Hooray for the Olympics!!

I have a feeling that Brent and I will not be going to bed much before midnight for the next 2 weeks because the Olympics are on. NBC has about 8 hours of coverage each day (don't worry, we fast forward through a large portion of it) and USA and CNBC also cover the non-prime time rated stuff (fencing, boxing, weightlifting, equestrian, etc). It is SO fun!

Brent loves sports and learning and numbers and so that makes the Olympics a perfect way for him to use his brain. He pauses the tv whenever there is some sort of statistic so that he can figure out how the athlete needs to perform to beat it, and we usually watch the little blurb about the sport before it starts so that we can figure out what the heck is going on. I think he watched an entire water polo game the other day. He's enjoying that I'm not whining about the amount of sports he's been watching which I tend to do, especially during March Madness.

I on the other hand, am not a big sports fan. Well, at least not the main stream sports available to us on tv. I usually have a hard time watching sports on tv, except for baseball. Don't even ask me to sit through a basketball game. YUCK! But, there is something about the Olympics that gets me every time. I love the variety of things to watch, learning about some of the crazy "sports" out there, seeing the competition between the rookies and the seasoned athletes. Plus the John Williams music rocks. I think so far, my favorites have been the swimming and the gymnastics. The cycling was pretty cool and the rowing was interesting. The womens saber fencing made no sense at all. Tonight is the women's synchronized springboard diving finals. It should be pretty awesome. I'm hoping that at least one of the networks shows the synchronized swimming. That stuff is insane! And cheesy!

Anyway, congrats and good luck to all the Olympians out there, especially the LDS ones. Good luck to Laura Wilkinson, a diver. She went to my high school (several years before me) and this year, she is attempting the most difficult dive for a woman, because the press is starting to label her as a has-been and she wants to prove them wrong. Also, we are really rooting for Michael Phelps, we want him to get the new record of 8 gold medals in one Olympics! How sweet would that be? He would not only be the best swimmer of all time but the most decorated Olympic athlete in history.

Our one complaint, the arrangement of the National Anthem that they play for the US gold medalists is kind of wussy. We want to hear something bolder and more triumphant!

P.S. The opening ceremonies were cool. They had some wicked awesome stuff, and the Bird's Nest stadium is so modern, and the design of the cauldron is beautiful! Have you seen the Water Cube, where they do all the swimming stuff!?! It's a giant blue cube that changes colors! We had a fun night on Friday watching the opening ceremonies with the Thompson's. We had Panda Express and chatted. Good times.

Flashback Friday - Drill Team

I saw this idea on a friend of a friend's blog and since I was toying with the idea of doing a weekly themed post anyway, it seemed like a good fit. Every Friday (or as often as possible) we will post a flashback, something Brent and/or I are being nostalgic about that current week.

This week, thanks to all of the So You Think You Can Dance I have been watching, I am remembering the 2 years I did drill team and cheerleading for the little league football team back in Texas. Football is practically a religion in the south and in the area I grew up in there was a league of 12 different teams starting as young as 8 years old. Let me point out it is full contact football, full pads and all. They are all named after NFL teams, and the team for the district I lived in was The Broncos.

Each football team has it's own cheer team (we were the Pony Express) and we would have 2.5 hour practices 2 times a week and cheer and dance at the Saturday football games and at the end of the season we had our own drill team competition where we danced in several different categories (pom, military, jazz, novelty, etc). It was pretty hard core for being 11. If you are asking yourself, what the heck is a drill team?, here are some youtube videos of random drill teams doing pom and high kick. It's a huge thing in Texas and the dancing is actually quite amazing. The team from my high school, the Bearkadettes, often wins national competitions.

Anyway, here are the pictures from the 2 years I was a Pony (3rd & 6th grade). The registration fee was pretty hefty and there was a fund raiser you had to do as well or the parents would have to pay another fee and the parents all had to put in 5 volunteer hours, or again, there were fees. We didn't have much money growing up but my parents knew how much my sister and I wanted to do this so they designed and made the uniforms. I'm not sure if they started doing that my first year, but by the time I did my last year, my sister had done several years of it and they would make the 80+ uniforms, by hand, tailored to fit each girl. It would take weeks and hundreds and hundreds of hours, and our dining room would be covered in blue and orange fabric but it was either that, or we'd have to come up with about $300 per girl or just not do it. Thanks Dad and Linda! I think they helped with the competition costumes as well, which were usually big gaudy things with lots of sequins.

Enjoy! And just remember that this was Texas in the 90's so big hair and bright lipstick were in. Oh wait, they still are...

Date Night!!

So, many of you know that we are big "date night" enthusiasts. More often than not, our dates are just "pick-up-some-takeout-and-watch-a-movie-on-the-couch" dates, which honestly isn't that different from our regular weeknights. Throw in the occasional venture to an actual sit-down restaurant and/or movie theater and there you have about 80% of our dates. Calling them date nights makes us feel better and makes it a little more fun/special. We ALWAYS have at least one date night a week (usually on Friday) and since we have no kids we often have 2 and sometimes we'll switch off planning it every other week as a surprise to each other.

During the summer, our dates tend to get more creative partly because Brent isn't too serious about his studying yet and partly because we live in LA, people! There is always something fun to do in LA, but more so in the summer. And you don't have to have money to do lots of them! Some of my favorites: fish and chips on the beach to watch the sunset, driving along Mulholland to see all of the city lights and to watch the car hit 50,000 miles, going to the Griffith Observatory, going to tapings of Last Comic Standing and eating dinner while we stood in line, a John Williams concert at the Hollywood Bowl, wandering around Universal Citywalk waiting for our movie time, etc.

On Saturday, Brent needed to stop by his office and get an analysis running on his computer so that he would have less to do on Mon so I finally got to see where he works. I've been to the building about 1,000 times but I've never been inside. I got to see his "cube" and where the rest of his team sits and his old crappy, cramped cube. It was fun. Sad that Brent had to do work on Saturday but we were only there for about 30 minutes and now I can picture in my head where he is all day long.

Then, we headed over to Santa Monica and strolled the 3rd Street Promenade and Ocean St. We stopped and had dinner at Johnnie's NY Pizzeria. We're not big shoppers so there wasn't a whole lot to do but walk around but the weather was nice and it was something we hadn't done before. We saw a few street performers and stopped in a book shop. It was a nice evening, and we've both decided that we're glad the other isn't a clothes monger because there are certainly enough stores to spend a fortune in down there.




Yay for date night!! I know this sounds cheesy but it really has strengthened our marriage because for a few hours, we don't talk about our worries or things that are stressing us out or what we have to do tomorrow, we just have some good quality time. And it gives us something specific to look forward to during the week, not just "oh good, the weekend is coming". It's a fantastic way to learn, and connect and grow together as a couple.

Now, I hope you all go out and start having more dates. We're lucky that we get every one every week, which I know a lot of people can't do, but once a month should be easy enough. It's important!! And I don't want to hear any excuses (kids, work, too tired, etc)! Call me if you need a sitter, or if you want to double!!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

**Warning! Really long post with lots and lots of pictures, ahead!**

We're back and already missing our family. Darn. How come vacations are never long enough? I think part of the problem is that when you leave your house, eventually you want to get back "home" again, but Utah is a home for us.

We had a really great time and filled every day to the max with fun activities. We saw and did so many things and visited with a lot of people, but still didn't make it to everyone. So, here is a mass apology to all of those family and friends we didn't get a chance to see on this trip. We missed you! We will be coming for at least a week in December so hopefully we'll see everyone next time.

Here's the basic rundown of our little vacation.

Thursday was Pioneer Day, which for all of you who haven't lived in Utah, and might not know, is actually more than just an occasion to sing fun songs in Primary. It's a state holiday and a lot of businesses close for the day and there are all sorts of festivities. In Brent's family, one of the traditions is to go downtown and watch the parade. Several of us got there around 7am and found a spot to sit, then the others gradually trickled in and we ate lots of yummy sweet rolls, orange rolls, fruit and cold cereal. Brent's dad marched and played with the Post Office Band, as he does pretty much every year, and we saw lots of fun floats. Some of the cousins played a card game while waiting for the parade to start and the rest of us chatted and passed around our niece (Brent's sister Andrea's baby), Hannah, who is 3 months old.

After the parade, we went back to the house and rested up a bit and then got to work on preparations for the big BBQ. July 24th is also Brent's sister Camille's birthday so most years, after the parade, the whole family comes over to my in-law's house for a BBQ and games and just plain ol' fun. They have an amazing yard and we have lots of room to spread out and be silly. Everyone brings food and it's always delicious. This year we had steak, salad, dutch oven potatoes, fruit, scones, cookies, grape lemonade, homemade root beer and homemade ice cream. After dinner, people played water balloon volleyball, "I love all my neighbors", Four Square and shot water balloons with a giant slingshot while the rest of us watched and laughed and talked. I rarely had big parties with extended family growing up since we were so spread out geographically so anytime we get to be with Brent's family, I just sit and soak in all the love and laughter. I think at one point we had almost 30 people. We also stuck candles in the cookies and sang Happy Birthday to Camille. What a day!

On Friday, we slept late, took a long walk and then had a big yummy breakfast. After we all got cleaned up, we (Brent's parents, sisters and us) went to Randy's (my father-in-law) cousin's house to look through some of Grandma and Grandpa Gray's things to see if wanted any things from their house before the rest got donated. We found some fun treasures and quite a few useful items. After we got back to the house, we were joined by Brent's sister's husbands and we went to the Mayan for dinner. It is a Mexican restaurant with a jungle-y atmosphere and a rock waterfall and a diving show. The atmosphere and food were better than I remembered but the diving show was much worse than it used to be. It was still fun though. After dinner, we went to see Horton Hears A Who at the $2 theater. (Might I just add that cheap movie theaters are one of the things I miss about Utah.) It was hilarious! I thought it was going to be a little silly but it was awesome. "You take care of the meatball, I'll take care of the freaking out."

Saturday morning, we (Brent's immediate family, minus Andrea and the baby but plus his cousin Jared who is pretty much a brother and whose wife was out of town) woke up early and headed down to Mt. Timpanogos. We hiked up to the cave and did a tour of it. The hike was starting to get pretty strenuous (at least for those of us that are out of shape) towards the end and I was beginning to wonder/hope that the cave would be worth it. It was! I have never been in a cave and most of the family hadn't been there either so we were expecting it to just be a big room. We were wrong! The tour took about an hour and our guide, Ranger Sue, was great. It was just the 9 of us on the tour so she took extra time and shared lots of cool things with us. After the cave tour, we hiked back down the mountain and had a picnic lunch near the river. What a great experience! The day was beautiful and we started early enough that it wasn't too hot and the side of the mountain we were hiking was still mostly shaded.

After the hike Brent, Jared and I went to Provo. We went to my sister Cami's house where she was throwing a baby shower for her sister-in-law, Ana. During the baby shower Brent and Jared went to visit our boss from when we (Brent, Jared, Cami and I) worked at the Law Building at BYU. They had fun visiting and catching up. The shower that Cami threw for Ana was really great. She makes the BEST centerpieces. So creative! After the shower, Brent, Jared and Cami's husband Luis hung out and played video games while Cams and I had our own fun. As she put it on her blog "we spent most of the afternoon giggling about ridiculous nonsense, which is just the way I like to spend my afternoons". She showed me her beautiful house, her wedding dress store, and the designs for her line of bridal gowns that will *hopefully* be available this fall. You should see these gowns, they are gorgeous and unique and totally modest. So here's my plug for Casablanca Gown Co. If anyone knows someone getting married and wants a custom gown, let me know and I'll pass along her info. I love being with Cami because she is one of the few people who knows everything about me and she totally gets me and whenever we get together, it's a riot. Thanks, sissy!! Also, while I was at Cam's house, I took some pictures of her garden and some pregnancy portraits of Ana since she hasn't allowed anyone to take pictures of her for the past 8 months. I guess she trusts me and that's very flattering.

After visiting the Farias family, Brent, Jared and I went to American Fork to a friend, Jeff's, house. Brent, Jared, Jeff and another friend, BJ were all roommates in college for a couple of years and it was about time for a reunion! We are all married now and Jeff and BJ have kids that we had never met. So we sat on the back porch with all the guys, their wives and kids and roasted hot dogs and caught up and reminisced about the old days. It was so fun to see all those guys again, some of whom I hadn't seen since their weddings almost 4 years ago. It's fun to see how we've all "grown up" in some ways but are still young and crazy in other ways. I spent quite a bit of time talking to Jeff's wife, Hannah, who has also experienced lots of infertility problems, but now has 2 beautiful twin girls from IVF. It was nice to trade stories, complain, and share advice and tips with each other. I am always sad to hear when others have problems getting pregnant but it is so nice to really talk with someone in "the club". Thank you Stevenson's for a wonderful evening!

On Sunday, we all slept late and then had a huge breakfast of pancakes, eggs and fresh fruit. Afterwards, Brent spent some time showing his mom some new tricks on her computer and then we all went to church. After church, we trekked up to his grandparent's house for dinner. It was so fun to visit with his grandparents. After dinner, Brent's aunt and uncles and cousins came up for dessert and there was more visiting and more games. It was hard to leave that night because we knew we would be flying home the next day.

We really loved our vacation and remembered how much we miss living near family. It was so great to have all of Brent's sisters and their husbands sleep over at the house so that we could all be together for so long. We can't wait to come back at Christmas!! Yay for family!!

Wow, that was long. I guess if you've made it this far, you're either family or really bored, or both! I was going to cut it down a bit but Brent said it is good and our blog is basically our journal and we don't want to forget what we did on our vacation.