Autumn in New York

I love this time of year!  Even though we have been busy being students, we’ve still taken lots of time to enjoy the changing leaves, cups of tea, apple-cranberry crisp, decorating for Halloween, pumpkin cashew curry, crisp, chilly evenings, lots of local apples, putting the garden to rest, homemade soups, walks around the lake, hot apple cider, yummy roasts and chicken pie, hikes through the woods, and breaking out our favorite fuzzy sweaters.  Man, all I need now is a Snuggie…

We decided recently to start fully taking advantage of being so close to the city, so we started an indie-concert going club where we’ll go to see a new (and often totally unknown) band every month.  This Friday is our first show.  We’re really excited, especially because we have a great group of random people going including our friend Anna from the UK, a childhood friend of Kristy’s, and our new friend from Korea, Jack Daniel! 

Go Canada!

It is great living where we live now, because it opens up a whole new area to explore.  With Canada so close, we couldn’t wait for an opportunity to go up there and look at the Canadians.

 

 

We rolled into Montreal at about sunset.  It’s such a beautiful city on the water.  We took our bikes so we could ride them around the city.  Here are a few of the sites that was saw:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, first things, first.  A little picnic lunch in the park.

 

 

 

 

The first day we rode the Lachine Canal path.

 

 

 

 

 

Saw some crazy looking architecture

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rode across the bridge to the island

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biosphere

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olympic Park

 

 

 

 

 

The old city

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, we also had to stop and try the Poutine! (Oops, first I accidently spelled it Putin; as in Vladimir?)  Yum!  We were also really lucky to be able to catch up with our lovely friend, Shona, from our UK days.  

 

Next we listened to a bunch of Canadian bands on our way to visit our good friends Frederic and Chizuko and their kids in Gatineau.  It is so good to catch up with old friends!  We were thoroughly embarrassed by our lack of Canadian knowledge, so Frederic taught us all about how Ottawa is the capital and what a Quebecois is, and how to order a Beaver Tail, and why ours didn’t come with fur, and the meaning of the phrase “Je me souviens” (on the Quebec license plate – it’s very deep.  If you know him, please ask him about it sometime if you get a chance.)  Actually, my ignorance about Canada is so bad that I spelled Ottawa wrong the entire way through this post and then didn’t believe the spell check when it corrected me, so I Googled it.  Turns out it was right.  Americans. Anyway, Frederic promised that if we came to Canada he would find us a Mountie to take a picture with, and so he did!

Frederic also took us to Ottawa so we could see that Canada is actually its own country.  It was really impressive!  We got to see the changing of the guard, which was much more impressive than anything we saw in London.  We also got a tour of the Parliament building.  There were lots of statues of owls inside because, did you know, that a group of owls is called a parliament?  Those Canadians are really deep.  

 

 

Here are a few pictures from the very beautiful and impressive parliament building:

 

 

 

 

 

The library

 

 

 

 

 

The place where they walk

 

 

 

 

 

 

The place where they talk about stuff

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, sorry.  This isn’t the Parliament.  This is Micah and I fooling around with the camera.

 

 

 

 

The US even let Ian back in without any problems, even though they know what he is like now, so hopefully, we’ll be back to Canada soon!

Next stop: Vermont

We had perfect weather in Maine, except for the waking up to a storm on the morning we were supposed to pack the tent up.  The boys had fun trying to throw everything into the car in the rain, and of course it stopped raining as soon as they were finished. 

On the way to Canada, we stopped in Waterbury, Vermont to see the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory.  While we were waiting for our tour time to come up, we unpacked the entire car onto their lawn so we could air everything out.  We had quite a group of spectators wondering what on earth we were doing.  While I was throwing out some of our garbage, I heard a little girl ask her mom, “Mommy, are  they camping here tonight?”  On a side note, did you know that Ben and Jerry’s factory employees are allowed to take home three pints of free ice cream a night?  That’s 15 pints a week!  I guess it keeps them from eating on the job!

From the city to the coast

Now that we’re caught up, we can finally tell you a bit about our vacation!  Micah flew in from Wisconsin to join us.  The first night he was here, we went out in the city for some delicious Ethiopian food and thought about all of our friends who have ties there. We got a bit delayed in the subway coming home and encountered a very funny scenario involving subway employees, a leaky hose, and a bucket that we’ll have to tell you about sometime, but basically the delay turned into a very late night which turned into a very lazy morning, which meant that we started our vacation at the very slothful pace of hitting the road at about 1pm.  I love vacation.

And so our road trip began.  Sort of.  We ended up sitting in traffic for a lot of the first part.  We sat behind this van for about an hour in New Hampshire on our way to Maine.  Interesting.

 

None of us had ever been to Maine, so we really wanted to see what it was like, but the maine (yuk yuk) reason why Maine made the vacation cut was to be honest, the food factor.  I think I need to take a minute to explain about my New Years resolution.  I don’t normally make a big deal about New Years resolutions, but this year I decided to make a few fun resolutions of things that I really wanted to do. I love to cook, and I’ve always felt that cooking a lobster is just something that I needed to try; a kind of rite of passage or something.  So, I told Ian that in order to do this, I thought we had better go to Maine to eat some of their famous lobster so that I could really get a good feel of what it was supposed to taste like (wink wink).  Here are a few pics of some of the delicious food we ate in Maine:

 

I started out with a lobster roll at a local cafe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Micah was excited about the shrimp

 

 

 

 

 

 

The award-winning lobster pie from the Maine Diner, which was featured on The Today Show.  We had some fabulous seafood chowder to start and followed it down with some homemade blueberry pie ala mode!  Hungry yet?

 

 

Chef Ian’s campfire steak and grilled veggies with fresh, pan-fried Haddock.  Yum town.

 

 

 

We decided to take advantage of the outdoors and camp during our time in Maine, so we came well equipped with everything we needed to attempt the lobster-cooking.  (By the way, thanks to everyone who lent us stuff!  This lobster is dedicated to you!)  It was quite an experience going to the fish shack to buy our guys, then trying not to bond too much with them while we prepared for their imminent death, then putting them in the pot and eating them.  It was a bit sad, to be honest, but they were just so delicious. 

The lobster figures out something’s up…

 

We did it!

 

Can we eat yet?

Oh yeah, and of course, we also had s’mores

Here are some pretty shots of Maine, too:

 

Winter into Summer

Ha.  So I realized that we haven’t really been great about posting for awhile, so I’ll put a few things to give you a little idea of we’ve been up to over the winter and into the summer.

 

 

Ian experienced his first Superbowl party

Went to an ice festival…brrr

Participated in a midnight count of the homeless for NYC

Expounded numerous theories about LOST

Went to a movie marathon where we watched the 5 Best Picture nominees in a row.  And survived.

 

Went to a birthday party where they had a buffet of every flavor of Doritos

Played a bunch of guitar hero

Took some of Ian’s clients to the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ate lots of snacks to ward off the study blues

Spent 4 hours setting up three display cases of work at the Japanese bookstore.  Tore it down in about thirty seconds three months later.

Started playing guitar and drums in church again (K)

Tried to look cool learning to snowboard, but failed

 

Played a basketball game with the Harlem Wizards (like the Harlem Globetrotters)

Performed in a talent show

Ate some very delicious food and discovered a new favorite restaurant

We each threw each other a surprise birthday party

Did some MJ tribute karaoke

Joined Ian in doing the grad school thing

Finally succeeded in making a pavlova!

Watched NYC fireworks on the Hudson from behind a tree

Picnicked in the park (PICNIC, not PANIC)

 

Introduced egg creams to a few friends

Failed on a first attempt to grow a feijoa plant, now on child-plant #2 and so far, so good!

Saw some great concerts

Bought our bikes, “Queen” and “Charlie” and went biking  with Uncle Ray and Aunt Gail

Ian bought me a waffle maker for my birthday and has made waffles every weekend since.  Every time he does, he gives it to me and says, “Happy Birthday!”  Love that guy.

Went to see the New York City Ballet perform

Joined the Okinawa Prefectural People’s Group  (Kenjinkai)

Survived camping through a crazy storm/flood

Went river kayaking for the first time

 

Went on vacation with Micah! (More on that to come.)

Return to NZed!!

Er, a few months late, but wanted to share some piccies from our Easter trip back to New Zealand!  It had been about five years since we had been back and four years since we had seen Dad Laidlaw and Mary-Ann, so we were so thrilled when the Internal Revenue Service gave us an unexpectedly large return!  We promptly made plans to leave the country and stimulate the New Zealand economy. 

 

Here is a cute little guy we found hanging around the cemetery one day when we went for a walk. 

 

 

 

And here is another cute guy hanging around his dad’s place.  It is so incredibly relaxing to stay with Ian’s dad and Mary-Ann.  The garden is gorgeous with a beautiful view of the mountains.  Mary-Ann always has some sort of delicious homemade bread or cake on hand and the porch is a perfect spot to read a book with a cup of tea and forget all about the fast pace of life back in New York.  We also really lucked out one day when we went for a little wander.  Just down the street from Ruary and Mary-Ann’s place is a horse showground.  We managed to sneak in and watch one of the jumping events.  Very cool!

We went down to wine country to visit our good buddy, Sean, from Okinawa days and meet his lovely girlfriend, Claire. We left early on Easter morning so we could meet them by the afternoon, and soon had a few of those little slightly horrifying realizations.  1:  There is barely any petrol in the car.  2:  We have no idea where the nearest petrol station is.  3: All we keep seeing is fields and fields full of sheep and nothing looks even close to a town.  4:  I don’t think we’ve even seen a sign for a town in ages… 5: Should we happen to find a town or a petrol station, it is Easter morning in rural NZ, so the chances of it being open may be slim to none.  6:  I don’t even see any houses on this road…what if we run out?  7:  This is really the sticks.  Not only are there no houses, we can’t get any cell phone reception, either.  8:  I don’t like the way that sheep keeps staring at us…  Sooooo, despite the fact that Ian kept saying everything would be just peachy, I think we were both pretty relieved when we managed to roll into a town with a petrol station just as the car was about to run out.  I also had to go to the toilet pretty bad by then, so I was doubly relieved.

Once in Hawkes Bay, we had a great reunion with Sean and Claire and got to relive the good old days through our various stories and the boys hassling each other.  We decided to do something that I have to say is not really something that was on my Bucket List:  go clay shooting.  It was actually really fun and an experience!  Ian actually turned out to be really good and I managed to get one by accident, so it was all pretty ironic that we left the land of guns never having touched one to go shoot some in New Zealand.  Afterwards we went to a fabulous winery for lunch.  Mmmm…

  Ian and I did the Tongariro Crossing aka The Mt. Doom Trail on our way back.  Last time we were in NZ we threw ourselves into a 4 day backpacking adventure without any real preparation or idea what we were doing and nearly crippled ourselves, so we thought this one 9 hour hike would be a cinch in comparison.  I blame the fact that I turned 30 this year for the reason that the hike pretty much kicked my butt and that there were senior citizens passing me on the mountain while I “stopped to take in the view”.  Sad, but true.  Just to prove I did make it, here’s a pic of us at the top.

  It was a beautiful trail; very different to any we have done before.  It started out in grasslands, went up volcanic rock, through an amazing red crater, past aquamarine sulfur lakes, through the crater of despair (Frodo, don’t wear the ring!), through a hot springs area on the other side which overlooked a lush valley, and then back down through a forest to the beautiful parking lot.

 

 

 

 

What else… 

Oh, you want more pretty pictures of New Zealand?  Ok.  The one above is from a walk we did with Ruary and Mary-Ann at this really cool enclosed park that has lots of native birds and freaky-deaky Weta.  This other one is sunset on Lake Taupo.

Ian’s birthday was the same week that we went to NZ, so Lianne, Dirk, and I planned a surprise birthday party for him!  Lots of friends came from near and far to shower him with New Zealand sweets.  Good times!  It was so great to see so many of  you there, you mean so much to us even though we don’t get to see you often!  Ian was so excited –-----> Look!

 

 

 

 

So, Ian, how does it feel to be back in New Zealand?

One last family photo!  Cheese! 

I love being a teacher

Conversation between two of my students the other day:

Big kid: You know how I got to be so big?

Small kid: How?

Big kid: Well, I eat all of my vegetables, and I once slept for three days straight.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Difficult past times have made us very grateful for a holiday that isn't in a traumatic context. The night preceding Valentine's Day we were fortunate enough to catch Clap Your Hands Say Yeah play at the Howard Gilman Opera House in Brooklyn as part of the Sounds Like Brooklyn music festival. Fronting them were Chairlift, who I haven't heard of before, but they were excellent - kind of like an Indie version of a mix between Clannad, Blondie and the Cranberries.

On Valentine's Day we went back to Brooklyn for brunch at Dressler, a little Michelin-star restaurant (and yet very reasonable prices) serving creatively nuanced traditional new-American fare. Eating makes us both so very happy. Then we dropped into an amazing supermarket in Manhattan called Fairway to pick up fresh sea scallops, some astounding French sheep's-milk cheese called P'tit Basque, baguette and olives for an antipasti dinner at home (pictured). Eating is so great, and Manhattan is a wonderful place for food. We really are so fortunate to be here.

A major highlight of the day (this is a little insight into our personalities), however, was after we got home from Ikea, where we picked up some dishes and glasses and cups for a dinner party we are hosting on Monday night, and were trying to work out how we could fit all this extra stuff into our modest cupboard space, when we suddenly realized we could use the dishwasher as storage (since we never use it). So, now that's where all our pots, pans, and Tupperware sit, making way for loads of wonderful shelving for our eclectic dinnerware. It's funny how excited we feel about that. Also we are excited about our new glasses and cups since it's more fun to drink orange juice and tea out of them. It really is the little things.

Santa

We popped into the city yesterday to meet some friends for dinner, and decided to head over to the big Macys near Penn Station to check out the fabled Santaland. Incidentally, it already seemed like Santaland outisde as we had a foot or more of snow in the last two days. Snow makes New York seem like a farytale. Except for the people - they really know how to use the parts of the English language that don't make it into most dictionaries if you don't follow the driving culture. Christmas shopping stress really seems to bring that out, but it's kinda fun since it is NY culture - feels like being on safari. Just smile back and take a photo.

We joined the long line for about half an hour and enjoyed people dressed as elves yelling at patrons to keep moving while trying to make it friendly by interdispersing "Merry Christmas" at appropriate intervals, and various parents not letting their children look at 

anything other than their strobing blackberry camera phone. It reminded us of that classic scene from A Christmas Story. The display was amazing though.

Anyway, we eventually made it to Santa, and he was surprisingly friendly. I was just expecting to walk past and see him with all the kids, but we actually got to take a photo with him! It was pretty cool.

So, we have our Christmas tree up and lots of presents under it. We also decided to use some of the money we normally give to church to shop for people in poverty who really need stuff this year and help put some presents under other trees. It was a great experience and gave us both a sense of what Christmas probably should be more like - giving anonymously to people who have real needs. But it's still fun to share with people you know too, so I think we're finding a happy balance. We are a few hours away from the best present we will get this year, which is a visit from my brother who is flying over from England as I type. I hope we can show him a great time in the USA again, and we are looking forward also to driving to Indiana with him to have fun times with the family.

We hope you all have a very merry Christmas!

Christmas Card to You!

Merry Christmas from New York, everyone!!! We’d like to send our love and thoughts to you during this holiday season, wherever you may be! Thankfully, this year has been blessedly boring compared to the last few. I guess you could say this year we officially transitioned from wide-eyed, stressed to a crisp, livin’la-vida-loca jetsetters to feeling much more stable and at home in our little cabin in the woods. To be feeling more at home in a time when we look around and are reminded that nothing is permanent and how fragile the daily living we take for granted truly is, has been a great gift to us. When we feel we might be getting too comfortable, we try to think back to those hard days of looking longingly with job-envy into the windows of telemarketing firms on our way to the grocery store where we would argue about if we could afford a 32 pence packet of hot chocolate for a treat!

We started off this year with Ian getting a job! In February, he started working for the Mental Health Association as a case manager for clients with schizophrenia. He’s also busy volunteering for a local counseling service and working on his Masters in Social Work. Busy! Kristy-news includes finally getting properly certified to teach in the State of New York four four-hour state exams later and surviving her first year of teaching middle school Japanese! We both are learning so much from our jobs and have enjoyed getting to know our respective clients and students.

We are starting to feel like real New Yorkers now, complete with an appreciation for good restaurants, a tendency to speed and/or road rage, and the ability to walk around NYC without a guidebook. We’ve made some good friends in the area and found a good church to be a part of. This summer we joined an Okinawan sanshin (instrument) group that practiced in Central Park every week. It was fun to have the tourists come and gawk at us! We also raised our first garden this summer, Ian-and-Kristy-style (which means, don’t actually know what you are doing before you try it!)

If you ever get a chance to come to New York, please let us know! Our house is always open to welcome you. Have a wonderful holiday season, and we wish you all the best in the coming new year!

Much love, Ian and Kristy

Snow Day

Well, it's December 18th, and we are geared up for what is supposed to be the first major winter storm (and snow day) of the year tomorrow. So far we've barely gotten any snow or freezing temps - I think it was actually 60 degrees earlier in the week. So anyway, I learned today that according to my students (ages 10-13), if you really want a snow day, you have to do the following:

1. Sleep with your pajamas inside out

2. Do a snow dance around wearing your inside out pajamas

3. Sleep with a spoon under your pillow

4. Pray

We'll see if they still say it works tomorrow!