Videos of Hurricane Irene

This is a video taken Saturday morning in anticipation for Hurricane Irene.

The next 3 videos are taken as we walked down the street in the "tropical storm" Sunday morning

Busy week in New Haven: Earthquake and Hurricane

It's been a busy week here in New Haven: a 5.9 earthquake and a hurricane.  It was the first earthquake to hit the East coast since the late 40's.  All in all, the earthquake didn't really affect New Haven too much.

As for the Hurricane, last I read, there have been 10 deaths in the US as a result.  Thousands of Connecticut residents are currently without power and many along the coast have experienced severe flooding.  As for us, we never lost power but we had some flooding in our living room.  Fortunately we were able to mop most of it up.  We have had a fan running all day trying to dry out the carpet.  Gratefully, we noticed the water coming in early this morning and were able to move our belongings, so none of our stuff was ruined.

Anyways, enough babbling...time for some photos!

I rode my bicycle up to the top of East Rock look out on Saturday around 10am to get a view of the ocean.  The air was very dense and humid.

Overlooking New Haven Saturday morning in anticipation for Hurricane Irene.

A view of the ocean in anticipation for Hurricane Irene.

A view of the ocean in anticipation for Hurricane Irene.

Gotta love the timed exposure.  Look how gross and thick the air is behind me.

Sunday morning we took a stroll down our street to check out the damage.  A few major trees had split and fallen over this fence.

The weight of this broken branch bent the fence

Earthquakes, hurricanes/tropical storms...New Haven has brought lots of excitement to our lives.  I found this bumper sticker while we were out walking around in the wind and the rain of the tropical storm.

More fallen trees on our street

Our house experienced a little water coming under the door from the hallway.  As a result, the "tiled" area was really wet, and the carpet by the door had gotten really wet.  Hence the fan.

Here I am trying to mop up the water from the tile

Unfortunately, I can't get any videos to load at this time.  I will keep trying to figure it out....however, my computer just keeps freezing.

Ultimately, the storm was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hit Connecticut.  I will say that the storm was bad enough, that church was canceled.  The LDS church never cancels it's services.  I've only experienced that one other time when I was growing up and it's because there was a crazy blizzard so no one was allowed to leave their houses.  I did miss going to church today.  I'm grateful for what the LDS church adds to my life.  Because of the things I have learned in church about being prepared in emergency situations, I was able to feel peace and comfort in anticipation for the storm.  What a wonderful blessing.

The best sushi I've ever had

I am happy to be living on the coast when it comes to fresh sushi.  We went to a quaint little place called Miya's for our date night this week.  The place was packed, and after ordering it was easy to see why.  We started with a pumpkin vegetable miso soup that was amazing.  The cooks/owner had found and harvested the seaweed off of some nearby islands--it was delicious.  We ordered a couple of unique rolls that were great.  The rice contained lots of grains like quinoa, amaranth and millet.

One of the rolls we ordered was called the Catfish Blues and consisted of: spicy tempura catfish with asparagus, black beans, apricots, and scallions.

We ordered another called the Italian Stallion, inspired by Sylvestor Stallone.  It contained raw tuna, new york mascarpone cheese, pistachios, and orange marmalade.  (I didn't eat this one because the fish was raw).

Another roll we ordered was sweet potato, mango chutney and pine nuts.  Simply Amazing.

The last roll we ordered was tempura tilapia, papaya, goat cheese, and homemade african spices.  Fantastic.  My mouth is watering just thinking about eating at Miyas again soon!

Anyways, most of you reading this blog aren't sushi eaters so this probably doesn't mean anything to you.  However, for those of you that are sushi eaters, hopefully you can appreciate this. :)

Standing outside of Miya's after a very satisfying experience

The verdict is in...but it's in a sealed envelope

So, we went to the Ultrasound today and got to see pictures of our little baby.  Take a look at the next Escalante, currently weighing in at 1 lb and 1 oz (The heart rate was about 160bmp):

 a hand (sorry it's upside down)

a foot (sorry it's upside down).  the foot is on the bottom left

The doctors were trying to get the baby to unlock it's fingers so they could see both hands, so the doctor poked at the baby.  The baby then punched back! (again-sorry it's upside down)

So, the baby's legs were crossed and they were having a hard time seeing the sex of the baby.  Eventually they caught it, but we asked that they keep it disclosed for now so it is sitting in a sealed envelope in our spare room.  We'll see if we wait until the birth to find out, or if we peek sooner.

Sleeping Giant State Park

Today I embarked on my road bike toward Sleeping Giant State Park.  After about 8 miles, Baby and I arrived and pulled into a beautiful forested area just beyond the parking lot.

I ventured 1 1/2 miles up the trail to a tower overlooking New Haven and the Long Island Sound.  The view was great and worth the trek.

The view from atop

Hooray for timed exposures

After returning home, Michael and I headed to the climbing gym with a few of the other guys from the SOM (School of Management).  Boy am I excited to lay down in bed.

Other notes of worth: The baby was really rambunctious this morning.  It felt like the poor chap was trying to "break free".   Ultrasound on Friday!

Also, a guy came and looked at our blinds today.  2 out of 3 need to be replaced so he will be back next week to install the new ones.  Is it weird how excited I am about new blinds?  Anything new can only help improve the smell in our apartment-although I do feel like we are slowing starting to win the battle.

That's it for today.  Toodles.

Getting Settled

Well, I caved.  Welcome to our blog.  I found myself wanting a good way to share pictures and thinking maybe this would be the best venue.  So, this will be a photo diary of our adventures while we are here in New Haven CT.

I'll give a quick summary since our arriving here in Connecticut so as to catch you up to speed (I'll keep it brief in hopes not to bore you).  The moving truck arrived around 8pm on Thursday evening (8/4), so Michael and I unpacked it for fear of leaving it unlocked overnight.  We didn't know anyone in the ward yet, so we unloaded the whole truck by ourselves.  The following pictures were the result!

The apartment wreaked like that of an old person home, so we have been working hard to combat the stench since our arrival.  

Friday (8/5) was our 6th year wedding anniversary, and we celebrated by... unpacking.  Since Connecticut is know for their pizza we decided to celebrate our anniversary with dinner at Pepe's pizza.  The pizza was good, the service...not so much.  I almost fell asleep waiting for our food they took so long!

Sunday we went to our new ward.  It was a cool experience.  There is such a great diversity of people in the ward.  I look forward to getting to know the members.  Seems like there will be lots of missionary opportunities, which I am excited about.

On Wednesday, we went to the opening social banquet for Yale SOM (school of Management).  It was at a lighthouse located on the Coast!  It's amazing living so close to the Ocean (15 minutes).

Lighthouse Point State Park

We got to ride one of those crazy merry-go-rounds

All I could think about was Sandra Bullock from "The Net" trying to escape the creepy computer guy while riding on the merry-go-round.

We spotted them from a mile away-another mormon couple from Utah-our new friends.

The banquet was enjoyable, they served Clams, which were not so enjoyable. :)

Friday morning I went for a bike ride up a beautiful Canyon to East Rock Park.  A bit of a climb for baby and I, but we managed and were excited to see the view from atop.

Me and the kiddo

View of New Haven 

Saints and Sailors Monument (under reconstruction)
Basically a tribute to men who fought in 4 different battles.  The monument is quite impressive.

We had a pizza night last week (Wed. 17th) and feel like we will give Connecticut competition for the title of "best pizza".  We made a bunch of small pizzas and tried out some fun combos using fresh local ingredients.  Pretty tasty if I do say so myself.

Michael and the Yale SOM (School of Management) got to travel to New York for a day.  He said the experience was really great and he looks forward to taking me to New York soon.

The Stock Exchange

Michael and Trevor - The other mormon ;)

We are finally feeling a little settled in our new place.  Our new Futon/Couch arrived and brings some fun color to our living room.  Take a look.

Our small kitchen/dining room! (which is not very colorful)

Our plan is to hang Michael's two guitars on the wall with spot lights on them (in between the 2 pictures)

Our new couch-yipee

View from the kitchen/dining room

The coolest thing about our new couch is that aside from being a couch and a bed, it is also convertible into a double lounger! I'll post some pics later, but believe me, it's cool..

Saturday we felt to venture out and do something fun before the rigors of Michael's school really set in.  We traveled up the coast a short ways (about 30 minutes) to Hammonasset Beach State Park.  The water was warmer than we expected which I was grateful for.  We played in the water, laid on the beach, read, I even took a brief nap.  It was perfect.

Me and the baby laying on the beach

Pretty eh?

I wanna get me one of those fancy umbrellas and lawn chairs

Hopefully you're not bored yet.  One more photo to go for this post... The weather has been nice, it's already starting to cool off a lot at nights.  I went for a bike ride today to Lake Whitney (Reservoir) and sat and enjoyed the view and meditated.  The ride up the canyon was shady and a bit on the cold side!-it makes me excited for Fall in New England.

Well, that's it for now.  Stay tuned on our Connecticut adventures.  Today there was an earthquake-largest to hit the East Coast since the 40's.  This weekend we are on Hurricane warning, so we'll see what that yields.  I'll try to keep the next blog to a reasonable length!
(p.s. check out my facebook for pictures of our road trip across the country)