To All Our Concerned Readers

After talking to Andrew on the phone tonight, I realized I should add a little tag to my last blog. Our apartment is not actually a storage unit. It's an apartment that has been lived in before. It has a kitchen (about three feet squared), a bathroom, a living room and a bedroom. But because of the odd dimensions the landlord feels more "comfortable" leasing it as a storage unit. So never fear... we'll be okay. There's no lead in the paint and there's a working smoke alarm and Reggie is allowed to live with us. Overall we feel blessed to have found the place and our dream is a reality... we have a one bedroom with enough room to spare for anyone who wants to come see us. We are feeling excited to finally settle into our own place, and settle into a routine, and settle into the city that never settles down. We miss our families and our friends and our bikes (which are in storage for the time being). Please come see us soon, just to see for yourselves that the place we found is liveable.

A Super Expensive Storage Unit

So after several days of looking for apartments (and quickly realizing our "price range" was a pipedream). We found one! We found it about a week and a half ago but the paperwork has taken a little time. So this apartment is pretty crazy. Only actually viewing the apartment in person could adequately explain it. It's a basement... which is fine, lots of people live in basements. But yesterday when we went to the realtor to sign the lease. He put down in front of us a lease for a storage unit. I guess because of window size and ceiling height and who knows what else, the apartment is not a "legal" apartment. We were not aware of any of this until yesterday and we just kind of looked at each other and gulped. We asked the realtor if we could have minute to talk it over. He left and we both just felt sick. The idea of going back to square one made us want to cry (and I'm sure it would have made Larry and Betsy cry since we've already been staying with them longer than we planned), but we were afraid that we were about to sign away any residential rights we might have had. Before we had to make a decision though, the realtor came back in and offered to draw up a month to month lease so that if the "apartment" wasn't adequately maintained at any time we could leave. We felt relieved and decided to go ahead with it. So tomorrow we'll sign the new lease... a month to month lease for a storage unit that will cost us three times our Denver rent. You gotta love New York.

Our Gigantic Apple

So up until now, GK has primarily... well exclusively... been the one to update the blog. But since he is in school and busily preparing himself to be a publishing tycoon. I thought I'd jump on the wagon.

We got to New York on August 28, 2007 after going from Denver to Salt Lake City to San Francisco to Santa Clarita to Salt Lake again to Denver again. In denver we packed up our trailer and headed out of town. About 60 miles outside of Denver we noticed a coolant leak and headed back again... hoping we wouldn't repeat that story in Elder Holland's talk "An High Priest of Good Things to Come". Although the story is beautiful, repeating it wouldn't be.

Well after that false alarm, we headed out the following day stopping in Kansas for a fun night of barbeque and catching up with GK's aunt and uncle Mike and Leslie, then the next night in Columbus Ohio staying with GK's cousin Paul and his wife. Then the next night we camped right new some Amish settlements in Pennsylvania. And on August 28th drove into the city. We were relieved to get out of the car after nearly 3 weeks on the road. And Reggie has finally recovered from his lack of exercise and regular potty routine.

Now we're here and have put a deposit on a pretty crazy little apartment and are waiting to hear back from the landlord. We'll send pictures as soon as the move in actually happens. We are no strangers to weird little apartments, but we are still figuring out how to put our own little spin on this place.

Argentina on the Greyhound

Last Friday we left a resturant where we had eaten with some friends and recieved a phone call from my Aunt who explained that she had a family friend from Argentina who was stranded at the bus station, which was only two blocks behind us at the time. So, I went and picked up our new friend Sergio, an adverturous young Argentine stranded where the great American prairie meets the Rocky Mountains, due to the unpredictable weather of the region and the lack of Greyhound dependability. He came with me to buy my new American shoes and we went home to our apartment while Susanna slept at her Sister's. In the morning we all had breakfast together and took Sergio to the bus station where he could sit amongst the junkies while he waited. The most interesting thing we learned from our South American visitor was that he could not believe that Americans would take their children to Las Vegas.

The Finer Things

Tonight, after work and before the show, we went for a walk by the river and discussed married life, took a dinner of tacos to a crippled elderly woman, and walked the evening streets with sugar cones in hand__ Dulche de Leche in hers, and a chocolate creation called Billionaires in mine.

Baby Beavers

Yesterday I sat with my wife eating lunch in the sun, next to the river, on the steps of the pavillion under the Lawrence Street Bridge when we saw a small beaver wash up from the deep current and across a shallow spot. It got to its feet and scrambled across the rocks back to the main part of the river, dissappearing in the muddy snowmelt. It was so small I postulated that it may have been a squirrel that wandered too close to the shore and got swept away. This made Susanna sad, until I convinced her that it must have been a beaver.

The Role of Gender Reversals

Last night I watched my wife portray the role of a man. I think that of all the women doing so in this particular show she did the finest job. I'm glad that even the finest job still looked nothing like a real man.