January Stuff

January has come and gone already which is sort of hard to believe. While we've been busy this month it hasn't been with anything really that exciting. I haven't been traveling with my camera much so the few remotely blog worthy events have gone without any photos. February definitely promises to be more interesting but I thought I'd at least take a minute to talk about some of the things going on in our lives right now.

Kevin is in the process of starting to wind things down with his research marking the beginning of the end of our time here at Stanford. This doesn't mean he's any less busy with his work but the tone is different now that he comes closer to finishing up his doctorate. A few of our friends have already accepted jobs and are in the process of working on their thesis and plan to be done at Stanford sometime this summer. Others, including Kevin, are in the process of looking and applying for jobs and/or post docs so they can begin the next chapter. It is all very exciting but sort of sad too. I can't help but feel a sense of finality to things we do. I know our group of friends is going to quickly begin to dwindle as people begin to depart in different directions.

It is also scary knowing that things are about to change drastically, but no clear idea on exactly how. Where will we be? What will Kevin be doing? What will I be doing? How close will we be to family? How close will our friends be? The questions are endless. I know they will all be answered in time and I just have to be patient.

Besides worrying about our future we are currently planning a party for our 5 year anniversary. We wanted to do something fun and we figured since nobody from Stanford was at our wedding we might as well use our anniversary as an excuse to throw a party and share something special with our friends out here. Moria was able to reserve us a room on campus to have the party (free!!!), we are borrowing some speakers to hook up to our computer for music, and Sarah offered to make a cake. A few decorations, snacks and drinks and we are set for a party! I'm updating the slide show that Patti made for our rehearsal dinner...adding new pictures from the last five years and I'm pulling out a few other odds and ends from our wedding. It has been fun going through stuff and I'm glad a few things will be put to use a second time.

The week after our party we are heading on a trip and I'm really looking forward to it. We love going home and visiting family but we don't actually spend much time together during those trips. It is completely understandable since we want to get time in with people we only see a few times a year...but I'm still really excited to have a week with just my hubby.

I promise the next post will have pictures and hopefully it will be soon!

Holidays in Kansas

It feels strange reflecting back to nearly a month ago for this post so I don't know how detailed it is going to be until I get going. Either way it will feel good to have this post completed so I can move on to the activities of the new year. Here we go...

We were so fortunate this year that it worked out for us to be home for Christmas and New Years. Originally I was supposed to work the week in between and I wasn't going to be able to arrive in Kansas until New Years Day. Luckily someone from my work canceled their vacation and I was able to take advantage and get vacation time. We took a red eye and left at midnight on Christmas Day. We had a short layover but managed to avoid the poor weather that the east coast was having and made it to K.C. Christmas morning. That flight is exhausting because you can never really sleep that well on the plane but it was worth it to be able to see both of our families that day.

We did manage to sneak in a nap before we had to try and be lucid and social with anyone. That afternoon we spent having lunch, opening gifts, and playing games with Kevin's family. All of us were able to be there including Joe who is living in Austin now and Thomas and Serena who are in Emporia. There aren't really words to describe how wonderful it was to have us all together.

Dinner time.

Kevin and his Momma.

After a few rounds of guesstures and catch phrase it was time for us to head over to my parents house. At that point I was really excited to surprise Hailie and Seth. When we rang the doorbell Hailie ran to the door to open it and exclaimed "You're here?!?!". We couldn't see Seth's face at first but my Dad said he sort of just stood there with his mouth hanging open. Keeping the secret of our arrival was difficult but definitely worth it.

After opening gifts, visiting, and eating we took a little time to play with some of the new stuff including the kids' Wii. It was fun watching even mom and dad get into a few of the games.

The beginning of our week involved hanging out with all the dogs and each other. Kevin has been really wanting a dog lately so I know he enjoyed wrestling around with all of them. We finally were able to do a family picture with Kevin's family (we'd been trying to accomplish this for over a year). We watched movies and just really enjoyed each others company.

Here he is Kevin with James' dog Dallas.

A little time out at the farm with Grandad and Grandmom.

Many games were played during our week back. One of my personal favorites was a game called Quelf. It basically has you doing a bunch of stupid stuff throughout the entire game. At one point I had to lie on the floor, play dead, and yell "You thwarted me again you vile beast" anytime someone passed me on the board. Kevin had to take down his Mom is a round of rock, paper, scissors.

Joe had to make a robot mask and where is for two turns without telling anyone why he was doing it. I don't know if it resonates well in the photo, but he was not happy about the numerous pictures I kept taking of him. Kevin, his brothers, and his Dad competed in the Olympics on the X box kinect for hours on end the entire week. I think they stayed up until after 2am competing on more than one occasion. Since the game is based on movement they definitely got a good workout in. They were drenched in sweat after their marathon sessions.

Hailie and Seth were on winter break and I loved that they didn't have to go to school every day and worry about homework every night while we were back. Hailie was really clingy to me this trip and I can't say that it bothered me. I love all her kisses and hugs.
Seth loved having Kevin to wrestle and rough house with. Kevin is strong enough to manage that kid even though he is getting bigger and stronger every time I see him.

Mom, Hailie, and I were able to get a little girl time in and went shopping and also just enjoyed hanging out. We pulled out our marble/aggravation game and took on the boys again. Unlike last time, the women were victorious and we took home the win.

I managed to get my girls together again this trip and I was very happy about that. We went out to dinner and had a great time catching up as always. Kara told us only a few weeks before she is expecting her first baby and due in June and I loved being able to see her and hear about how things are going so far. We had to get a picture of us listening for the baby since we did this with Heather when she was pregnant with her daughter.

Our gift to my Mom was for us to work on the office room downstairs in the basement. I had started a painting project down there almost a year ago and never finished. We were able to get all of the painting done, the room cleared out and the computer area arranged and organized.

Even the kids got in on the painting.

I watched some of the K-State bowl game with my Dad and few of his work friends. Despite the loss on less than ideal terms it was still fun being able to spend time together.

We celebrated James' 29th birthday with delicious Mexican food, cake, and games.

Kevin celebrated New Year's with his brothers and while I wanted to spend time with them I decided to stay in and just hang out with my family instead. We watched an adorable movie "How to Train Your Dragon" which I loved and cuddled with a fire in the stove. It was so cold that night and the thought of leaving just didn't appeal to me.

On New Year's Day we were able to see the Copp side of the family out at the farm for lunch as well as Kevin's Grandma and Grandpa Kent for dinner. The trip was incredible and like usual it flew by much to quickly. While we saw a lot of people there is never enough time to see everyone that we would like. If only we could slow time down for a bit during vacations...that would be nice.

We are getting back to our routine here in California but we are definitely looking forward to our next trip to Kansas.

Hiatus

Since returning from our wonderful trip from Kansas at the beginning of this month I've have had every intention of getting our blog updated with pictures and stories about our time. A few days after arriving back I was sick and it really knocked me down. While I spent a lot of time at home doing nothing when I wasn't at work, I couldn't motivate myself to work on uploading pictures.

When I finally felt a little better I began struggling with my laptop and it has made it difficult to get things updated. I think that Kevin has fixed my computer (I am so grateful he is handy with these things) so one of my goals this weekend is to finally post about our holidays.

Give me a few more days and hopefully I will have something interesting to post!

December Stuff

I wanted to recap some random stuff we have been up to this month before we head to Kansas in a few days and I likely wont be blogging anytime soon.

The Christmas decorations went up and Lupin found his favorite spot underneath the Christmas tree.
We attended our 5th annual Chemwipes. This event is put on each year by the first year Chemistry Graduate Students. It is a series of live and taped skits where professors, graduate students, and pretty much anything else is made fun of. They advertised it as a 3D event in the beginning but it wasn't really in 3D. We aren't really sure why they bothered.

It wasn't the best Chemwipes ever but there were a few funny parts. Kevin's first year was amazing. I got to be in several of the skits and there were many more live skits than we've seen in the last couple of years. It was still fun hanging out and reminiscing about how awesome our year was.
We went out with a few friends still in town last weekend and had a good time at the 'Dutch Goose'.
We had to take our car into the shop on Saturday for an oil change and a minor repair. After dropping the car off we went walking around downtown Mountain View to do some shopping. On the way back to our apartment we found a little of the fall we've been missing out here and Kevin decided to play in the leaves.

I think this is hilarious.
A little later we found a little more fall and this time Kevin went for the Senior picture pose.
Brian and Moria had an early flight on Sunday morning so they came over for dinner and stayed the night so we could take them to the airport. We bought Hailie and Seth a video game "Just Dance for Kids" for the Wii they are getting for Christmas. The four of us thought we would try it out and it was a blast. It is pretty hilarious watching people play and it is really fun to play too.
I think both Hailie and Seth will like it and I can't wait to play it with them.

This week we have been finishing up our Christmas shopping and have been trying to get everything ready for our trip. Our friend Minsub agreed to watch Lupin for us while we are gone so we don't have to board him at the vet. Therefore we've been stocking up on his dental treats (which he goes crazy for) so that Minsub can bribe him if he runs outside or acts up in any way.

We are taking a red eye on Christmas Eve so we will be home on Christmas Day. Both of us are looking forward to being home this Holiday season with our families and we are so grateful it worked out for me to get the next week off of work. We plan on surprising Hailie and Seth when we head over to my parents house on Christmas evening so don't spill the beans if you see the chicklets before we do!

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Ice Skating in S.F.

Kevin and I headed up to San Francisco last week to check out the ice rink at Embarcadero Center. Getting up there was somewhat of a nightmare with all of the traffic, but once we managed to get there and get parked we were able to relax and have a wonderful evening. We grabbed some Mexican food before heading over to the ice rink. There was a great view of the Market Street Ferry Building and the weather was just about perfect. We managed to avoid the heavy rains that the weekend brought and it only sprinkled on us a little bit.


All of the buildings in the center were lit up giving the whole area a festive feel.

Another view of the Ferry Building.The ice rink was playing Holiday music most of the time and with the colder weather it actually felt more like winter. We had such a blast and it was a wonderful date night.

Neither of us are amazing skaters, but we seemed to being doing alright (especially compared to some people). Kevin only fell down when he attempted circle turns. That may have been a little advanced for him. We took a couple of videos that looked great on my camera but not so great once I loaded them onto the computer. I've decided to try and load them anyway and see how it works out. If they are super choppy I apologize.

Run Wild For a Child

Last Sunday we headed up to San Francisco with Brian and Moria so we could all participate in the 26th annual Run For a Child road race supporting the S.F. Firefighters Toy Program. It was a much colder morning than our previous run and it made waking up to head up to the city a little difficult.

Thanks Brian and Moria for finding this race! (Notice Kevin in the background of this picture. This is one of his favorite things to do....especially to strangers).

We talked our friend Jason into running with us in the race too. The race was held in Golden Gate Park and he is currently in the process of moving about 4 blocks from there so he was able to bring a car load of stuff up with him. Jason does a lot of running, hiking, and rock climbing and I'd assumed he had run in lots of road races (especially because a close friend of his runs in them a lot), but this was his first 5k. Jason ended up finishing 16th overall and and 4th in his age group!

Since I ran the previous two runs in 24:44 I was really hoping to get closer to 24:00. Even though I didn't feel that great, especially the third mile, I figured I hadn't improved. I forgot my watch so I really had no idea how I was doing. My chip time for the run though ended up being 24:08 and I finished 7th in my age group so I was pretty pleased with the improvement. I guess if I want to improve much more I'm going to have be more diligent about training.

Kevin shaved another 10 seconds off of his time and finished 13th in his age group.
Not the best group shot with the shadows but a group shot still.

It was a blast doing the run together, but by the time we finally got home I was exhausted. Between working, getting ready for Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, getting ready for a tailgate, the tailgate, and football I was just spent. It seemed appropriate to take a 3 hour nap and it was incredible. I rarely take naps and I almost forgot how amazing they can be when you really need one. After waking up I even managed to get the Christmas tree and most of the decorations up.

Last Game: Stanford vs Oregon State

This past weekend we hosted our final tailgate of the season. It was fairly low key since many people were out of town for the holiday weekend but enjoyable nonetheless. It was raining as we were setting up, but luckily it stopped for the remainder of the day. It was still plenty cold though.

It has been a blast this year organizing these events and while I'm sad football season has come to an end Kevin and I are both a little relieved to be done with tailgates. Our trunk has been filled with tailgate stuff all season and I am ready to clean out the car.

Some of the guys before heading into the game.


Kevin was able to make it down on the field one last time for the year.
Since Miguel only started watching football this year he is still working on learning what is going on. I did my best to try and explain stuff so hopefully I was an okay teacher.

Stanford shut out Oregon State 38-0 in an amazing finish to an awesome season. With Boise State's upset lost to Nevada last weekend, Stanford was able to move up in the BCS polls to #4. Hopefully they stay there after Auburn and Oregon play this weekend and that way they aren't denied a BCS bowl game. I can't wait to find out where they are headed!