Shannon and Rick's Reception!

October seems to be the month for love.

After going to a wedding and a couple's shower, we took another road trip, this time to Sioux Falls, South Dakota for Shannon and Rick's open house reception. We weren't able to make it to their wedding in Arizona, so we were glad to be able to go to this celebration!

Aileen and Shannon

Shannon's husband, Rick, Shannon and Aileen
(Brian not pictured because he's behind the camera.)

We hadn't seen Shannon since she left Boise before we got married in September 2006.
It was so nice to catch up and meet her wonderful partner in life!

Jeannette and Adam's Couple Shower!

The second weekend in October, we drove from Houston to San Antonio for Jeannette and Adam's shower. We haven't seen them since leaving Boise in January. It was so great to catch up again, even just for the afternoon. Here they are opening their massive pile of presents.

Jeannette drinking a beer, out of a cowboy shaped glass, of course!

Adam giving Jeannette his winning-smile!

Unfortunately, my camera battery died, so we don't have any pictures of us with them. Don't worry, I'll definitely have it fully charged for their wedding in December!

At Aileen's Parent's Home...

We stayed with Aileen's parents for a week between Paige's wedding in Austin and Jeannette's bridal shower in San Antonio. During that time, we helped my parents with the house, cleaning up debris from Hurricane Ike and driving around doing a bunch of errands.

Here you can see Aileen's mom giving Bailey a bath in a pail. After helping in the front and backyards, Bailey got dirty and needed to be cleaned before sleeping on the guest room bed.

Looking at the series of pictures, you can tell Aileen's Mom cares for Bailey as her real human grandchild! Isn't it sooo cute!!!

Paige and Clint's Wedding!

Aileen's college friend, Paige married Clint during the first weekend in October in Austin. The ceremony was at an Episcopal Church downtown with the reception at Laguna Gloria. Beautiful setting and beautiful couple, you can see them below!

Here's a picture of the inside of the tent, where we enjoyed dinner made from Paige's recipes along with wine pairings for each course.

You can see many of Aileen's college friends in the picture -- Lauren is on the right, Melissa is on the left with Emily next to her and Carolyn next to Emily.

Here's a wide shot of the tent.

A picture of us!

The next couple of pictures Brian personally wanted posted to the blog, so here they are.
Don't know what the funny faces mean... it's up to you for interpretation. (Oh, and Roland's the one taking the pictures)



Here's one of Roland and Brian doing the Thriller dance.

A picture of the Gamma girls.

From left to right -- Laura, Emily, Carolyn, Paige, Melissa, Lauren, me.

A picture of the guys.

From left to right -- Brian, Clint, Roland.

We traveled on buses for transportation from the church to the reception.

Here's a great pic of Roland giving Laura a little affection.

Gotta love weddings and the love in the air!

Race for the Cure

During the last weekend in September, we took part in our first Race for the Cure in Wichita.

It was a beautiful day. We walked the 5k in honor and celebration of life for my mother, a breast cancer survivor for 9 years now.
Thanks to everyone who donated and pledged their support to us.
It means more than you know.

At the finish line with girls from my station.

Aileen's Sister Comes to Visit

Jennifer came to visit us in mid-September. Here we are eating at Luciano's (again). This time we ate on the patio. It was really noisy for a Saturday night, apparently the kids in the small town like to gather downtown to hangout and scream and shout. Brian says he used to do the same thing when he wasn't old enough to drive, in his small hometown. We still had a fabulous dinner, despite the noise!

Jennifer's trip was super short -- about a day and a half. Here, she and Bailey are having some quality time before she leaves for the airport.
On the way to the airport.

Jennifer was in town to celebrate Bailey's 3rd birthday. Bailey is posing with the gourmet treat we got her while in Kansas City for our anniversary.

Party Bus Time!

So this weekend, we celebrated the birthday of one of our friends, Krystle. Her actual birthday is September 11th. She rented a party bus to take us around the bars in Wichita. Apparently, these vehicles are BIG here... They're pretty much modified school buses (disco lights and steel pole included). And we must admit, we had a lot of fun! After 10 inches of rain the day before, the weather was wonderful! The wind was blowing through our hair through the windows. As you can tell!

Here's a group pic on the bus.

Our 2nd Wedding Anniversary!

We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary in Kansas City!

Of course, there were fireworks...

at the end of the KC Royals/Cleveland Indians game, that is. We did appear on the "Jumbo-tron" (behind us in the pic below), when they did the KissCam. That was pretty awesome. And the Indians won, so we were happy.
We spent the whole day Saturday shopping at The Plaza. No pics because it was raining. Despite the wet weather, we had so much fun! Very reminiscent of our first trip to KC when we first started dating.

After a day of shopping, it was time for dinner. We ate the best steaks we've ever had at our hotel's restaurant. It's a little boutique hotel on The Plaza called The Raphael. Of course, we had to have dessert. What else, but chocolate cake!!
Here's a picture of us after dinner. We sat for a while enjoying the music from the piano bar. It was a wonderful night, great way to celebrate our two years of marriage!
To put our 2nd anniversary celebration plans into perspective, let me recap our 1st anniversary.

We went to Seattle. This time we made the 8-hour drive from Boise because airplane tickets were too expensive. The reason?
The Boise State Broncos/Washington Huskies game!
Here we are sporting our Bronco pride. Unfortunately, BSU lost.

The next day, we went to watch the Seahawks play Brian's team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
While he wore his Bucs shirt, I supported my team, the Houston Texans.
Unfortunately, the Bucs also lost.
But Qwest Field is beautiful, as you can see from the pic!!!

It was time for our anniversary dinner. I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but we ate yummy seafood and it was near the water. Our hotel concierge also reserved a limo to take us there and back. Super fun!
As you can tell, we like to go to sporting events (all year long), but also during our anniversary weekends. Delicious food and spending time together, of course, top the list!
Looking forward to many more years to come!

Brian's Dad Turns 70!

We went to Omaha over Labor Day weekend to celebrate Brian's dad's birthday. Here he is looking at his card, which lists major events and how much things cost back in 1938!

Brian and his nephew, Andrew. He's the son of Brian's brother, Jeff and his wife, Susan. Susan and their other son, Alex, weren't able to make the party.
Our niece, Maggie. She's the daughter of Brian's sister, Amy and her husband, Tony. Maggie was one of the flower girls at our wedding. Love the wink!
Our other niece and Maggie's sister, Shae, giving us an award winning smile!
Family photo after dinner at Uptown Brewery. Brian's sister, Amy, reserved this room for us. It was nice to have a private place to celebrate this special day. We finished off the night by eating, what else, but birthday cake and ice cream... sorry, no pics of that.
Happy Birthday, Dad! We look forward to next year!

Do you know how to say Beijing?

So, Brian and I have been watching the Olympics 24/7. We were talking about the Games tonight and realized we weren't this excited nor did we watch as much during the Athens Games four years ago. Don't know why that is... maybe the hype about Michael Phelps (who's amazing, by the way) or Shawn Johnson has something to do with it? Brian thinks it is because many of the prime time events are live, not tape delayed. At any rate, it's so exciting!

Also, since I work for NBC and we air the Olympics, we did a story on how to properly pronounce Beijing. Do you know how? Apparently, it's Bay-jing instead of the way most us of say it like Bay-shing. If you listen to Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News, he says it correctly, but some of those reporting on the Games and even Bob Costas say Bay-shing. Just a little tidbit of info, in case you didn't know.

So back to the Games themselves, how many of you are losing sleep staying up watching them or DVRing it? Last night, Brian and I realized our DVR only had 3% available, so we had to start erasing some events. We just entered the DVR world in March and I can't believe we waited that long to get one. To think, we've been recording on tape using our VCR this whole time! And, it's amazing how much more detail and vivid everything is on HD. My station entered into a contract with DirecTV to air them in HD, and there was some concern that that wouldn't happen in time for the Opening Ceremony but it did. And boy, are we glad!

Hope you're enjoying the Olympics as much as we are!

Trinity Friends Come to Visit

Last weekend was a blast! We had our first "friends visit" to our new house. Laura and Roland flew up from Dallas, while Melissa and Andy drove up from OKC. First, they stopped by the station because Brian and I were working. We captured this picture in the studio after I finished anchoring the 10pm.

We were all starving... them after traveling, us after working, so we went to a restaurant/brewery by our house. Laura ordered Idaho Nachos, which as you can tell is a big mountain of Idaho waffle fries with cheese and other toppings. We couldn't help catching this pic of Laura with her huge meal.
For those of you who watch Diners, Drive Ins and Dives, this restaurant might look familiar. Brints Diner in Wichita was featured in its first episode. Since we all watch the show, and Brian and I had never been there, we decided to all go together.

The food was good and filling. We all loved their B & G... which we learned were biscuits and gravy... and their gravy had sausage in it. Yummy!! Here are the girls... even with Melissa standing on a step lower than me, she's still taller! Here are the guys... trying to look oh so cool.
For Laura's birthday, we travelled to a town about 35 minutes from where we live for a fantastic Italian restaurant. It's called Luciano's. The owner and chef is from Italy. He married a woman from Kansas and they decided to open their restaurant in her hometown. Not only was the food the best Italian I've ever had, they also allow you to bring your own wine (for a $10/bottle corkage fee), which definitely cuts down on the alcohol tab. Laura and Roland have been to Italy and they say this restaurant is the closest in the States to food over there. We highly recommend Luciano's and I bet it won't be the last time we dine there.
The waiter brought out Laura's dessert with a candle on top... happy birthday!
I'm glad we got to celebrate together.
A group pic after dinner and two big bottles of wine.
After dinner we were going to go bar hopping in Wichita's downtown area called Old Town, but it was raining and since we were so far away from our house, we decided to drink close to home. Here we are at Firkin and Bull. Andy's been to this bar before in Texas, and apparently, ours is more of a restaurant-type atmosphere than a bar, but that didn't stop us from drinking.
Here's a pic of the guys doing a car bomb, not an Irish one, something else but I can't remember the name. Apparently, someone had said go, so Roland started drinking, Brian's thinking about it, and Andy wanted to pose for the pic before imbibing.

A picture post car bomb with the guys doing their thing. Roland's thinking pose...
I don't really remember what's going on here, but isn't it a great pic?
And, that's the end of the trip. Very sad that it's over, but we had so much fun we're planning another trip, this time a destination vacation: NOLA 2009! Can't wait!!!