Misadventures in Mamaroneck

That's Muh-mare-uh-neck. We are slowly getting used to life here in Westchester County. Although the roads are actually straight and go through, the store placement is rather strange. You can't just drive around and "find" the Target, Home Depot or Marshalls. Explicit directions are always needed and most everything is in a two story building. Putting your cart on an escalator at Costco is quite the experience. However, I must say that they make very ingenious use of space here.

I was extremely sad to trade my beautiful 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment for an old house with sloping floors but we are making it work. Although we are making due without a dishwasher we are extremely grateful for our washer and dryer and two car driveway. We do feel very blessed to have found our place for the price we are paying.

I have my good days and my bad days here. Most are okay but some are really bad. Two weekends ago, we drove to White Plains (about 10 miles) to go to Target. Well, since we are in New York we of course had to park in a parking garage. We misunderstood and thought we could pay after but instead got a ticket. We drove to the garage office to pay and were in line behind several cars. A woman behind us was not satisfied with our decision and decided to hit our car so she could park and go in to pay. When I confronted her to tell her she hit our bumper, she looked at me and said "So." I was absolutely flabbergasted and I must say, still a little traumatized. I wish I could have found my voice to tell her off but all I could do was walk away. The damage was minimal but the experience definitely turned me off to the city of White Plains.

On a lighter note, we are meeting a lot of nice people in our ward. We are really enjoying our ward so far and are excited about the opportunities is has and will provide. We are also excited to be so close to the Rockefeller Christmas Tree. We'll have to post some pictures once we make it there.


Here are some pictures of our new apartment. I'm really embarressed that all the boxes aren't put away but, we got rid of a few of our storage options so I don't have anywhere to put the stuff inside them. Also, I'm a little unpacking burned out and I knew I better get some pictures up soon for you all to see. I don't have an excuse for our bedroom. I've never figured out a way to decorate it nicely...even when it was huge.

Update

It's been awhile since my last post so I thought I'd take a minute to fill everyone in on the Misadventures of the Youngstrom Family.

Last Thursday, with the help of the Christiana Elders Quorum and Spencer's dad, the rented Budget truck was packed. Wanting to avoid the mishap of some guy carrying five boxes at once stepping on my baby, I escaped to Enrichment. We enjoyed a not so restful night in sleeping bags and awoke early the next morning to drive to New York. Although it got a little interesting going over the George Washington Bridge (think slow moving traffic on a shaking bridge!) and in the Bronx, the drive was smooth.

Before starting to unload, we took some time to check out the new place with our landlord and then went down the street for some lunch. We found a nice little pizza place and I ordered a slice of Chicken Parmesan Pizza. Yes, it was just as good as it sounds...Heavenly! I know you all want to come visit now!

Saturday was spent showing Henry around New York City. We took the train in to Grand Central and walked around. Although he did look to be quite overwhelmed, he seemed to be having a good time...or at least he said he did!

On Sunday we attended our new ward, the New Rochelle 2nd Ward. Everyone was extremely friendly and they all seem to be in the same boat as us. Everyone is in their late twenties to early thirties with a couple or more kids and all the dads are bankers, lawyers or businessmen who commute to the city everyday. We are excited to get to know them all.

On Monday we drove back to Delaware with a side-trip to drop Henry off at the Philly airport. One of Spencer's new duties is being transferred from Delaware to New York. So he has spent the week training. Lucky for us, we have great friends here and they are letting us stay in their guest room.

Saturday we will once again pull out of Delaware but, this time for good. We are excited for the new opportunity but we are also sad to leave. We have enjoyed our time here and will greatly miss the friends we have made.

Halloween Fun

As usual, our Halloween was extremely low key. We only got one trick-or-treater...good thing we bought that entire bag of Kit Kats!

Last Saturday we attended our ward "Fall Festival". The party was supposed to be at a nearby farm, complete with hayrides, pumpkins and all sorts of fun. But due to yucky weather, we were resigned to relocate to the cultural hall. We dressed Anna up in her little costume and enjoyed an afternoon of food and conversation with our friends. I think she was the cutest ladybug ever, if I do say so myself!

Yesterday, she wore her Daddy's Little Pumpkin onesie that Grandma bought her. We only left the house to go visiting teaching but, her cute shirt still inspired a festive mood.

I had recently came across a recipe for Pumpkin Soup and decided it would be a fun Halloween meal. I even bought little pumpkins which I hallowed out to serve the soup in. I was excited all day and had to make myself wait to start preparations. After I made the soup, I tasted it to see if the seasoning was right. Boy was I surprised! It was terrible! Spencer came home to find me adding all sorts of things to this soup to try and get it to taste better. But, it was a lost cause. I was so bummed by the horrible outcome that I didn't even have the drive to cook something else. So, our fun Halloween meal turned out to be Taco Bell and the soup went down the disposal.

Although it didn't go as planned we still had a fun Halloween together!