Welcome

Since there is always so much going on, I decided that there needed to be a place for family to go, to keep updated with the Kuhlest Family around!!!! This will be that place. I usually send out long emails about once every six months to let you know whats been going on, and what there is to come, but I thought this might be a more fun and interesting way to keep up. And maybe, just maybe, I will update more than once every six months!!!!! Hahahahahaha!! I will still probably send emails to let you know when I update, but feel free to drop by anytime! We love you guys!

Monday, March 10, 2008

Interesting Watertown History

This will be a short post, but as I was looking at the history of this town, I came about something fun and interesting. Mr Frank W Woolworth, founder of the "Five and Dime" opened his first store in Watertown, NY. Here is a picture of his store in Watertown, NY in 1905:


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Friday, March 7, 2008

the beautiful state of New York

We have arrived in the wonderful state in which we will be living for the next couple months.....New York. We will also move back here when Justin gets back from Iraq in August of 2009. That is, of course, only a guesstimate of how long his tour in Iraq is supposed to last. As for New York, we are living in the town of water. Watertown, NY. I guess you could say this town sees a lot of water, in the frozen form of course. Snow......and lots of it.

So we have converted from a life of warm, to a life of cold, from one of the southern most states, to one of the northern most....especially since we live in northern New York. In fact, we live less than an hour away from Canada. We expected to come here and hate it, when in fact, we have decided that we actually like it. Very small town feeling, but with over 27,000 people. There is also so many places to drive to that are very close. A drive to the Great Lake of Ontario is less than 15 minutes away. The Adirondack Mountains are about an hours drive, Niagara Falls are about 3 1/2 hours away, and New York, New York is about 5 1/2 hours away.

Last week we visited Madison Barracks, an old army post with barracks from the early 1800's. It was definitely a sight to see, some of the buildings were built into beautiful apartments. We considered living there, but they are just far enough away from Fort Drum that we decided to stay in Watertown. Go to http://www.geocities.com/lakeforts/Madison_Historic.html to see old pictures of the historic post, and to http://www.geocities.com/lakeforts/Madison_Barracks.html to see the modern day pictures.

The kids seem to like it here. I can't blame them. I'd love all the snow too. We went to go see the Boldt Castle in Alexandria Bay, NY and Avalyn fell in love. Now she can't stop talking about "her" Cinderella castles. She has been such a girli girl lately. She loves dresses, pink and anything princess-like. She even thinks that there is a castle right across the street from where we are living....it is a huge old church....hahahahaha! She is in heaven! We live in part of an old house here. It is absolutely gorgeous. It has wood floors, huge windows, 12 ft ceilings, the old radiator heating systems, and beautiful woodworking.

Well, this old house could use some cleaning, so I guess I will stop for now. Just thought I'd let everyone know that we are having a blast up here in New York! Take care!