The Sugiyamas

Valentine splurge reports

2012-02-10T19:04:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone! Time for those valentine reports to start rolling in. You don't have to wait until Valentine's day to do it... I'm excited to hear about your splurges. Don't disappoint me.

House Transformation

2012-02-03T14:45:00.000-08:00

Well, here it is. We're getting closer and closer to having it all done. Now it's down to little nik-nak jobs. Thanks to Mom we were able to dominate the painting which was a bit larger project than originally expected. Mom was not leaving Colorado until that aweful "hearthrob" red was out of that dining room. Here's a website you can see more of the original pics of the entire house. http://www.redfin.com/CO/Castle-Rock/200-High-Plains-St-80104/home/35076642

What Temples have we Attended????

2012-01-26T06:39:00.000-08:00

So, here is a chance to think back and remember which temples you have attended over the years. Currently there are 136 operating temples in the world. Let's see how many of the 136 that someone in our family has attended... Casey inluded... btw.. has someone invited him to the blog?

30th or 32nd? Who can really tell?

2012-01-18T08:22:00.000-08:00

Let me just start by saying that Casey rocked this birthday and it's mainly because he already understands what makes me happy. So, we started off with breakfast. I made some Pope bread on Monday and so he came over and made some amazing french toast. The kind with a little cinnamon, little syrup and a sprinkling of powdered sugar on top. YUMMY!

Later, I was diligently working, when my work phone rang (which it hasn't done in over a month) and I was informed that I had a delivery a the main desk. I proudly marched back to my desk with flowers and a cute card which said something about me being the love of his life. Super mushy. Luv it!

After work I went home to find a room full of balloons. I had a cute card and was instructed to pop all the balloons. I may have cried a bit, played in the balloons and then started popping them. After two balloons, Casey came over and thoroughly enjoyed watching me jump each time we popped a balloon.

Each balloon had an activity for us to do. It was super fun to pop them all as many of the papers went flying off and I would dive under the balloons in search of the little paper of fun. Plus notice the card is totally perfect. I'm telling ya, this kid got it right!

After the balloon fun, Casey made me dinner: Chicken Carbonara. So delicious!!! We had it with salad and bread. My roommate Kasha came home just as we started eating and so we all ate together. It was fun. Here is my silly chef and his creation.

After dinner, we just sat and talked and then I got a back massage. It was a great birthday filled with a lot of great surprises. I also got a box filled with amazingly fun stuff from mom with some much needed hand soap. Casey has an old cottage cheese container with three little slivers of soap in it in his bathroom, so one soap is going to his house...STAT!!! The birthday fun continues as I'm still waiting for a box from Annette. Can't wait!! In the end, I'm happy to be 30 again or even 32.

Casey "lumberjack" Mau

2011-12-10T07:29:00.000-08:00

I have been doing a very good job of forgetting my camera to our last few dates. Ughhh. So, last weekend we went to Gallivan Center and went ice skating on this outdoor rink. It was super fun. The trees around it were covered in lights, they were blasting Christmas music, and I attempted some Michelle Kwan type tricks like sticking my leg out behind me. It was amazing!! My favorite part was that I would start racing him like Apolo Ohno, but unlike Apolo, I couldn't stop, so Casey would stop before me and I would go flying into his arms. It was pretty cute. (Last night we went to a Christmas party where Pope's kids were singing. Aren't we cute. Well, I'm not sure what my bangs we re doing, but otherwise...cute.)

Then Tuesday we went to Devri's house to do sugar cookies with her 7 kids. Casey became the two boys best friend and they played hide n go seek, pretend angry birds, cars and at one point Casey has a hat and scarf on. Casey had Kono- the 4 year old, decorate me a cookie. It was literally covered in chocolate chips and weighed about 3 pounds. Yeah, I ate it. LOL.

Last night before the party we went and ate at a Brazilian restaurant, which was so good. I had

my first flan and I'm in love!! I feel like I need to eat a lot of flan to make up for all those years of missed flan eating. Then we sat back and just watched the talent show.

So Casey met the Popes. Saia doesn't usually say much, but liked Casey cuz he was a wrestler. Luisa chatted with him and while I was in the bathroom, I heard her say something like...Lori hasn't dated a lot of nice guys..so if you're mean to her, we are going to beat the crap out of you. Then started laughing and invited us for Christmas. Gotta love Pope. He seemed ok with the threats and will probably recover by next week sometime.LOL.

Best Best BEST weekend ever!

2011-12-03T16:23:00.000-08:00

It all started with an amazingly delicious thanksgiving meal. Wow. All of the food was amazing and we ate ourselves silly as usual. We survived another year of black friday shopping. We almost died at Walmart - both inside and outside of the store. Despite the total chaos we were able to get out faster than anticipated. Ruby decided she didn't want to miss out on all the action and refused to sleep so we ended up bringing a 7 month old, bright eyed girl out to Kohls for her first midnight shopping experience! We got a lot of great deals and I got a few horrified "you are a terrible mother" looks - totally worth it! We shopped around all day long including 3 trips to meijer, a quick stop at JC Penny, and a LONG wait at JoAnn's. The day ended with a delicious batch of pocki!
***Sugi-Mania***
***ESPN camera man...BOOOO....***
***3 BIGGEST fans***
Saturday was easily the third best day of my life (Preston informed me that it's offensive to rate a win over the buckeyes above the birth of your child or wedding day...). The weather was PERFECT and the game was GLORIOUS! Our seats made it a LITTLE hard for us to see the action, as did the very unpopular camera guy, but nothing could dampen our spirits when the final buzzer rang and we rushed the field screaming HAIL TO THE VICTORS! Literally my face hurt from smiling so much! We raced home for some INSANELY thick and delicious grilled steaks at Tim's house. The perfect day. The PERFECT weekend.
***Denard's bum was on this bench! What up!!***
***Even got Dad down on the sidelines***
***COMPLETE CHAOS on the field - TOTALLY AWESOME***

(These videos are a little nauseating...sorry 'bout that - got caught up in the moment :)

Best weekend EVER!!

2011-11-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

After the Michigan game, we high tailed it back to Grand Rapids to see Jordan's band performance. I think Jordan is in this picture, but not totally sure. LOL. (for mom who may have forgotten, that means laugh out loud)

It was really good!! I'm pretty critical and was trying to find people out of step the whole night, but Northview had a great show. Way to rock it Jordan!!

I forgot to mention the amazing steaks we had a Tim's house on my first night. I dream almost every night about them and wake up in a pool of drool. Below is Mr. Friendly who looks a bit like our dad and shared with the primary about the stories in this months friend.

So, the young group went well, but by the older kids, Mr Friendly had met his match. Some of those kids may have been smarter than this crazy Asian in a polar bear cap.

And no good post would be complete without a picture of the amazing Ruby. She hasn't yet mastered the art of drinking from the water bottle. But she was lickin it like a mad woman!

Purdue can't touch the Maize and Blue!!!

2011-11-06T12:22:00.000-08:00

Well, this week's game left us with nothing to cheer about. But last week was awesome!!! HOMECOMING!!! The highlights were the rocketman who flew in the game ball from the

top of the stadium. We all thought he was gonna go crashing into the student section, but thanks to stellar Michigan technology, he hit the breaks and flew it to the fifty yard line!!

The half time show rocked with the alumni band complete with super old guys throwing batons, note I didn't say catching batons, LOL. And a former drum major that could do a backbend down to this head and back up without using his hands. I think that this should become a new quest for Taki to try!!! But it was all awesome and a success as no one broke a hip. LOL.

It did start to rain towards the end, but that didn't make the game any less awesome for us! Even though we blew them out, I was nervous until about the last quarter.

We had fun signing the fight song, seeing a safety (hasnt happened for like 6 years) and some great catches. Overall, did I mention it was awesome!!

SERIOUSLY?!

2011-10-26T20:09:00.000-07:00

Is it possible that this girl is already 6 months?
She is super obedient. Pres told her to hold onto his papers and she took the job very seriously.
She is sitting up all on her own!
She LOVES other babies (including the super cute baby she sees in the mirror :) Her newest favorite friend is the pampers baby!

She's a Sugi!

2011-10-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

Our little girl is growing fast and she is HUNGRY! I tried feeding her carrots the other day. It was semi-successful, but mostly just messy. Ruby has become fascinated with food. She will salivate and "chew" while she watches the fork go from you plate to your mouth over and over and over again - as if it's the most incredible thing she's ever seen! She will also try to put ANYTHING that is within arms reach into her mouth :) NO doubt about it. She's a sugi!
Preston, just finishing up a crazy delicious gull meadows doughnut, goes to get a sip of cider but finds that someone has beat him to it!

ooh...a freshly picked apple...yes please!

Having picked blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries this year I must say that picking apples is my favorite! They are SO easy and you finish so quickly! Awesome. Now we just have to figure out what to do with a whole peck of apples! Yes that is a REAL pumpkin!
Frankenstein Baby!

Happy Columbus Day!!!

2011-10-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

So thanks to Columbus, I have the day off and time to post some pictures of my trip or pictures I got from others of my trip. I started off in Australia. I'll just post on Sydney today.

This second picture is of Manly, which is a city in North Sydney where I did a bunch of hiking. The way back on the ferry was gorgeous as it was sunset and the view is just like the picture above.

I did a 10 mile hike on Manly. The next day I went swimming even though it was freezing cold. The waves were huge and it was really fun!

This is the blue mountains and specifically the three sisters. It was a gorgeous little view and had a more jungle atmosphere in the interior hikes. If you want to see more of my New Zealand pictures, I posted them on Facebook.

Busted!

2011-10-07T15:44:00.001-07:00

So lately I have been accusing Taki of being clumsy. It seems like he can't get through one day without dropping his food on the floor or dripping toothpaste down his shirt, etc. Well this morning I caught him like this:

Game #2: UM vs. Minnesota

2011-10-05T11:22:00.001-07:00

It was the battle for the little brown jug...although it didn't end up being much of a battle, but we were ok with that! We got to Ann Arbor without any traffic issues, but had a little trouble with parking. The cheapest parking was $15 but you had to "jump the curb" to get to it...not ideal. We drove a little further and found a place for $20. We drove in and then down into a bowl which ended up being quite muddy because of recent rain. Basically Tim's BMW got stuck, there was pushing, there was sliding, and then there was more pushing. We finally decided to back it into a spot as it maneuvered better in reverse. People were joking that the $20 better cover towing expenses...seriously. Well, Tim got nervous that we wouldn't be able to get out because the climb out of the bowl was pretty steep and muddy and he knew he'd have to get a "running" start in order to get up it, which he wouldn't be able to get with 100 cars all trying to get out of the bowl so we found a spot up top and Tim made the magic happen.

It was a BEAUTIFUL day! The air was crisp, but the sun was shining! We had great seats again, in row 10. I think I may wear heels to the next game though as when you are that close the difference between rows is like 6 inches and newsflash - we are shorties!

I wasn't trying to get an artistic shot or anything, I was trying to get the touchdown throw, but the guys in front of me both stood up and threw their arms in the air which totally obstructed my view with their maize and blue jackets.

The "nard" dog runnin' it. woot woot.

3 happy Sugis after a major Minnesota slaughter.

GO BLUE!

Conference Favorites???

2011-10-02T18:02:00.000-07:00

So, I am wondering if everyone can post their conference favorites to humor me- and who wouldn't want to make me happy???? (we'll see)

Game #1: UM vs EMU

2011-09-23T18:11:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday, Happy anniversary, Merry Christmas to me! This year I decided to cash in all of my presents and buy a pack of Michigan football tickets! It's our last fall in michigan and the first time in 7 years that we've got a shot at beating those "nuts" from down south. Our first game was last saturday.

We were in row 3 - I am NOT zooming at all. awesome.

We were in the CrAzY section with the cow bell guy
And this guy who led us in the MICHIGAN cheer
It was a beautiful day for football! I was a little annoyed when I found out that even with Ruby in a bjorn carrier I still needed a ticket to bring her in...seriously!? I did my homework online and knew that I couldn't bring our camera with the detachable lens or a purse - so I borrowed a small point and shoot camera - case and all it fit in the palm of my hand. They told me at the gate that I couldn't bring in the 4 inch x 3 inch case, but that if I took the camera out and put the case in my pocket that would be ok. WHAT?! Do my liquids and gels need to be 3 oz or less in a quart sized ziplock bag? Should I take off my jacket and belt and place my cell phone and keys in a special bowl? Oh my gosh I felt like these guys were TSA instead of stadium guards...sheesh. Next weekend look for dad, Tim,and me when we play Minnesota! Don't look for Ruby or my camera case :) WOW.

Holy Crap.

2011-09-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking someday Ruby will be looking through the books that we make of our blog and feel MORTIFIED by how much we publicly discussed her bowel movements! But she had one yesterday that was definitely blog worthy :)

She was sitting in the bumbo on the table when I heard it - and I knew right away that it was no ordinary poo so I immediately grabbed her out of the bumbo. While I was surveying the damage she started leaking :) I panicked! How do I get her to the changing table without leaving a trail?! I grabbed a washcloth, held it under her, and made a run for it!

I was wishing that Preston was home partially because he always seems to miss the big blowouts, but mostly because it's near impossible to keep her hands out of the poo when it's EVERYWHERE. And as she likes to stick everything in her mouth these days I was especially paranoid. In trying to get the onesie off without her getting her hands in it I officially got poo everywhere - shoulders, arms, back of the head, etc...

I finally get her cleaned off enough to take her to the shower, I stand her up and...you guessed it. She starts peeing. I just stood there, holding her, letting the washcloth soak it up, LAUGHING my head off. It was awesome.

I know what some of you are thinking - "really Annette, do you always have to include PICTURES of the mess? Gross." My reply - yes, absolutely! Who wants to read a post without pictures?! What I'm wondering is if this is normal. I've tried just about every diaper - target, walgreens, meijer, pampers, huggies...I've tried keeping her in smaller ones, using the right size, getting them larger - but it seems like EVERY poo is a blowout! I know you staunch cloth diaper people preach that you rarely have blowouts and I'm about ready to convert. At least with a cloth diaper I wouldn't have to clean my kitchen table in addition to her clothes :) I'm also thinking I maybe should buy stock in oxiclean as it has become my new best friend!

We recently put together this exersaucer and at first I think Ruby was a little leery about it, but after a few minutes she warmed up to it. These must really be a workout for babies because that girl is TIRED when she gets out.

At first I thought, what a wuss (I know, I'm such a kind mother)! But then I realized that when you normally just lay around all day, standing up might be pretty darn exhausting. Not to mention she has to hold up that noggin.

Two weeks ago college football officially started! For me it's a day that ranks up there with Christmas, my wedding day, the birth of my child... Yes, I love it that much. What a glorious time of year! We got little Rubes all decked out with her Michigan onesie and BYU headband. I can already tell she's gonna be a major football fan!

****And to anyone who caught the end of the michigan game last week....CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! Without a doubt THE most exciting finish to a football game I've ever seen!

White Water Adventure

2011-09-11T15:50:00.000-07:00

Well we finally got out to enjoy the Colorado great outdoors. Tad came out to visit for almost a week. We did some work on his teeth and hung out while we waited for the awesome weekend ahead. Lori met up with us at Glenwood Springs for the White Water Adventure full day extravaganza. Supposedly when we showed up they looked at us as experienced rafters, so they gave us a small boat. Smaller the boat the bigger the rapid. We started off on some pretty sweet rapids, one after another. Then we hit some mild river and Tad took the opportunity to bust a flipp-a-rooski off the boat. The rapids were intense, but nobody popped out.

At various spots along the river there are natural hot springs that flow into it. Some of the areas have rocks that have been built up to create a natural hot spring "tub." We had the chance to relax in one which was a nice contrast to the super cold river, but made us all wreak of sulfur. At the end we had the chance to jump out and float down river to the pickup zone. Connie was the first one in. Our guide was super cool and we all gave a high five with our paddles at the end.

After rafting we took a lunch break where they had some pork bbq sandwiches that were delish. For the second half of the day we decided to hit up the kayaks. We each had our own and had a blast attacking the rapids head on.

As the day went on we got more and more adventurous. Lori at one time decided to hit a rapid sitting ontop of the kayak. I looked back to

see her kayak straight up and down as she popped over a rapid. Later on Tad thought it'd be cool to kayak standing up and took a dip as well.

All in all an awesome trip. We definitely conquered that river!

Identity Confusion?

2011-09-04T13:19:00.000-07:00

The car arrives in Grand Rapids sporting a BYU flag but the parents are wearing 2 different t-shirts for the days' games.

With dad she was a BYU fan and with Mom she was all about Michigan.

The look says it all.... who am I?????? HELP!!!! But there was a noticable change in BYU's game when Annette put the BYU onesie on her to match the BYU bow (after Michigan won because a storm cancelled the game). It was about the end of the 3rd quarter... magic! Ruby finally had a matching outfit, and BYU won their game at the last second.

Our sister is crazy...

2011-09-01T22:06:00.000-07:00

...crazy AWESOME!

Happy Birthday Elder Toshmyster

2011-07-29T10:30:00.000-07:00

Even though our little Toshi's 21st birthday has come and gone, I thought we should still do something to celebrate his awesomeness. Most kids spend their 21st out partying, but our little bro is out doing the most important work there is and serving the Lord. I could not be more proud. So here we go guys...top 21 reasons why Elder Toshi is the bomb:
1. Do you know anyone more loving and kind? Tosh is such a great guy!
2. He's a blast! I loved going to chicago with him, what a fun dude.
3. He's an easy-going, go with the flow kind of guy that you love to be around.
4. He's a laugher. It seems like he was always one of the first to laugh during family prayers or the belly laugh game.
5. He's a great missionary. I love hearing about his success and hard work.
6. He's a great dancer. Nobody has moves like T-bone :)
7. He's hilarious. Tosh can ALWAYS make me laugh. I miss that.
8. He's the only guy I know that could wear sweats, exercise shorts, and tear away pants - basically anything BUT jeans until the age of 17 and still be cool!
9. He's THE man. Just look at his face in this picture. Love it.

Alright, now it's your turn to share what you love about Tosh, just post your comments and keep the numbering going!

I'm a Gardener!

2011-07-25T19:05:00.001-07:00

So, Taki's mom was visiting a few weeks ago and she got some veggies for me to grow on the balcony. I have been wanting some for a while but never get around to purchasing them, nor do I know what's easiest to grow. Lucky for me, she's an expert and got me the perfect set up.

The basil took off with quite a few leaves super fast. It has been nice to have basil to pick because the lettuce and tomatoes take a while to reap the benefits of my labor intensive once-a-day watering. It has been such a chore! I am of course kidding. I have loved looking out the window each morning to see they have gotten bigger. The red tomato in the picture is the first one and I can't wait to taste it. The lettuce is growing to Taki's surprise. He was sure they were weeds when they first popped up. He has very little faith in my skills considering I could only get one pansy to grow out of a whole pack of seeds a few years back. Perhaps his mind will forever change once he takes that bite of delicious tomato!

Backyard fun

2011-07-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

This robin and many other birds think our sagging hot tub cover is a bird bath. There is also a very trusting bunny who lets you approach him and watch him eat. You have to know I love this bunny because I caught him eating my impatiens flowers last week and didn't even stop him. I even put a stalk of lettuce outside the fence of my garden for him.

Ruby finds her thumb

2011-07-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

Much to Preston's dismay but adding to her already great cuteness... Ruby Anne has found her thumb as you can see in the following very cute photos.

Kindleberger Festival!

2011-07-18T20:03:00.001-07:00

Last weekend was the annual kindleberger festival here in the small town of Parchment! There are tons of activities and everything is free! They had musical productions, an art fair, farmers market, a car show, parade, live band, etc... We decided to run there, which always seems like a good idea until you realize that you have to run BACK as well! Anyhow, we had a good time and didn't pay a dime!
The parade was a little noisy...
...but Ruby was totally into it.
The "cruisin" car show (not so much cruisin as just sittin there, so I decided to do some cruisin myself). Ruby again was obviously impressed...
Preston and I don't know ANYTHING about cars, but they were still cool to look at.

Before we left we decided to stop in and see the live band. It was interesting because they were a rock band and the lead singer was really screamin into the mic...but they still had the scenery up for the "Sound of Music" production, so the band's backdrop was a beautiful mountain scene- complete with flowers and puffy white clouds :) We didn't get a good pic of the band, but I think Ruby's face says it all...
Clearly this was the highlight of her week :)

Ruby's Blessing

2011-07-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

This post has been waiting for pictures! Ruby was actually blessed on Mother's day when she was less than 2 weeks old. We hadn't planned on it being that early, so mom was still finishing the dress that morning and drove it down so we could change her in the car.

It was so wonderful to have mom, dad, and Tim there along with Preston's parents and some good friends. It was a very special day and we were happy to share it with so many people we love.

Unfortunately Ruby had a blow out during sacrament meeting, so we didn't get any good pictures of her in the dress. And sadly it took me a long time to get around to taking pictures of her, but it actually fits better now, even though mom made the smallest size.

At any rate, it's a beautiful dress, I love how it turned out - simple, vintage, and not wierdly long ( I just don't get why blessing dresses are normally 4 ft long when babies are like 20 inches...).

Halfway through the photo shoot she grabbed her dress and started showin' some leg...oh boy...we've got trouble on our hands!

Meet Dr. Sugiyama

2011-06-30T16:39:00.000-07:00

In case you are curious like me, you will want to know where the name of the town "Castle Rock" came from. Here is the famous Castle Rock... taken from the car window.

Taki and Connie pose in front of his new sign "Cedar Mountain Family Dentistry".

The name on the coat makes it official.

Taki shows us how to use the machine that makes the crowns. He also has a little room to mix things up and make things. There is an office, a break room and waiting room as well as 3 dental chairs.

After the tour of Taki's office we went out to dinner at a trendy place in Lone Tree. Of course, Taki had a coupon.

Taki's temple pants (from his mission) have gotten a little tight so mom fixed them with Connie's 'Sew Crafty'... not really made to sew canvas but did the job and gave him 2 more inches :)

The Sugiyamas hit Vegas Night Life

2011-06-30T16:22:00.001-07:00

Lori - ready to hit the night scene! Looking fabulous!

A Fremont street stage show was fun to watch but the people in front of us were most interesting. We were kind of a tame bunch compared to the others but the kids loosened up a little for my video camera.

Daytime escapades in Vegas

2011-06-30T16:11:00.000-07:00

Two 'oldies' hit the streets with the young people. Results= sore feet!

Connie, Taki and Ruby (under wraps) pose with Spongebob.

Lori, Mary and Jane and Net, Lori and Tad strike one of many silly poses.

Another Vegas post

2011-06-30T14:52:00.000-07:00

Everyone couldn't get enough of little Ruby.

Party time!!! Not enough time to visit with people we see so seldom!

Some things never change. It appears the kids will never outgrow the giant slurpees they loved as kids. Here they are in our hotel room.

Vegas baby!

2011-06-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

*I took this post directly from our blog in case it looks familiar*

We couldn't believe how good Ruby did when we traveled to Texas, so I decided to press my luck and do a roadtrip to Utah with my mom. Thankfully the trip was uneventful! Ruby was a champ, she only really cried a few times and we were able to calm her down quickly. Amazing. I was really nervous that the trip would be horrific but it ended up being an absolute blast! We left on tuesday and got to Utah thursday night. Of course we met up with Lori and Tad for some BAJIO! On the way there Ruby had a MAJOR blow out and Lori offered to change her but Bajio did NOT have a changing table. SHOCKER! What restaurant in Utah doesn't have a baby changing station. Luckily Tad had just cleaned out the back of the blazer. It worked perfectly.

Friday morning my family left for Vegas but I stuck around. In the afternoon Preston flew into Utah for his brother's wedding. We had one day together in Utah so we decided to do the most important thing - introduce Ruby to BYU! We took her to meet my old intramural boss Phil (basically the best boss ever), raided the bookstore and got some creamery ice cream!
Then we drove back up to Salt Lake for the wedding BBQ! It was wonderful to meet Tommy's fiancee and to see the fam. We had a great time chatting with everyone and introducing them to little Ruby. She is so lucky to have the best aunts, uncles, and cousins!
The next morning I flew to Vegas for the big Sugiyama reunion. We arrived in time to gorge ourselves at the breakfast buffet, afterwards we hit the city! It was so fun to explore the beautiful hotels with a pack of Sugi's! Ruby's uncles couldn't get enough of her and offered (practically begged) to carry her around in the bjorn. We found a secluded bench at Caesar's Palace for a quick feeding. Ruby decided to have a blow out and I was thrilled to find some of her poo made it out onto my shorts.

That night we all met up and had a wonderful evening. We played a game that required us to match baby pictures with current pictures of everyone. There were 35 people and amazingly Lori got 30 matches right! She was the big winner! It was great for Ruby Anne to meet my Aunt Ruby and Auntie Anne. They are truly wonderful and talented women who have lived extraordinary lives! Unfortunately Ruby was pretty grumpy the whole night so we all took turns taking her out while she screamed. Even with the screaming it was still a great night. I only wish we did these reunions more than once a decade.

Ruby got way too much attention from all of her aunts and uncles and she misses them for sure! We all live too far apart!

On sunday dad and I flew out of vegas back home to GR and Ruby did wonderfully. This little girl is a born traveler!

The Rubes is talkin and smilin!

2011-06-16T13:53:00.001-07:00

I figured ya'll might be experiencing some Ruby withdrawal, so here ya go! Just last night Rube tube started making noises that didn't sound like she was pooping, in pain, or stuck somewhere. She is also a very smiley girl! Enjoy.

Devils Head

2011-05-31T19:43:00.001-07:00

With the weather as gorgeous as ever we had to take advantage of the awesome Colorado outdoors. We decided to do the much talked about Devils Head hike. We went with another couple, and found it to be a pretty pleasant hike. It's pretty much your standard hike, but at the top is this nice wide open grass area perfect for a picnic or what not. There's also a little cabin next to the field where the ranger stays when he's not looking for fires. Fires you ask, well Devils Head has a lookout tower located 143 stairs upward right on top of a rock. Since you can see for miles in all directions, it's an active ranger site used to spot fires. Connie thought it was hilarous that I was scared as we walked around the tower cause it was super windy and I felt like I could be blown off to my death at any moment. It was coold to go into the tower and talk to the ranger. The ranger was this cool old guy who kindly answered all of Connie's questions. Later she realized a piece of paper with "Commonly Asked Ranger Questions/Answers" with most of the questions she just asked. Ooops.

4 planes, 3 outfits, 2 tired parents, and 1 foot-in-the-mouth flight attendant

2011-05-27T15:21:00.000-07:00

On Sunday we took little Ruby on her first plane ride to TEXAS and the Lord answered my prayers! Ruby was a little angel and was perfectly quiet during both flights. What a champ!

Texas was great fun, especially since the hospital interviewing Preston bought our plane tickets, flew us into TYLER and rented us a car! How awesome is that?! We stayed with family and I couldn't believe how great the kids were with Ruby. The boys were so loving and excited to hold her. Some were a little TOO excited and we had to play defense to avoid eye pokes and suffocation from kisses!

We had lots of fun eating out with family, staying up late chatting and BBQing at the lakehouse. We had a tour of tyler with a local realtor and did some house hunting of our own. I felt bad when the realtor asked what I'm looking for in a home and I mentioned that I'm not a huge fan of brick. As we looked around I realized that 90% of the homes in Tyler are 100% brick :) Preston's interview went well...all 9 hours of it! He came home with a great job offer and a delicious basket of goodies.

The trip home was not so perfect. We got to Dallas just fine (although during the trip from Tyler Ruby decided to have a blow out so we quick changed her clothes and diaper in Dallas and scarfed down a piece of pizza as they were quick to board the plane. But after 20 minutes of sitting in our plane the captain announced that the lavatory was clogged and we needed maintenance to come and fix it (I guess we didn't need to hammer that pizza so fast...bummer). After another 20 minutes they announced that the plane could not be fixed and we needed to de-plane. Fairly quickly they found us a new plane. We got on board, but after another 20 minute wait we found out that the plane had problems with the AC. Maintenance was called, the problem couldn't be fixed, we all got off again. I was trying to wait to feed Ruby until our plane was taking off and I apparently waited too long as I needed a shirt change after failed flight number 2 :)

At this point we're wishing we had gotten more pizza because it's getting late, so Preston buys us a smoothie and I take Ruby to the bathroom to change a wet diaper. Unfortunately I still haven't learned that there ALWAYS needs to be a diaper under the baby. Right after I pulled off the old one Ruby let the flood gates open. I tried to grab her off the table before urine got everywhere, but I was too late, her onesie was already soaked up the back AND apparently I scared her a little when I picked her up so quick because she then proceeded to poop on her blanket :) yikes. Luckily we had a 3rd outfit packed, but it was our last, so we hoped that plane 3 would come through for us.

It didn't. We were on the plane for a while and they kept announcing that we were all set and just waiting on final confirmation from who knows who. Then the flight attendant came on the PA again and said "would someone else like to come up and make this announcement?" Turns out this one had the same AC problem and was leaking fluid. Having given up on maintenance actually doing anything helpful, they decided not to call and just to have us all de-plane...again.

Wow. At this point we've given up on being annoyed as the situation is almost comical. I was surprised to see most of the passengers in good spirits and making jokes. It reminded me that there's no situation that can't be made worse by complaining. We were told that a plane would be coming in at 5:10 and we would be able to take that one (note that when it landed it was 6:10 in GR and we were suppose to be home at 5:05. Awesome.

As we board plane number 4 a flight attendant (who earlier had asked how old our baby was) asked if I was "expecting again." REALLY!? So you know that I have a 1 month old baby and you know that I'm about to get on my 4th plane and you ask me that?! wow. They announced that the first round of drinks were on the house to compensate us for our troubles. I didn't want a beer, I wanted some peanuts or pretzels...but those were $4.

We ended up arriving in GR after 10:00 and Ruby, who did so super great all day, finally lost it. Mom and dad brought us our car and said a quick hello to our screaming baby before we took off for home.

The no rules pinewoood derby

2011-05-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

OK. I am really not a fan of the no rules thing as the boys were just plain cheezy with their entries. As you can see, the girls were clever and worked hard at the design and craft of their cars. The 2 winners were one that I don't have pictured... which was a cheezy unpainted, duct taped car that was basically long, thin, pieces of wood that extended to the end of the track. To win, he simply shoved his car forward a half inch. The all round winner was a lot more clever but didn't have wheels so the girls didn't buy it. Brother Steed's 'car' was also unpainted and had a V in the front to hold it onto the starting stick. A long elastic cord stretched to the finish line. As you can see in the video, it 'flew' faster than the eye can see over the finish line. One of the girls had a car that was pulled by a strand of elastic lace. She practiced with it at home and was quite fast. My car was the flower pot and my idea.. the zip line from the vacuum... didn't work because the cord was too short... so it didn't fare so well.... but was soooo pretty. Right?

Preston's firsts

2011-05-22T19:02:00.001-07:00

First he got out his headlight and clipped her nails. Done. Then he drew the water and swept her off for her first bath which was done in about 2 minutes flat.

All Done and looking great!!!!!

The Blessing Day

2011-05-22T18:37:00.000-07:00

On the blessing day...which was decided with some haste... I did my usual finish the dress at the last minute scenerio. I did actually finish it before the date only because the date was Sunday... but we had to bring it down to the blessing from Grand Rapids. We were a few minute early but it took a few minutes for Annette to get her dressed and ready in her new white slip and dress. Right after the beautiful blessing given to her by her father, she promptly filled her diaper and was swept out by dad.. never to return. As it turned out, she soiled her dress and that was the end of the blessing day dress. So, we don't have a good picture of the actual dress but we do have a few pictures of her getting dressed and the family afterwards. Here goes.

Ruby Anne Shumway has Arrived!!

2011-04-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

After two days and a lot of drama, Ruby is here!!! She is 7 pounds 2 oz and 21 inches long. She was born at 10:26 pm on April 25-Good call Connie. And she is a stubborn little one and so I thought she should've been Ruby Yoshiko. Well that was turned down. But it's really all about the pictures, right?!

Annette looks happy to have Ruby out of her belly! Beautiful mom and baby.

She looks like a Sugiyama, but she's a ShummySugiYummy!!

Already a cutie and lovin the camera just like her mom.

I'm the best Aunt Ever!!!! And Enjoying my time with the Rubster.

Good Times...

2011-04-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

I recently brought my baby book home from mom and dads house and one night when I couldn't sleep I started reading through our old Christmas newsletters. Folks, let me just say that there are some SERIOUSLY hilarious little gems in these old letters that I felt needed to be shared...I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

Most of my favorites come from the newsletter where mom started things out "I had everyone write their own section this year..." I knew it was going to be good and I wasn't disappointed:

Tim: "My brothers and sisters drive me nuts. WE bought a new IBM Compatable and I am the only one who knows how to use it."

Lori: "In the 8th game of our season I managed to foul out in the 4th quarter (after the referee couldn't decide who fouled the girl, I was the lucky one to be chosen to take the foul).

Taki: "I am Taki, I am 10 years old. I am the hottest person in school. I don't make messes and I have to pick up after by brothers and sisters. I like to swim and bug Tim."

Annette: "I am Annette. I am cute. I eat, drink, play and more. My techr is Miss Stuart. She is the most boringist techr in the world. Well I am out of time, but next year I will write more."

Tad: "My name is Taddy. I like to hug my teacher. I like to do my journal. I like to ride my bike. I like to play with my friends. I like to say prayers. I like to cut my pumpkin. I like to play in the leaves."

Toshi: "A few weeks ago he put 2 plastic guns in the oven and melted them. His favorite event is feeding the ducks. He runs to the water with fistfuls of bread yelling, 'Hey guys - eat bread!'"

Some other special memories that I forgot about from other newsletters:

TIM:
"The tunes that roar out of Tim's cornet are now recognizable, but he still has only 2 volume settings - loud and louder."

"I'll have to begin Tim's achievements for the year with a description of the potato gun he manufactured from plastic PVC pipe and a valve. Powered by hairspray, it will blow potatoes several hundred feet in the air (literally)."

Lori:
"The following is Lori's summary of her life: I am in the 8th grade, I babysit a lot, I am short, I am not growing."

"Lori now admits that she just marched last year, but was able to both march and play this year."

Taki:
"Taki is our thinnest child - maybe because he would rather starve than fix himself a lunch."

"His favorite thing to do in band is appear to be playing, but not be. And to be chewing gum, but appear not to be."

"Taki enjoys annoying other skiiers by spraying them with snow and skiing as fast as possible."

Annette:
"She can't wait to grow up and drive a red ferrari."

"Annette has always wanted glasses, last year she even bought a fake pair. When I finally took her in for an exam I whispered to the doctor, 'I think she's faking.' She now wears glasses with a very strong prescription."

Tad:
"On the 2nd day of school Tad's best friend accidentally slammed his finger in the classroom door and cut the end off. This instantly made him the "hero" of the first grade."

"he has become almost as good as Taki was at manipulating a later bedtime."

"after years of begging to be in Suzuki Violin he finally got in. He hates the lessons and is now begging to get out."

Tosh:
"His brothers taught him to put his hands on his cheeks and do a perfect imitation of the "home alone" scream."

"He gets a gruff voice when he becomes a Ninja Turtle and knows how to 'fall dead' when playing guns and swords."

Almost a Repeat Mabel

2011-04-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

Why can't trees fall down or babies be born in the afternoon? At 3 am I awoke from my peaceful slumber to a loud crash. I looked out the window to see that the tree outside our apartment had fallen on top of the carport. As my mind is slow at that early hour, I looked and thought, that sucks. Then it hit me that my car was under the carport. Luckily my car is just a few feet to the left of the fallen tree. I looked to the heavens and said, thanks. Then went back to sleep. Wouldn't it have been crazy if my car had been hit, just like Mabel. I mean, what are the chances of two trees hitting cars in one family? Maybe I was blessed for watching conference yesterday!

Product Testing Yet Again

2011-03-29T21:37:00.000-07:00

Alright, for those of you who forgot, Connie and I (more like just me) enjoy testing name brand versus generic. Anyways, the results are in on --- "Spaghetti." Null hypothesis: There is a big difference between name brand and generic spaghetti. After thorough tasting it was decided that there was not a statistically significant difference and therefore we must reject the null hypothesis. But, with Easter approaching we thought it would be a nice time to insert our findings on EGGS. We've tested five different types of eggs and found the overall satisfaction listed here from best to worst: 1. Brown Land-o-Lakes Eggs, 2. Cage-free Land-o-lakes, 3. Generic Brown Eggs, 4. Egglands Best, 5. Generic white eggs. These results were significant. Enough to where we now keep our fridge fully stocked with one carton of brown eggs for eating, and one carton of generic whites for baking. I haven't had a better home cooked over-medium egg than the Brown L.O.L. brand. Side note, Connie loves her heat/cold mask Annette and Preston sent. She also thinks it's cool that she can look into the small blue beads and claims to see microscopic organisms. I'm not convinced, but I guess it's possible. Take home message: Don't waste your money on branded pasta, splurge a bit on brown eggs, and for those rough days pamper yourself with a therapeutic mask.

President Sugiyama

2011-03-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

Well it's officially official. I am officially the president of Cedar Mountain Family Dentistry P.C., with my lovely wife Connie as corporate secretary. I'd like to thank everyone who helped out in this endeavor. As far as the business name contest, I suppose I am the offical winner since I came up with the name, but I must note that Connie's sister Terra was the one responsible for suggesting a "scenic" name. Here a couple pictures of the building our office is in, as well as a picture of me and Dr. Cornish. I'm excited to get going and have a fantastic team behind me. Once I get our website up and running you'll be able to see the lovely ladies I get to work with. Of course anyone who wants to vacation in Denver and get their teeth cleaned for free can now visit.

ANIMAL!

2011-03-02T10:49:00.000-08:00

Listen up ya'll. I know that it doesn't need to be said, but last weekend confirmed it....WE HAVE THE COOLEST DAD EVER! Preston recruited dad for a little dodgeball tournament held in battle creek as a fundraiser for a local boy scout troop. As you can imagine dad basically TORE IT UP and was declared the unofficial MVP.

A little pregame stretch.

The MASTER at catching (just look at the awe on his teammates faces).

The last face people saw before they left the court.

CATLIKE reflexes!

INTENSE (aka openmouth) concentration (I have about 10 pictures of this exact face).

The catch people just can't stop talking about.

Pretty sure dad's target just left the court to change his pants :)

Literally it was the highlight of my month. Our dad was SO FREAKING AWESOME!! I found myself yelling, on multiple occasions, "that's MY dad!" He saved his team SEVERAL times by catching a ball when he was the last person on the court which brought a teammate back in. I could hear teams strategizing on how to get him out and do it quick. Unfortunately (for them) they could not contain the ASIAN WONDER! Preston's team took first place in the adult category and Preston basically credits that entirely to OUR DAD!

Novel Idea #236

2011-02-28T11:20:00.001-08:00

Actually, I've probably only had a handful of useful ideas in my day, but this one's a good one. So recently I discovered the toilet bowl cleanser that you drop in the tank. First of all they work great, and you hardly, if ever, have to clean your toilet. I buy the cheap off brand ones at Walmart for around 2 bucks for 2 tablets. You can get fancy ones with a blue indicator to let you know when its run out (but who wants blue toilet water?). And there's also a pet friendly tablet for those of you with pets who drink out of the toilet (caution to those with kids or pets who may play in toilet water. Either take proper precautions, or don't use). Anyways, one of the only problems with the tablets is that they slowly get sucked towards the output stopper (in the tank) and will cause a continued flush until it is removed and placed back on the edge of the tanks bottom. Well, my novel idea #236 came when I heard about converting your regular toilet into a water efficient toilet by adding a plastic water container to it. Simply put, remove the label from a half gallon of milk. Add some sand, rocks, or pebbles to the bottom and fill the rest with water. Then place in the tank of the toilet. Well, I decided to take a 2 liter bottle (cause who really buys half gallon milk jugs?) cut off the top so that the bottle would be an inch or two below the surface of the tank water. I also cut a few little holes in the sides. Placed the cut bottle into the tank (may need to remove or push aside the ball float). Then I dropped the tablet into the plastic bottle. Voila, a flushing efficient toilet with a bleach tablet that cannot get sucked into the stopper!!! Plus, it will probably make the tablet last longer.

How to Blow Your Money

2011-02-22T15:10:00.000-08:00

Two words: Whole Foods. So I got a $100 gift card to Whole Foods for Christmas from a periodontist we referred to in my last office. We finally went yesterday, and boy were we blown away. We started in the produce where things weren't too bad, but as we began to navigate each of the aisles we found our cart to be almost empty. Realizing that our philosophy of just buying "deals" wasn't going to cut it in this store we slowly began to place things in our cart. Well, a little bit here and a little bit there added up to two small paper grocery bags and a bill for $71 bucks!!! Normally we spend about $50 bucks, load each others arms up with bags from hand to elbow, and run like mad for our apartment as our arms are about to fall off. Some of the highlights were the Sunflower Seed cookies (I know you're probably thinking super gross, but actually they're super delicious). They were in a "try me" stand and I ate about four of them before grabbing a bag. Connie's favorite was the slice of chocolate truffle cheesecake; divine. The biggest let-down has got to be the Siggi's Icelandic style skyr.

One of our favorite things to do is product comparisons (I'll add later posts on some of our findings). Yogurt is one of the things we have tested (store brand vs Yoplait). I grabbed a coupon for $1 off two Siggi's yogurts and thought we had to try it. When I finally spotted the Siggi's my jaw about dropped to the floor as they were priced $2.39. I thought, well this has got to be the best yogurt ever!!! So we got two and got our tasting on. Well, the picture says it all folks. If you've never had Icelandic style skyr, let this picture be your warning. The taste was reminiscent of walking into a room that hasn't been vented for hours in an old folks home. And of course any yogurt you spend 2 bucks on you have to finish. Yuck. On a related note, we did find Yoplait to be far superior than the store brand yogurt in an earlier taste test. You wouldn't know it if you tasted them on separate occasions, but side by side there is a HUGE difference. So if you're looking to splurge for a nice creamy treat, spring for the Yoplait and leave the skyr to waste away on the shelf.

No More 5EX!!!

2011-02-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

We've cut our final ties with the lovely east coast and have officially become Coloradans(?). Sounds right. Anyways, I still remember the day when Connie received our new "Sex Plates" in the mail from the state of Maryland. I told her no one would notice, but the first thing our neighbor said was, "Whoa, your car says sex!" What's funny is that the once devastatingly hated plates were this close to bringing tears as they were taken off of Goldie.

Well, other than that we've simply been enjoying the wonderful 70 degree Colorado winter. We broke out the bikes and went for a little ride at Bluffs Regional Park, and probably in a couple weeks we'll hit the mountains for some Colorado skiing. Yup, living the life of an unemployed dentist.

Daifuku!

2011-02-11T13:54:00.000-08:00

I haven't had any strange cravings, or really any cravings at all for anything, EXCEPT...
If my camera skills have left you guessing that is a delicious japanese bean cake! Interestingly it's one of the only things that Preston has NOT developed a taste for...crazy! I've been to several asian food stores in california and detroit asking for "monshu" and the people always look at me like I'm a crazy person so before I set out on my quest in kalamazoo I did some googling and found that they are called either "red bean cakes" or "daifuku." I had great success using these terms and my craving was satisfied!

Dad finally gets his snow day... at a price!

2011-02-03T10:13:00.000-08:00

Dad has been wishing for a snow day all winter and it finally happened but at the price of over 3 hours of shared shoveling! I think I might have rathered gone to work.

As you can see... we were in over our heads with this storm! Dad enjoyed knocking down the overhang after this picture and I had to restrain him from doing it before I snapped the shot. (Yeah, all of you Sugiyamas know that you wanted to knock that snow down.) He couldn't wait so after I took the shot, he hit it with the shovel and my face, head, body etc was instantly snow coated as the snow blew everywhere.

As you can see, I helped with the snow removal. I figured that if I didn't Dad would get a heart attack. I heard Dad say "I should have had another boy..." but I can tell you... I did my share. I insisted that we do it in segments and we took 2 breaks during the 3 plus hours of shoveling. Both of us were sore the next day. It would have been a great time to have hired a snow plow. But the positive side is that I didn't have to go work out. Done and done.

The Blizzard of 2011!

2011-02-03T10:04:00.000-08:00

Well, Dad was happy that one of his weather predictions finally actually happened. The Grand Rapids area got 12-20 inches of snow.

It was hard to determine how many inches because of the blowing and drifting that took place because of high winds. Note the difference in snow levels behind Dad and behind Mable. What is behind Dad is exactly what we had to shovel out of the driveway! Not fun.

You can see the final product... with help from a little sunlight... the perfect blacktop driveway is revealed! And Dad is happy.

31 (plus a few) of our FAVORITE Lori memories...

2011-01-22T09:56:00.000-08:00

1. I remember when Lori was 3 1/2 and suzi hansen learned to tie her shoes so Lori had to learn to tie her shoes.
2. I remember when Lori and Suzi went to Kindergarten, they were the teacher's favorites and she gave them little gifts and things that she didn't give the other students.
3. I also remember that Lori came home and told me every detail about every day in kindergarten and Aaron Good didn't tell his mom anything. Mrs. Good would always call me and ask what happened at school.
4. I remember when Tim's gum ended up in Lori's hair and we had to cut it out.
5. I remember when Lori used to shout "you have no more spunk than a jellyfish" (from Cyrus the Sea Serpent).

6. I remember how good she was at softball. One time she pulled her facemask off as catcher and caught the pop up. I missed it with the camera. Dad remembers watching her play softball at the diamond behind West Oakview.
7. He also remembers when she called from college one year when they were making a turkey and she asked where the giblets were. They had looked in the cavity and couldn't find them. We told them to look for another cavity in the turkey and screams went up when they discovered that there are 2 places to look inside a turkey.

8. We both remember going to Oakland and San Francisco with her and she scared us nearly to death as she darted in and out of traffic at full speed. We also remember the taco truck and the mango ice cream.
9. Dad remembers Lori driving the Saab out to Utah. She was so brave and had so many problems with it but she kept going and got it out there... that's Coco. She grabs the bull by the horns and does it!
10. Dad also remembers when she played for the Kentwood soccer league and we all enjoyed going out to watch her.

11. Dad loves to watch Lori and Annette get together. It is like they just pick right up and have never been separated and they make us all laugh.
12. Mom remembers all the times Lori camped out in her dorm room at education week and the time she went into room 212 Hinckly hall instead of where I was at Chipman. A lady was in her bed knitting and Lori just said "you're not my mother' and fled.

13. Dad remembers how mad Lori got because she couldn't ever be a cub scout. she tied better knots than all of them and passed everything for the Wolf and Bear badges.
14. I remember getting a call at 5am from Mrs Pellerito saying 'where is Lori". She had planned everything for their trip to Toronto but hadn't packed yet and hadn't gotten traveler's checks. she thought it was the next day but she was one day off! They gave us 10 minutes and we threw everything we could in a suitcase and took off for school. Mr. colley joked that she had the lightest suitcase of anyone and he asked her if she had taken a shower.
15. One of my favorite memories was all of those eventful drives to and from Seminary in the winter. Especially that one time we ended up sliding halfway onto the east beltline median, though Lori claims she just brushed the curb.

16. I remember when Lori ran a marathon! Which was hard core, but then I heard that she did it with a walkman and I was in awe.

17. I am jealous of all the traveling Lori has done. It seems like she has covered the globe and I’ve only ever been to Canada!
18. I remember when we lived on houseman and Tim locked Lori in the trunk of the car.
19. I remember staying up late to watch Pensicola Wings of Gold. We loved us some burner and spoon!
20. I remember making the drive from Michigan to Utah in Warren :) Everyone doubted us, but Lori always had faith.
21. I remember ARRIVING in Utah and finding a basement apartment that made me cry and demand that we drive BACK to Michigan. Lori took me to wingers with a coupon so that I would have time to calm down and then helped me clean the place up (including the freezer which was COVERED in mold).

22. Our trip to Chicago. I remember going to the lottery for the tickets to Wicked. When people were picked they kept just raising their hand and walking up slowly. when Lori's name was called she screamed the whole way up to the front and ran like she was on the price is right!
23. Our obsession with David Chokachi...need I say more...
24. I remember going on a trip to Oakland with Lori and stopping in at the Jelly belly factory and enjoying some delicious “belly flops.”
25. On that same trip we stopped at Lake Tahoe and I remember sitting on a rock DEVOURING a whole roasted chicken. I also remember diving off a dock at Emerald Bay and we could see a HUGE tree branch on the bottom and I thought, this can’t be safe, we’re going to hit that branch, but the water was just SOOOOO clear that you could see super deep and no matter how far down we went we couldn’t touch that branch.
26. I remember having tea parties with Lori underwater at the pool.

27. I remember when we bought a BUNCH of mangos in Oakland and after church one day we were STARVING so we ran out to the car and I said to Lori, “how do we eat these without any utensils or plates or napkins or anything” and she was like, “you just do it!” I felt like such an animal. It was awesome.
28. I remember buying an absurd amount of mango ice cream and saying to Lori, “what are we going to do with this?! We don’t have a cooler and it’s going to melt.” Lori was like, “it won’t last that long.” And it didn’t.
29. I remember at Lori’s graduation she still had slightly puffy cheeks from her wisdom tooth extraction. Probably because her roommates were the WORST and she ended up with dry socket!

30. I remember Lori going with me to the temple for my first time. I was VERY nervous and she understood exactly how I felt, said all the right things, and gave me comforting looks throughout the session. She was exactly what I needed. I’m also very impressed by her dedication to make going to the temple a priority. She goes ALL the time!
31. I remember doing a countdown EVERY night to turn off our room light and turn on the lamp. We’d always try to do it at the EXACT same time. It never got old.
32. I remember when we were driving, it was probably that same oakland trip or a trip out to Utah and Lori had driven most of the way (shocker). I finally agreed to drive and Lori took a quick nap, but first told me exactly where to exit for gas. When she woke up I proudly told her that we had made it PAST that exit and we were just now getting low on gas. She FREAKED because we were in the middle of NO WHERE and the gas light came on. She calmly said that I should slow down, turn off the A/C, and say a prayer. We just happened upon an exit that was JUST a gas station. The gas was expensive, but we didn’t die in the desert :)
33. I remember that even though there was a large age gap between us Lori never seemed to get annoyed with her little sister always tagging along trying to be just like her. I remember countless matching outfits which I thought were soooo cool. She probably was less excited about it, but she never said anything.

34. I remember coming home from school one day when I was pregnant and feeling super gross. Lori had researched morning sickness remedies and had FILLED my cupboards with peppermints, crackers, ginger flavored stuff, etc.... She also would cook dinner when I felt sick (which was often) and would always cook whatever sounded good to me. One night I said, “I want chicken and dumplings.” She didn’t know how to make it so she looked up a recipe and did it!
35. I remember when Lori made her own temple dress WITHOUT a pattern. She is so freaking amazing at sewing it’s ridiculous.
36. I remember always being jealous of how good Lori is at EVERYTHING. I remember all those paper mache masks that she made and how she got into cake decorating at what now. She was always just so good at everything she tried to do. She still is.
37. I remember staying up late, hoping that the cheerleaders would be on SNL. And then of course, the re-enactment that we did with dad.

38. Getting that heinous couch into the basement apartment. A lot of laughs and a little danger, but we got it in!
39.When she got home from tonga and she would look at the drumsticks that I ate and would show me how much I was wasting and then would eat the cartilage. I just thought it was funny because I would be done and she was picking up mine and eating them and almost didn't need to get any for herself because I wasted enough for her to have a meal!
40.Also, I remember when Lori let Annette drive the car home from church in the winter when the roads were icy and she almost killed everyone at Leffingwell and 3 mile.

Happy (late) birthday Lori! We all totally love you because you make everything better!

Classy.

2011-01-19T09:38:00.000-08:00

A few days ago Tim was talking about how much he enjoys the orchestra. I was shocked! Being the uncultured/ignorant person that I am my first thought was, "there are people that actually ENJOY the orchestra?" I was even more surprised when Preston said, "yeah, I'd like to go see a symphony but annette's not really interested." of course I'm not! Who WANTS to sit and watch 2 50-minute long songs without any singing, dancing, or acting?! On Thursday at work someone mentioned that the president gave our office 4 tickets to see the kzoo symphony orchestra on Saturday. I got the e-mail saying that they were first come first serve about 24 hours after everyone else but...SHOCKER... All 4 tickets were still available :)
After finding out that not only do people pay to see a concert, but they pay big bucks I decided that I may as well go to something I'm not excited about for free rather than pay for it, right?
Saturday mom and dad came down and we went out shopping. Being at Kohls with a 30% off coupon tends to lead to more shopping than expected. Realizing that we didn't have enough time to get back home and eat and get to the concert Preston agreed to drive out and meet us with clothes for me to change into. After a sub-par dinner at Bilbos we got in our car and I changed on the way.

Preston didn't realize that I had gotten a NEW STRETCHIER black skirt and brought me this one. I wedged myself into it but when I sat down I said to Preston, "I am literally NOT going to make it through this concert in this skirt!" The last small split in the side seam mom sewed up nicely, however it had since split again :) I thought, "maybe if I just split it a little more..." Preston joined in to help and I ended up letting out a sigh of relief when he finally pulled apart the top seam. FREEDOM! We both chuckled as we were surrounded by some very distinguished looking people with little opera binocular thingys. I think it may finally be time to retire this black shredded mess.
I must admit that the performance was VERY excellent and I was surprised to find myself enjoying it quite a bit. It was Verdi's Requium and they had brought in a VERY talented quarttet to sing. It was a great opportunity to sit back and appreciate the skills that others have beautifully cultivated.

Kylie's concert

2010-12-20T20:07:00.000-08:00

Kylie had a concert this week and plays the clarinet. Just in case you can't pick her out, she is wearing the Santa hat.

Jordan's Solo.... Taps

2010-12-20T19:48:00.000-08:00

Jordan plays 'Taps' in the Dec 7 piece written as a result of Pearl Harbor. Nice job Jordan!

Shake your groove thang!

2010-12-07T09:17:00.000-08:00

Speaking of dances....

When I talked with mom about having a party for their 60th birthdays she said that it might be too chaotic around the holiday season with family visiting not only them but all of their friends as well. BUT she did mention something that she would like as a gift from ALL of her children...(get ready for it...)

A SUGIYAMA CHRISTMAS VACATION DANCE OFF!!!

Ah yeah baby you heard me right. Now, those of you who are thinking, "why didn't I just get her an orchid or make her a nice pot holder..." IT'S TOO LATE! This is the only thing mom wants for her 60th birthday so suck it up and start choreographing!

Mother has asked that all couples come up with a short "routine" to perform at the dance off. Lori and Tad can either bust out their solo moves or team up (mom has already put her money on a Lori and Tad combo team taking this thing).

I suggest you all get to work because Preston and I were already testing out some ideas last night...and they were freaking awesome :)

The Longest Dance

2010-12-05T21:21:00.000-08:00

So, I was still sewing like a crazy woman all the way until my date rang the doorbell. But it came out ok, so I was happy. So, here is a picture of me and my date, Hyrum. Notice how hot I look. Jokes. I am wearing some 3 inch heels, but they came off after about 20 minutes at the dance. It was a bit awkward, because the best dance I had all night was with this 19 year old kid in my ward who has a crush on me. I was coming back from grabbing my camera and he bowed to me. So, I had to dance with him. It was really fun and he was a great dancer. Don't worry, not pursuing that option. Oh, and the other picture is me and my friend Tia. After the dance ended, we helped clean up until about 1:00 AM. Then we went to eat at a friend of Hyrums. There were 4 other couples there. After that, his cousin asked him to take his date back to Provo. Well, I had already made one stupid trip to Provo, won't get into that, but I didn't want to send my date and this other girl alone to Provo. Long story short, I lost desire to really ask questions and conversate around 4:00 AM. I finally got home and was asleep at 5 AM. This would've been ok, if I had felt some spark with this guy, but nada.

Fall Festivities

2010-11-15T19:19:00.001-08:00

This fall has been full of fun. Mom and Bruce came to visit and we went on a nice walk/hike. I was nervous because of all these signs. Luckily we didn't see any snakes and were able to enjoy the city views.

It was also my 25th birthday and I was feeling super old. Sugi spoiled me by making one of my favorite desserts. He surprised me with some presents that we both enjoy, like Jenga and Pass the Pigs. The highlight was a Nintendo DS with the Brain Game. We have fun trying to beat each others scores.

We went on a nice hike in Boulder one weekend and it was absolutely beautiful. We took the Flat Irons trail, but there were tons to choose from, so we'll have to go back. When we got to the top we ate some snacks and fed the wildlife (squirrels).

So at Sugi's office they all think he looks like a little boy, so they call him Justin Beiber. For Halloween he decided to dress up like him and they all loved it. Can you see the resemblance?

We also had some excitement a couple weeks ago when the fire alarms went off in our building. I peeked out the door and saw smoke billowing through the hallways. I called Sugi to see what I should do. He told me to grab the computer and just leave. Because I work in my jammies I had to get dressed first. We were only evacuated for a few minutes because the fire wasn't that big but for the next few days it smelled awful.

We also had our first snowfall of the season. It was beautiful and melted shortly afterword. Sugi loves having the parking garage so he doesn't have to scrape off the car in the morning. I love that our apartment stays nice and warm without having to turn the heat on, even when it's freezing outside. In Baltimore we would be able to see our breath inside by now :)

The last of our fall fun came this weekend when we went to the Denver Zoo! It was so much fun. The zoo was having a free zoo day, and I love going to the zoo (especially when it's free)! We bundled up with a few extra layers and headed out. My favorite was the hippo. We also liked the sea lions because they kept getting out and then diving into the water. There was also a really cool fish that reminded us of a rubber ducky. Perhaps the grossest of all was the "bug toss" with the birds. They gave each person a handful of worms (that looked like large maggots) to throw to the birds. Sugi got a handful and I got one because it was too disgusting. This was a "hornbill bird" that should be called "banana beak." This Rhino suddenly came close so I got a cool picture! I think Sugi suffered through the whole day, but he was a good sport.

Halloween

2010-11-12T17:50:00.001-08:00

So I have decided to post a little bit about what I have been up to. If you haven't seen my pictures from my visit to Peru and Macchu Picchu you can see them on Facebook which means I won't be putting it on the family blog.

A couple of buddies and I had a group date and so we decided to be traditional and carve some pumpkins. It really brought me back to when we would all carve our pumpkins, bake the seeds, and used paper clips to make the pumpkins have the eyes pop out at people. Oh the good times of carving pumpkins with those small knives that would usually bend and break on us. Good memories! Well we cleaned out the pumpkin with a spoon and then had to d

ecide what we were going to carve. Some were doing Batman, while others were doing Dinosaurs and Jiggly Puff, so we decided to do PACMAN! And as you can see they turned out pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

Well later that week we had a party for our stake and it was a Halloween

eme. Some of my buddies were in class and heard a ring tone of the Power Rangers which sparked the idea of us being Power Rangers f

or Halloween!!!

Yeah so of course I remembered being the Green Ra

nger for Halloween in like the 3rd Grade and had mom ship that suit with some of the weapons for the other guys. Well the suit again was from the 3rd Grade so there was some altering done, but I had to find some pants since yeah.... really small. So I looked everywhere to find them and nothing. DI, Walmart, Macy's (yeah desperate), and some other stores and nothing. Well I became resourceful and just started asking people in my complex. I found the ones I am wearing in the picture and they were perfect!!! Man what a sick costume. GO GO POWER RANGERS! That was a great costume.

Halloween

2010-11-12T17:50:00.000-08:00

Well later that week we had a party for our stake and it was a Halloween theme. Some of my buddies were in class and heard a ring tone of the Power Rangers which sparked the idea of us being Power Rangers for Halloween!!! Yeah so of course I remembered being the Green Ranger for Halloween in like the 3rd Grade and had mom ship that suit with some of the weapons for the other guys. Well the suit again was from the 3rd Grade so there was some altering done, but I had to find some pants since yeah.... really small. So I looked everywhere to find them and nothing. DI, Walmart, Macy's (yeah desperate), and some other stores and nothing. Well I became resourceful and just started asking people in my complex. I found the ones I am wearing in the picture and they were perfect!!! Man what a sick costume. GO GO POWER RANGERS! That was a great costume.

Our New Home

2010-10-18T19:51:00.000-07:00

Well it's been awhile since our last post, but things are finally settling down here in the Mile High City. After a month in Michigan and another in Utah, I finally landed a great job in Denver. One of the highlights of our stay in Utah was the week long 12 hour days spent replacing a roof. A good experience, but definitely motivated me to get to work in a nice cushy air conditioned office. We found a fantastic apartment in Lone Tree, and absolutely love it here. Definitely a step up from our place in Baltimore.

So far the job has been going great. I work at Cherry Creek Modern Dentistry with two other Docs (http://www.cherrycreekmoderndentistry.com/ourteam.aspx/). Connie and I celebrated my first paycheck by going out to eat at this super fancy restaurant (though we did have a coupon - some things never change). Connie had the Muscovy Duck Leg Confit, and I the Iron Skillet Seared Beef Tenderloin with house made burrata and sherry consomme. Both were insanely good.

FYI...

2010-10-12T09:21:00.001-07:00

My doctor is apparently extremely popular or extremely lazy, either way I wasn't able to get my first appt. until November 2. Sick of being sick I called in yesterday to see if there was anything they could do for me and they offered to try a B6 injection (nothing like adding a throbbing arm to the joys of all day nausea). They were able to fit me in this morning. While I was there I asked a few questions, "Why does my belly look like I'm 5 months pregnant, but my weight continues to drop?" It's a very odd feeling to look down at the scale and see a weight I couldn't have dreamed of in my fittest days and yet barely be able to see the scale because a giant belly is in the way...weird.
Question number 2, "is it possible that my baby is dead right now and I won't know until November 2 when I come in for my first appt?" It had the effect I was hoping for, the nurse offered to see if we could hear a heartbeat and I am happy to report that baby shummy-sugiyummy is still alive and well!

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!!

2010-10-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

This is me and my roommate Kasia. Hope you had a great birthday. I'm sure it's better now and will be rockin' hard if we beat State tomorrow! Love you !

Lori

What were your favorite conference talks?

2010-10-03T17:56:00.000-07:00

Ok. Mom always has to ask: what were your favorite conference talks? Mine started out being Uchtdorf's counsel to slow down and survive. But I did like Cook's 'our voices should be heard in the public square to defend gospel practices and to rescue those in cruel circumstances. Scott's 'craft a righteous character was another good one as well as Packer's counsel 'don't look back'. I loved Arnold's and Mazzagari's stories but my very favorite was Pres. Monson's talk about being grateful and not negative. How about all of you?
Which was your favorite?

Heading home

2010-09-19T14:28:00.001-07:00

Yeah, Dad flew home because he had to work on Monday but I drove because I still had a few more days off. We decided to stop by Taki and Connie's new place in Denver on the way back. We drove 70 to Denver and found it to be a beautiful drive. I really enjoyed it until we began our descent into Denver and I had a hard time keeping the car from racing. I found out later that I should have been using the engine to break by shifting into a lower gear. I always wondered why they had those gears in automatics! Now I know. Well, we almost met the grim reaper but not quite and we did have a fun time with Taki and Connie. Their apartment is really nice and they have a new flat screened TV, a nice king size bed, and a giant sectional couch and an ottoman that is the size of a kitchen table. It was all beautiful and you can see us relaxing on it. The next day we went to Sacrament meeting in their new ward that is close by and then took off for our next adventure. Gen had heard that there was a giant Monet sunflower picture on the border of Kansas and wanted to see it. It was about 2 hours out of our way but we went anyway just to make her happy. Well, first of all, she didn't have correct directions but Net just happened to see it. Kansas proved to be a very windy state and our undercarriage was blowing onto the tire and making a scraping sound. Finally, Annette and I climbed under the car with duct tape and passed it back and forth through the wheel well until I had anchored it. If you want to have an exercise in frustration, try passing a piece of sticky duct tape through a hole from one person to another about 18 inches apart. We ended up laughing so hard that the tape shook and was even harder to grasp. This momentary mirth probably kept both of us from strangling Gen - who knew she was in trouble as soon as she saw the picture-and had made a few bad attempts at trying to justify her poorly researched decision. The state police stopped and the guy said "I saw dresses and legs" coming out from under your car and thought maybe I should stop and help. In no time we were back on the road and the problem was taken care of. We decided that duct tape should be an essential part of everyone's 72 hour kit.

Tad's place/ Education week... take 2

2010-09-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

While we were in Utah I stayed in the dorms with Gen. We first had one extra roommate when Annette came to stay with us but before the week was over, Lori was with us too. Every night we met and had snacks that Lori came up with. She and Annette made a delicious cheesecake with an oreo crust for our anniversary and we savored that as well as a blueberry pie that I made with blueberries I brought from Michigan. Lori also had a recipe for a lime drink that was made with sweetened condensed milk. It was also delicious. We always had fun after classes snacking and talking. Since Tad was in Peru, dad stayed in his apartment and used it for his 'home base' as he made daily visits to the Provo temple, BYU football practices, and a few education week classes. On Wednesday dad drove to Salt Lake City with the Tom tom to pick up Tad. He panicked when the Tom tom took him in a direction that contradicted the freeway signs and got a little lost. But, he proved to himself that he could actually do it and got to the airport to pick Tad up on time. We all enjoyed seeing Tad later that night in a family get together. One night we heard some banging and laughing and then a big noise. Later we went out to see that the stairs had collapsed and it was a big mess. This photo was taken almost a week later to show how fast Tad's apartment complex gets on repairs. If you hadn't already figured it out, Tad's place is quite ghetto. Close to campus and cheap.

Education Week and Meat Fest

2010-09-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

The first picture is us at Education Week, but that's just a side note. We did have fun every night just chillin

all together. The next like 5 pictures is of us at Tucanos. Can

there be anything more delicious than a meat fest filled with garlic sirloin. mmm....give me a sec to wipe the drool off

my face.

The next pictures are Tad and Annette eating chicken hearts. Though it looks like Annette's chicken heart is going to attack her

Well, you can see from our smiling faces that a good time was had by all. Mom and Annette were diligent education week goers, but Dad, Tad and I went to a BYU practice, lifted weights and played some racketball. And as for the racketball, I was #1 as usual. Ok, so I may have missed the ball about as many times as I hit it, but I had fun. No picture of the cheesecake or limeaide, but those memories are forever in our minds, hearts and bellies.

Found!! The dreaded culprit

2010-08-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

I kept finding empty stems where tomatos should have been. Our home teacher pronounced the verdict... the dreaded tomato horn worm. I didn't really believe him because I planted the tomatos in containers on our hot deck and how would they crawl into the pots without sizzling? Well, as it turns out, a white butterfly lays eggs.... the rest is history but I caught this worm this morning and tried to get a good photo. I realize now that I should have elimated the background but you get the idea... note the little brown 'horn' and enjoy your gardening lesson for the day. I gave him to dad and now I am sure that he is in the 'horn worm spirit world'.

Tak's graduation - part 3!

2010-07-31T15:14:00.000-07:00

I got your back mom. The video you've all been waiting for...

I cut the video short in hopes to snap a pic of him on stage as well, but my camera didn't switch over fast enough, so I ended up with this little bitlit and no picture :( Better than nothing!

Taki's graduation - take 2

2010-07-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

Delicious!

Happy wife! On to a better life.

Here are the proud sib and parents!

The cookie photo was my favorite.

For some reason, none of the 3 videos I worked so hard to get would download onto the blog:(

Happy birthday little bro!

2010-07-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

Well....shamefully I do not think I know Tad's e-mail address! And seeing as how he's currently in Peru, most likely getting some parasite, I thought I'd just post it up right here and hope he sees it!

Taddy boy, you are pretty much the bomb (and you know it...seriously). I'm so impressed by the man that you have become! You inspire me to follow my dreams and never give up. You are a great example of what hard work and patience can accomplish. Thanks for being such a great little brother! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

lazy bums!

2010-07-07T10:11:00.001-07:00

Alright people. I've added a gadget on the sidebar of this blog for people to post a link to their own individual blogs (I think taki and connie are the only other people that have one). So now, for all those that are too lazy to physically type out more than one blog address, you can now just click and enjoy.

Although I suppose I'm a bit lazy myself as I haven't copy and pasted the last 5 entries on our blog to this blog...

2010-06-26T17:34:00.000-07:00

This is our trip to Washington. I know really late, but better late than never right? We started our journey to the great state of Washington around 11 o clock at night and we all took turns driving and as we drove the whole 16 hour car ride there. As we arrived we were greeted by Tiffany and little Adelynn who is probably the cutest little girl ever. Yeah I said it, cutest. Anyw

ay w

e just chilled out and

relaxed while and then we hit up the University of Washington. I thought it was kind of strang

e that we had just gotten done with school and yet we

were going to visit another school. But the architecture there was simply

amazing. There campus was beautiful with a lot of read brick, older buildings since the 1870's,

and an amazing pond as you can see in the p

icture on the right. After that we headed out to meet Dave at Gas Works Park. Which is the picture above and to the left. The park was a great view and had some

super weird people there. A man brought his own Congo drum and was just laying down the beats.

It was really trippy. We then went and saw the troll that is under a bridge. It was pretty sweet. We then went to a pizza joint and had some really g

ood pizza. Dave says try the lemonade it is really

good. So Gary and I tried it. It was good lemonade with some rosemarry or something in it, but then we got the check. $4.50 for a lemonade!!!! Yeah not happy about that one. Anyway our next day we headed to Pikes Place Market. It is a sweet place that is basically one giant outdoor market. There is a pig for some reason there and well I am riding it.

We had a great time. Good thing for great times

then because it sure wasn't going to be great times tomorrow. So we headed to the flower festival that they were having when..... well the picture explains a thousand words, plus a lot of phone calls, and some times lots and lots of grief. Which we all know about so we will just skip that portion of the trip. But as a side note I did end up

trying some fresh honey comb which is amazing just don't eat the waxy comb with it. Gary during that time proposed to Annalie, which was supposed to be on the beach, but weather kind of shot that idea down. They took a hike he proposed and now they will be

married August 21. Basically we did some hikes that were amazing, saw a lot of beautiful green that is Washington and enjoyed our stay in Washington. Just jam packed full of crazy adventures.

Name that Corolla

2010-06-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

Here is my corolla, what should we name this beautiful white glorious car. It's time to get creative folks!

The Last of the East Coast

2010-06-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

Well, four years have come and gone. Mom, Dad, and Annette came out for graduation. We spent our last days in Maryland sharing with them some of our favorite restaurant spots. After graduation I spent much of my time preparing for the move, while Connie was still hard at work. We were quite successful in selling most of our stuff on craigslist, and only took what would fit in our two cars. Without a microwave though you can see how dangerous warming food in the oven can be. I got so caught up in the packing that I completely forgot about my lunch until it was too late. Once the cars were packed and Connie finished her "last" day at work, we headed North for Palmyra, NY. (I say "last" since she is continuing to work from home much to her dismay).

We hit Palmyra that night around midnight, and by early morning the next day were atop the historic Hill Cumorah. We hiked to the top and read Joseph Smith's account of the events there. We then took a quick stop at the Palmyra temple before visiting the Sacred Grove. There again we found a quiet place to read and reflect upon the wonderful spirit there. On the way out we stopped by the Grandin Building where the BofM was published.

About four hours later we found ourselves within feet of the roaring Niagara Falls. We took a ride on the Maid of the Mist and had front row seats as we ventured into the middle of horseshoe falls. It was pretty exciting to feel the crash of the waves below, and the mist from the falls above while our boat sat idle surrounded by one of the world's seven wonders.

As quickly as we arrived, we were then back on the road toward Kirtland, OH. The next morning we awoke and gathered with the saints at Kirtland for sacrament meeting. We then took tours of the Newel K. Whitney Store and surrounding town sites, ending with the Kirtland temple. We found it quite unfortunate to have the tour headed by the Church of Christ, as it lacked the reverence and spirit that should be present in a temple visited personally by Christ. Nonetheless, it was marvelous to think about the events that transpired within those spiritual walls.

Though the trip was quick, it was jam packed with awesome sites. We arrived home in Michigan the night of our Kirtland adventure, allowing us to have a restful Memorial day following.

Grand Cayman and Scuba! (Part 4 of the Cruise series)

2010-05-26T18:01:00.001-07:00

May 13

We slept in a little later than anticipated and ate a quick breakfast before getting off at Grand Cayman! The port here seemed significantly nicer than Jamaica so we strolled around in search of an underwater camera to document our scuba adventures. We quickly found “the camera store” and assumed that they would have the perfect and best camera. We found one for 15 bucks that could go as deep as 30 feet. Pleased with ourselves for finding one so quickly we stepped into the next shop and found one for the same price but it could go 50 feet down. We went back, returned the first and bought the second only the find another camera three stores down that was re-usable with a depth of 100 feet. It was pricier, but we had to laugh at ourselves for not thinking to wait and check our options.

Preston wanted to pass by all the shops and see the less touristy areas. I of course got frustrated as we seemed to be wandering aimlessly into nowheresville when we happened upon a glass blowing store. I conceded that Preston was in fact right in suggesting that we wander off the beaten path and we enjoyed seeing these island men work wonders with glass. After watching for a while we felt obligated to buy something and with most things costing a good 90 dollars or so we opted for a 20 dollar necklace which I promised to take apart and make into a prettier necklace and earrings. Will I really do it? Only time will tell.

We quickly headed back into town to meet our group for DISCOVER SCUBA!! On our way back into town, we picked up the long-sought-for watch, saw some crabs (can you see it blending in?), a lot flip-flops and some fresh fish. Once our group had gathered I asked the leader if she knew our chances of survival. She laughed, but I was mostly serious. We got in a bus and rode over to Don Foster’s Scuba shop. We were were greeted by English and Scottish accents and taught the fine art of scuba! I had a mini panic attack when they discussed how our lungs are like balloons and if we ascended while holding our breath we would end up in the hospital. yikes. After being fitted with weight belts we got into the pool and suited up with our air tanks. We learned several skills such as how to re-insert a mouth piece under water, how to clear water out of your mask, and how to sink lower or move higher. I must say that having never done any snorkel or scuba type activity the first time I took a breath of air under water was incredible. After more or less mastering the skills we headed into the water for the real deal.

It was like swimming in an aquarium surrounded by fish and coral. We saw a barracuda and those cool plants that disappear when you get close to them. Lots of different color fish. We dove as deep as 35 feet and enjoyed exploring the ocean floor.

Our scuba guide pointed out many cool things. Sometimes he would point 5 or 6 times and I wouldn’t see anything but would finally give him the “that is so cool” look because I felt stupid. Preston started with the camera and apparently went a little crazy with it because by the time he handed it over there were only about 9 shots left. I had read a quick sign about taking good underwater pics and was so concerned with getting the perfect pic that I only ended up taking 7!

I never quite mastered the technique for moving up and down, for some reason my brain was telling me to release air when I wanted to go up and as I sank lower and lower I would remember that I needed to inflate my vest. For some reason I never got it right. Preston mastered the art of filling his lungs when he wanted to go up and breaking out to descent. The pressure bothered us a little but we were just so amazed to be underwater swimming with the fish.

At one point Preston looked over at me and did a face that said, “right?! this is so fricking awesome!” I knew when we got back he would want to get certified. When the instructor did the sign for, “let’s ascend” I thought we were just going to take a break, but we were back and it was over! When I finally took the mouthpiece out I realized that I had been biting down REAL hard the whole time and it took several hours for my jaw to relax.

Having completed the best experience of our lives up to this point we weren’t sure what to do with ourselves! We decided to walk back into town instead of taking the bus and picked up a few souvenirs on our way back to the ship. We got back ate a late lunch at the buffet and then with full/gorged bellies we went back to our room for a nap. We got ready for the night but weren’t yet hungry for dinner so we went to see “Blind Side” at the outdoor theatre. We both actually liked it (though Preston had really dragged his feet as he’s NOT a sandra fan). On the way to the movie we saw people in fancy dresses and tuxedos and realized that it was the second of the formal nights.

After the movie we ran back to the room, threw on our nice clothes and headed to dinner. The restaurant closes at 10 and we showed up just after 9:30. Our waiter was apparently having a rough night and was not happy to see us shlums stroll in just before closing. But we sat down and quickly inhaled one of the most delicious meals of my life. It began with an INCREDIBLE appetizer that I will not soon forget. We both ordered the asparagus which came with cooked/seasoned/chopped tomatoes, real bits of bacon and a MIND BLOWING sauce! I told Preston that if my entrees (yes I ordered 2) weren’t good that I was going to send them back and just oder 2 more asparagus plates. Preston was slightly annoyed when I continued to gush over the asparagus and it’s delectableness. He was especially bugged when I told him that it came close to beating out the scuba as the best part of the trip. But seriously. It was THAT good. Seriously.

After that we went to see another emerald dancer performance “I got the music.” Which featured songs form famous and infamous performers such as: Neil Diamond, Cher, Barbara Streisand, Brittany spears (boo), and Tom Jones. It was a great show and we were also amused by the obviously drunk woman behind us that laughed at EVERYTHING.

I got Riverbank Fever!!

2010-05-25T23:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry that this post is coming so late, but that's how I roll. Well, we went to see Tim finish the Riverbank run, which he is becoming a pro at running. It was a super cold and rainy day, which would have been enough for me to stay in bed and say, "I'll do it next year." Or you can be like Annette who says that every year-luv it!! The first picture is not a poor picture, he is just running that fast folks. Passing up that girl next to him-you know he's not letting that skinny girl beat him. The second picture is not so great as I was trying to cheer, but mostly trying to find Tim. Who would think that muscle man Tim would be hard to spot. Ok, I'm actually blind. Anyway, GREAT JOB TIM!!

Oh Oh. Trouble in Dodge!

2010-05-18T19:04:00.000-07:00

While Dad was scraping at the pool I observed the neighbor out at the crack of dawn on his hands and knees trying to out do dad. He had his edger and his blower and his broom and scissors..... I wanted to let dad know but I didn't want to be obvious so I put my phone on camera and opened my car window and drove past as if I was talking on the phone and pushed the button. Very sneaky, I was. I texted the picture to Tim at the pool and I think I could hear dad yelling all the way from Forest Hills Nooooooooooooooo!

Sugiyamas at work

2010-05-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

Annette's workplace is more complicated because nobody is allowed to go into her office. So, i just have a photo of the outside of her workplace to the left, and also the building where she is going to grad school in the fall (top left).

When I was in Utah I had a chance to observe Lori in her workplace. Here is a photo of Lori in her cubicle and a photo of the building she works in. If you are like me, you will enjoy having a visual of where she spends her work time.

He fought the lawn but who won?

2010-05-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

Dad and the neighbor have been in an unspoken competition over the last year for having the most meticulous lawn. Dad will come home and say "Dad Gum, he mowed again and I don't have time to mow tonight!" Well, Monday night dad got out early and mowed the lawn. Phil got home and noticed Dad mowing so he mowed. Dad came in the house and I said " well, I see that Phil is mowing because you mowed" and dad said "yes, but I edged and he won't have time to do that because it is getting dark so I WON!!!". He was dancing around like only dad can. I Snapped this photo so you decide.... who is the weener.. oh I mean winner =)

The "Anything Goes" Pinewood Derby

2010-04-19T10:26:00.001-07:00

The elder's quorum presidency in our ward was trying to get the less active members out to a fun activity, so after brainstorming they came up with an adult, no-rules pinewood derby. The president gave each of us a cub scout approved car but openly suggested that we simply do whatever we want. No weight limit, no size limit, mechanical propulsion allowed. The only rule was no chemical/explosive propulsion.

In the regular pinewood derby, 5 ounces is the weight limit and everyone is always trying to make their cars as heavy as possible. So, I thought, well, let's go heavy....

Yes, that is a 5 pound weight in a couple notches drilled into a pinewood derby car (Annette's idea actually). Originally I had glued the weight on, but then it rolled off the desk and broke apart. Nets whipped some gorilla tape on and a little paint and voila! We were set with "The Heavy Weight."

A week or two before the activity the word got out to the other wards and when we got there we found this. It had turned into a family affair with about 25 cars entered in the competition. There were all sorts of cars. My favorite though was the Cougarmobile.

My first race things were going well. The weight was paying off. (And yes, that is a helicopter car I'm racing against)

So far so good. But the pinewood derby wheels and nails/spokes wouldn't last long. By the second race, the wheels had already started to buckle and grind against the body of the car.

After my loss, a friend took my car and taped it onto his car that he had hollowed out and melted lead into. Our total combined weight was around 8 pounds. Unfortunately, his wheels didn't hold up much better.

The winner had a cord attached to his car and a cord retractor at the end of the track, he simply jerked his car to the finish line. There was dessert and a good time had by all.

MTC at Last!

2010-04-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

Packed, ready, and smiling.

Getting him out the door was quite the group effort.

We took our photos at home just like the handbook said to do and then headed to the car.

We went out to dinner to Toscanos - which was marvelous- and Tosh had a great time. He was in his suit and the waitress asked him where he was going. After that she said the words that all Sugiyamas love to hear... did you know that missionaries eat free?

Soon it was time to go and we all piled into the van and picked up Dan - who wanted to say goodbye too.

As we pull up, we are greeted by a young missionary 'host' who is there to usher Tosh in. I think this might actually be more humane on the mothers as watching the videos just prolongs the inevitable tearful separation.
The hug after the ugly cry and off he goes into the sunset to return in 2 years.

Como se dice "Perfect Vacation"

2010-03-28T17:53:00.000-07:00

Well, we decided to take one more wham of a trip while it's just the two of us. One of my friends suggested Puerto Rico, and after looking at how affordable it'd be, we jumped on it. As we flew into PR we were greeted by one of the local giant iguanas taking a stroll along the runway. We made it to the bus stop only to wait 45 minutes w/ hundreds of taxis honking as they passed. Finally, our first bus came. At our transfer, the next bus wouldn't allow us on with our luggage. 30 minutes after that, we got a bus to take us. When we finally got to the hotel in San Juan, the front desk attendant greeted us and said, "Mr. Sugiyama, it looks like you are part of our Ambassadors Club and therefore need to take the elevator up to the Penthouse level where the receptionist will be waiting." From that point on, we truly felt like Ambassadors. Our room was beautiful, it came with breakfast and hor doeuvrs, with some of the best hot chocolate ever.

The next day we rented a car and drove to the city of Fajardo on the west side of the island. From there we loaded onto a ferry to the nearby island of Culebra. It was there our Kayaking Puerto Rico adventure began. We had a couple hours to spend at Flamenco Beach (ranked 9th in most Most Romantic Beaches). The water was crystal clear and super warm. Connie enjoyed burying me alive in the sand. As we were eating Connie noticed our tour bus was about to take off so we scarfed down the remaining rice and beans, and ran through the parking lot kabobs in hand.

We then got to go kayaking and snorkeling. We saw all sorts of fish and coral formations. Some of the highlights were the sea urchins, turtles, barracuda, and sting ray. Our tour guide had people dive down for an underwater shot, unfortunately mine turned out with me looking like a queer. Our second snorkel location was cut short as we were about to be swept into a strong current. I noticed some of the "non-swimmers" lagging behind, and decided to go back to help. Apparently, just as I did so Connie took in some water and panicked a bit not having me right beside her. But all was well and we were not swept out to sea, although Connie feared we might.

After grabbing a quick bite at the local pizza joint owned by a recent convert, we began our next kayaking adventure at the bioluminescent bay. We kayaked in the dark through a mangrove only about 15 feet wide with trees hanging all over the place. We were probably the only ones to successfully make it to the bay without hitting any trees. The bay was really cool. It had the largest concentration of these bioluminescent plankton that would glow if agitated. So every paddle stroke glowed bright blue, and the harder you splashed with your hand the brighter it got. You could even splash it on your arms and legs and see the little lights fall back into the water. Probably one of my favorite parts of the whole trip.

The next day was our Old San Juan site-seeing tour. We walked around two old forts, El Morro and Castillo de San Cristobal, historically significant as one of the largest defenses built in the Americas. We took a stroll through the shops and tried some of the local dishes. I ordered the Mofongo and Tostones, both plantain dishes and both delicious. Not the most eye appealing presentation, but the taste was amazing.

After checking out, we lugged our suitcases onto the beach and spent our last few hours taking it all in. I had a blast flying my kite, and together we made the most pathetic sandcastle ever. We then hailed a taxi and that evening were back to our humble abode. It was a bit sad to think that one moment we were lounging at the beach, the next moment we were back to our old stinky apartment. But all in all a perfect vacation.

Talk is done... time for the MTC

2010-03-21T10:52:00.000-07:00

The talk is done and now it is time for action! I just sent this photo to the Bishop for his wall plaque. The scripture he chose is 1 Nephi 9:6. MTC.. here he comes!

He almost didn't have to speak as they had to cancel the choir song just to get him 7 minutes as the concluding speaker! But, he did a good job and is excited to take off.

Saturday he gets set apart and then flies out. I will follow him on Sunday and we will get him all set on Mon and Tues and on Wed he goes in.

Tim and I are sad to lose his help and now have to return to doing all of our own work at our jobs. I think Tosh has a new appreciation of what we both do.

Ole Ole....

2010-03-20T12:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, soccer fans, I have some short and crappy videos of Tad's game where the other team forfeited so they just scrimmaged. Annette-this was only after Trevor(he knows you) caught a guy on the other team trying to use an ID that wasn't his. Yeah, bringing back some memories huh! Anyway. video one is just a goal kick by Tad

So, the video is hard to see, but that's what I got. The second video is a good shot that just went wide and the last is Tad blocking a shot with this butt. I thought it was funny. Well, you can't tell by the video, but Tad is sporting some white shorts that are about 3 in shorter than his spandex. Crisis. Anyway, it was fun to watch him play and then we went to the Men's volleyball game and then to Burger Supreme. Oh yeah!! Good Friday Night.

Freak a leak!!!!!

2010-03-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

Freak a leak!!!! We are half way through March and there are no posts. Come on you guys with exciting lives. POST!

jordan's concert

2010-02-21T15:12:00.000-08:00

Jordan's concert was very enjoyable (which is something that happens after 6th grade pretty regularly. I had to smile when he rushed up to his mom with 15 minutes to go before the concert and said "mom, I forgot my mouthpiece". Kat flew out of her chair and rushed home at speeds faster than could ever be legal and got there just in time to pick up my call saying that he found it. I had to smile thinking that these motherhood moments are past for me and now it is up to the next generation. Run with that torch!

kylie's daddy daughter dance

2010-02-21T13:27:00.001-08:00

Here she is in Annette's old high school formal made into a pint size version with her cute wrist corsage and hair done by Kat.

They had a good time at the dance.

This too shall pass....

2010-02-21T13:17:00.000-08:00

Or... tale of a kidney stone. It looks like the magic bus... or the devil... missing one horn (note the little pokey horn on the left side). At any rate, this little source of irritation presented itself this morning before church after taking a 2 week cruise down dad's pipes. The picture says a thousand words.... OWWWWWCCCHHHH! This kidney stone is so big, I think we should name it. Any suggestions? Dad keeps his little collection of stones in a pill bottle next to the pills I take in the middle of the night. Anyone see any potential for disaster in this situation?

Chicken. It's what's for dinner!

2010-02-14T20:00:00.001-08:00

Nope that isn't some kind of biology project or something from the anatomy lab. I got together with some ladies from the ward and had an AWESOME time canning chicken. Scary looking...but quite tasty. Sure beats eating rice and beans when disaster hits!
The good news is that we won't be eating raw wheat! After 2 years of sitting on 500 lbs of canned wheat we FINALLY got a wheat grinder. We couldn't bring ourselves to buy an electric one, but Preston said (as a true man) "I don't know what all the fuss is about, it took me like 2 seconds to grind this cup of wheat." Well...if the end of the world comes at least he'll be ripped :) We enjoyed some tasty semi-wheat flour pancakes.

The dress/Those missing pearls

2010-02-12T22:33:00.000-08:00

I don't know why it won't let me move the pictures. So, here's what you get.

So, I was so busy with things all last week and so I decided I need to learn to say no! Well, to recap last week... I made 2 meals for my visiting teachees, sewed this dress, helped someone hang shelves, made homemade rolls and went to 2 New Beginnings. It was exhausting. But everyone was happy and the dress turned out so cute. I forgot to get a foto of her in the dress cause I was so busy at the New Beginnings.

Beyond that, I began teaching my Biological Psychology class which is so fun. I forgot how much I love teaching even though it's a lot of work. My students loved the class and were grateful that the class was fun and interactive. I feel that you can't go wrong when you include the fight scene from the Christmas episode of Community and an Office clip. I related them to the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. They loved it.

So I found these and forgot what Kylee kept saying when she attached herself to our legs. Please remind me. Annette, you look really funny.

Winter Storm Advisory

2010-02-08T18:22:00.001-08:00

When it snows, it snows. Friday clinic ended at noon as the school, and the city, prepared to shut down. Customary with any Maryland winter storm, people raided the grocery store and stocked up on extra gas. Snow fell all of Friday evening, well into the morning. After rejecting my idea for make-shift snowshoes out of cardboard, Con and I ventured out to find our parking lot to be one massive snow heap. I'm pointing to our car completely buried. As we approached the main road, we looked up and down as traffic was nowhere in sight. As we sat and watched the spotty traffic, we were thoroughly entertained with a truck that spontaneously caught fire. Nobody was injured, and Connie made sure we remained a safe distance as the fire trucks zoomed to the rescue. Instead of chasing down crazy primary kids all afternoon, we dug out our car to make sure we'd be ready to go come Monday. As luck would have it school was cancelled Monday, and Con's work allowed anyone to take a sick day. All in all, an awesome extended weekend. And with snow in the forecast for Tues. and Wed., we may be in store for yet another winter vacation.

Swim meet

2010-01-30T12:26:00.000-08:00

Oh Boy, we forgot how hot and miserable these age group swim meets are! We went to see Kylie and Jordan swim last Saturday and I got a clip of each of them. Kylie is in the red cap in lane one and Jordan is in lane 5 with Tim as his timer.

I also caught a quick picture of Tim in the stands..... a rare and quick occurance. Though he is not on the staff of the age group swim this year, he still managed to time, coach, start and otherwise intermingle in the running of the meet.

Vegas Baby!!

2010-01-14T22:00:00.000-08:00

In case you missed it, or you want to re-live it, or you wanna hear Toshi talk in a voice besides Monotone, then here it is. We should ask him to post about his life since then as he waits at home with the parents.Ohhhh...

My 6 by 6 ft new home

2010-01-14T21:39:00.000-08:00

I have found new joy in the song "My Cubicle" which is a play on the song you're beautiful. Well, there it is folk, in all its glory. I have a few little pictures in it and have tired to spruce it up, but when the day is done, its still a cubicle. I am lucky because mine has a direct door opening to another guys cubicle which has a window. Yeah, I dream of one day being a window person.

The second picture probably doesn't even do justice to the maze of cubicles. It really is quite a spectacular sight, it almost takes your breath away. And this shot isn't even all the cubicles, if you can believe it. I did have one exciting moment last week when I couldn't print double sided on my printer, so I just found one that would let me and sent it to that one. Then, the hunt began. I ran through the maze listening for a printer that was printing. By the time I found it, I saw that 3/4 of my 90 page document had already printed and it was single sided. There was no hope to run back and stop it, so I just waited and carried back my giganto printout. Don't be jealous, maybe you will have a cubicle of your own someday!

The Alumni Meet Minus Taki

2009-12-28T18:40:00.000-08:00

Three of the 4 Sugiyama boys swam in the Alumni meet 2009. The next chance for a Sugiyama relay will be 2012 as Toshi will be on his mission for the next 2. I think that Tim's facial expression signifies his feelins about Taki's absence. Let's hope we can pull off a Sugiyama relay in 2012 or one of the girls (or dad) is going to have to don a swimsuit!

Here are some clips of the Sugiyama relay. I think I got everyone except the honorary Sugiyama: Tyler Weatherwax. Tosh was still a little tired from his 6 minute 500 freestyle. Yeah Tosh!!!

OK, OK, Just one more try???

2009-12-21T05:21:00.000-08:00

Somehow I couldn't get the site to post more than one video so I hope I have her line here.

A Second chance

2009-12-20T12:23:00.000-08:00

I got to go back to see Annette's musical one more time and I got some better clips. One is of one of her 2 lines ( I missed the first) and the other is of her singing and dancing in her cute hat and coat... Love it.

Good Week

2009-12-13T20:37:00.000-08:00

It all started last week sunday when I had another lesson for sunday school. I didn't want it to be another bad lesson so I prepared but when I got to class I decided to go a completely different way and I don't think I even got through half of the lesson but I did a great job. Then I had my band concert and that went really well. Two days later me and Conklin (my roommate) went and taught a first discussion to somebody. Besides forgetting the names of the people I was teaching everything went well. They only had good things to say about me because they were members but I had never seen them before. It was a great experience and now I can't wait for my mission. And if people don't know, I should be getting my mission call by hopefully the 18th or 19th. I can't wait. I ended with another great lesson on building up zion. I taught the same way as I did last sunday and I feel like that was the best lesson that i had taught. I ended the night by making Poucki (sorry I don't remember how to spell it.) I did pretty well, I didn't get the sauce exactly right and my rice was a tiny bit dry but it wasn't bad for my first try. I thought I did really well on the meat. It just fell of the bone. I may not have gotten the sauce right but the people I made it for didn't know any better so they all liked it. All in all this was a great week. Hope everyone's doing well and I'll be home in 4 days. It's been a fast first semester.

Preston Turns Thirty

2009-12-05T15:16:00.000-08:00

The big Entry!!!! To Preston's left were 15 or more people yelling 'surprise'. Annette planned the party and made some yummy treats.

His Ice cream pumpkin cake was ablaze with candles and Nets had decorated the table with photos of Preston in years past.

I brought Preston Corn chex because he likes them and one of their Kalamazoo friends made him a ceramic bowl to eat them out of.

Annette had a poster "30 reasons why we love Preston". There were some nice and some humorous comments. He looked very happy when he opened up the Wii.

Annette's musical

2009-12-05T15:05:00.000-08:00

I tried to take a couple of clips of Annette's musical but I ended up with only one being clear and it is LAME!!!! but here it is.

The turning of the Turkey

2009-12-05T14:38:00.001-08:00

Annette had the idea of cooking the turkey face down so that it wouldn't dry out. This worked well, but since the pop up timer is on the top, we needed to turn it over. I tried a couple of times and then ended up putting on winter gloves with latex gloves on top of them and then turning it over by hand. Alas.... we ran out of memory card before the actual turning took place.

Unexpectedly Somewhat Awesome Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T12:47:00.000-08:00

Just as work and school ended, and as we happily looked toward our Thanksgiving break, Connie came down with a nasty flu bug. I was wondering about H1N1, but Dr. Connie ruled out that differential after reading about its symptoms on Web.md. It's her new favorite website whenever someone gets sick. Unfortunately she acquired a monster cough the day before Thanksgiving. That night we hit up Walmart's pharmacy pulling every cold/cough/flu drug known to man. Despite being pumped with dextromethorphan, we had to cancel our invite for Thanksgiving dinner. Connie was quite upset thinking as though she ruined Thanksgiving for the both of us. Little did she know, the best/fastest Thanksgiving dinner was just around the corner. We started the morning off with our 2nd annual turkey pancakes breakfast. As you can see the first few came out looking more like elephants, but after a handful I started to find my turkey groove. Since all we had planned to bring to our dinner was corn and olives, we had a little shopping to do. We decided to treat ourselves to food that we normally wouldn't buy, so we each picked out our own dessert, and these sweet Bertoli frozen entrees. As you can see prep time was a breeze, and our lovely dinner turned out fantastic. Both of our dinners tasted absolutely delicious, and the apple pie and fruit torte for dessert was simply divine.

Of course it's not a Thanksgiving break without an early morning Black Friday extravaganza. When we woke up at 3:15, Connie wanted to stay in bed. After a little convincing about keeping with tradition and hitting all the sales, we were out the door. Four hours later we were pulling back into our apt. complex with everything checked off our list. So all in all, an awesome Thanksgiving that unfortunately Connie wasn't able to fully enjoy.