The Top Ten Most Memorable Things that Have Happened in the Past Month:
(These are in no particular order, except of course number 1.)

10) Turning a quarter of a century...I'm not old, but being 25 must mean that my parents are getting up there :) From phone calls to cards, from presents to a beautiful sushi dinner at home with my new sushi dinnerware, from indulging in Harry Potter to a surprise visit from my intern - it was just a perfect day. Well, almost perfect...there was a huge storm that flooded the subways so by the time I left for work they were shut down and the busses were jam packed, so I walked to work in nasty hot, sticky weather on crowded streets and almost got hit by an impatient driver. But hey, it wasn't all bad. As my dad always says to me, those things build character.

Here's the table that was all set for me!
And my handsome waiter creating the menu...there were so many choices!

So we had the birthday cake on Saturday, but it was all part of the celebration. Mmm...chocolate raspberry mousse cake from Veniero's!
9) Finishing Harry Potter! It was bittersweet - after all there are no more books to look forward to, but at last I know his fate! That book was consuming my life...I'd read on the subway on the way to work and once I got into the office, I would turn on my computer and think "I can finish this chapter, my computer is still booting up!" I just decided to ignore the voicemails that were awaiting me :)

8) Yankee game with Brett. The interns got two tickets, hats and snack cash to attend the Yankee game with their senior mentor. Brett hadn't really met his so I got to accompany him! Maybe he was just mocking my upcoming turn of age since I really am his "senior." I loved this picture of us, it's one of my new favorites!
The Cracker Jacks bring me back to my childhood! I love the nuts that come in the bag and the prize that's inside. It still gets me so excited!
7) Becky & Ben's visit! We had oh so much fun! They were able to see so very much and I got to be with them for most of it. The highlights had to be the moment that Becky won the Wicked lottery, our picnic in Central park (on the all-weather blanket that Don and Beth gave us...thanks so much for it!), Pinkberry (I finally tried the yogurt sensation, mmm, it was tasty...my new favorite treat!), and really, just getting to spend time with them!
Here is Becky in the winners line of the Wicked lottery!!
The picnic. It was overcast, but perfect weather...not too hot, not too cold.
Overlooking Central Park from the top of Belvedere Castle.

The four of us were able to see Spelling Bee. It was funny!

6) Saturday afternoon at Coney Island. My grandma used to tell me about how she would go when she was a kid. We had seen a History channel special on it and I heard all the stories. Ever since, I've wanted to go. So we finally went. We saw the Sideshow, Brett's favorite. There was everything from a creepy girl that dances with snakes, a sword swallower, a crazily tattoed girl that swallows fire to some crazy guy that puts a drill through his nostril straight back into his head. It was kind of disgustingly cool, though I would never try it at home! We also had Nathan's hot dogs for dinner. Every 4th of July they have the famous hot dog eating contest there. I think the record for men is 66 in 12 minutes and for women it's 39...sick! Brett got to 2 and I just made it to 1. We have a long way to go. We also rode on the original Cyclone. I would never ride on that sucker again! It was so jerky, I got off there with whiplash and a queasy stomach. We want to go back and head to the aquarium, but we had had too much fun for one day. 5) Of course, the Scrapaway weekend in Vegas with all of the Gibson girls! It was a weekend full of, well, scrapbooking. We had a blast and I got quite a bit done on my mission scrapbook. Now I only wish I had the time and space to do that every week! I'll have to post a picture with all the scrapbooking mess, but for now our lunch at Pei Wei is all I have. 4) Brett's chocolate pizza. We got the idea when we went to Max Brenner and thanks to the photoshoot we had for Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry, we had some in the freezer to use for the crust. Brett was super excited to put together this masterpiece. He was adorable making it. He sliced the big marshmallows we had to make "marshmallow pepperoni." It was tasty! We shared it with Preethi when she stopped by to visit. 3) So right when I got back from the Scrapaway, we had my old roommates over for dinner. Everything was dandy, but Brett definitely brought down the house with his demonstration of our Breville toaster. It's by far his favorite wedding gift. Patty & Vance - you definitely need to come out just to see the demonstration. He was having so much fun and we were all laughing so hard throughout. He gives Vana White and Barker's beauties a run for their money!2) Evacuation at work! A steampipe burst just 2 blocks from my office. They evacuated my office immediately. It was sheer mayhem in the streets. Everybody was running away from Grand Central Station screaming, crying, panicked... We heard everything from a transformer blew in a building nearby to Grand Central being bombed and in flames. I didn't know what happened, but Adrienne, Richard and I headed West. Here's a picture from Bryant Park that I took. Clearly it wasn't fire since the smoke was all white. I had to take a very long way home, but finally made it. Hey, it got me out of work earlier than normal.1) By far the best thing that has happened was Brett's job offer. The last day of his internship he was offered a job to begin upon graduation. They also extended his internship. He got back into the office on Monday and another surprising turn came. The head of credit research offered him a position to start the next day, August 7th, on his team. They told him that they would work with his school schedule. We decided to accept. So now Brett is employed full-time and starting school right after Labor Day. He will be commuting to Philly two days a week. It will be a VERY busy four months for him, but we'll manage. I have full confidence in him! I was very proud of him - what a compliment to him and his work over the past two months. We took this picture outside of the subway headed back home after dinner while he was talking to his parents and telling them all the news!

Welcome to our chic Manhattan studio!


Now arriving at apartment 2D...



Let me get the door for you...the long hallway houses a closet on the left hand side.



Immediately to the left as you enter is the powder room. Take a look at Brett's oh-so-thorough tour :)



At the end of the hallway, we have our entry way, if you blink and walk a step too far, you may miss it! Fortz, the clock adds the perfect touch!

And the kitchen is just to the right of the entry way. Take a peak. Grandma Vilma, the microwave and the stand are perfect!

(This is the left side of the kitchen)

(And here is the right side of it.)

The dining room is immediately to the right of the kitchen (not too far from the entry way :))

And a glance of the living room/family room and the bedroom all at once.

Our loveseat, chair and ottoman. The bar stool that goes with the table serves also as an end table for scriptures and books.

Our bookshelves double as entertainment center and bookshelves. Note: bookshelf organization is not finished yet.

A view of the bedroom. We only use sheets during this time of year (Grandma Nicholas, your beautiful quilt will be displayed beginning in October when it's cold enough to use it).

At the foot of the bed, we have our large mirror covering the heater that is so strategically and inconveniently placed :) I really want to take that oval mirror off of the door - it came with the apartment.
And there you have it. Hope you enjoyed the tour. I will post a floor plan once I update it. Brett figured that our apartment is a spacious 377 square feet...haha! I'll post again once we get pictures hung and all the shelves organized.

The Beginning of Our Happily Ever After

So, I know it's been almost 2 months since the event, but better late than never, right? The day I got back to work after almost 2 1/2 weeks off, I said to everyone, "I've been living my fairy tale for the past few weeks. It was perfect, just like in my dreams." And that is really how it was. Coming back to reality was a bit hard, but as everyone said to me, "It's just the beginning of your happily ever after." And so it is! Brett and I are so happy and love married life! It definitely started out well. It was so incredible to walk into the sealing room surrounded by family and close friends all dressed in white. I can't even begin to describe the feelings of that 30 minutes or so. In that moment, Brett and I were completely lost in the moment. I felt such a spiritual connection to him and could only begin to imagine the incredible eternity we have ahead of us. I also felt a huge sense of responsibility to take the best care of Brett and our future family so as to create the best relationships throughout eternity.

The reception was so much fun. My parents did an incredible job of transforming the Cultural Hall in the Stake Center into a beautiful reception. Really, it was just perfect. I was able to be with the people I loved. I saw so many old friends, I only wish I could have been able to spend a little bit more time catching up with them. And of course, we danced the night away, which was a definite must for Kris' reception. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and Brett even tolerated the dancing.

Thanks to all of you who were a part of the day. I know many of you traveled long distances to be there!

At 9:30 that evening Brett whisked me away to the Ritz Carlton in Pasadena. Then Sunday we headed down to Rocky Point, Mexico where we spent the next five days/four nights at a beautiful resort there in a 3 bedroom/2 bathroom condo with a balcony view of the ocean. It was really just like in the movies! We enjoyed the seven or so pools at the resort, the beach, the town, and each other. It was the first time in my life where I was completely able to leave behind all cares and lose myself in Brett.

Below I have posted a few pictures from the honeymoon. To see more pictures of the wedding go to www.randrphotography.com/myphotos.php. Scroll down to Kristi-Lynn & Brett's Wedding. The password is "kristilynn" Enjoy the pictures!

My dad and I loading the dress into the car.

A little "congratulations" awaiting us at the Ritz Carlton on Saturday night!

A little peek at where we stayed in Mexico (don't worry that it is at least four times bigger than our quaint Manhattan studio).

A view from the balcony - you just couldn't get enough of it!

We went into town one day to shop and try out a restaurant. I couldn't miss the chance to take a picture of the woman from whom we bought some authentic pottery.

We have many a picture with what I like to call "the Brett" expression. Brett has two expressions in pictures, the classic smile and "the Brett." I can tell him to make any expression aside from a smile and this is what I get :)

So maybe I felt like a junior high schooler writing my crushes name in the sand, but part of me thought it was adorable cuz I'm just so in love!

Just hanging out in the hammocks!

We took this picture outside of the lobby right before we headed back to the States. It was bittersweet. We were sad to leave, but excited to get back and establish our own home. After all, it was just the beginning of this happily ever after.

T minus 16 days and counting...

Not like you all haven't seen this, but thought it would be a fun post. I'm definitely getting anxious for the big day. Not at all nervous, just ready for it to come. It's down to the wire. My focus and concentration at work has just about gone out the window, but I am trying to be organized so it leaves things more manageable for the teams. I can move into our quaint little studio on May 1st, so I have my work cut out for my evenings next week. I figure I'll transfer my things across town a little at a time. It's just all coming together. I can't wait to be surrounded by everyone that I love on May 12th. It will be so nice to all be together. What a wonderful time!

Our First Easter Sunday

We had a nice, quiet Easter at my apartment. All my roommates were gone for the weekend, so Brett and I celebrated just the two of us. We attended our new ward bright at early and had the rest of the afternoon to enjoy spending time together. The easter bunny even managed to find us and treated us all too well. Check out the Braun electric razor that Brett got :) I made Easter dinner, a little ham, some au gratin potatoes and the rest you can see. I at least had to get some traditional Easter fixin's in there.

Ready, set...stuff!

Two weekends ago, Brett and I spent a quality weekend together stuffing 350 announcements and addressing almost that many. We had a blast doing it. Brett had his apartment rearranged and ready to get the assembly line going. The stuffing went surprisingly fast, it was the addressing that got to be more complicated. We pretty much ate, slept and breathed announcements (in between sessions of General Conference of course). We had to document the experience, check it out.

Here's our initial assembly line. We had a contest to see who could stuff more announcements.

After the stuffing, I wrote on the inner envelopes and Brett put the address labels on the outer.

And while I packed my stuff to leave the next morning, Brett sealed them. He went the safe way to avoid getting paper cuts on his tongue.

Happy Birthday Brett!

I know, so it's been a month since his birthday, but I thought I would post a few pictures from that weekend. Sad that I had to work on his big day, but we managed to go to a very nice steak dinner and then have some treats at home. He got the game Risk, so we played that weekend and he has initiated many game nights in Philly since then to get a rousing game of Risk going :) The second half of his present came on Easter, so you'll have to see that once it is posted.

Here's Brett in suspense...what could it be? what could it be?

Brett got some Happy Birthday cupcakes.

That's my roommate Adrienne making a classic Ade face while eating Thin Mints.

I went home for President's Day weekend to work on wedding plans. Getting there was my first real experience dealing with weather delays in airports. I'm hoping to never have to deal with such delays again. After three hours of sleep, transferring to a different airport, and flying through Miami, I arrived in LA 14 hours later than planned. As a result, I missed all of my Friday appointments, but managed to fit most of them in at other points in the weekend. Saturday morning some of my friends threw me a bridal shower. It was tons of fun. But can I just say...I've awaited the day that I would be the bride and looked forward to being "showered" with gifts and attention. Well, the day came and it was kind of hard to be the center of attention. People are just so nice and I just felt like, "Why do I deserve this?" So nice though. I came back to New York with a good start for the apartment that Brett and I will hopefully soon find. Ok, here are some shower pictures:

Here is the cute little set-up of the brunch and treats with Ruthie G gracing us with her presence in the background:

Just opening up some gifts. That's my mother-in-law to be sitting next to me. Isn't she adorable?
My mother-in-law gave me some nice things. The picture below was definitely the hit of the shower. This is a cross-stitch that Brett did when he was a little boy. It was hanging in her house. Now it gets to hang in mine :)

Just a few friends. Jenny was my roommate in college. Emily and I went to high school together and hung out in college.
There I am with the ribbon bouquet and Ruthie G who assembled it for me. What talent she has. She will be doing my real bouquet.

Per Mary's (and all those other folks that signed the "Kris Update Your Blog" petition) request, I think it about time, or way past time to update the blog. It really isn't much of a blog if it never gets any attention. I have no excuses, though it would be quite easy to come up with handfuls of them (i.e. work, a long weekend trip home, work, wedding plans, a fiance, work, bronchitis, work, laziness...). So, what has Kris in NYC been up to in the past two months? I like to sum January up in about one word-work! I feel like I got back from the holidays to triple the work load. I was working at least 3 late nights (meaning 10pm or later) each week with the other "normal nights" putting me home no earlier than 8pm. Talk about overkill. If it was the industry's attempt to burn me out, they just about succeeded. In the few hours that remained aside from work, I managed to spend some time with Brett. Here are just a couple of pictures of our indoor activities (considering the bitter cold that came with winter).


This is when we had a little "Argentine" night. We made "torta frita" and ate it with dulce de leche and any other toppers we could find in the cupboard. Brett even set a cute little table that we could enjoy it to. It turned out well, not as well as those Argentines, but hey, they use lard. I mean really, everything tastes better when it has lard in it.
Brett and I frequently have what we like to call "Sudoku challenge." We have matching Sudoku books that he got for free from a client presentation (thanks Microsoft) so we do the same puzzle and see who can finish first. You'll have to ask Brett what the score is...I like to think that my new nickname will be "Queen of the Sudoku." Ok, so the secret is out, we're big nerds...and we're proud of it.
Brett surprised me for Valentine's Day. Well, in theory in was to be a surprise and he was doing a great job hiding it. I had no idea. It wasn't until he called me right after lunchtime on the V-day that I knew. Well, he told me because he found out (from his little helper) that I would likely be working very late that night, so he needed to know if it would be worth it for him to come considering he would have to be back in Philly by 9am the next morning for a mandatory class. In addition, it was right as the big storm was hitting our part of the country, so he had to plan ahead. Although I ended up knowing, it was a great surprise. This is us walking back to my apartment after a delicious dinner at an Argentine restaurant, Pampa (my sister saw it featured on the cooking channel), on the West side. We walked in the bitter cold and snow. Do we look cold?

I know, this was a thrilling post. Now maybe all you petition signers will think twice about the next blog petition that you sign. At least by not signing you won't be obligated to read the not-so-awe-inspiring posts from Kris in NYC.