Masquerade Ball

I've been sick this week so I'm just now getting to this post. Last weekend we went to a Masquerade Ball put on by Stanford for graduate students. It was 'masks required' and 'black tie suggested'. I always look forward to an opportunity to get dressed up. I only wished I'd found out about the event more than 2 1/2 days ahead of time.

We found our masks at Diddams' party supply. I luckily had this dress that I'd bought last year for only $20 and we found this really nice suit jacket for Kevin at Goodwill for only $20. Kevin has a couple suit jackets, but they were his Grandpa's and don't fit him quite as nice as this one did. We only need to have the sleeves shortened a bit.

Ready for dinner!
We went to a Spalti, an Italian restaurant in Palo Alto for dinner. Suiting up required a nice meal somewhere. I think the guys look fantastic! Brian was lucky enough to find a tux jacket for the event.

Gnocchi anyone?

Waiting in line to enter the ball. The color didn't turn out that great on this picture, so I just made it black and white since I loved it.It was fun seeing all the different masks. Those who didn't wait until that day to buy masks had really cool ones they ordered online. Hopefully they will do it again next year and I can find one I really like! (I liked mine, but there were really pretty masks).
Kevin and Luke. Luke's mask is an example of one found online. Kevin was jealous.


The D.J. wasn't that great, but we managed to have fun dancing anyway.
Moria took this picture and I think it is hilarious. Jonathan's classic 'duh' look, Kevin making a crazy face, and Brian's mask...priceless. If only Moria were in it...

February is going to be a pretty crazy month. A lot is happening so there should be lots of posts if I can keep on top of things. Kevin is in Kansas this weekend, ski trip next weekend, a long weekend in Phoenix for me and possibly Vegas for Kevin. Our 4 year anniversary which we'll spend at a B&B in Napa, and a poster presentation for Kevin at a biomedical conference in San Francisco. It'll be busy, but should be really really fun!

What we've been up too

Just wanted to catch up on what we've been up to the last couple of weeks. Kevin was busy with group meeting preparation, but he was able to take some time out to come and celebrate one of my coworkers birthdays. We had a wonderful dinner at this Chinese restaurant and it was fun visiting with a few work friends outside of work.

Here are my work buddies. Bernie, me, Luz, and Rowena. Rowena has been having some trouble with her work visa and has had to go back to school for a little while so the last couple of weeks she hasn't been at work. We've missed her so much. She is such a hardworker and a huge asset to the lab. We will be planning more outings over the next few months so we will be able to catch up.


We went to a really fun karaoke party last weekend and had a blast. We weren't planning on staying long since I had to work the weekend, but I guess we are suckers for singing games like these.

Kevin had a little trip to the E.R. this week. He got hit in the face at a basketball game. While this happens to people, Kevin unfortunately had this lip in his mouth and he bit down hard on his bottom lip. I wasn't there, but I was told there was blood all over. At first they didn't think it went all the way through, but the doctor and nurse were proven wrong when the numbing solution for the stitches shot through to the roof of his mouth. He had to get a few stitches on the outside ("to keep his face purdy" according to the doc), but the inside of his lip is what looked the worst. At yesterdays follow up appointment it is healing nicely. It looks way better than a couple of days ago too. I got a little queasy when I first looked at the inside of his lip and now I can look at it :)

Gingerbread Houses

This weekend we got together with friends to make gingerbread houses and play games on the Wii. It made for a fun get together and it was nice seeing friends that we hadn't seen since well before Christmas.

Moria and Sarah working on the gingerbread.

The guys didn't really start participating until the decorating portion. Before that they watched the Eagles lose (Sorry Brian....that's his team)
At first Kevin and I were working on a house together. At one point I had to kick him off the project for attempting a chimney that not only looked terrible, but was going to cause the roof to cave in. At that point he went and helped Colin with his house. Luckily he didn't try anything funny with that house and theirs turned out really well :)
Here's our final house though. Kevin did almost half the work on it so he still gets credit.
Here are our finished projects. Some of the gingerbread pieces weren't the right size and our construction was a bit shoddy. Hence the massive amounts of icing attempting to hold them together. I think they still turned out okay.
After we were done with the decorating, we started playing a few games. A little after that we heard Sarah gasp and when we looked over at the houses this is what we saw. Apparently, the weight of the candy could not be supported and it Brian and Moria's house came crashing down. Either that or we experienced a minor aftershock from the earthquake last week.

Quick story about the earthquake. The epicenter was about 11 miles away from us in Milpitas. It was only a 4.1 magnitude which basically means that it was light and that while there is noticeable shaking of items indoors and rattling noises...there isn't any significant damage. I was sitting at the desk and Kevin was in the other room. We heard a strange noise and the apartment creaked and it felt and sounded kind of weird. Kevin said.."I think that was an earthquake." I replied..."yeah right, it was probably just a truck passing by". We often get a bit of noise and such from passing trucks and Cal train. It wasn't until I got a text from my friend Heather in Kansas that we actually found out there had been an earthquake. Obviously it wasn't that scary and the best kind of earthquake to have if you have to have one!

Winter 2009

I have some pictures from this winter that I'd been needing to load onto the computer. I thought I'd just make one blog using some of them.

I had to make Christmas cookies, but this year I was sort of on my own since most of my cookie making companions had already left for home for the holidays. Not to worry though, I had plenty of Christmas music to keep me in the spirit!

Here are some of my cookies. I spent some time decorating them and I ended up bringing little bags for my coworkers to enjoy. We didn't need all those cookies lying around the house for just the two of us to eat.

I had a new mitten and stocking cookie cutter this year and those were really fun to decorate. I also had some mini cookie cutters that were pretty fun too. It took awhile to decorate the candy cane cookies since I used a toothpick, but I was happy with how they turned out.

At one point I asked Kevin if he wanted to help decorate so I could finish. (He wanted to watch a movie, but these had to get done that night). Kevin did decorate a few cookies, but he spent at least 20 minutes on each one. I think it was the better part of an hour on the lumberjack cookie. I told Kevin that while I appreciated the creativity, it wasn't really helping the cookies get decorated in an efficient manner. Kevin then informed me that his lack of speed in this process is probably why he got a C in middle school art class!

Anyway, here is is handiwork.
Even though I was at work for Christmas, I was off by 3pm and we still had time to enjoy ourselves. We had a filet mignon dinner that was delicious!
I had been wanting a Santa hat to wear to work. If I had to be there I was going to be jolly!!! Kevin found one for me and I was pretty happy!
The lights aren't on, but we finally got a bigger tree! For the past 3 years we've just had our cute little 3 ft tree. We bought it when we first moved out here because we didn't have much money. It was inexpensive and didn't require very many decorations. We even made several of the decorations for the tree to avoid having to buy very many. It was fun and looking back on it puts a smile on our faces. Since that first Christmas, we've acquired many ornaments through gifts, choosing special ones we liked, and Grandma Koch's extra Watkins ornaments. (Grandma used to sell Watkins products and they made ornaments. We found old stock and now we have many that are identical to those on the tree growing up at home). Many of the ornaments were a little big for our tiny tree and we decided we could get another one this year. (Kevin protested a little at the thought of needing two trees....but he came around :) )I guess now that I've told this story I'll just have to add a picture of each of our trees for you to see. Our cute little first tree.
Our new 6ft tree! I love it!!!
I couldn't resist taking a picture of some of the handmade ornaments. We just used stuff we had around the apartment already. Luckily I had glitter glue!

Merry Christmas

I'm sitting at work right now and since I'm pretty bored I thought it would be a good time to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Even though I'm stuck at work today...I can be grateful that I have a good job. We are making the best of it though. We have Christmas music playing and I made my peppermint ice cream cake that I just took a bite of.

May the spirit of the Holiday be with you as you spend time with friends and loved ones.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Lab Holiday Party

Last weekend was our Lab Holiday Party. It was at Dave and Buster's. I'd never been there before, but essentially it is a grown up Chuck e Cheese. There was a nice buffet dinner and we each got $5 cards for arcade games.

Here are a few of my fellow CLS's. Luz, Pat, Rowena, and me. It was fun seeing each other outside of our lab coats and not running around the lab working.
Luz and Rowena each won in the raffle. Luz got a gift card to Cheesecake Factory and Rowena an iPod touch!!!
After spending our $5 we headed back into our room to do some dancing. The D.J. was playing songs that didn't necessarily appeal to each generation and it left us with feeling of being at a middle school dance except the boys and girls weren't on opposite sides of the room. We managed to get a little dancing and had a really good time.
A few more CLS's that I work with. Melanie, Winnie, and Chris. In case you were wondering, I am indeed the youngest CLS in my lab by about 14 years. The average is probably closer to 25 years.

Thanksgiving in Kansas....Finally.

It has taken me long enough, but I am finally getting to uploading, editing, and working on this blog from Thanksgiving. Our trip was amazing and memorable and we are so happy we were able to be home with our families on this holiday.

Kevin and me getting ready for our red eye flight to make home for Thanksgiving.

After getting to Kansas we rushed to get showered and headed out to the farm to have lunch with the Copp's. It was wonderful seeing grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins!
It was fun being with the kids again even though I just got to see them. I know Hailie and Seth were excited to see Kevin again since it had been longer since they had him to wrestle and throw them around.
The weather was great that afternoon. There was definitely a chill in the air, but we were able to play outside for awhile.
Rolling down hills is a favorite pastime for young and old.
We decided to head out and check out the buffalo since they were pretty close to the house.
I accidentally left my camera out at the farm so I didn't have it for when we went over to the Kent's house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was great having dinner with everyone and we were very thankful to be home. We ate wonderful food and enjoyed playing games with Kevin's family. We were pretty tired by the end of the day, but getting to see both our families over this holiday was well worth it. It is pretty hard to believe that our last Thanksgiving in Kansas was 4 years ago. Thank goodness it worked out!

After Thanksgiving we enjoyed spending quality time with all our loved ones. We brought Hailie and Seth out to the lake and had fun throwing rocks in the water. (It doesn't take much to entertain children)

I love love love this picture.

Brotherly love.

A Kent family holiday lunch. There were so many people in that house! Here are all the Grand kids and Great Grand kids. It is amazing how big things get once people start getting married and having kids!
A family dinner with the Kent's, Watkins' and McGranahan's. We mixed things up with Mexican food after a week of Thanksgiving dishes.

Patti, Carli, and Theresa.

If you haven't played Guesstures....you should. You get to see people do funny things like this.
A group picture. We had a good laugh while trying to take this. I was setting the timer and running over so we could all be in the picture. I was trying to do it in 2 seconds since 10 seems like an eternity. I'd made it a couple times, but then on the last time I slipped and came flying into the stairs. The best part is that we got a picture of it and the faces of everyone is priceless.
We went back to the 10 seconds after that (I don't know why there isn't a 5 second setting, that would make much more sense to me.)
Since the kids had to go back to school on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Kevin and I decided to help them with their homework. Kevin was kind enough to help Hailie through a Berenstain Bears book. I loved these books as a kid and luckily we never threw them out so their collection is pretty big.

Can you believe this guy is going to be 60 next month?
Our week was fabulous and as always it flew by way to fast. We are so blessed to have been able to be home though and for a whole week.