Taki and Connie Move to Castle Rock

Note that there aren't any pictures of 'the move'... because it was non stop typical moving day craziness mixed with the worst storm of the year. We woke up to a fairly nice day and began finishing the packing and cleaning we had been doing the day before. Connie had a lot done and the apartment was quite clean so we thought we were in good shape. Ward members began to arrive to help with the move and we scurried to keep up. Taki drove the truck like he had been doing it his whole life. If you remember, they sold all of their 'goods' when they left Baltimore and moved to Denver with just the stuff they could fit in their 2 cars. So, Taki thought he was more than prepared with a 16 foot truck that 'would hold everything in a 2 bedroom apartment'. Wrong. The truck soon filled and there were still bikes and things that needed to go in the cars. So, we all drove to Castle Rock to find that we forgot the 'dolly' for the heavy items. Connie and I rushed back to Lone Tree to get it and got back just in time to see that all of the moving had already been done by the Castle Rock ward. The next fiasco occurred when we couldn't find the curtain rod hardware to put the old rod back up. That was found carefully packed in the new rod box later... But night was falling and so was the snow.. quite heavily as Taki rushed to get new hardware and put up the rod. It was about 11pm when 3 cars struck out in a terrible snowstorm. I was trying to follow but couldn't see any cars through the snow...but suddenly I saw 2 bikes on the back of a car and thought "who in their right mind would have bikes on their car on a day like this??.. oh, the bikes! it's Taki". So, I got as close as I could and we struck out.. not knowing where Connie was. I quickly realized I couldn't see anything and had to get off to clear a better spot. Instead of pulling over, Taki wisely suggested that we pull off at the exit and he braved the elements to clear my car better. Back on the road it was white knuckle driving and Taki's tires were bald so he was slipping and sliding. When we arrived at the new home, we were happy to see that Connie had made it.. although a car had spun out in front of her and almost caused her to crash. So, that is the end of the move story.. quite miserable but I noted that in spite of all of the adversity there was not a cross word spoken or any tension between them. I was quite impressed. So, the new house is beautiful except for the colors of the walls on the main floor.. which were a bold mustard yellow, aspen green, and a bright red. We had to remedy this and set to painting.

You see the results of our painting were beautiful. It took longer than we thought but looks great. Taki was faster and better than I was but I was retired... so I did much of the work... and learned a few things about 'brandishing' or making a line to change colors between rooms with rounded corners.
We Both leaned into the paint a few times. I noted that my 'paint highlights' lasted almost as long as the ones I paid to get at the hair salon.
There was still plenty to do but Taki and Connie insisted on taking me out to dinner with one of Taki's famous coupons. We went to The Old West BBQ... a little tackiness in the atmosphere.. but the food was great. Note Taki with Buffalo Bill.

Goodbye Mabel

Saying goodbye to Mabel wasn't easy. So many memories.. good and bad.. Working at the Y, Toshi's crash, Tim's impressive renovation, Toshi's hope that she would wait for him on his mission and desire to drive her to Idaho and everyone's doubts that she'd make it (made us both want to try) an inconquerable spirit... no repairs in years... but getting old and a bit fragile.

Goodbye!

From coast to coast!

After our vacation to Boston we headed to LA for some seriously needed R&R. Preston spent his days inside at the famous Hotel Del Coronado learning about boring medical stuff. Lame. I spent my days soaking up the rays, chillin by the pool, and strollin down the streets of Coronado island. We spent our nights eating DELICIOUS food! First night we got some burgers. MEGA delish. I tried my first turkey burger and it freaking rocked! wow. crazy good. It was packed with fresh basil and topped with grilled onions. wow. Second night we got a full meal at 3 different restaurants. For starters we got some $.99 tacos, our entree was at Yummy Sushi, and for dessert we made the terrible mistake of settling for yogurt escape. A pathetic version of yogurtland, but after sampling EVERY flavor we felt obligated to buy something. Our last night we hit up lil' piggy's BBQ. Super delicious bacon wrapped jalapenos stuffed with deliciousness. Shut up. For dessert we had a surprisingly yummy cheesecake cupcake and a snickers carmel apple. Duh. We also got some AMAZING gelato our last afternoon there and lamented over not going there EVERYDAY! We've decided that our first order of business when we get to texas will be starting our own gelateria! Which will never make a profit because I will eat it all! To help offset our dinner splurges we ate PB&J's for all our other meals :)
Ok enough about the food....we also did some fun sightseeing! Ruby had her first beach visit. Although we had GREAT weather at the hotel, once we got closer to the beach the wind made things a little chilly, but that didn't stop Ruby from gettin' her beach on! She absolutely LOVED playing in the sand and only ate one handful! I'm not sure if she liked the freezing cold water but she definitely had fun knocking down all of daddy's sand castles! We also had a chance to drive out to the San Diego temple. SO gorgeous. I always wanted to get married there but it wouldn't have been even remotely convenient. It was fun to finally see it in person. spectacular. We took about a hundred million pics like this trying to get a good one of us AND the temple...this is the best we could do....This was the moment we realized that the case I bought Preston for his iphone causes the pics to look terrible like this...NOOOOOOOO Such a fun trip full of friends, family, food, relaxing, and SUNSHINE! Ruby gives it a big thumbs up!

Jordan is Living the Northview Experience!!

Jordan with bleached hair .. nice and crispy from the pool chemicals... after playing a fabulous band concert including solos.

Jordan sporting the new swim team warm up coats... and looking like an actor from Star Wars..
Way to play!!!! Jordan rocks his solo! He's 15 and living the Northview Dream...

Toshi's splurge

Toshi went to Winchell's Donut shop and bought an apple fritter and a cinnamon roll. That was his splurge and he says it was totally worth it.

Valentin's Day Splurge with a hint of Life

Well the title might be misleading, but I think mom will be okay with it. Just wanted to post some pictures about my life and what has been happening. Well we had a nerd fest for our ward and everyone dressed up as nerds, but we thought we would take it to the next level. I did what any other nerd would have done, stuck a belt on my head, wore underwear on the outside of my shorts with a green polo, and become Quail man from the animated show Doug. Anyway we had like 30 minutes to come up with these costumes so I am pretty proud. The next picture is a random 90's dance party that Kevin and I went to. Again it was short notice, but Kevin got his best flannel shirt and butt part going, while I got an old school 90's BYU hat with an oversized jacket. We had a blast dancing

to all of the 90's classics. We were told that we

looked like Adam Sandler (me) and Macaulay Culkin (Kevin). Seems pretty accurate. Anyway, the next picture is Halloween when Kevin and I dressed up as the best comic book serie

s ever Calvin and Hobbes!! This was for our Stake Dance party that we went to. It was great. I would have to say that this is probably the most creative costume I have come up with next to being the Green Ranger last year, but Kevin out did himself as he made a box that said Transmogrifier on it, and we both had paper ship hats. We danced it up and had a great time. These next two pictures are our trip to California, LA style for Thanks Giving. It was a blast spending time at our room mate Ty Ty's house (Tyler is his real name). We enjoyed a nice frozen banana at Balboa beach as we watched the sun set. It was amazing weather and just a

great trip. We went to the Gally which is a free museum of art, but more than just paintings this place is like a giant art work

in itself. It was amazing. The plants were done up very artistically to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye, there were statues, wood carvings, modern art (not my favorite), and some of my favorite art from Claude Monet and his impressionism. They had this amazing grass there as well and I might have taken like an hour nap on it as I enjoyed the sun and thought about life.

I know this is going to be lame, but for my Valentines Splurge I went to a 5 dollar Blue Grass concert. My guitar teacher sent an email out about a concert that night. It was the Matt Flinner Trio. I like blue grass, but thought I really don't have 5 dollars on me at the moment. Then I realized that I had the 5 dollars from the Valentin's Card. So I took that 5 dollars and saw an amazing concert. The upright bass player was slapping the bass and the mandolin player and guitar player were amazing as they were picking away. None of them sang which I really didn't mind because blue grass lyrics can be kind of weird and I love the pure sound of instrumentals. It was a great concert and the players made it fun. It was a great gift mom thanks.

Valentine Splurge

Well, for Valentines Day we kept it pretty simple.  Qdoba does this BOGO Free deal where you get a free entree if you kiss someone at the register (not the employee of course).  Last year Connie and I went and when it was our turn to kiss, awkwardness ensued.  I went to kiss her and she kind of back away and then awkwardly turned her cheek while turning super red.  The girl at the register asked if we were even together, which I replied, "Yeah, this is my wife." 

So this year I told her we had to get this straight before going in there.  We agreed on a peck on the lips and even practiced one.  (Felt like I was right back at the time we were engaged and deciding on our kiss in the temple).  Anyways, after Qdoba came our SPLURGE!!  Connie had been craving Jamba Juice so we found one not too far away and loved every sip.  Totally brings me back to the time I took one into the MTC, or the first time I went with Mom and she kept calling it Zooka Juice.  We also stopped by Panera bread cause their cheese pastries are Amazing (my splurge).  Thanks again Mom for the 5 bucks!!!