Friday, June 24, 2011

Life in New York

Life sure has changed since we moved to New York, but they're all pretty much good changes!

Because we came here with just what fit in our car, we were forced to ask members of the ward for help, and that's something that I don't really like to do. I'm the kind of person that likes to just do my own thing and not ask anyone for help because I am stubborn and like to think I can do lots of things on my own. It's certainly taught me a lesson though and I'm thankful we had the opportunity to be in this position. The ward here is so amazing. On our first Sunday, it seemed like almost everyone in the ward came to shake our hands and welcome us into the ward. It was very welcoming and nice to have that since we came here not really knowing anyone! Immediately, we got invited to dinner for almost every day of the next week, OK it wasn't really every day, it just seemed like it!

We have made some friends in the ward, and it makes me not want to leave here and leave our new friends! It has been so nice to feel so welcome!

Moving on with life here in NY. We didn't really want to spend a lot of time and money seeing things during the month of June since my parents are coming here for 2 weeks in July and we'll be doing a lot of things then, but we have seen a couple things around the state.

A couple weeks ago, we randomly took a trip to the Erie canal locks! We arrived just as a boat pulled into the lock and the lock man (I know they have an official title...but I just can't think of it...) opened the gate some and we watched it fill up. It was pretty cool and interesting. Then he asked me if I wanted to open the gates and of course I said yes, so I did! It was pretty cool and I never knew that we lived RIGHT by the start of the Erie canal.

David and I love to go hiking (you wouldn't know it if you were on a hike with me because I'm SO dreadfully out of shape) and we looked up some hikes in the Adirondacks and decided to give it a whirl. David found a trail that was about an hour's drive away so last Saturday morning we packed some lunches, packed the car and headed to Mt. Hadley.

We were hoping to head out of Waterford at 9, but had to make a last minute trip to WalMart to get some bug spray (and thank goodness we did because the bugs were TERRIBLE!) We ended up getting out of town just before 10 and we made it to our trail head around 11. We loaded Ellie up in the Baby Bjorn, grabbed our bags and water and headed up the trail. Oh, I forgot to mention that this trail was marked as "Moderately Difficult" so I knew to expect a pretty good workout.


The trail started with a straight up hike, and it continued that way until we were almost to the top! Talk about a difficult hike! I'd like to know who classes these hikes, because moderately difficult it was not! It was most certainly closer to the difficult category!


We took breaks about every 10 minutes because I was dying and I am SO out of shape!!! Ellie LOVED being outside and she loved seeing all the trees, rocks and plants. She was good the entire way! Not one peep of discontent! I was SO amazed. We had timed things right so we would make it to the top at about the time Ellie needed to eat, and after a long grueling hike, we made it! I fed Ellie and we took a nice little break before we decided to head back down.



The journey down was a bit better because it was all down hill, but because it was all down hill, it was really hard on my knees! On the way down just before we were finished, Ellie started to fall asleep and it was the funniest thing!


Once we got back down, we ate our lunch, cooled off in the car with the AC running, and headed to Jimmer's hometown for a quick drive-through before we went home.

Jimmer's hometown: Glens Falls. It's big and we had no idea where he lived, or else we may have gone to his house ;)

It was a good Saturday and a lot of fun! I look forward to many more fun Saturday's like this to come!

I'll edit the pictures in later...blogger won't let me upload them for some silly reason!

1 comment:

L.B. said...

cute pictures! I hope your knees are ok :o)