Kylie's concert

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

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

Shake your groove thang!

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

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

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

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

th

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

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 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

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...

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!!!!!

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?

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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!

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...

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

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

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.