Blessings in Abundance

After a long and painful job search, I was just hired to work with a family as a Teacher Caregiver.  If that makes no sense to anyone, it is like a teacher/nanny combo for early childhood-aged children in their home.  I was so excited to get this job because of its great hours, great pay, great commute (yes, 40 minutes is a great commute here) and doing something that I love!  Plus, it has been a long time coming. Job hunting is no fun and hard work.  Even better than being blessed with this great job, I step back and look at my life in awe of how well taken care of I am.  First, I have to thank my wonderful husband who is so support of me in every way possible.  Thanks, Love!  We have been blessed to be able to get a super good education for Der here at Columbia.  It has been such a fun experience to live somewhere so different.  Our move could not have gone more perfectly either.  We were led to a great apartment where we feel safe and right at home.  Because of the prophet's council to save and "store for times of need," we have had enough for these last few months of unemployment.  We have also been getting small but helpful "unemployment" checks every week which have sustained us.  These have ended this week, the same week I start my new job.  Miracles never cease!  Our Father in Heaven is truly watching over us.  Thank you all for your prayers, love and concern for us.  We feel so blessed also to have each of you in our lives.  

The Legend of Sleep Hollow....

The Legend of Sleep Hollow is a book written by Washington Irving in 1820 about the headless horseman and Ichabod Crane. The setting? ...In a secluded glen of Sleepy Hollow, New York. (oooooooooo <----Make your own ghost sounds here, to increase spookiness of story). It so happens to be that THE original village of Sleepy Hollow is a real place, and it is only a 35 minute train ride North of Manhattan. Being the month of October, Jamie and I decided to explore Washington Irving's legend. We took a Metro-North train trip to Sleepy Hollow, NY. It was a very fun Halloween adventure.  This town (which they actually call a village) celebrates Halloween like no other. Well, you can imagine, being the birthplace of the legend of Sleepy Hollow. We walked to the Philipsburg manor, which was a wheat mill in Sleepy Hollow in the 18th century.  The pictures posted below of the Fall trees, the bridge, the old lanterns, and mill are all taken at Philipsburg Manor.  

Next we walked across the street to the Sleepy Hollow cemetery (spooky, right?). This was an incredible cemetery with gravestones dating back to the 1700s! We saw Washington Irving's gravestone, among other famous Sleepy Hollow natives, such as Andrew Carnegie (Carnegie Hall) and John D. Rockefeller.  Even though the weather was rainy, it was a very fun, festive afternoon. We even had a headless horseman sighting (he happened to be wearing blue jeans and a jacket just like mine)! 

Weekend Bike-riding

Derek and I just wanted to share our weekend activity with you.  We have come to love bike riding on saturday mornings.  This is also our favorite place to ride ... Riverside Park!  It is very pretty and has a bike path that goes along the Hudson river nearly to the tip of Manhattan.  The pictures of the bridge is the George Washington Bridge which we also like to ride across a lot.   As you can see, the leaves have just barely begun to change unlike Utah where there is snow already!  Sorry to rub that in.  I'm sure we will be envying you when we have to walk through the bitter cold and snow instead of getting in our warm heated car.  The peak weekend for changing leaves (so we hear) is next weekend so we are planning on taking a train ride to see the leaves.  We'll get some pictures because we hear that it is spectacular here in the East during Fall.

Autumn Festival 2008

                            

This was the Autumn Festival in downtown NYC.  It was pretty fun.  There was a lot of people, greasy food and cheap stuff.  The picture below is of a booth selling deep fried oreos!  Gross!  Needless to say, we did not try one.  The other picture is one of the firemen at their station all dressed up for the festival.  Sorry it is kind of hard to see.

After the Festival, we went over and walked through Central Park.  It is always crazy with tourists on Saturdays.  For all of our cute nieces, here is a picture of a fairy mime that we saw in the park.  The little girl was giving her flowers and she would take the "fairy dust" out of the middle of them and blow it.