Snow, Snow Go Away.....

Tomorrow is the first day of March and last year on March 1st we got 9" of snow. I can't handle anymore snow this year. We just got around 20" a couple of days ago and I'm really crossing my fingers that that was the last snow. I feel like I've either had snow boots on or rain boots for the past three months now, I can't take it anymore!I've definitely come across some creative snow creations, but the snow really is only beautiful for a couple of hours and then turns into gross slush that makes walking around awful. I didn't take the picture below, but it gives you a really good idea of how nasty it is walking around in this stuff.I don't know if you can tell, but winter is really starting to drag me down. I guess I'm used to Spring starting to show up around now and it certainly will not be doing that here in NY for about another month :(

Belated Valentine's Day

We had family in town visiting this past weekend and so John and I celebrated Valentine's Day a little differently this year. Thursday I had a cookie decorating party with a bunch of girls from my Bible study and work. It was so much fun! I made a ton of cookies and then everyone decorated them at the party.On Friday and we had lots of good food and did some fun touristy things over the weekend. I finally made it to the Statue of Liberty for the first time and we also got to eat at Peter Luger's Steakhouse for the first time. Lots of really fun firsts :)
Yesterday John and I celebrated Valentine's Day with each other. John took me to dinner at Double Crown and we had the chef's tasting menu complete with wine pairings, we even got a signed copy of the menu from the chef. The food was outstanding, it was just a little too much food. I enjoyed it all but ate WAY too much!

Never a Dull Moment in NY!

Well Thursday certainly made for a memorable moment in my NY experience, running out of a burning building won't be forgotten any time soon! I know that sounds awfully dramatic, so I'll start at the beginning :)

It all started sometime mid-morning on Thursday when the fire marshal came over the loud speaker and said there was a fire under the sidewalk outside but the fire department was there and it was under control. He said if we saw smoke outside don't worry and there was no need to evacuate. No one really thought anything of it, I mean the fire marshal did say to stay put.

Not too long after that is when all the craziness broke out. I sit towards the front of the office in a row of cubicles and you can't see over the cubicles unless you stand up. We were all working like normal when this shadow moves over the building and from my desk I could see how dark it was all of a sudden. I stood up to see what was going on and of course started to think terrible things. When I stood up I looked out the window and saw a huge column of fire all the way up at our 6th floor windows. That's when people started screaming and running! I grabbed my stuff and ran out with everyone else. Everyone was able to make it out of the building and no one was hurt.

When I got outside and stood still for a minute I realized I was shaking and lots of other people were shaking or crying. No one was hurt and no one was really in danger since the fire was coming from outside and would have taken a while to come inside and pose a threat but that didn't cross your mind when all you see is a wall of fire and people start screaming!

Here are some pictures from news stations. According to the news a transformer under the sidewalk caught fire and exploded. All of the snow melting and salt running down into the vaults where transformers are stored can sometimes cause a problem. The transformer had started smoking and that's what the fire marshal had said was under control. The bottom floors of the building were evacuated because of the smoke but since it wasn't reaching the upper floors it was deemed safe for us to stay….that was until the transformer exploded sending a column of fire up through the grates in the sidewalk and all the way up past the top of our 7 story building!

On the up side everyone was able to go back to work Friday and besides the front of the building the only damage noticeable from inside is all of the windows that were blown out and had to be boarded up.

Winter Memories

Tomorrow is my one year anniversary in New York. I've been thinking a lot about the past year and I can't help but think of this time last year and the ice storm in Arkansas right before I moved....it was awful!

I just wanted to share some of the images from our old house. John had already moved to NY and I had stayed behind to get the house ready to sell. This storm hit literally the week before I moved. It certainly made for a memorable last week in Arkansas!
This is the view from the side of the house and then below is the backyard. The really funny thing about this whole event was that I was alone with Rosie with no power for 6 days and John's reaction when I showed him pictures was "Oh no, my tree!" Trust me, that's only funny now, a year later :)Here are two views up and down my old street. Even these pictures don't really do justice to how much damage there was EVERYWHERE!I guess that's one thing NY has going for it, no ice :)