New York Dolls

Okay, so it's been a few months since this trip, but I forgot my camera and it took a while for us to get these pictures. Nevertheless, we took one last day trip up to the Big Apple with friends Lauren and Andrew before we headed out to Colorado. My wish for this trip was to take a ferry around the island. We purchased our tickets from the National Park Service.

Lauren and Andrew Sutton: We miss you guys!

Andrew really wanted to go to a Yankees game (mostly to see the new stadium) and it just happened that the only day we could go, the Yankees were playing the Mets: Bad idea. Our tickets ended up costing way more than they should have and the fans were crazy!
Fun times taking the Subway!
Fun times made even funner with these guys on our car! They stepped on all quiet and shy and all of the sudden started playing a loud song. One kid on the car was plugging his ears and complaining to his mom. When they finished, they walked around for tips and continued on to the next car. It was so random.
After the game we went to the south (?) side of Manhattan and made a stop at a very important store. It wasn't until later that I found out you can get their peanut butter for about half the price in several grocery stores in the US. Lauren LOVES peanut butter.
We also took a stroll through Washington Square. This is the park everyone is playing music on in August Rush. It is seriously crazy. There were all types of performers.
Most impressively, this man who drew pictures with colored sand. The pictures were amazing, but will blow away at the first gust of wind.
We miss being close to so many fun things in VA, but we're doing well in Colorado. There's not as much time for exploring and trips right now, but we're having fun!

More Colorado Scenery

I found this "open space" called Davidson Mesa when doing my long runs. (Colorado names all of their open spaces, aka: fields of nothing.) It is actually between Louisville and Boulder, but I enjoy running there because you feel like you are alone in the world. You're actually pretty close to civilization, so don't worry mom.

Our Townhouse

We've really enjoyed living in Colorado so far. Tim is enjoying school, and I'm enjoying looking for a job (sometimes). We really like our ward. In fact, we're even speaking on Sunday! We live in a beautiful town just a few miles southeast of Boulder called Louisville (pronounced: loo-is-ville), and we love being out of DC traffic and close to "American" stores (I called Falls Church International America). Below are some pictures of our townhouse. We feel spoiled because it has two bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms.

Our bedroom (we have a beautiful fan and stand due to our no a/c, but we haven't even turned it on this past week)
The kitchen. The front door is to the left of the picture and the fridge is behind the left wall. Our front window is also behind the wall which is kind of weird, but it works. I LOVE that there is an open counter above the sink. Other units have a wall there.
The other side of the first floor. The kitchen opens into the dining area. The door here is actually our back door and our stairs are just to the right of the picture.
The upstairs hallway taken from inside our spare bedroom. At least you can see the stairs.Our lovely back porch.
And our backyard. We really got the bottom of the barrel for backyards. Behind the fence is a big road (though not terribly big, relatively) and most of the other yards have grass. We're just happy to have a yard though.
This ends our tour. Thank you for joining us.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Tim and I drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a day before he started school. It's only about 40 miles north of us. It was pretty amazing.

Our 9 mile hike took us up above the tree line to this lake by glaciers.
Beautiful scenery everywhere
We even saw some wildlife!

One more thing to bribe you to come visit.

"I thought the Rocky Mountains would be a little.....Rockier"

Meet Boulder...

Ever wonder why the Rocky Mountains were named Rocky?
This is the other side of Boulder/Louisville/Denver...
Now that's more like it!

To answer your questions, YES. Colorado is everything we thought it would be.

Below are some things I have learned (or confirmed):

1. It's true. The people here are very outdoorsy. Example: We were eating dinner with some people in our ward and Tim said, "I like to hike, I'm just not one of those people who goes to REI every week." One of the guys said, "Yeah, It took me two years of working at REI to get my equipment."
2. They are also very organic. Example: Tim and I stopped by the Louisville Farmers Market one Saturday and ended up talking to the people who deliver milk straight from the farm. Real milkmen. We weren't opposed to the idea except that it was about twice as much as milk from the grocery store. While we were with our neighbors from our ward, Tim saw that they had that same milk in their fridge. Oh, and we ate hormone-free, other-stuff-free hamburgers for dinner.
3. Boulder is a diverse place. Example: in Tim's anti-harassment class on campus for being a TA, they said you must be very considerate on calling someone a "he" or "she" if "he/she" is in the process of changing their gender. It's a delicate subject.
4. There are a lot of people who stand on the exit ramps holding weird signs. We wondered if they have to unofficially rent them out. Example: On our way to Estes Park we stopped at an intersection in the middle of nowhere. A man with an arm sling held a sign saying "Wounded soldier. I need to get home to my daughter in Texas." Yes this sounds sincere, but he was on the ramp to go North. ?
5. Everyone rides their bike. Example: I got mine out and rode to the library yesterday. I haven't ridden in two years, but I figured if everyone else did, I needed to, too. My bum is sore today.
6. The weather here is wonderful! It gets warm during the middle of the day, but the evenings are perfect! We don't even have air conditioning.
7. Dogs are citizens in the city of Boulder. For example: Tim was sitting in class and a dog walked in. A girl went in after it, and instead of apologizing, she said, "wrong classroom" and proceeded to take the dog next door. Example #2: I was going on a hike with the neighbor from church and she said, "Can you believe dogs aren't allowed in REI? They can go in Marshalls next door but can't go in REI?"
8. Yes. Subarus are very prevalent in Colorado. Have you ever seen Catch and Release? Its not a very good movie, but it takes place in Boulder and they drive a Subaru Outback. They did a good job of portraying the population.
9. Colorado is BEAUTIFUL! For example: see my post coming next week.
10. The kicker: Marijuana is legal for "medicinal purposes" in the city of Boulder. For example:

and:

Though I didn't take these pictures, I have seen these signs in person. Don't worry, I'm not interested.
I hope you enjoyed my orientation to Colorado.

Tanaya on Tour

We've just started settling into our new home in the Rocky Mountains, but before I do any Colorado posts, I wanted to share pictures from my fun trip with my family. A few days after we arrived here, I left Tim behind (he had Math Camp) and went on tour. To family, I mean.

I flew into Salt Lake City and stayed with TJ for a few days. I FINALLY got to meet my new niece Hailey! She's getting so big, but she's adorable...I spent lots of time with Kate and Jonas. My parents came up for our cousin Kristen's wedding and they brought cute gifts for Kate and Jonas. Jonas got a tool belt and Kate got a princess outfit. I don't think either of them took the outfits off for two days straight! We went to Golden Corral and the waitresses smiled and said "Look at Handy Manny" to Jonas.
On Saturday morning I was running around Santaquin and I realized they were celebrating some kind of fruit days. I ended up joining the 5K (it happened to be on my route...and there weren't many places to run in that town), then I saw them getting ready for a parade! Once I got home, I made everyone get ready so we could watch. It was one of the highlights of my trip! Jonas had a hard time picking the candy up with the cool tool belt my parents got him!
Watching the parade!
I also took Kate and Jonas on a Treasure Hunt to find gold from Costa Rica!
Friday night was my cousin Kristen and Rocky's wedding. It was in Dale and Jennalee's back yard and it was beautiful! There was some crazy wind and even some rain, but everyone's faith held strong and the weather ended up being beautiful for the Ceremony and Dinner. I also had fun seeing family I hadn't seen for over two years!
I drove to St. George with my parents and they surprised me by getting tickets to Tuacahn's Tarzan! I went with my dad and had a really great time!
It was a little strange having the entire ensemble as gorillas, but they did some awesome tricks. Some of the actors in the Playbill had the role of "acrobat." I didn't take any pictures, but I stole some from the website...
I continued my tour on Tuesday driving with my mom and Ben to Phoenix to visit Mindy's family. As you can tell in the pictures, Makayla and Will received the same "outfits" as Kate and Jonas and looked just as adorable! We had to stay indoor most of the time because it was Phoenix in August, but we did manage to go to the splash pad!
The biggest part of my trip to Phoenix was, again, meeting my new nephew Henry! He's a little chunker, too. He's only two days older than Hailey, but almost twice as heavy! I love nieces and nephews!
I had to do my treasure hunt at the splash pad because it was the only place outdoors that we could handle. This is the kids looking for an "X"
Ben was a good sport all week. These kids just love him, but I think he was worn out by this picture. (You can even see Bruiser sniffing his feet)
Another wonderful trip with family!

Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio

We spent a few days in Quepos, visiting in and around Manuel Antonio National Park. The park had a few shorter hikes through the rain forest, but it is known for it's beautiful beaches.(Notice the monkey behind Tim in the picture above)Monkeys there are like squirrels in the United States. They are everywhere and are so cute!
Our hotel situation was crazy the entire time. In Montezuma, we went to a place we had reservations for and there was a guy sitting out on his porch without a shirt on. He talked us into NOT staying there. We didn't want to anyway. In Quepos, we got to our rooms late at night and had to HIKE up a huge hill into a yucky room with no a/c or hot water. We upgraded the next day and got a two bedroom suite with a kitchen. We ended up cooking our own delicious meals!
And back to the beach for some boogie boarding!

I sure do love the beach!

I had heard about the Villa Vanilla, a spice plantation nearby. We were to cheap to go on the tour, but we did visit their "store" -a cabinet with lots of spices. The guy there was really nice and gave us the mini-tour in spanish. Tim translated and we ended up having a good time! We even saw cocoa beans growing on trees!After a nice stay by Manuel Antonio, we drove back into the city and realized how Americanized San Jose was (although we were glad for clean rooms and regular food by then). We saw some beautiful scenery on the way including crocodiles.We stopped on the way to eat lunch by a harbor in an even more Americanized community.



I don't really have any pictures of San Jose, but we just relaxed for the last night. It was a great experience, but we were glad to be in the good old USA!