Those Darn Ducks

The last Stanford game was one of the biggest games in a long time for Stanford. Cardinal went into the game going for an 18 game winning streak with their last loss to this same team last year. A Pac-12 Championship game was on the line as well as any hope (even if small) for a National Championship. To add to it, Game Day was being held at Stanford for the first time ever. 

Dennis and Daryl asked for help for this game so we came out of retirement to assist. After driving to Oregon last year, waking up early for GameDay, and then watching us lose at Autzen Stadium...how could we not be there for this face off?

Once the cars and coolers were loaded up we walked over to the oval to get in on some of the action. I was pretty impressed by the turnout. Stanford only has about 7,000 undergrad students making up around 40% of the student population. It may not have been as impressive as some other schools but it looked full on T.V.

Not only was a tree hat put on this year instead of that hideous duck hat, but we actually got a picture with Jim Plunkett....a legendary Stanford quarterback, winner of the 1970 Heisman award, and two Super Bowl championships with the Raiders. It was a brief run in and we didn't really get to talk to him much but it was still exciting.

At 9:30am we were set up and ready for a tailgate. Dennis and Daryl were prepared and brought eggs, bacon, and orange juice so we could enjoy a lovely breakfast instead of just eating burgers all day long.

Scotty made it....yippee!

As usual we had games to add a little friendly competition to the tailgate. We had a relatively small group for quite awhile. (Understandably....the game wasn't until 5pm. Only a crazy person would be up since 6am for a night football game)

One of the best things I saw all day was the burning of an Oregon shirt. Normally I probably would shake my head at such nonsense but I was able to make an exception pretty easily for the Ducks. I became the official photographer.

There were a few kid's playing football in the field behind this who had Oregon shirts on so I felt a little bad for a second. Then they started laughing so I got over it and enjoyed myself.

The way it burned was really cool leaving just the 'OREGON' and the 'O'. The smoke coming off of it made for a pretty awesome picture.

We didn't seek out any Oregon fans to play 'Lance Armstrong' against. We kept it friendly and just had an inner tailgate competition. Our team did win though...it was awesome because we hand picked the team and had a few people who had never played before!

Colin, Dennis, Andi, Cara, Kevin, Moria, Brian

Finally it was time to head in for the game! Spirits were high and the energy in the stadium was amazing!

It was great seeing full stands!

This is one of the last pictures taken while we were still happy and excited.

The game took a turn for the worst and it was not a great showing by Andrew Luck and our Cardinal. He threw 2 interceptions (one off the chest of a receiver) and had a fumble. It was a sad day and we lost :( Pac-12 championship...over. Number 4 ranking....over. A sure bet for a Heisman winner...over. Maybe it was just too much.

We still have a couple football games left against Cal "Beat Cal"! and Notre Dame. After taking a few days to be depressed we're ready to cheer on our Stanford Cardinal this Saturday!

More Kansas!

While the wedding and meeting Adell were the main reasons for this trip we managed to fit in quite a bit more stuff. After cleaning up the reception hall on Sunday we headed out to Auburn for several birthday celebrations. It has been a few trips since both of us have been able to make it out to see the Copp family.

I enjoyed meeting another adorable baby. This is Kieryn, my cousin Steven and Melissa's four month old  baby girl. It felt strange (in a good way) holding an older baby after two week old Adell. 

Great Grandmom, Kieryn, and Hailie

Kevin and I watched Hailie and Seth while my parents were at a concert. Seth has been wanting to unlock Toadette on the Wii MarioKart for ages and we finally did...along with several other characters. Once Toadette was unlocked we all looked at him and you could tell he was trying to hide his excitement and smile. Eventually he couldn't hold it in any more. It was pretty cute!

Hailie isn't much into racing on the Wii so she and I started being commentators for the race. Whenever it was Hailie's turn she ended up just singing for all of us.

The kid's had school so we didn't have a ton of time together. Mom and I did manage to get a few things done. We went through a few boxes of Grandma Koch's dishes so we could decide what was worth keeping /had memories attached. Besides getting rid of several boxes of stuff we also donated at least one box of other old coffee mugs Mom had in the basement from over the years. 

Much too quickly it was time for me to head back to the airport. Mom and I picked up Hailie and Seth a few minutes early from school so I could get there in time. 

Goodbyes are never easy but hopefully we'll be back soon and get to stay a little longer.

Carli's Wedding

The reason for this particular trip to Kansas was a wedding! The Watkins family are extremely close to the Kent family making Carli practically a cousin. Kevin had made arrangements to come back a while back but I only recently procured the time off to attend. (Serena was going to induced early the next week so we were hoping to meet Adell but since she was early that wasn't a problem! :)

The Kent's spent most of the day Friday helping out with set up for the wedding. I didn't make it to Holton until late Friday night but when I got there they were still at it blowing up balloons. 

After a little more work Saturday morning the boys had to go and get ready. All of the Kent brother's were usher's for the wedding and they had quite the job (Fitting double the occupancy into the church with people not always cooperating). They did a great job though and looked great doing it.

Serena, Patti, Adell, and Kevin. Patti bought Adell the cutest dress and she looked absolutely adorable in it. 

I told you there would be a few more pictures of Adell in here. I just loved meeting her for the first time. I'm looking forward to seeing her again hopefully soon. Hopefully she'll be awake more since she'll be older...I didn't get to see her eyes open much.

I really liked this picture of the married kid's with Adell. Serena was very generous to let me hog her for so long but I eventually gave her back :)

This is another favorite picture of mine. You can just tell how much fun everyone was having and how wonderful it was for Patti and Kevin to have their entire clan together. With us in the Bay area and Joseph in Austin that happens less and less often now so we have to cherish every moment.

One more picture of the baby. Adell is not short of uncle love. When she gets older she is going to have a lot to deal with! :)

There was no shortage of people willing to dance at this reception. From little kid's to older folks...there were always people dancing away.

We were definitely exhausted by the end of the night but it was worth it. I wish I'd gotten better pictures of Carli and Trevor but they looked incredible. I watched them take a moment to stand together on the balcony watching everyone celebrating their big day and I was so happy to see it. Things can get so hectic on your wedding day and them stealing a second away from all of it was awesome.

Quick job hunt update. Kevin currently has a couple of job offers that we are discussing and pondering. Hopefully we'll have some official news by the end of the week. Things are about to get crazy though!

Baby Adell

I feel like I haven't posted in ages...probably because I haven't. October was an insane month between working and football games. November hasn't slowed down much so far but I do have lots of pictures and material to blog about not. (A trip to Kansas always yields plenty of blog worthy material). It's late and I'm tired but I wanted to at least get one post in because I'm not sure if I'll have time before the weekend and we are going to be very busy. Therefore, this post is going to focus on our niece Adell whom we met for this first time last week. Probably few words and lots of pictures because lets face it...everyone loves looking at babies.

In Grandma Patti's arms at Carli's Wedding!

I had a few brief moments with Adell the morning of the wedding at the hotel but then I had to go help with wedding set up. We finally got our quality time in together at the reception and it was wonderful to finally meet her. (I definitely hogged her for a solid 30 minutes...maybe more)

  I wanted to get a picture of Kevin and me with Seth, Hailie, and Adell but it never happened. I was happy to get this picture with my girls.

Me with my beautiful nieces!

Patti encouraged us to have Adell lay on our chests on the couch. Definitely a wonderful moment.

Adell loves Uncle Kevin!

Laying like this with a baby is as good as they say.

I love this picture with Adell's hand under her chin. She loves having her hands on her face while she's sleeping and it is incredibly cute.

Grandma sure loves baby!

Grandpa is pretty fond of Adell too!

I loved the time we had with Adell even though we'd have loved to have more. It will be fun to see her in the next month or two and see how much she changes.

I'll try to get a post for the wedding we went to up soon but I can't make any promises. I also can't guarantee that there won't be more pictures of Adell in that post.

Our New Niece

This weekend meant not only another win for both Stanford and KSU making them both 7-0 but also the arrival of our new niece Adell! Thomas and Serena welcomed her to the world on Saturday morning and she weighed in at 8 lbs 7 oz! I think Serena was glad she came a little bit early! Mommy and baby are doing well and get to go home today.


We're excited to meet Adell in just a few weeks when we head back for a wedding. Congrats to Thomas and Serena...she is beautiful!

Fall Fun

While football has kept us quite busy we have managed to fit in a few other fun things. There was a fall festival in the city next to ours so we took the bus over to check it out. I always see the signs for all the different festivals but we rarely end up making it to any other them.

We wandered around for a bit and checked out all of the different vendors. If we had kids I think it would really have been fun. There was a huge area designated for kid's where they could do crafts (paint pumpkins, face paint,etc) and other activities like a rock wall. There was a band that we listened to for awhile while I ate a delicious pork sandwich.

The best entertainment was probably this guy getting his groove on.

Kevin and I also sort of went to a Stanford men's soccer game. We went to get a red zone point (they base admission to the big football games on points for attendance and there are also a few bonus points for other games). There was going to be limited admission to the soccer game so we went early to make sure we got a point. There was absolutely no wait and we were ridiculously early so we watched them warm up a bit and then left. I don't even know if they won.

The rest of the month will probably fly by very quickly as well. I have to work a couple of weekends, there is another home football game, and Kevin will be traveling for a couple of job interviews! There are lots of job prospects in the works but still so much unknown. I think we'll have a lot of big decisions to make over the next month or so. Although stressful it is also very exciting. Wish us luck!

UCLA and Colorado

This month has already been a busy one with two home Stanford football games. Since I didn't have to work for this game we decided to take the bus in so we wouldn't have to worry about traffic. The bus stop is only about a block away from our apartment and there is a stop directly across from the field where we tailgate at.

Waiting for the bus

Even though we aren't running the tailgates this year we still try to get there early to help them set up. For this game a bunch of us showed up in jorts (jean shorts). Our friend Daryl is known for his jorts and everyone wanted to make fun of him. Of course we had to get a picture of all of us.

We kept the games pretty low key this week and didn't try to find UCLA fans to play against. There was some Lance Armstrong action though. We played a couple of rounds and won the first one....but lost the second game though :(  

Round 1 Champs!

The UCLA game was pretty much a blowout. The final score was 45-19. I was a little concerned about the 19 points but it was the first game since losing Skov on defense so I think they were just figuring things out. This was the same day that Kansas State beat Baylor so we were also happy to celebrate that as well!

Last weekend we welcomed Colorado for the first time. Since the fans made quite a trip out for the game we wanted to make their first trip to Stanford memorable (or at least a few people's trip). We managed to round up a few fans to challenge in Flip Cup. We found a great group of guys. They were a bunch of 26 year old's  and one of their dad's. They were really fun to play against and we had a great time. Their team was really good (especially the dad) and we ended up losing 9-10! Even though I don't like losing I didn't really care that much this time. It was just a blast and they were all funny.

Flip Cup Group Shot

Kevin's goal this game was to make it onto the field again. It was pretty easy for him to do. He managed to stay quite awhile before he was escorted off the field and asked to stay in the stands. Our friend Josh also managed to make it down there for a little bit as well.

Let's play "Where's Kevin". Hint: he isn't facing the camera...that would be too easy.

Stanford was dominating in the game (as expected) so we had fun dancing to the band playing after each touchdown, extra point, and field goal.

Cara, Miguel, and Kevin

The final score of this game was 48-7 and another win for Kansas State against Mizzou! It's awesome that both of our teams are 5-0 this year! Stanford plays Washington State this weekend so we should be 6-0 pretty easily...hopefully KSU can do the same against Texas Tech!

Miguel, Josh, Daryl, and Kevin