What an interesting week we've had! I guess you could say it's been quite eventful!! Rich's job is getting much more intense - he's been having to do "mock projects" this week. On Friday, he left work with a headache, feeling a little overwhelmed with a project he'd been doing on his own. We all feel a little overwhelmed right before the weekend sometimes, right? (tgif!!) He was telling me about how he's been assigned a mentor who is supposed to help him with anything he might have questions on. His mentor's desk/office is clear across the floor! Jacklyn's (the other analyst who started with him, aka - the other new person) mentor's desk is right next to hers! That's not very fair! The other new person's mentor, Rich tells me, is SUPER nice and just goes out of his way to help both of them - that he's even been more helpful than his own mentor! It's too bad that Rich couldn't have a mentor seated closer to him, or one who was more willing to help him out! He IS liking his job though. His coworkers are very friendly for the most part and don't tease him about the lunches I send him with ;) There's a gym at his work that he checked out this week - it's free for employees of Nielsen and their family members so I can go too! We've had the goal to go this week...but, didn't make it - we're such fatties. The week has been quite busy!
On Monday I started my administrative work at CNT (College Nannies and Tutors). I was mostly doing training and learning the system. It was fairly easy to understand...I've worked in call centers before so I have experience working on the computer and calling. This week I was mostly just calling nannies to see if they could interview...scheduled a few interviews and called a few families to ask how things went with their nannies.
Anyway, I got off around 5 pm, went and picked up Rich and as we pulled up to our apartment we noticed not 1, not 2, but THREE firetrucks parked in front of our building!! When I saw them I explained to Rich that I had smelt a melting plastic smell earlier that day when walking through the hallway. I didn't think much of it...it smelled like a glue gun...sometimes things just smell like that and there's nothing to worry about. Anyway, as we pulled up we noticed several of our neighbors grouped together outside. We waited in our car since it was FREEZING outside. We waited for about 15-20 minutes until we noticed the crowd of people going inside. We overheard a firemen telling someone else that one of the apartments had a small electrical fire. The whole first floor was out of power for the night. The apartment was one that was underneath us so it didn't really affect us. So that was kind of an interesting night.
The next day, there was a scheduled power outage in the entire building from 8-5 (there had been notices throughout the building saying the power would be out for renovations on this day, since we moved in). Nothing too eventful happened until Thursday.
Shudder. Yuck. TICK DAY. Never have I ever been exposed to such a disgusting creature! It was my day off, I took my time getting out of bed, let Bilbo out...took him to the bathroom...the usual routine. We were sitting on the rug in front of the TV (Bilbo's favorite rug to play on) when I saw it. I thought it was a bead of some kind and picked it up right away and....{gag} squeezed it a little. I noticed that it was soft and that it appeared to have small little hairs attached to one end - it almost looked like hairs were caught on it, like when you accidentally snag your hair on something. Tiny hairs. Then they slowly wiggled. And that is when I screamed.
(watch at your own risk....)
Yeeshk! (how does it even survive after getting that fat!?!)
And don't worry, the dog is just fine! See? Idn't he cute!!?? Seriously...whenever we go on walks...I get compliments left and right on how "cute" how "sweet" how "adorable" he is! In a way it's been a great way to meet new people!!
On a happier note...while I was finishing up work on Friday (it was a pretty slow day, just me and Leona were there), my boss (Leona) was asking me if we'd found some things to do out here in CT. She suggested some great places - one of them being Stew Leonard's in Norwalk. It's just grocery store...but it isn't it's SO MUCH MORE!!! Leona described it as an "experience"...and it was! It's one of the only places that is open past 7pm (till 11pm actually) and wowser! You have to walk through it in a certain fashion...kind of like IKEA. A lot of the food they sell is made right on site - right in front of you! We went too late in the day, but if we were able to go doing the daytime (Leona explained) that they give you free samples and there's these food trying sections of the store. They make fresh mozzarella cheese, fresh corn chips, potato chips, bread, ice cream, milk....a lot of things! It was a FUN grocery store! They had a toy train going over head, they had all these mechanical characters doing things and saying things. They had a bunch of fresh imported goods....it was a great place! We bought some bread, smoked mozz balls, corn chips, some fuji apples and a quart of vanilla fudge ice cream. The whole store was higher priced...but after tasting it all - we understand why! We'll definitely be going back! I guess in the springtime there's a PETTING ZOO there! It's just a fun place! And the food was awesome...here's a few pictures from our Stew Leonard's experience.
Here's yours truly with a wheel of imported cheese. The slices were pretty pricey...so the entire wheel of cheese is probably worth more than 100$....just like....
...this huge hunk of meat. 21.99 per lb....and it's 5 lbs....so....yeah. That makes this "Naked Beef Peeled Tenderloin" 116$. Maybe we're just naive...but that's a pricey piece of beef! I'm sure it'd be delicious because Stew does NOT disappoint!
Sometimes my phone takes we're pictures where it changes the color of everything...I don't know why...but here's a picture of Rich with one of the animatronics. When you push the button the cow goes "mooooooooooo!!"
This weekend, we had a lot of fun getting out and exploring New Haven. But before I get to that, here's a cool picture of a memorial here in town. Wilton has this War Veteran memorial. It's just some rock blocks with names engraved into it, but it looks really cool at night. This week after coming home from work, Rich has been walking Bilbo and taking him out to a field we discovered to play fetch. He took this picture of the memorial on his way home as it was getting dark.
It looks really beautiful in this picture I think. It's a great way to honor those who have died in the many wars to defend our country! Each block has the name of a war and then all of the people from Wilton who died in that war. I think the first one is the Civil War, maybe even the Revolutionary War - it's cool that this city is old enough to have records of people who lived in Wilton that long ago. Can you imagine Wilton that long ago? I think there's actually a museum about Wilton's history somewhere in town that we'll have to check out someday.
One of the other activities that Leona recommended that we do is go to Frank Pepe's Pizza. She went on and on and on about it. Said it was just the best pizza around! So...in our adventure to New Haven this weekend, we tried it. On our way, we saw a billboard that said "Frank Pepe's...best pizza in America!". So the hype for this place was pretty up and our expectations were high! When we got there, there was a line out the door! We finally go our pizza and it WAS pretty good! Very flavorful pizza! I ordered "the original tomato mozzeralla" pizza - which was basically just a fancy cheese pizza, and Rich got a margarita pizza with some tasty fresh basil! We shared slices and enjoyed ourselves quite a bit! ;)
Before we went to Frank Pepe's we went to YALE! It's a seriously HUGE campus with some AMAZING architecture. So beautiful. The campus was founded in 1701 - and graduates include Eli Whitney in 1792, George H.W. Bush in 1948, Ben Stein (the "clear eyes" guy) in 1970, and Meryl Streep in 1972! While we were walking through campus it felt like we were walking through the Hogwarts grounds! The buildings are soooo old and timeless. Here's a few pictures.
This picture is actually of the entrance gate to the Grove Street Cemetery (not sure if it's technically considered part of Yale's campus). As we approached, we noticed (and if you look closely, you can try to read it yourself) that the gate says "THE DEAD SHALL RISE AGAIN". We thought that was kind of cool. I crossed the street to snap a picture of Rich standing in front of it, only to see that that obnoxious cable was blocking the view of the message on the gate! I tried squatting down and it kind of worked....so sorry if you can't see the inscription.
I thought this passage looked very Ivy League-y. As we were walking around I couldn't help but be reminded of one of my favorite movies- Monsters University. I was thinking that the University was based off of Yale...turns out its based of Berkeley. But in my research in discovering that I found that MU (Monsters University....a FICTIONAL college where Mike and Sulley who are FICTIONAL characters get their education) actually has a website.
After walking through campus, we eventually made it to the art gallery where we were able to see some crazy old artwork! They had paintings, sculptures, jewelry pieces....for some reason I was thinking that the museum would just be filled with art from students at Yale...no. It wasn't that. It was really old, really cool artwork from all over the world. They even had a few pieces from artists I recognized - like Pablo Picasso and Jackson Polluck! Some of the modern art was weird...but a lot of the European artwork was fascinating. They had some sculptures of Greek gods/goddesses that date back to the 400s B.C.! They had artwork from Europe, Asia, Indo-Pacific areas, American...all kinds! One of the pieces Rich found was this *cough*gorgeous*cough* sculpture of an eagle!
When I first saw it... I thought it was a Dodo bird. ....haha!! We thought it was pretty hilarious!!
Here's a nugget from LAST weekend when we explored Stamford. Before going into the downtown, we made a quick pit-stop at the beach. It was cold, and I was wearing boots (at the beach) and the sun was shining in our faces...so naturally Rich couldn't smile normally. (we literally took 4 pictures and this was honestly the best one)
We'll spend more time visiting the ocean once it warms up! It was a beautiful beach called West Beach. No one was there of course, just a jogger and us.
Recently we've recently be enjoying (see below) on Hulu. :)
I didn't realize until recently what a completely hilarious show this is!! There are so many ridiculous jokes and for the most part it's pretty clean! Gotta' love their clothes haha. Kramer's my favorite. It's also be fun to watch since it takes place in NYC - which we're planning to visit NEXT WEEKEND!!!!!!!!! If we can get a puppy sitter for Bilbo - we should be able to leave sometime in the morning and do some serious sight seeing! Norwalk, Stamford and New Haven have just been warming us up for the BIG APPLE!! CAN'T WAIT!! Hopefully all will go well so that we'll be able to actually go! Rich's co workers, every Monday have been like, "did you go? Did you go??" so this next weekend is our weekend finally - hopefully!!
Also, sometimes in the morning we've seen some white tailed deer does. There's usually about four or 5 of them. They're always up the hill behind our apartment complex. We have yet to see a buck yet. When they frolic you can see their "white tails".
This is basically what they look like. They're pretty big! About the same size as deer back in UT, their tails are very bright white.
Well, the time has come to sum it up! I hope you have enjoyed the post from this week! Until next time!
-The Wilton Wilkins
Thanks for the update! I love hearing about your adventures and seeing your pictures! Love you guys!!!
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