9/11 Memorial

A couple months ago I was sitting in the Harold B. Lee library going insane from too much studying and Wes gmail chatted me to tell me he had got me a surprise. What was it? Tickets to the 9/11 memorial.

This last sunday was our official day to go (it is free to go in, but you have to have tickets right now). For only having the fountains and part of the grounds open it was truly amazing. When you get onto the grounds you can't hear any noise from the city. The water from the fountains drown out all the other noise. It allows for a peaceful silence (with the noise of the water of course) in the middle of a busy loud city. It allows for you to truly take in the immense size of the fountains and to truly remember. There is no way you can't remember while on the grounds. I've been to the war memorials in DC and they are truly touching, but the 9/11 memorial is one of a kind. Here are some photos. 

These fountains mark the base of the towers. They are lined with all the names of those who died. The names are organized by where they died. There is a system where you can search for a name and it will tell you where the name is. They are truly beautiful. You can't see the bottom of the second square. That might've been Wes' favorite part. 

The building in the back will be the official museum. It isn't finished yet. 

I loved how there were flags on almost every piece of construction surrounding the grounds. 

It was touching to see the flowers left. It is obviously a common thing to leave flowers at a memorial but it touched me in a different way. A lot of the people died right where there names are engraved. The people leaving flowers lived through the horror. It is like the Pearl Harbor memorial when you can look down into the water and see the sunken ship. These fountains aren't just beautiful, but they mark where the towers should be standing. 

Underneath the names you can reach down and touch the water. The fountains are supposed to be interactive and it really does its purpose. You can feel the names and you can touch the water. Like I've said, it is a truly beautiful memorial. 

I feel like I've kind of rambled, but it is hard for me to explain what it felt like to be at the memorial. I was young when 9/11 happened and didn't fully understand what happened, but living in New York for just a month has changed that. I was interviewing at a high school just a couple days before the 10th anniversary and I overheard the students talking about 9/11. They would've been so young when it happened but they remembered it all. They were younger than me but because they lived here there was no way they couldn't understand. I hope you can understand a little about how the memorial made us feel despite my poor writing. 

Make it a goal to visit this memorial at some point in your life. Once the tower and the museum are finished it will be truly, truly amazing. I am proud to be an American every day of my life. 

Home in the Big Apple

Crazy. That is probably the best way to describe our summer and the last couple of weeks. Luckily, we are done living in separate states! I'll just recap some of the exciting and fun things we've done since officially living in NY together.

That first Sunday together was actually our 1 year anniversary. I can not believe we've really been married for a year!! We have had the craziest year, but are so incredibly excited for where it is bringing us. Wes planned our anniversary date this year. He found this amazing restaurant. Giando on the Water. It was just across the river from Manhattan in Brooklyn. He planned it perfectly so we were eating during sunset. It was truly beautiful and a wonderful way to celebrate an amazing year of marriage. Here is to another exciting year!

The next couple of days I spent getting used to being in NY. One night after work I meet Wes to go to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) for their free night. It is kind of an interesting, and odd place. Here are a couple of pictures. Actually the only ones we took...I was just very confused most of the time. I think I'm just used to my sisters amazingly beautiful, pretty, and realistic paintings. Either way, it was a fun experience.

Yes, thats a haystack...it was a "piece of art." All it did for me was make me sneeze....

More art...

Ok this was cool. A design to optimize the water space in the city. It is a model for apartment complexes that are over the river. 

Ya...not seeing the art. 

I have to say that it was actually more fun once we got home because we made homemade pizzas!! It is a total Collett tradition. Homemade pizza's have become our favorite and we've made them a couple times since. I am getting good at the dough! Needless to say, it was a TON of fun. We even took pictures... :)

(Ok I just want to say that our kitchen is never that dirty (I'm too afraid of cockroaches to leave it dirty). We had our sink fixed and I had to empty the cabinet. It ended up being bad since our oven is like a million degrees and melted everything on top that wasn't oven safe...it was bad)  

My pizza cooking!! 

I really was soo excited! (excuse the sweatiness. Our oven seriously makes our entire apartment a sauna)

The end result!! I was eating my delicious pizza by the time Wes' was done so I don't have a finished product for his...

The next week was an interesting one. It started with an earthquake and ended with a hurricane... Moving to NY was looking like a really bad decision. Luckily, we slept right through the hurricane. Lower Manhattan did have flooding issues and a lot of people were without power but we only had some tree debris on our side walks. We were glad it didn't end up being as bad as projected. Either way, we did our preparations! The most important? Our Hurricane Irene cake!!! We were extremely proud. 

Like I said, we really weren't affected by the hurricane. Our apartment is in a safe and protected area. Really our apartment is in a perfect area. Its really green and quiet. Wes did an amazing job finding the perfect apartment. 

The next week or so was spent job searching and watching a lot of tv! I didn't take many photos, obviously. But one night I got home from an interview and Wes gmail chats me saying, hurry back down here we have US Open tickets! Wes' boss was handed tickets that she didn't want to use so she handed them down to Wes! I ran back to the subway and we headed to the US Open! Best surprise, Federer was playing!! Worst surprise, over an hour of rain delay for the most annoying misting rain (especially because I forgot the umbrella...whoops!). Pretty much, it was such an amazing experience. Tennis sure is a different experience though. It was amazing watching Federer. They seriously hit the ball so fast and move even faster. Here are some pictures!

Federer serving. He seriously is crazy good. 

This is pre "rain" delay. 

They found Will Ferrell to entertain the crowd during the delay. 

US Open grounds. 

The US Open was so much fun! We felt that it was a necessary thing to go to as true New Yorkers. It was fun to hear all the different languages around us. 

Last, but not least, Wes has been playing in a basketball league in the city and last week his team won the championship!! Here is his team, and yes the lighting in that gym was really that awful. 

Also, I have been hired at a physical therapy clinic as a contracted athletic trainer. Pretty much that means the PT sends out an email with events for the next two months and I pick which ones I work at. I was supposed to start tonight with a high school volleyball game but it was cancelled so my first event is next week. I'm still hoping to find something more consistent and frequent, but at least this job provides some work. 

That is about it for our happenings recently. I'm going to try and be better about blogging. Promise! Hopefully I'll stop with the ridiculously long recaps. 

Passed the BOC!

Ok....yes I've been sooo lame I know, but I thought I would quickly post that I officially passed the BOC!!! (ok, ok, maybe I'm just really proud of myself). The BOC is the Board of Certification for Athletic Trainers. Pretty much, I had to pass if I wanted to actually be an athletic trainer... but it is even cooler because now my name can look like this:

Anna B. Collett, ATC, LAT 

(LAT means I'm licensed in NY to be an AT. Pretty much its stupid and means I had to pay more $$) 

So, hopefully I will post more soon. We've had an interesting couple weeks getting settled in NY finally together but we've had a lot of fun! I'll post soon.