Someone really wanted to come in our cozy home.

I came home from work last Friday and the first thing I noticed was that our computer was not in its usual place. I looked in the basement (we keep the printer down there) and it was not there. After a couple of texts back and forth between me and Nate I realized that he was not hiding it from me. He asked me if I saw any sign of a break-in and I said no until I noticed that my dining room curtains were off a little.(My parents recently helped me put up the curtains and they were all perfect). So I checked that window and saw the locks broken on the floor. I freaked out and ran out of the house, got in my car and drove to our one and only friends house (her husband works with Nate). I drove to her house frantically because I wasn't sure if the robber was still in our house. She came back with me and I called 911 on my way back to my house. In about 1 minute there were 4 cop cars in front of my house with the 7+ policemen walking around the house. After about an hour a detective came and fringerprinted the window (which gave our window a nice black coating). There were prints on the window(and he also noted how clean my window was:-)), but the prints were not strong enough to be detected. On a funny note (although I did not find it funny at the time)...one of the policemen said "At least they didn't take your Charlie Brown Christmas tree". How dare he offend my small tree that was the perfect size for our small Queens apartment. So, we got lucky and only had our laptop stolen. What a dumb robber. We got a call two days after the robbery and the detective said they think they have booked the guy that did it. Wow, that was fast. Makes me feel a littl better, but having our computer back would really make me feel better. So, that's our story. I took pictures of the window, but we have no laplop and no way to upload pictures anymore. Yikes!!! What will I do???? And to all of you who make fun of me for having so many pictures up on facebook? I am sure glad I have done that since our pictures were all on our laptop. So, I will continue taking lots of pictures and hopefully one day start putting up tons and tons of pictures on facebook:-)

Our new home.

Goodbye Queens.
Hello Long Island.

Thanks to Mom & Dad Bryant, Jared, Joanna, Kevin, Kate and Dave we were able to make the move in just a couple of hours.

Summer 2008

Vacation in Cape May.
My brothers, their wives, my grandparents, my parents and us.
My Surprise 25th Birthday.
What a great group of friends!

Spring in New York

Our 1 year Anniversary.
First year is the Paper Anniversary. We gave each other a lot of "paper" gifts.
Kate Hunt and Kevin Kalbach came to visit. I knew Kevin was coming, but Kate surprised me at work. What a great surprise. We took Kate and Kevin around Long Island for the weekend.

Ashley's 16th Birthday in New York

Happy Birthday in Queens!!!!
Lunch at Tavern on the Green
Ashley and her friends in the M&M's store in Manhattan.

Montauk in the winter

It snowed one weekend and we just had to get out of Queens. We drove all the way east out to Montauk. We were lucky enough to see a baby seal just hanging out on the beach.

Still more pictures from the past year.

Nate flew us around Manhattan. This was a really cool flight.

Our First Christmas Together as a married couple.

Keith Johnson and Ashley Constable were in Manhattan and came to Queens to have dinner with us. Of course the guys played X-Box.

Jared comes to visit for a couple of days.

Our first Christmas tree. We had a small apartment which is why we had a small tree. It's our little Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

More pictures of our life over the past year.

My parents came to visit for the weekend. Nate had to work so I took them around the city and we met up with Nate in Times Square for dinner.


Nate's 23rd Birthday in Queens.
Picture for our first Christmas card.





LaGuardia Tower (he works way up in the top of the tower)






Mom Vail comes to visit.






Jake Leone came to visit.






Chris & Amanda Avenick and Jeff & Lauren come to visit. We spent the day at the Central Park Zoo (don't ever go there... think about it... it's a zoo in New York City). Later that night we went to a Shane and Shane concert in Queens.










Kevin Kalbach comes to visit for the weekend. This is us in Central Park.

Life as a "New Yorker"

Wedding Day May 12, 2007
Honeymoon in the Bahamas.
Moving into our apartment in Queens.
August 2007
Vacation in Cape May, August 2007.




It seems like all the newleyweds I know start a blog after they got married. Well, we're one year late, but better late then never. Not so sure even where to start, but I figured this is a good way to keep in touch with our friends and family as we are away from our beloved Pennsylvania life. We have lived in New York for over a year (I can't believe we survived). The past year was spent in New York City in Queens. "They" say (referring to New York City) you either love it or you hate it. I don't know if I would say hate, but it was pretty close to it. We did not chose to live in New York and I think that if people actually want to live there it's because they love it.









We were married on May 12, 2007 at our home church, Calvary Fellowship Church. We met at church and could not have even thought for a second to get married anywhere else. We went on the most amazing honeymoon to the Bahamas. It was the best vacation ever and it was truly a vacation. The week after we got back from our honeymoon Nate gets the "call". He has less than one month to be in Oklahoma City for 2 months of training and then must immediately move to New York to work at LaGuardia Airport. What I thought was going to be the best summer ever got turned around very quickly. Nate and I spent three years being away from each other and I thought when we got married there would be no more long distance. But I guess it was a good thing it happened so soon before I got too comfortable with having him around. So, Nate was off to Oklahoma for the summer and I was back in PA working at Polish and trying to find a place for us to live in New York. We didn't know Queens at all, but we knew it was near the airport, so I just tried to find the safest place to live that was close to the airport. A week before Jeff and Lauren's wedding Jeff takes me up to Queens and we thankfully found a decent place.









Fast forward one month and Nate and I are finally reunited after two months of being apart. He did not get to pick out the apartment, in fact, he did not see it until after he drove straight from Oklahoma City to New York City and I stood in our straight on 113th Street in Forest Hills and said "Welcome Home". We were pretty excited, but I was a mess. I had never been away from my parents for more than three weeks at a time (China). The first couple of months were really hard, but now that I look back I know that it was all in God's plan. So, fast forward again about a year and Nate and I are so sick of city life. I did not enjoy taking the gross subway to work everyday, listening to pigeons giving birth on our porch, noisy neighbors, and no relaxation. Queens never felt comfortable to me, so we then decided it was time to move on. We know that we will probably be in New York for at least another five years and we willl most likely have children while we are here and we knew that we did not want to have children in New York City. Nate has a friend from work that lives on Long Island and him (Jason) and his wife Adrienne are kind of in the same boat as us. Just got married a year ago and are living in New York but are excited to get out. Nate had dinner at Jason and Adrienne's one night while I was away and he decided that night that we should move to Long Island. He told me all about it, I had to see it for myself and I also decided that it was much better than city life. So, here we are living on Long Island. We found a cute old beach house to rent. We have an attic, a basement, a driveway, a backyard and we don't have to share a wall with anyone. It's amazing the things we took for granted while we were living in PA. Queens helped us to appreciate the little things.









We have now been living on Long Island for a month and we love it. It's still not PA, but it's close enough. There are trees, shopping centers were you don't have to park, drive-thru fast food, we can grill in our own backyard, banks where you can disposit your pay check and not get a ticket for trouble your spouse off (haha.... that's a story in itself). We did have some great memories in Queens. It was our first place together and we were able to have lots of visitors over the past year). Now we are moving on to the next chapter in our lives (feeling like a home owner without paying the mortgage). We have painted the living room, dining room, hallway, bathroom and bedroom. Nate loves being able to fix stuff up around the house. The owner of our house said we can do whatever we want and to make it feel like ours. So that we will do. we live less than 15 minutes from the beach (it's certainly no Cape May or Ocean City, but it's still a beach). And we no longer have a pigeon problem, instead we have seagulls and that I can deal with. Also, we live right behind Hooters. This place is funny and it keeps us laughing. We open our window first thing in the morning and say "Good morning Hooters". haha. So, that is our life so far. Enjoy some pictures below of our past year. If anyone wants to come visit, just let us know. We love visitors.