new lights
Here is a picture of the new lights I bought when I was in Portland. We like how they look, but they sure don't put off as much light as the old ones did. At this point, considering this is the 3rd set we've tried to buy, we are ready to settle!
Video- finally!
Technology is (cough) great! Turns out this video thing was harder than I thought. First, I plug in our new HD camera and find out it doesn't come with software for Mac. iMovie '08 supports it, but not the version I run (which is a better version!). So I go out and buy the upgrade, plug the camera in, and realize that all the video we had recorded was in SD (Standard Definition) instead of HD (High Definition), so it wasn't compatible with the new iMovie either. Well, after all that, I found some freeware online that would convert the file for me and—finally—I have video! Then I go to upload it, and I waited 2 hours before I realized I had it in the wrong format. When I did it right it just took seconds! It is really pretty easy when you know what you are doing- ha.
Well, now for Abby's surprise:
Now that I know better how to do this, I promise more videos to come!
Who is psbl??????
Who posted comments today from psbl? PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELF!!! :) It's nice to have your comments—anonymous or not, but we'd still love to know who you are...
By the way, for those of you who don't know, you can leave us comments, and it is nice to hear from you so we know our blog isn't falling on deaf ears.
Stay tuned for some posted video if I can figure it out, and a little surprise from Abby!
Wahoooooooooooo!!!
Jazz win game 4 against the Lakers! They squeaked it out in overtime. What an amazing game to see! Tom was completely hoarse by the end of the game. You can get all the juicy details of the game I'm sure by clicking on the Jazz widget to your right.
This is Tom and I in our Williams jerseys (Tom is William's college jersey). He gets lots of comments when he wears that.
There is nothing more exciting than a playoff game, especially one as crucial as this one. This game evens the series 2/2, and gaurantees a game back in Utah on Friday. They released these balloons at the beginning of the game. It was one pumped-up crowd, and pretty hostile to the Laker fans that were brave enough to venture in.
Here is me and my friend Suz with our faces painted.
Mother's Day weekend
I started off the weekend with "Muffins with Mom" at the daycare. They sang us lots of cute songs like "We love our mommy, yes-sir-ree" to the tune of "Up on the Housetop" and "M-o-m-m-y" to the tune of "B-i-n-g-o". I forgot my camera. Snap!
We played in the yard a bit yesterday. The neighbor boys were over playing and Abby said "Hey, come look at my flowers." The neighbor said, "I planted stuff at school. It's called an ego-system". I thought that was pretty funny.
Still trying to figure out this blog thing. I figured out how to add a third column, but lost my headline in the process. Guess I'll have to consult an html genius to figure that one out. Oh yeah, and I changed the name and url. (Sorry to those of you who have visited before. You'll have to change your bookmarks. But the old one was too difficult to explain and, yes, it was a little wierd.
And finally, congratulations to Amy for graduating from MSU this weekend! Go cats :)
Fun in Portland
I'm in Portland today, and I brought the beautiful weather with me! It's 71 degrees. I'm here for work to do some printing, but there is plenty of time to get out and enjoy the weather—and good food! There is always good food to be had in Portland. I also think I found some lights for my dining room (finally!) so I'm headed over to see if I can bring them home with me.
Girls Night Out!
The guys actually gave up their tickets to their wives for a game, so the girls got to go see the Jazz seal the series against the Rockets (game 6). They won by alot, but it was still an exciting game to watch! (This is me with Tracee Derbidge and Susan Napier).
Our light drama
When Tom was out of town, at 3 AM, one of our dining room lights came crashing down. I wish I had taken a picture of the mess. It scared me to death because I thought someone was was breaking in to the house! It left a lovely ring in our already marred up table. Now instead of buying one light I have to buy two because West Elm doesn't sell this light anymore. I've been looking for the perfect light(s), but so far it has eluded me. I took a picture of the one I have left- I'm hoping I can sell it on eBay or something.
Bermuda or bust
After a rocky day at sea, we arrived in Bermuda! Thank goodness for the ear patch. It kept me from getting too sick. The weather was cold so we didn't do the typical cruise activity and spend time on the deck at the pool. There was plenty of other things to do, however. Here is a nice photo of our ship. Yes, it's HUGE! Our cabin was somewhere near the back on the other side of the boat. It was a very nice cabin with a verandah.
For those of you who don't know, we went on this cruise courtesy of Stampin' Up! Well, we did have to pay for it, but we got a killer deal. Can't beat that!
Here is Tom standing in front of the ship, to give you a sense of scale. It is like a city on water, and there were more people on this ship than in the town I grew up in!
Just to prove people in Bermuda really do where Bermuda shorts! This is the authentic look.
Tom was determined to take me golfing while we were there. We lost a lot of balls. The course was beautiful though!
And, of course, there were little towel animals waiting to great us every night when we returned to our stateroom.
As advertised, the water is very turquoise and beautiful! This is me at Horseshoe Bay.
And the sand really is pink! That is because of little red microorganisms that die and wash up on the beach. Nice thought, eh? This is my feet at Horseshoe bay.
We didn't spend time in the water for one big reason (shown below). Oh yeah, and the water was plenty cold. Turns out Bermuda is pretty far north and isn't really warm in April. These are Man of Wars (like Jellyfish but worse) and they were washed up on shore all over. You don't want to get bitten by one.
All in all, it was a great trip. Although it was beautiful, I wouldn't go out of my way to go to Bermuda again. I'm sure it actually gets warm there for some people, but it is crowded and expensive. I'd like to see other places in the world!
I LOVE NY!!!
Tom and I launched our vacation in New York City!!! A first time for both of us. We stayed at the Sheridan Hotel and Towers right near Time's Square. (Here's a photo of Time's Square.) Yup, it looks just like you'd expect it to. (Only it isn't a square. Weird.) We went to a play right near here—Spamalot—which is a spoof on Monty Python stuff. It even had Clay Aiken in it. Pretty funny stuff, but I was so tired from taking the Red Eye the night before that I had a hard time staying awake. For dinner we ate at Connelly's, an Irish Pub (Tom's choice) and it was very good.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the girls are at home with Grandpa Rog and Amma (Benjamin). They were so good to come stay with them while we are gone. Nanna is going to take over after the first week.
More NY
You really can't do New York without going to the top of the Empire State building. It was pretty gray when we were up there (and wow is it pricey!) but it was fun once. We navigated around NY like nobody's business and had a lot of fun riding the subway. My iphone was the best thing for navigation (Google maps!)
We rode the Staten Island Ferry to (duh!) Staten Island—a free ride! It sails by the Statue of Liberty. These are our friends Dave and Koreen (they use to be our neighbors) and they met us in NY to be our fabulous tour guides. We had a great time with them.
Dave tried to take our picture in front of the Liberty when we sailed by, but it was VERY windy, as you can see. Actually, it was quite cold the whole time we were there, but I didn't care. I LOVED every minute of it!
This is Dave standing in front of a building getting it's windows washed. (Dave is a window washer himself.)
We stopped by the Ground Zero site. There was construction fencing around the whole thing since they are rebuilding now, but they have this little memorial set up by a new subway station they put in there. Even though quite a bit of time has past, the mood still seems really somber there. It seems like there is a big hole in the skyline when you are standing there.
We went from there to hunt down a Thai restaurant called "Lemongrass Grill". It was worth the search.
This is a picture of the New York Stock Exchange. The security around there is amazing (there was actually 2 guys with machine guns standing right behind me when I took this picture!
Tom is looking off the edge of our balcony as we disembark. As we sailed off we got an even better view of the Lady Liberty!
Easter
Here is some pics of the girls cute Easter dresses. We went to Red Lobster for lunch, which is Abby's favorite special occasion treat.
A big highlight this year—a girls trip to Vegas! Tiffany and Tawnya and I had a blast shopping and bonding. We want to make a tradition out of it!
A memorable moment—I knew Tiffany loved Thai food so we made a reservation at this restaurant based off a recommendation. It was AMAZING! We just told Tiffany to order whatever she liked, and we ended up loving everything. Turns out, I love Thai food and now I'm hooked. I would go to Vegas JUST to go to this restaurant.
Our little ham
Sarah just loves to dress up. (I wonder where she gets it? Abby is always dressing up too!) Here she is in a couple of her recent crazy outfits.
What a crazy winter! We spent a lot of time shoveling this winter. This was after a long morning of shoveling after one of our biggest storms. The snow was piled up against our house almost 2 feet deep. This is one of the things I love about Utah, though. You get the best (and worst!) of all the seasons.
