Cycling Shorts

So the Provo Bicycle Collective had an awesomely fun event last night!

Cycling Shorts

Short Films and Fun At the Provo Bicycle Collective

This was the announcement pick on Facebook, pretty awesome, right?

We biked over in the freezing cold.

I was good for me. I haven't been on a bike in a while. It was a little colder than normal, since we were in our church cloths. (We had the adult session of our stake conference right after it was over, so as you will see, we came dressed.)

Can you see Karl's amazing new bike???

Like the Hippy's that our friends are, drinks for the night, were provided by a dumpster diving job:

They were only a month over due...

Then, Vegan Friendly, Air Popped popcorn!

Everyone got some!

People started to shuffle in...

It is always fun to be around other bike people. We were talking to our friend Mike about Karl's new bike, and he was geeking out about it just as much as us!

Then, the video presentation began:

the films were seriously amazing!

It was like a mini bicycle Bannf. The shorts spanned from funny music videos to informative bike infrastructure from Holland to children gone wrong on bikes.

Mike during intermission, in a shirt he made himself:

Another highlight of the night:

A 100 year old track bike one of the patron's brought!

This was seriously such a fun event!

I can't wait for another night just like this!

Grandma's 74th Birthday

December was a weird month.

I never blogged about it, because it was just to hard at the time, but my wonderful grandmother, Denny Barainca, was really sick.

So sick, that the doctors told us that she would probably not make it through the night, then later she would not make it a couple of days. Blessedly, SHE MADE IT!

It has been a ROUGH couple of months.

So, when Grandma celebrated her 74th birthday yesterday, you can believe that we were all ready to have a party!

Also, cool thing was that the night before her birthday, she was moved out of the hospital, and into a Rehabilitation Center closer to her home in Sandy!

When Karl and I arrived, there were already some beautiful familiar faces there:

Grandpa and Grandma of course!

They were able to move Grandma Denny out of her bed and into a chair! Which she was super excited about! AND, we were all moved out of her room into this nice common area where we could sit and celebrate!

Other face you may know:

Kelsea and Heather

Kels and I got Grandma these flowers and some balloons too. I brought her that cupcake from the Provo Bakery.

Heather had the most amazingly sweet stroke of Genies niceness!

Look what she made Grandma:

Number Cookies!

Let me explain:

Growing up, every year for my birhtday, Grandma would send each of us a box of cookies all the way to California. Number cookies, of the age we were turning that year. Heather got the cookies too, growing up here in Utah.

It was actually really funny. Heather said it was REALLY hard to do, and it changed her whole perspective on what Grandma had done for her dozens of Grandkids all those years.

The Ballons. Blue and Yellow, Grandma's favorite colors.

My mom sent a box too, which Heather helped Grandma open:

It was a beautiful soft blue blanket. Grandma loved it.

She read the card too.

Karl and I kept busy...

There were lots of vistor that morning:

Eventally the WHOLE Suker clan showed up! (Jared and his kids came right as we were leaving the parking lot) :) Randy's Fiance, Mary was there too. I found out they are getting married next week! Congratulations you too!

Janet came, fashionably late ; )

Loaded down with millions of things to make sure Grandma was a comfortable as possible.

You can tell she loves her so much!

Through all of this, Janet has been such a rock! Thank you so much Aunt Janet for being our link and go to for everything! We love you!

Nate and his new (old) Girlfriend Liz were there too!

We all sat and chatted. It was really nice to be there together, with Grandma, looking so good!

Happy Birthday Grandma! I love you so much!

My you have many more happy happy birthdays!!!

Happy Chinese New Year 2012

Happy Year of the Dragon!!!

To Celebrate, we went out to:

I love this place. The food is so fresh, the Boba Smoothies are amazing, and the prices are super reasonable.

So I got the top two pictures from the internet, I only took 8 picture that night, and these are them...I will tell the story of what we did. We ordered, I of course got a Mango Boba Smoothie (so did Krysta.) :)

We also got these amazing chicken pot stickers, and well as pork and they were SOOO good too. We sat down and just chatted as we waited for our food. Karl and I took our inevitable shot:

But I was squinting, so we tried again.

Karen didn't miss a beat, and she decided to photo bomb us:

She was being HILARIOUS that night. She was asking if we knew how to use chop sticks, and Karl said, sure, see:

She of course thought that was HILARIOUS, and then proceeded to ask me to take a million pictures of her.

"Take another one Pipps!"

"Another one"

He mom said, that's enough.

Karen then proceeded to count all the Panda's in the tree. I think that there were 13...?

Then I said, "lets take one of the Whitmore's!"

Karen LOVED that idea...but she was still a little wired:

Zac was also pulling a face, so we did a do over.

Final shot!

So funny story surrounding the dinner:

It was SNOWING/SLEETING and so it was super wet outside. Poor Zac had ridden his bike to meet us there, and was soaked! He got there early and was just about to leave when we arrived.

Thanks for sticking it out Zac!

Other consequences of the snow:

No Fireworks

Karl and I finished out laundry, and went to bed...

I am 5 months pregnant you know, I am tired all of the time!

I guess we are just getting ready to having a baby. :)

Happy New Year!

May you have Health and Happiness this coming year!

What We've Been Up to...

So although I have been lacking greatly in blogging this month, we have been doing stuff...

Like New Year...

We went out to Indian food with our Family here

We have been playing a shamefully huge amount of video games...and I still haven't passed Zelda, Skyward sword.

We thankfully got some reprieve from all of that when one of our favorite bands, Tiny Home, came into town, and gave us a sweet sweet show. It was so good. I am also planning on getting those videos onto You Tube, we will see what happens.

Sonja and Gabe...

Singing to my heart.

Karen and Me and Karl, having a great time. Zac and Krysta were also there...ALSO people in the kitchen washing dishes super loudly.

Picture!!!

The last couple of weekends we have been searching for a new bike for Karl...after months of research...and weeks of driving around...

On our last stop...we found it:

I will let Karl describe his new bike:

It is a Cannondale CAADX from last season. It's a really cool aluminum frame with a carbon fork and a rock solid wheelset. It normally has Shimano Tiagra shifters and derailleurs, but the shop is going to swap in SRAM Rival everything and customizing the crank and cassette to my specs. They're also replacing the handlebars with some cooler ones and putting on legit lime green grip tape.

I'm Back...

Last bit of news:

It finally SNOWED!!

Happy Winter!

It's a Baby!

If you took the 15 minutes it takes to watch the video, or if you have talked to one of us, or if you have been on to Facebook at all recently...you know: It's a girl!

That knowledge is honestly only secondary to the comfort that all signs are go, everything looks good. She is so wonderful, it is odd that I can love someone so much, without ever really meeting them. After all of this, I am finally really letting myself get excited.

Everyone is reacting differently. Karl was the first one to notice her short leg proportions and slightly larger head, as Hite characteristics. Karen keeps coming up to my belly and asking to say hi to her baby sister. My mom is excited to know what colors to buy for the quilt she will be making. Krysta and I are going to go and check out Hospitals soon, to see if I want to change my delivery plan, and I am even thinking of getting a Doula after a conversation over Sri Lankan food yesterday.

It is all starting to hit me, my life will never be the same, and I can't wait!

Christmas Memories

Prepare for a long post:

Not as long as it could be, for one reason or another, I have been super unmotivated to take pictures, so these are basically ALL of my pictures from Christmas time this year.

So, pre Christmas preparations.

Our decorations are up, but the Whitmores got this sweet Christmas tree, a little later in the month, and we helped them get it set up:

We love Christmas. Have you ever noticed the you are more in love during the Holiday's?

Poor Karl. I just love him too much.

Here is the Whitmore Family, Christmas 2011.

The tree Christmas tree the dumpster dove for... and their decorations, of bike parts. Very Green.

And very Chisrmasy, and I loved it. Isn't is so rad? It came together very well.

Later that night, we went out to the Riverwoods, and checked out the Christmas lights.

Krysta and Me. I love Krysta!

Have you ever noticed you remember how much you love the people in your life?

Those blue trees were seriously cool.

Flash forward a week:

We made it to the Valley, and it was a few days before I thought to take a picture:

This is who it was that inspired me. Asher.

Things that you missed.

Leah and Brandon were there. Krytsin and Chelsea were also there. They let us stay in the big room.

We stayed up late talking. It was wonderful.

We went to the Price Center in Calexico, Forever 21 too, and generally enjoyed one another.

Then Mom and I went to San Diego to visit Maryn and go shopping, while the girls and Brandon and Leah went to Salvation Mountain. Betsy and Nick came into town then too, with the boys, of course. Which brings up to this point, Christmas eve:

Did I mention Judah?

I got to do this:

And Grandma Hite got to so this:

Oh my gosh, I am in love with these kids!

So we sat down and had the Traditional Hite family Christmas Eve program. The group was small this year, only Just mom and dad...

The Reddoch's...

The food...

And us!

Good times were had by all of course!

There were presents, and jokes "that's why you always bring your own stockings" and good times had by all.

Here is Asher with my present for him...

I can tell he loves it and is being enriched... developmentally.

Oh yeah, Baby's first Christmas!!! They loved it!

Karl's favorite gift this year, that is proudly being displayed in our living room:

A trebuchet:

My favorite gift...all the time Judah did this to me:

Now. The Pipkin's also know how to party:

As to our tradition, dad, read us the littlest angel...which we love.

Then of course we had breakfast...little smoky crescents.

Which Chelsea and Karl loved.

Leah, Maryn, and Krystin...All looking so beautiful.

The group minus Me, Dad, and Branny.

Mom and Dad

The girls, waiting to open presents...

Christmas day was great.

We all went to church together, saw everyone from days of yore, and I wore a maternity dress Betsy lent me...

Other Highlights of our trip:

Grandma Neal came to visit.

Maryn gave everyone a hair cut

Um...

Mexican food, laughing and talking and games...

I don't remember where we were going when we took this picture...but I love it because we were together.

I spent a bunch of time recording our families, it was was pretty fun too. I learned a bunch about everyone.

The trip home was uneventful, outside of the flat tire we got going to Needles.

Then home again home again...to see California again some time far away.