Let the Moving begin

Week in Review---
Monday: New apartment Keys (but only the key to the actual apartment)
Tuesday: Apartment building keys
Wednesday: Target and Ikea shopping spree
Thursday: Cleaning the apartment and putting everything together

Our apartment is TINY! Even smaller than we both remember... it somehow seemed bigger when the chick had all her belongings in it before she moved out. We are hoping the same happens for us when we get all of our belongings in!

It has been kind of a mess (or at least more of a mess than it would have been for an apartment in Kansas). They only gave us part of our keys, so we couldn't get into our apartment. Fortunately we weren't on a deadline for moving in... There is no way to contact the landlord, but we have a Super, named Luis, who doesn't live in the building or answer phone calls (as of yet at least) or clear his voicemail box for new messages... Supposedly he does exist, according to our neighbor, Megga.

Our problems didn't end with the keys. This city is interesting in how it does internet. In Kansas, you have a choice between a few providers, at least if you are living in a city area (we of course didn't have a choice on my parent's farm)... but you usually can choose if you want cable from company A or DSL from company B... etc. Here... it depends on where you live. Seth was disappointed to find out we are in the Timewarner area. Something about slow internet or loss of connection... Turned out though, our landlord doesn't allow Timewarner in the building. On the lease it tells us to use Timewarner... but instead we had to ask around and find out that we needed to get a phone line and DSL. Let's just hope it the internet is decent.

While we were ordering internet, we went ahead and ordered television channels - something Seth and I had both decided against previously. The reasoning behind this was the new TV we got (Only because I was talked into it!)... but I'm thinking if I giving in and let the husband have his Toy, I can use it to my advantage :) Back rub here, dinner there. :)

This TV... leads to our adventure of Wednesday evening. Seth was able to borrow his company's car for a couple days. We used it to help us transport some of our buys towards our apartment, including the TV. Quick note about this car though. Although I didn't actually drive it myself, I'm in love with it! It is Scion.
Let me tell you about this car. This car may not be the best for the folks back home, but for any city drivers... THIS CAR WAS MADE FOR YOU! Seth whipped right in and out of parallel parking spots like a pro. This car has MOVES! If cars could dance, this one would be the Dancing Queen! And although we'll never get a car in the city, I'll always dream of this car and remember our few days of using it to help us move.

Anyways, enough about the Scion. We spent the evening purchasing Seth's new toy, a flat screen TV, and making me happy with a trip to Ikea. Ikea may very well be my new favorite place. I love the showrooms! One just opened last month in Redhook about 2 miles from where Seth and I live. Our Ikea purchases consisted of a loft to put our bed on. The bedroom is so small and we need to fit our full size bed and desk room for 2 in it... plus a closet or wardrobe of some sort since the closet is super mini-size. Under the loft, we'll put our new desk table - it's long and white. Seth will be under the loft bed because of his LARGE chair. It can stay out of my way under there. We also found side tables for the living room - they'll double as our eating area. Matching those tables is a TV table. At this point, Seth and I decided against a couch, once again because we realized how tiny our apartment REALLY is. Jackie and Ethan are letting us borrow their Sumos (large bean bags) for our seating area. Hopefully, when it all comes together, we'll have a nice, Little home.

Pre-Birthday Dinner

It has been somewhat of a tradition for my family to celebrate birthday's at the local Mexican restaurant in Abilene - La Fiesta. We've been doing it for years whenever a birthday comes up and we're all together. They have a great way of celebrating, not only does everyone at the table get to wear a huge, obnoxious sombrero, but the special birthday guest gets spoon fed a "birthday" dessert topped with more than enough whipped cream... while the table and other servers stand around singing "Happy Birthday." Then right at the end, the server shoves one last spoonful into the birthday guest's mouth before shoving the whole plate of dessert right into their face! At this point, they snap a Polaroid, you sign it, and you become a part of the "Wall of Fame" with all the other whipped cream faced birthday guests... This is great fun, especially when it's not your birthday. We do it everytime, and we all know what is going to happen...

Somehow, I've lucked out in the whole face-whipped cream experience... my picture has yet to make it on the wall, but of course, my family made sure I wouldn't be leaving Kansas to move to the big city without my picture hanging with the rest of the suckers on the wall. Seth was the one who had the honor of running off and telling the La Fiestians of my birthday celebration... he came back convincing me they don't do anything for birthdays any more. Of course, I'm beginning to catch on to his teases, even if he's rather convincing :) and this time he was teasing because he came all the La Fiestians with the sombreros and dessert. Some people try to hide, some dodge, some hold them back... I took it like a sport. Now I can be found on the wall of La Fiesta , my new signature shining at the bottom. I figure most people won't recognize me behind the whipped cream or my new name, so I have no true fear of being spotted!


Birthdays are the only reason our server keeps his job... he obviously enjoys it! (guy off to side)

Catchphrase. ATTN: Schultz Family

This post is a special post for the Schultz family - In reference to the multiple games of Catchphrase and the missing instruction sheet. (I knew I had it. I found it when we arrived in Kansas underneath the truck seat!)

To get your team to guess the word you can make any physical gesture (Something Jace would have loved to have known for as often as he got called on it!) and give almost any verbal clue, but you CANNOT say a word that rhymes, give the first letter, or say a part of the word... the question about "Spanish" being a part of "Spain" isn't necessarily answered, but similarily - "German" and "Germany" would not be allowed because "German" is a specific part of the word "Germany" much as the word "Shoe" is a part of "Shoe horn" from the instruction manual.

As far as points go, you get 1 point if your team wasn't buzzed on. Then your team can guess the word - if you get it correct, you get 1 point (not the 2 we'd been giving), making it possible to score up to 2 points for a round.

Anyways - I'm sure having the instruction manual won't stop the Schultz game questions anyways :) and I'll be saving up my competitive juices for the next round, whenever it is we can all get together again for our next rounds of Catchphrase (and I'll just make sure Micki brings another puzzle for when the time comes that I can't stand with the Schultz family game playing!)

Wishing all of you safe travels home and thank you for the amazing time on my first family trip as a TRUE Schultz!

River Rafting in the Poudre (Poo-der)

Bric, Jace, Bre, and Bryan were on the other raft.

Our raft was made up of Ian, Seth, Micki, Blaine, and me. Our guide was Courtney. We had a pretty good time with her. (Minus the part where she made us spin in circles. I was suffering from a bit of motion sickness from the winding roads on the way up.)

Notice anything awkward about this picture?

Nine of the Schultz clan roadtripped 80 miles to Fort Collins to go river rafting in the Pouder River. We arrived quite early, so the Schutlz family divided up into teams for a few competitive games of volleyball. It was quite humorous - the teams being uneven in size: Seth, Bric, and Jace (of course Jace got yelled at every time he made a mistake!) and the other team being Blaine, Bre, Bryan, and Ian. I think the latter team walked away the winners!

We enjoyed rapids from level 2 to 4. Luckily NO one fell out - although Seth came close (he was saved by the guide!). The water was extremely cold, but we all jumped in and floated down a short distance at the "swimming hole". We also joined in some nice water fights - I think that our boat, consisting of Seth, Micki, Blaine, Ian, and me won the water fights... but then again, this could just be my opinion!

Hiking to Emerald Lake

Notice our rocking stickers? Our lucky selves got decorated with bug stickers by Phoenix. Bug stickers to the sunglasses are just a start of the things Uncle Seth will do for his favorite nephew!

Lily pond.

Jace was employed as our personal photographer throughout the trip. He works for no pay, so it was perfect for our budget!


Honeymoon in Estes Park, Colorado has been amazing! We have been spending time with family, enjoying the mountains and scenery of Colorado, and loving the cool weather (minus humidity).

When we get back we'll post the pictures of our amazing hike to Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was 1.8 miles and a moderate hike. Along the way, we saw a beautiful lake with lily pads and another lake called Dream Lake. Seth, Jace (younger brother), and Bre (cousin) hiked to a waterfall further up in the mountains. It was quite a hike. I stayed back and hung out with my new father-in-law and Bric.

Jeff Koons on the Roof

The big colorful piece was originally a picture of Piglet from Winnie the Pooh. Koons took a marker and colored in the colors... then took the outline of Piglet out. Sounds like a simple way to create art, right?


Never been on the Met Roof Garden before, but it was very pleasant - especially the view across the park! There were 3 sculptures by Jeff Koons. The yellow/green balloon dog reminded me of a sculpture we found over the New Years trip that we took (Paula, Sean, Bre, Ian, Seth, and me). I am pretty sure the piece has to be by Koons. It was a metallic red balloon looking sculpture in lower part of Manhattan by the World Trade Center area. I had assumed it was a Christmas piece, because it looked like a big ornament... but the other day when I was down that way, I saw it still there.

If anyone comes to visit before the end of October, we'll go check out Jeff Koons on the Roof and enjoy the views of the park from above. I bet the fall colors are amazing from up there!

Modern Art at the Met

Andy Warhol's piece portraying Jacklyn Kennedy right before JFK was assassinated.


This piece was very cool - The first one is the portrait from a distance. The second is a closer up of the detail. You could actually see where the artist had penciled in the square grids to paint each box. *At this piece of art, I got yelled at by a Met worker, because my camera accidentally got switched to flash when I put it in or took it out of the case... "There is NO flash photography anywhere in the Met." And me, like a mouse, "I'm sorry, it was an accident."



The Metropolitan Museum of Art is like a maze. If you can successfully get out of it without being lost... or if you can successfully find what you are looking for, then YOU ROCK. I end up spending hours just trying to get to what I want to see. I am a fan of modern art (and because of this, I'm thinking that the Museum of Modern Art needs to be a priority for places to go). Anyways, I've been to the Met at least 5 times and this is the first time I found the Modern Art Section.

This is also the first time I used the Audio as I enjoyed the art... I feel like I'll never visit the Met again without the Audio. This time I had a coupon to get the audio for free, unfortunately, when I don't have a coupon I will have to pay $16.00 to get the audio. Anyways, since I had the Audio, I knew I had to get to the European Art to hear about Monet and all the other famous people... that didn't last that long though, because I soon found the hall that led me to the Modern Art...

After enjoying as Much Modern Art as I could for the afternoon, I was heading back into the Maze of the museum to find my way out when I found something else new and exciting... the upstairs garden.

Columbus Circle (Southwest corner of Central Park)

Another Trump building behind the globe
The monument in the middle of Columbus Circle
My scooter :) I could be the new infamous Scooter Girl from K-State!

Jumped on the subway and headed for Columbus Circle - thought it was a spot from Sex and the City (the scene where Aiden and Carrie break up for the last time because she won't marry him)... but I'm pretty sure it's not that spot. While I was there, I did catch a photo shoot going on. No idea who or what, but there was a lot of equipment and what not. Never would have seen this in the Midwest.

Irish Hunger Memorial

Found the Irish Hunger Memorial on my scoot through Battery Park on the edge of the Hudson River. I'd never actually seen this, only seen it in pictures. It's a garden coming out of the city. Took a picture of the cross streets for anyone who wants to go find it. :)

World Trade Center Construction Zone

On my way scooting the other day, I stopped by the cool mall we had found over winter break. It has views of the World Trade Center Progress and also leads to the west side of Manhattan and great views across the Hudson to Jersey.

The construction seems to be making progress, although these pictures don't show much change. If you look at the posters on the side of the building, you can see the future of the area.

Telescope from New York City to London

Last Friday afternoon, I headed towards Brooklyn Heights to scoot down the Brooklyn Promenade. On my way to the Brooklyn Bridge I decided to find the deck that we always see people on just south of the bridge. There, I found a huge telescope "coming out" of the deck. We had heard about this telescope from some friends - they had gone and seen it. When looking in the telescope there was a digital image of people in London who were looking through a telescope similar to the one on the New York City side. Kind of a crazy connection across the Atlantic Ocean... The viewing was pretty casual, but our friends explained how people were using dry erase boards to show messages for the other side. One in particular, a girl wrote "Dance" on the board, and the people in London danced for them! :) The telescope was only visiting for a couple weeks and was removed on Sunday evening. I asked if they planned for put it in a new location to connect two other places in the world. The guy working said there were no plans as of yet, but the telescopes would probably pop up somewhere.