job that often required staying late.  I turned in my badge, keys, laptop and cell phone, which was so weird!  This has been the first weekend in about 6 years that I haven't had to think about work, check my email first thing in the morning, answer my phone or log on to my computer for something.  It has been wonderful, but definitely a transition.  I'm so used to grabbing my phone to check things, I have felt like I don't know what is going on. Leaving on Friday was so exciting, yet so bittersweet.  I spent much of the day making my way around the building telling everyone goodbye.  I think I was more sad than I thought I was going to be.  It was because of the relationships that had been made over the last four years as we spent a lot of time together, talking about life, fixing things and making their jobs a little easier.  I will definitely miss them and hope to be able to stop by again sometime soon.  Tomorrow morning I will be a Research Analyst and I'm really excited!  I'm not really sure what the day to day work will be like, but I'm looking forward to finding out.  It is going to be a change of pace, though I'm sure the first few weeks will be lots of learning new things.  I'll have to post about it soon.  

Thanksgiving and Installation Service

Oh how I love having 4 consecutive days off with nothing to do but hang out with family, eat a ton of food and watch football.  We had a lot of fun with Jamie's family on Thursday, got to see my family on Friday and then watched college football rival weekend pretty much all day on Saturday.

Sunday morning we met Rachel and Jesse and drove over to Birmingham to see the church where my Dad is now working.  It was so fun to go to a service there and to meet the pastor and other members.  We had lunch with the head pastor and his wife, it was fun to get to talk with them and to see how he and my dad are going to work together.  That night was the installation service for him, it is where they have a committee from the Presbytery come and ask him questions and charge him in his ministry.  It was so neat as one of the men used to go to Orangewood in Orlando many years ago and another of the men was someone that my dad mentored in Macon before I was born.  They are wonderful friends and I'm so glad they will be living closer to my parents now.  It was such a great service, I'm so glad we were able to attend.  My aunt and grandmother also came down from Memphis and some other family and close friends were able to be there as well.  It was great to see them and to know that this really is the place my parents are called to be at this time.  We are just praying that the house in Orlando will sell quickly so my Mom can join my Dad in Birmingham.