A Few Good Posts

I put up 3 new posts. Scroll down because I finally caught up with all that's been going on. Enjoy!

A Quarter of a Century

That's how old I turned this year. It does sound kinda old to me but I don't feel any different. Just another birthday. However, my birthday was pretty awesome this year. I have always wanted to do a murder mystery party and so I got online and downloaded one. They're pretty easy to put together which is good because I had short notice. Dave's parents, little brother, and cousin came over for the party. It was a 50's theme, called "Greased at the Diner." Everyone dressed up and we had salad, pizza, bread sticks, and of course birthday cake. We didn't do the whole 5 course meal thing throughout the murder mystery but just ate and then played it out. It was pretty cool and if you are ever looking to do one I would recommend it. Here is a good site I found: http://www.red-herring-games.co.uk/. They give you ratings so you can get clean ones too. We had fun and after the murder was solved we played a card game and then everyone went home.

This is the outline of Dino who was found dead.

These are my really cool decorations. You can stop applauding.

Dave- Poora Moore (he volunteered to be a girl because all the mysteries had even female to male ratios)

Dad- Arthur "Bronzie" Bronzerelli

Brian- Buddy Folly

Matt- Maynard G. Wayout

Mom-Pinkie LaRue

Me- Peggy Sousa

Blowing out the candles. Dave was in every picture. Sneaky little devil.

The whole gang.

The next day, which was my actual birthday, Dave made me breakfast. Eggs and toast = YUMMY! Dave had gotten me LOST Season 5 so we spent most of the morning watching it. Then we went to a baptism and had Stake Conference that evening. That's why we celebrated the evening before because we already had a busy day. But it was great and I got Lost Season 5, as already mentioned, A Knight's Tale, a sweater, and a digital photo frame. It was a super birthday. No complaints here and thanks everyone for the birthday calls and wishes.

NeW YeArS!

Well this New Year's Eve was a fun one. The day was pretty low key. The evening, however, was wild. Well maybe not wild but we did go over to Grandpa Ricks' house and ate pizza, drank a lot (non-alcoholic beverages that is), and played games. We started with a Bunco tournament and then played lots of card games. Midnight came and went pretty uneventfully. We did watch the ball drop and everyone wished each other Happy New Year and then most everyone went home. But for those of us who stayed up, we sat around and talked for a long time. It was a good day and we're excited to see what this year brings. Happy New Year!

Playing one of my favorite games (note the sarcasm in my writing), Shadows Over Camelot.

The adults playing the train game.

Some heavy duty card playing.

Counting down. Doesn't everyone look so enthusiastic?

Dave could hardly contain his excitement in taking this picture.

The Last Eagle

As most of you know, Dave is the oldest of 6 boys. His dad, he, and 4 of his brothers have all become Eagle Scouts and during the holidays, the youngest, Matt, joined them. Isn't that incredible? All 6 boys are Eagle Scouts. What a great tradition! Matt had his Eagle Court a few days after Christmas. A lot of family was there including all the brothers, minus Jacob, who's on a mission. It was pretty cool to see him become the final Eagle in the family and I know his mom and dad are super proud and probably relieved to be done with all the projects, merit badges, etc. Here are a few pictures from the evening.

A picture of all the Eagle Scouts in Dave's family: his dad, himself, and his 5 brothers.

The Ricks' minus one.

All the family that was in town. Good turn out.

Boys will be boys. Especially the Ricks' boys.

It's All About Me

You may think this title sounds selfish, but my birthday IS this Saturday. So this background is in honor of me. You may now start wishing me "Happy Birthday".

What's new wid chew?

Hello there, my peeps. Dave here. I want to tell you about some stuff that has happened in our lives lately, and possibly in more detail than you care to know.

First, I've finally started working a lot more recently. I've got two big translation projects that I'm working on, one is a huge report about the status of the Russian nuclear icebreaker fleet, and the other is a back-translation of some standardized math tests for New York from Russian into English. What that means is that the state had the tests translated into Russian, and now I'm translating it back into English so that the test-makers know that the translation is correct. It's pretty fun, but I'm having to remember what the heck quadracepts and decagons are. (Be afraid 3rd graders, be very afraid!) The jobs both pay really well and are keeping me really busy, especially since I'm still interpreting at hospitals too. I'm so awesome!

Next, Kathryn and I have either bought or been given about 12 movies in the last month, the most expensive of them only being about $5 (well, of the ones we bought). And we just bought a DVD/VCR player last night, so I think we are now officially upper-class. We are super rich, unless you actually factor in how much I owe for my student loans, in which case we have a lot of negative money. But still, we actually have been pretty blessed financially lately, especially since we don't have any of those money-holes living with us, otherwise known as "children." (Disclaimer: I don't hate children. Yet.)

Hmmm, what else? Kathryn is sleeping right now, it's raining, I'm wearing manly slippers (yes, that's possible), and there is permanently a funky smell coming from our walk-in closet because of all our shoes (especially Kathryn's, since her shoes do not always require socks). In short, life is good. Amen.