Trevor's Birthday

My nephew had his 2nd birthday in December. They decided to take him to Chuck-e-Cheese to celebrate (a kids heaven). He was a fan of the train ride. And as you can see, Ellie is all about striking a pose when necessary!

These two pictures below are my favorite of Trevor. First he's just looking up like, "huh...you talking to me?" But the next one is great! He stuck his hand into Chucky's mouth and the look on his face is priceless. You would really think he was getting his hand bit if you didn't know better.



And of course, the favorite part for them is to put the tickets into the machine at the end...they know that leads to little prizes! Trevor also really liked putting the coin into the game (I think he liked it more than playing the games. He would just put it in and then run off to the next game.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TREVOR!
You are getting so big!

December 2007

Okay, so this is kind of a 'quick catch-up' blog to cover a few things we did at the end of the year. This first one was actually in November, but I forgot to put it in an earlier post. Oh well!
Kevin was out visiting (no picture of him and Adam from that night) and we decided to go with them and Brian and Emily to the Kings vs. Jazz game. For the first few years I was out at BYU I would got with a group of friends from Sacramento to all these games at the Delta Center. It was always fun (and the Kings always won). Well, times have changed! The Jazz worked the Kings this night...oh well! It was still fun. We had a fair split with the couples too (Brian and Chelsy are Kings fans, Rand and Emily are Jazz fans). I particularly like the hats Brian and Emily are sporting!

Rand's mom, Susan, had her birthday and we went out to dinner with them to the Cheesecake Factory (Susan's choice). It was delicious! They also gave Susan a fun little birthday slice of incredibly rich chocolate cake! We also, another night, went with them to the BYU dance departments Christmas Around the World (Rand would take her each year for her birthday...but his parents suggested we all go together this year).

Ian's Birthday! We invited some people over for a fun little gathering: Christmas/Ian's birthday all wrapped into one. This is the cake I had been wanting to make forever. Because I was in a hurry, I wasn't able to follow the directions exactly and well, it shows! It's supposed to be an ice cream turtle cake. Thanks for the help with it Lauren! We might have to try again sometime...but follow the 'time in the freezer' directions more closely!






New Year's Eve
We have some friends over for New Year's eve. It was a fun night with taco salad, sparkling cider, ice cream and games. Oh...and watching the ball drop on TV (Joanna had never seen it before), as well as some of the random concerts that are on New Year's Eve night.

Funny item of the night: trying to take the group picture. We just couldn't get it right (as you can see). I think we finally got a good picture, but it wasn't with my camera!

Christmas 2007

I'm not sure how I did it, but I didn't get any pictures of our 'first Christmas' together. Ridiculous, I know. We spent Christmas this year in Utah with Rand's family. He and I both still worked most of the days since we were out here. We went up to his parents house on Christmas Eve and had a wonderful Christmas Day with his whole family. I have to say it is nice at times to not have to travel long distances when you are 'on vacation'.

I thought I would at least document our first Christmas tree (the random picture I have of it). Also, Rand's mom found out I wanted to get the Willow Tree Navity set. I can't really afford to just buy the whole thing...but she got me the 'starter' set as an early Christmas present and then added one of the smaller pieces as a present on Christmas day.

We also got some other wonderful gifts from the rest of our family. Lots of things that we have loved and been enjoying (especially the things that we've been able to docorate our apartment with...big thanks to both our parents for that one).

Scott and Lindsay!

Lindsay is married!!! Cynthia (Lindsay's mom) thought that 'The Three' would never get married. 'The Three' are Lindsay, Kim and myself. I hope Kim delivers the announcement of her engagement to Cynthia in person so there is documentation of her reaction!

Lindsay, Kim and I go way back. It all started in junior high when Lindsay's family moved into town...and Kim and I were not exactly the leaders of the welcoming committee, blah, blah, blah (that was for you Linds!) But...after putting a 'rough start' year behind us (Kim and I grew up and Lindsay forgave us)...we became great friends and have remained so ever since. They are those friends that even though you don't talk for awhile, or you move away, etc, when you see each other again you just pick right back up where you left off. We've been friends through a whole lot of things with each other (good and bad) and our friendship is still standing (and somehow, so are we!)

Lindsay married Scott and they are doing wonderfully. They may be moving away here soon to head off to Law school depending on where he gets in. Kim may be off to Arizona...and in a few years, Rand and I will be out of here too! Crazy the way things change. BUT...we'll always have TGI Friday's get togethers to keep us close! Maybe one day our girls will be friends (assuming Lindsay's daugher forgives mine and Kim's daughters for whatever it is that they do!)

Congrats Linds and Scott! And Lindsay: Kim and I will consider wearing ridiculously thin, short-sleeve dresses at your freezing cold wedding as restitution for anything we ever did to you in junior high! We're even! :o)

Bridesmaids: Kathy, Julie (Linds' sister), Kim and me

Thanksgiving in Cali

Well, we've started the 'flip-flopping' of holidays. We were able to make it match with Brian and Emily so that my parents can have us all home at the same time. So, this year we had Thanksgiving in California. Aside from me being sick the whole time, it was fun. I didn't play in the Turkey Bowl games though because I was sick (and I had to keep intramural football in mind...priorities!) But Rand and Kevin did play. They also were able to get a round of golf in with Brother Natker (Kevin) and Brother Bush (also Kevin). Rand was definitely outnumbered name-wise that day!

So this was the first time that we had the whole

family together since Kevin got home. My dad, of course, wanted to do some family pictures with all of us. It was pretty funny. We got the tri-pods out and set our cameras on them (mind you they were small little standard digital cameras). My Grandma Triano was over for a little bit as well, so we got some pictures with her. The picture to the left is my dad trying to convince Ellie to be in the picture (she refused for a while...see top left picture as 'exibit A'). Once we left her alone and started taking pictures...she eventually snuck her way in because she didn't want to be left out!

Rand can eat like none other! Here he is, still eating, even after everyone else is done and my mom has already cleared and re-set the main table! I think he also found the 'goblet' of sparkling cider very fitting for a 'feast'.

I was able to have a little fun despite being sick. Kevin and I

got Rand to go rock climbing with us at the indoor gym. I miss rock climbing. Hopefully we can get out more this summer and do some climbing. And now that Kevin is home, I atleast know I'll climb when we visit Cali. And if Kevin ever moves out to Utah in the next 2 years (before we leave for dental school), then I'm sure we'll climb a whole lot more. I also discovered I'm also totally out of shape! When I'm regularly going to the gym and lifting, climbing is so much easier!

Tricia and Andy Harris

Tricia is one of my absolute best friends. Randomly enough, we first met back in the summer of 2001 when I was a sports camp counselor and she was one of my girls in my group. She was heading into her senior year of high school and I was heading into my final year at BYU. She came to two weeks of camps: first for speed and power and second for soccer. We hit it off so well the first week that the second week she would just ditch her group and come hang out with me and my group. It was a blast.

Sports Camps 2001
(I know, I look like one of the participants!)

Well, the weeks ended and we really didn't keep in contact. She graduated high school and took off to SoCal for school and to play soccer. After two years, she decided to transfer to BYU. One day I was driving across campus (in a golf cart since I use to work in the visitors center) and ran into her (not literally). It was so random! We exchanged info and from then on she has been one of my best friends. We've played lots of sports together (football, basketball, softball and soccer) and we even decided to be roommates for a summer. I have loved being friends with her. We even took a fun trip to New York together in the summer of 2006. I had been wanting to go out there, I had friends living in D.C., New York and Boston who I could visit, and I just needed a traveling companion. Trish was in and we had a blast!

Left: Market Street in D.C. Right: The Capitol


Left: Outside the West Wing at the White House (with Cam and Ben who gave us the VIP tour)
Right: at the Washington, D.C. Temple

Left: NYSE Bull Right: We had to capture what we really looked like walking around NY. We always had a map out trying to figure out where we were going. In this pic we were actually in the newly finished subway through ground zero (in the background)

Left: Does that table look familiar? Of course it does, it's the table the John Cusak and Kate Beckinsale sat at in Serendipity (the movie and the restaurant)! Trish loves this movie and was so giddy that we were seated there (we didn't even ask!) We had a good, and quite silly time!
Right: My dad, through one of his million connections, hooked us up with producer seats to see The Lion King on broadway. Cost us a pretty penny...but SO worth it. It was a great show...and you can't get too much better than dead center in the 15th row (well...I guess you could get in one of the 14 rows in front of us, but still.) Thanks dad!

Left: Fenway Park! Besides all the historical places we had to see on our east coast trip, we decided we had to add in a couple other 'must sees' in each city: the LDS temple and the ballparks! We succeeded at all of these!
Right: Boston Harbor (I wanted to throw tea in, but apparantly that's frowned upon!)

Well, this past November she got married! She married Andy Harris and they are such a great couple. The only thing now is that Trish and I hardly see each other any more, and soon she will be out of Utah for good (well, for a long while).

I had the wonderful opportunity to be with her and Andy when Trish went through the temple for the first time. I'm really honored she asked me to do that with her!

And then Rand and I were able to make the trip out for her wedding in Oakland, California (Trish is from Utah, but Andy is from the bay area and they chose Oakland to get married.) Rand and I were heading to California for Thanksgiving anyway, so we just decided to make the trip out there a little early and be there for the wedding. Again, I was honored that Trish asked me to be her escort that day...it was a really cool experience.

And Trish is always so thoughtful! Because her sister is not a member of our church and could not be in the temple for the sealing, Trish decided not to get in her wedding gown and everything in the elegant brides room and instead had her sister help her get ready (she really wanted her sister to be a part of it) and they got ready in the tiny, crammed space of the visitors bathroom.

It was a beautiful day, they couldn't have asked for better weather (and this was the middle of November!)

Trish and Katie getting ready!

Trish looked beautiful! and check out how insanely alike she, her mom and her sister look!

and this is just a random picture of Rand and I at the temple, trying to look cool. Actually, this is inspired by my aunt and uncle. They have a sweet picture from their wedding with them sporting some 'shades' (I'm pretty sure that's what they were referred to as in the 80's). I wanted to recreate the picture on our wedding day, but we forgot our sunglasses in the car. My cousin Ashley (their daughter) was on top of it though and her and her husband did remember. So...we took this picture in it's place.

Halloween 2007

Pumpkin Carving
It just wouldn't be Halloween without carving pumpkins and going to a haunted house. Jimmy Joe and Joanna invited us over to their place to carve pumpkins. It was a lot of fun to just chill with them and see all our creations when we were done.

Haunted House
Ofcourse we had to go to a haunted house for Halloween. I have to admit, I'm not the biggest fan. I'm pretty jumpy at stuff like this (not that the characters scare me...but when things jump out at you and catch you off guard...I'm get pretty freaked.) Most of it was pretty good and didn't really do much to us...but they got both Rand and I in one room. Everyone in our group refused to go first, so Rand and I did. At the beginning, there is a room where they have two screens up showing you live shots of people getting scared in the place. We got to one of those rooms and thought, "okay, the guy is hiding in that closet, we are good, he can't scare us." So we rush past that part and turn the corner to leave and what happens...the guy was hiding around the corner instead. Totally freaked both of us out (to the point that you laugh hysterically afterwards.) We wish we could have seen what we looked like on the screen!

Thanksgiving Point Cornmaze
We went one night with Rand's parents out to a corn maze. With four 'take-charge' people, I'm surprised we survived! For about 30 minutes we just kept going in a circle! But it was a fun night and good time had by all.

Kids in Costumes

Halloween is just so much more fun when there are little kids you know that you get to see dressed up in costumes! Below are my niece and nephew, Ellie and Trevor. As you can see, Ellie was dressed up at Dorothy and Trevor was a lion (complete with the roar if you asked him). The first picture also has Trevor with his cousin Logan, who dressed up as Mario! SO CUTE!

And this is just the random picture we took while driving out to see Ellie and Trevor. These guys were just riding down the road, on the unicycle, with pumpkins on their heads!