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!!!

House Warming Party

So after finally getting our basement furnished, we decided to throw a house warming party. Unfortunately, my computer takes forever to upload pics to the blog, so I can't post many of them. But I thought I'd start off with this shot of our family sign in our flower bed.

40 of our closest friends from work came to celebrate with us and check out our new digs. In return, I cooked a feast... bbq pulled pork, macaroni salad, fruit salad placed in a watermelon bowl I cut myself, two batches of cookies and my fabulous queso with chili. Brian grilled brats, and we bought very delicious deviled egg potato salad from our local grocery store. Here's a pic of the table... which also included filipino treats my mom made, which were a hit!
Here's our friend, Harvey, enjoying the buffet... giving it a thumbs up! Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of everyone at the house, things got a little hectic with the house tours and of course, all the eating and drinking.
Brian and I at the end of the night... happy we survived our first big shindig at the new house!

Presents from Auntie Jennifer

Aileen's sister, Jennifer, bought Bailey and Maggie gifts when she and Vince were visiting his mom in Ohio over the 4th of July holiday weekend. Here's Bailey in her very cute dress,we've dubbed her "Olympics" dress since we work at NBC and we air the Olympics. The dress is a little big, but I hope to shrink it in the washer and dryer.

Love this picture. Check out how big Bailey's eyes are as her sister, Maggie, approaches to smell her behind. I mean wouldn't your eyes get that big, too, if someone was doing that to you???

Here's Maggie playing with the toy Auntie Jennifer got her. You can't really see it, but it's a yellow mouse with a tail made out of multiple ribbons. We keep trying to keep it away from Bailey, because just like a little sister, she wants everything her big sis has.

Here's Bailey in her tennis dress. Brian and I took Bailey to a dog boutique in Wichita called Uptown Paws. They had a sale on most of their doggie clothes, and we picked up this dress. Brian was very happy because it wasn't pink!
Since this post is just about the girls, I thought I'd also post a picture of them eating together. It's cute! The bowl in the middle is filled with water, one they share.