Swimming, video games, and movies

The kid's had been really looking forward to seeing Kevin the week we were back. Seth especially had been desperately wanting to have someone to play and talk about Super Mario Bros with.

Kevin and Seth working on world 8 to beat Bowser at the last castle.
We took Dad and the kid's to go and see the new Karate Kid movie. We were going to watch Toy Story 3, but both Hailie and Seth preferred Karate Kid so we went for it. Both kids were doing karate movies in their seats before the movie ended. Very cute. We went home and re-enacted a few of the scenes. (With the help of Kevin the kids were able to flip over on one leg in the air.)
More Mario while we were waiting for the rain to clear up so we could head to the pool.
I was wanting to swim with Hailie and Seth and we were so happy that the storm did clear up. We headed over to the Gage pool. I hadn't been there since before they added all the slides, etc and I really enjoyed it. Hailie and Seth had a blast with Kevin and it was such a fun day.

Kevin going down the slide.
Hailie is pretty comfortable in the water. Seth, on the other hand, wouldn't put his head under water (even though he has done it before). We kept trying to get him to do it but he is one stubborn guy. By the end of the day though, he was not only putting his head under water, but swimming under our legs. I guess he'll only do it when he feels like it.

Selie's Restaurant

We wanted to do a little something for Mom and Dad by making them dinner. During the planning we decided to create a restaurant to provide all of their dining needs. Hence the creation of Selie's Restaurant (Seth + Halie = Selie's).

Here is our hostess/waitress and one of the chefs.


Hailie was so cute serving a little pre-dinner drink to Dad.
We were supposed to have a Maitre d', but he got tired and didn't show up for his shift.
Hostess Hailie seating our customers.
Our restaurant is very exclusive and we offer limited choices due to their high quality.
Ta-dah!
The customers wished to dine with the staff so we joined them.
Seth finally woke up and decided to join us. After he ate we were all ready for a game of marbles. We've tried to play last Thanksgiving, but we never got around to it. This time we had to fit in a game.
The boys won the first game and we didn't think we had time for another. We finally decided to go for it and it was a good thing we did.

The game was one of epoch proportions. We were going back and forth with the lead for awhile, but the boys had Seth on their team and he was a rolling maniac. Kevin and Dad would tell Seth to roll a certain combination and he would roll something close to what they said. Most of the time his roll was even better than what they asked for. It came down to the end of the game, but with Seth rolling like that we couldn't quite take them.

The winners.
Our poor losing team.

Father's Day Weekend

This year I was fortunate enough to be able to be back in Kansas over Father's Day. Kevin was at a wedding in Iowa that weekend, but was still able to celebrate as well later on in the week. Since Kevin had to leave a day earlier to be there for the wedding, I flew solo into K.C. on Saturday. It was so great seeing my parents and Hailie and Seth. I think they've grown since March.
Organizing Hailie's Littlest Pet Shop stickers. (She's just three away from a free one my mail...I guess I'll have to help her finish getting them!)
In case you didn't know this, my dad is going gray. He isn't quite ready to let it go so he still does the hair dye routine. Dad always makes a mess when he does it himself and Mom always hates this mess. Therefore, I decided to help him out a little bit. I knew his hair was thinning on top...but there really isn't much up there!They are growing up so fast!
At church on Sunday Hailie was an acolyte. It was her 11am service debut and I thought she did great!

My favorite little man!

I think I'm starting to realize how spoiled I've become with the weather out here in California. It was so humid outside and I'm just not used to it anymore. It was still a really pretty day out though.I love you Mom!To celebrate Father's Day we headed out to the farm! It is always a treat getting to see grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I wish I'd had more time that week to see Grandad and Grandmom, but the week flew by...especially with the wedding.

Grandad and Dad! Happy Father's Day!
A typical scene from a family get together.
Cheryl was able to come over later in the day and wanted to get a few pictures of the kids to update her room. We headed back outside for our photo shoot.

This was one of my favorites of the day.

Seth wanted me to get an action shot and I didn't think it would work. I was wrong...this was the first picture I took of him jumping off the swing.
A very busy start to the week, but I loved every second of it.

Kevin's Cake

Kevin's lab is really good about celebrating each others birthdays. There used to be just a couple people that would make the cakes each time, but they finally got tired of it and they decided to try a new approach. Now, you have to make the cake for the next persons birthday after yours. Since Kevin's birthday was last month it was his turn to make one for Minsub.

He'd had a plan for what he wanted to do for quite some time. Kevin did most of the work on his own too. I only got him lined out with the ingredients and cookware (I realize he doesn't know where very many things are in the kitchen), gave occasional tips, and helped clean up. I did get to help frost a little bit though.
Kevin in action.
Ta-dah!!! I think it turned out fabulous! (Inspiration...Minsub was recently married and loves chocolate almost as much as Kevin does) The cake must have been good because it was devoured by his lab (including the un-frosted parts Kevin cut off for the tiers.) I wouldn't know first hand because Kevin didn't save me a piece :( I gave him a hard time about it, but I think I had my fill of sugar tasting some of the frosting.
I just dropped off Kevin at the airport a couple of hours ago to head to Eddie's wedding in Iowa. I leave tomorrow for Kansas and we'll meet up again on Sunday when he gets into town. Only one more week until Thomas' wedding!!

Fun in Mountain View

Last weekend after a wine and cheese social hour a bunch of us headed away from campus into our neck of the woods for some dinner. Our friend Harsha was in town for the week and we wanted to make sure and see him during his stay. Chinese buffet...can you say yummy?
Kevin's favorite part of Chinese buffet is the soft serve ice cream.
After eating we decided to head down to Castro street for a little dancing. We opted out of our usual dancing place (didn't want to pay a cover charge) and decided to try out a new place. We could pretty much immediately tell why this Irish pub was less crowded than the other one. Mostly because of the D.J.

Luckily we were able to have fun in spite of some of the music choices.
Sarah and me. We've been told we could pass as cousins....what do you think?
Here we are with Harsha. It was so great getting to see him. Kevin's baseball team was seriously lacking this year without him.

Do you recognize this face?

When you see a person dressed up as a Guinness, you pretty much have to get a picture with it.Kevin and I both had to work the rest of the weekend which was sad since the weather has been ideal for lounging by the pool. (We never seem to do much of that. Every year goes by and I think...why didn't we swim more? I'm going to try and work on that this year.)

My Birthday in Phoenix

This year for my birthday we headed down to Phoenix for a long weekend. Amy and I had been talking about rafting down the salt river since last August and we've been planning this trip for quite some time.

We flew in Thursday morning and enjoyed lunch with Amy. After that we spent the day swimming and hanging out poolside. It was incredibly relaxing and just what we needed! Kevin was pretty tired so he headed to bed early and Amy and headed out to 'La Boca' for a little girl time. It was so nice being able to catch up in person
On Friday Amy handed me a Birthday Princess tiara and I was instructed to wear it all day even though I didn't even know where we were going. We left Kevin for a little while (he had some grading to do anyway), and I finally got to find out what Amy had in store for me. It was a spa day! We had facials, mani/pedis, and a back massage! I felt completely spoiled and enjoyed every second of it.
That night Amy's boyfriend Brent made us a tasty salmon dinner and we had ice cream cake! Everything was delicious!
After a delightful dinner we headed to downtown Phoenix to meet up with Dustin so we could go out dancing.
The first place we went was okay. The music wasn't that great for dancing, but we did get to see a little fireworks display from the Diamondbacks game nearby.

Group shot!
We finally headed over to a different club and we were finally able to dance! I kept forgetting that I had the tiara on and I would occasionally get strange looks from people. It was a great conversation starter though and it got me lots of "Happy Birthdays".

The next day was our Salt River day! As I said before I'd been looking forward to this trip for some time. I was advised not to take my camera onto the raft even though I really really wanted pictures. I ended up taking the advice and just took a few while we were inflating the rafts.

It was really hot, but once we were in the water it felt fantastic.

The scenery was amazing as well!
Brent has a few friends that are really into tubing every year and let us borrow one of their 8 person rafts. It was incredible. We ended up fitting all 9 of us in there and could have probably fit more since we weren't all using the designated seats the whole time. We tied a couple of other smaller rafts to the big one for our cooler of beer, water, watermelon, grapes, and snacks. The middle of the big raft was mesh so it allowed water in but we could still stand in it. It was perfect for cannonballs and wrestling!
The day was a blast and ended way too quickly. Thankfully none of us got sunburns. Kevin made sure to pull out the sunscreen frequently and we all reapplied. We were pretty tired by the end of the day from being out in the sun so we had a pretty low key evening. My only regret of the day was that as we were exiting the raft I lost my tiara. :(

Phoenix was amazing, but it was so hot! I was glad to be leaving before the expected 112 degree Monday!

Amy, Kevin, and I all grabbed brunch on Sunday before we had to head back for the airport.
We couldn't resist getting a picture coming off of the plane in San Jose.
I had so much fun hanging out with Amy, Dustin, and Brent. I was so glad Kevin was able to come with met his time and have some fun with us. It was his first time in Phoenix and I think he had a good time! The weekend flew by way too quickly as usual. Hopefully Amy and Brent will be able to come out here this fall for a football game. I need to get Dustin out here sometime too.

More from May

I am once again somewhat behind on posting. May and June so far have been very busy. Since the water is out in our apartment and I can't do the laundry or clean the bathroom right now, I thought I'd make the most of my time and try and get up to date.

We'd been talking about heading over to Shoreline Lake to try out kayaking since last summer and we finally managed to get over there. We'd been paddle boating there before, but the kayaks had been calling our names.

While kayaking is very fun, it is very difficult to take pictures of each other since you can't really move around much.
May was an unusually cool, wet month, but still very pretty. We were able to enjoy the scenery and get a good workout in at the same time.
Kevin went back to Kansas one weekend last month for Thomas' bachelor party. They went on a rafting trip in Cuba, MO. I have no pictures to include, but it sounds like they had a good time. It's hard to believe Kevin's baby brother will be married in only 2 more weeks!

Over Memorial Day weekend I enjoyed a little shopping for our Phoenix trip, but Kevin had to work. I brought in a picnic though and we enjoyed lunch in the Rodin Sculpture Garden next to Kevin's building.

Later on we headed to a BBQ thrown by Brain and Moria for their building. It's nice having friends in charge of throwing events because we often get to go! I forgot to take pictures...but we had tons of fun!