Be Mine

We had a very low key Valentine's Day. I'm not used to having to plan something. When we lived in UVa student housing they provided us with a free dinner at Thai 99. That was probably one of the highlights living there. I also won a DVD one year when they had a raffle. Good times. Anyway, this year we were on our own for dinner. But let me start with breakfast.

We started our morning like most folks on Valentine's it seems like with heart-shaped pancakes. Travis was in charge of breakfast since I was in charge of dinner. He was very inventive and made the mold with foil since I didn't have one. It couldn't be Valentine's Day without an enormous amount of treats, right? I made heart-shaped rice krispie treats. Don't worry, there were a lot more rice krispies than shown in this picture.And my most favorite treat of all, cupcakes!! Chocolate cupcakes that are so moist they melt in your mouth with a cream cheese-whipped cream frosting. These are the cupcakes that Travis thinks are better than that cupcake bakery. They are mighty darn good and I can't get enough.For dinner I made a super delish chicken recipe with cream cheese and garlic mashed potatoes, bacon wrapped asparagus and some bread on the side. My mom made those cute utensil holders. It sure wasn't Thai 99, but it was really good. It was really fun staying in and relaxing, but I sort of missed getting dressed up and going out to Thai food. Maybe next year we will continue the student family housing tradition of having Thai. Unfortunately, it won't be free...so maybe not.

Family Pictures

Laura took some family pictures of us while she was here. Travis has a thing about taking pictures-he just doesn't like to! Once, when we were dating, I wanted to take some nice pictures together up at Sundance. It was October, the leaves were changing and it looked beautiful up there. Travis made a big deal about it because he didn't want anyone thinking we were engaged. We're married now, but four years later not much has changed. What's his excuse now? He says it's not natural for him to look at me lovingly. Natural my eye! Anyway, after twisting his arm we successfully got some pictures. Here are the good ones and a couple not so good ones.

Travis' reaction to something I wanted him to do. Was it really that painful?

I asked him to act like I said something funny. I didn't know I was that funny.

Thanks Laura!

Family Visits

Travis' family (mom, dad, and lil' sis Katy) flew in to visit us over MLK weekend. And since the inauguration was the next day schools in the DC area had that day off, too. So they were able to spend a good amount of time with us. We did the usual-toured Stanford campus and the city. I'll spare you the type of pictures that I've already posted and just do new ones.

BYU rugby, surprisingly, had a game against Stanford the Saturday they were in town. Travis' younger bro used to play for BYU so his family are big rugby fans. Luckily, we had abnormally warm weather the weekend they were in town so the game was very enjoyable. I've seen a few games of rugby and I just don't understand it at all! I feel like it's a cross between, soccer, football, and...cheerleading! "Give me a backwards L".

This is Katy and me wondering what the heck is going on!

Anyway, BYU kicked their butts! And there were way more BYU fans there than Stanford fans for a home game, but who's counting.

After the game we walked around campus. Katy was so impressed with the campus she kept saying that she wanted to go to college at Stanford instead of BYU. We'll see...

This is a random totum pole they have on campus.

After the tour we headed over to Sprinkles which is a popular cupcake bakery.

We waited in line for at least 20 minutes for each of us to get one except Travis. We've been there before on a date and he didn't like it very much. I'm not sure if it's the $3.50 per cupcake or the cupcake itself that he doesn't like. He claims my homemade cupcakes are better (I know, that's a really nice compliment. I just think he's trying to convince me to never go there again!). He thinks they are only popular because the 'celebrities' like them. I definitely think they are hyped up, but three out of the four that we got were really good!

Monday, we met up with my brother and he took us on a bus/walking tour of the city. We sure did a lot of walking. It was actually more like speed walking if you know Travis' dad. It's hard to keep up!

Do these houses look familiar?

We found Alamo park where they filmed the opening scene of Full House. The park is basically a big hill so you can see over the houses and see all of the city. It was really pretty!

This is part of China Town of course!

Tuesday was spent watching the inauguration and relaxing. And it couldn't be a trip to California without eating at In-N-Out.

As soon as we said goodbye to them we said hello to Travis' other younger sister, Laura. We did a lot of the same things-except we had more winter-like conditions.

We walked out onto the bridge until we were over the water, I guess, for fun. It was so cold and windy though I just wanted to get back to the car. Despite the cold and wind, we stayed and watched down below us unsuspecting joggers and cars get drenched by waves crashing against a road. That part was really fun!

With this trip though I was able to convince Laura that we needed to go to my favorite place on earth! Ghirardelli Square!

This time I tried their Brownie Sundae while Laura got their Gold Rush. Travis just enjoyed straight chocolate syrup.

Laura also took some "professional" family pictures of us, while she was here, that I'll have to post later because this has gotten really long.

We had a lot of fun with family in town and invite anyone else to come visit us too! Family or friends-invitation's open!