Superbowl!

Kevin and I made it back from the ski trip just in time to watch the Superbowl. We headed over to Sarah and Jonathan's place and only missed the kickoff.

As many of you may know...I love themes. Therefore I was extremely impressed with Sarah's cake. Extremely creative and fun! The football is actually a fondat covered football shaped rice krispie treat. When you cut into the cake there were horseshoes. (Jonathan is from Indianapolis).

I just had to include a picture because it was incredible.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you how awesome the game was. Jonathan looked a little stressed at some points, but he handled the loss well. After the Superbowl we watched 'Undercover Boss' and played Mario for the Wii. It was a fun end to a fun weekend!

Another Boxer Lab Ski Trip

Last weekend we headed to Tahoe for another Boxer Lab Ski Trip. We got in late Friday night and were excited to check out the slopes on Saturday. The weather has been excellent for skiing and we were ready. Luckily the roads weren't too bad and we didn't have to stop and put on chains.



It snowed pretty much the entire day Saturday which made for some beautiful scenery and made the skiing itself fantastic. I'd never skied in conditions like that and it was amazing. The copious amounts of snow did cause us to fall a little more (you'd run into huge unpacked piles sometimes and just fall down), but for this same reason the falls didn't hurt.



Lunch time! We found a spot inside to warm up before heading to the backside of the mountain. Kevin and I had never been over there before. The back side of the mountain at Kirkwood is only blues and blacks and tends to be a little colder so it is a little less crowded. It was amazing going down some of those runs and having it be so quiet.



We stopped to take a couple of pictures. Getting the camera out is sort of an ordeal. You have to take your gloves off, find the camera in the numerous pockets of your jacket, take the picture, then put the camera away and try and get your gloves back on. All while it is snowing, cold, and you are less mobile because of the skis on your feet. We managed to take a few though before I gave up.
I just wanted you to have a view. There is hardly anybody around and it is amazingly white! Gorgeous!
Me, Kevin, and Bettina heading up on one of our last runs of the day.
Minsub recreated his famous Korean dinner with the help of KB and Bon Jun. Once again it was delicious. The problem with 20 people in one dining room is finding enough seating. We managed to get everyone around, but it was a cozy fit.
It was Luke's birthday so Laura made cheesecake to celebrate!
We played 'Wolfen' again this year and had a wonderful time. No one could worry about work, or having to leave to go home. We just hung out and laughed and really enjoyed ourselves. On Sunday people headed back at various times. Kevin and I were originally planning on skiing again that day, but we decided to stick around the house to make sure everything that needed to be done before leaving was done. (The house was in our name since Kevin organized the trip). This allowed us to get back in time for the Superbowl so I was pleased about that. We do have to go skiing again this season though since we already have vouchers for lift tickets....darn!

Storage Unit

In the back of our apartment complex we have a storage unit above a second parking spot. While a handy spot for big items we don't use very often, it is always a pain getting in and out of the unit for anything. You pretty much had to take half the stuff out to get what you needed since everything was just piled on top.

Here are a few photos.
It's a mess. There is quite a bit of space in there and we knew there had to be a better way to organize items. We'd been talking about buying shelves forever, and we finally got to it.

After.

Not only is it more organized, but we fit more stuff inside and it is so much easier to get things out.
It didn't really take that long once we picked out the shelves, we just had to decide we were going to it and take care of it.

Favorite Movies

I just turned on the television to have some background noise while putting groceries away and cleaning up around the apartment. The movie on is 'Sleepless in Seattle'. I turned it on right at the part where Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, and Victor Garber are sitting at the table talking about the movie 'An Affair to Remember'. I started laughing just like I do every time I watch this part.

This got me thinking about how every time this movie comes on I always end up watching it (or as much of it as I can). There are lots of movies that I love, but few that I could watch over and over and over again. It especially helps that Kevin really likes this movie too. :)

"The Cutting Edge' is another movie that I can watch anytime. I just wanted to know if anybody else has one of these movies they can't get enough of. Leave your comment with your all time favorites and we'll see what movies stand the test of time.

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!