Jeff, Venita, Co6aka, Bensen, & Dexter

Friday, September 17, 2010

Happy Birthday!!!

My pretty little Venita turns 27 today!!!

Happy birthday to my favorite cougar!!!

(Photo courtesy of Alta High School)

Monday, August 30, 2010

So, with Venita trying to get the blog all caught up, I figured I'd help a little.
Venita and I had planned our trip back to Russia for this summer before life gets even more crazy with her Masters program and me applying to Optometry school. Unfortunately, because of a few factors, the trip just didn't seem to work out. I decided that for our anniversary though, I wanted to surprise Venita with a fun trip to make up for it. When we found out her sister Kami was going to live in Hawaii for the summer (or until she decides to come back to real life), I decided Hawaii was a definite must! I arranged the trip and made reservations (with Kami's help) and took Venita to the local Hawaiian restaurant to tell her the exciting news. On my way home from work, I took our itinerary to the restaurant and explained that I'd return with my wife for dinner and asked if they could bring the itinerary out with our food. They were great to oblige and everything worked as planned. Venita was very surprised and couldn't believe that we were really going.
When August rolled around, we boarded the plane and said goodbye to an intense summer semester for me and Venita's miserable job of 3 years. We landed at about 3 on Friday afternoon and Kami and her boss were nice enough to meet us at the airport and provide our transportation to the hotel. We stayed about a block from Waikiki beach and you would have thought we were staying next to Pearl Harbor with how many Asians there were but it was still fun and convenient. We spent the evening exploring Waikiki and having a great dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise.
The next day was our official 3 year anniversary! What better way to celebrate than to spend the morning at the local Flea Market? I bought myself a nice little Ukulele (original, I know) and Venita got some fancy jewelery. That afternoon we just hung out and relaxed at the beach and then headed to Top of Waikiki for dinner. It's a revolving restaurant that was very delicious and had great views of the ocean and also downtown Honolulu.

Sunday we went with Kami and her boss' family to church.

After church, they were kind enough to invite us to their home for an authentic Iranian/Persian dinner.
The next day, we woke up and caught our bus to the Polynesian Cultural Center. This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

At the Luau, we did have our first public dance of our marriage. They asked all couples celebrating Honeymoons or Anniversaries to go on the stage and surprisingly, Venita wanted to go.

Waiting for the Shuttle to the temple

I bought our tickets on my phone only 2 days prior and we ended up having great front row seats to the show that night!

Tuesday morning we woke up early to beat the long lines at Pearl Harbor. It was a good experience and actually more interesting than I expected.

We were so surprised to find out that it is still leaking oil.

Kami's boss took us on a tour of Diamond Head to show us all the mulit-million dollar houses and then dropped us off at one of the best secluded beaches. It was so relaxing that we both fell asleep for a few hours. Luckily it was our last day there because we definitely paid the price and were downing ibuprofen like it was candy. My burn was so bad that I was feverish the rest of the day.
All in all, it was a great trip and such a fun anniversary. I know it was a pretty typical Honolulu trip but it was fun for both of us as neither of us have ever been to Hawaii. We did everything that we wanted to but next time we go, we will probably hit up a more secluded island. I'm just glad that Venita is in charge of the anniversary next year!!!

DMB in SLC 4 FREE

We had a great time at the Dave Matthews Band concert. I sat with Yulia, while Jeph and Mike waited six hours to get front row of the pit section for the concert. I can't say that I minded having a place to sit if I got tired but it was different watching a DMB concert without Jeph telling me which song they were going to play by looking at what guitar Dave was holding and what chord his fingers were getting ready to strum. But over all it was a very good, fun concert and I was glad to share that with Yulichka.

Where we think Jeph was standing. Mike and Jeph were just to the left of those 4 speakers in the middle.

The view from our seats.

The view from Jeph's seats.

Either way, it was a great show. Probably my favorite of the 7 I've seen.

We've finally adopted!!!

We were so excited when we found out the adoption that we had been working on for 2 years finally was happening. We have been trying to get my Russian daughter here since 2008 and she is finally here. In all of the excitement, we (Jeph) made her new curtains for her room and took down the DMB shrine to put up a few more girly decorations (of course one Dave picture had to stay).

Check out Jeph's mad sewing skills!

Here is our girl:

Ok, she might be too old to adopt legally, but she is my mission daughter and now pretty much our adopted Russian daughter while we take care of her as

she lives with us and goes to school at BYU's ELC program.

We have had a few weeks filled with fun visiting old friends, the DMB concert (post still to come), going for rides to various places, playing Guitar Hero and many other fun things.

She bought these sunglasses the first day she got here and has rarely taken them off since.

We're glad to have Yulia's cute face with us these days and hope she has a good experience while here with us in America.

Birthday Party

We had a small birthday party with Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Mike for Co6aka a few days after his birthday. (We didn't invite anyone else because we know that everyone else is jealous since he is the favorite grandchild.) Pup was so excited about all of his cool presents. Those grandparents of his sure spoiled him rotten!

Puppy was so excited, he kept running back and forth between presents. It was cute.

He loved rolling around in all of his new toys. There were so many, he could not decide with which to play next.

The late Uncle Gomer even joined the party for a few games.

I attempted my first decorative cake. It was a little rough, but Pup wasn't too picky. He didn't get to eat it anyway since it was real chocolate cake and we all know that is poison to dogs.