Casey "lumberjack" Mau

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!

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!!

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!!!

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?!

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!

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!!!

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.