And I Never Catch Up...

So another update blog. I'm really horrible at posting. Let's see. We'll go way, way back to Thanksgiving...

So the Asian family gathered down in Las Vegas for a weekend of craziness. We had two baptisms and a baby blessing in the cousins, so that was pretty exciting.

I was kind of lame and didn't really take any pictures except this one. Funny, I know. This was our first night in Vegas. Kimi, Ashlee, and I went down to the Bellagio with Ian and some of his family...and this was in the Bellagio. I know... But I did take some videos!

So that was pretty much Thanksgiving. It was a good time.















The Saturday after we got back was the BYU - Utah football game. And, of course, I was there! How can you doubt my integrity?!

It was an amazing game. We barely won, but we did! And it was fantastic. Ian was pretty much having a heart attack for the last 45 minutes of the game. Haha. Afterward, we rushed onto the field and partied. Thus, the picture... on the field. I was trying to get the scoreboard... yet another difficult thing to do when you take the picture yourself...















A week or so after that we went over to the grandparents' house for the annual building of the Christmas gingerbread houses.

We all went and ate dinner and built our fer-realz-made-out-of-gingerbread-and-put-together-with-royal-icing gingerbread houses. We made the roof out of Good 'n' Plenty's. Which was good, because I think they're gross. And Ian had the brilliant idea of the sugar cone tree out front. It worked out pretty well!

The next few weeks were spent wrapping things up with our calling in the ward (we did Sunday School) and getting new callings (I'm the publicity person, which means all the notifications, the ward directory, program, you know... and Ian was put in the Elders Quorum Presidency, which is nice for him because it means he doesn't have to go to Ward Council!). Then finals week, which, as you know, is always awesome. I was not sad to have yet another finals week where I did not have to take tests. Yeah, you never miss it.

After that we headed home for Christmas break. We had a lot of fun, though I got somewhat bored and started a super-secret project for Ian for Valentine's Day. It is awesome. For Christmas Ian gave me this beautiful necklace! This picture does not do it justice, because it is so sparkly! I get compliments on it all the time! He's the best boyfriend ever! :)

We celebrated birthdays and Christmas and we went and saw Sherlock Holmes, which was amazing! I was not disappointed!

Cami also got married over the Christmas break. I actually was attacked by the bouquet. Yeah, first time I've even come close to catching it at any kind of wedding. It ricochets hard off the ceiling and hits me in the face. Yeah. Good times....

Here are a couple pictures:



Let's see, on New Year's morning we ate mochi, as is the norm. It was Robyn's first experience. Nate thought for sure she would hate it just like him, but nope. She liked it. Haha. So Nate is still the only one that hates mochi in the family. And it made me laugh!

So I decided to start working in the web industry again. I'm designing websites and writing content. It's all pretty exciting. I'm working with some new software from the company (HIT Web Design) and I must admit, it is pretty great. So if you're looking for a website that is quick, easy, designed for you, and super easy to manage by you, get a HIT Designer site from HIT Web Design. It really is great. I'll post some links to my sites as soon as some of them go live. So it's kind of exciting doing something new. And getting paid quite well for it doesn't hurt either...

So that's pretty much the news. We've been attending some basketball games. I would show you pictures, except Ian has banned the ones we took at the UNLV game from the internet because he refused to actually smile in any of them, so he doesn't like them... ANYWAY... Oh, I do have a picture of Ian's sister-in-law, Heather, and his nephew, Jack. SO adorable! Plus Cosmo's in there, so that's always a plus...

But we've gone to a few...OH and Kimi and I went and saw Avatar in 3D. Um, wow. Definitely the best movie I've ever seen. (Not necessarily the best acting or story, but definitely the best movie). And I've seen a lot of movies. It was really just mind-blowing.

Oh, and you have to see the ring that I had made for Ian for his birthday. I rocks my socks off... Sorry it's blurry. It was really little in the picture I took it from. But you get the idea...

So, looking forward to another year of awesomeness.

:)

And looking forward to this weekend. It is sure to be full of surprises, fun times, and great experiences!

A Corn Maze and Other Things

So I did another movie. And it was insane. Just like every other movie. It was a little horror flick we filmed in Tremonton, Utah in 6 days. Yes folks, a feature in 6 days. I was the 1st AD. Quite exciting again :) It was great working with my friends again. I always enjoy that, although I do recall telling myself to avoid freezing cold shoots after I did the Snowmen movie last winter. So much for listening to myself. Oh well.

We shot pretty much all nights... some day stuff included. We had a small cast, which was awesome. And a small, but great, crew pretty much comprised of my college buddies. And we shall see how the whole thing turns out come next Halloween!

The fam is heading down to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving. We have some baptisms and a baby blessing to participate in, so that should be chock-full o' fun!

I guess another important event occurred in October... Nate got married. He and Robyn tied the knot on October 17. It was beautiful weather and generally great!
They went to Cancun for a week. Lucky.

Beyond that, life's been full of football, filming, fun...alliterations... just kidding. I'm sure I'll have some great stories from this week. More to come from the Asian Occasion. Hehe...

Halloween

SO, Ian and I dressed up as Belle and Gaston. And we looked fab. HAHA!

Halloween was great. We party hopped up and down the place. I think we hit four. That's kind of a lot. But it was great.... and I pretty much looked exactly like Belle (well as close as a half-Asian can look like a French provincial girl). Kimi's hairdo was awesome... and, of course, having the perfect Gaston helped a bit too :)

Mourning

I am mourning the loss of multiple things. My fish for one. He lived for so long! And he was doing so well! And then he just DIED! Well, okay, he was sick on Saturday and then he died, but generally he was doing so well... *sigh*

I am also mourning the loss of our top ten ranking for football. It was a sad, sad, day on Saturday. (altogether a bad day in terms of loss!) But alas, there is still hope. Kind of. We can still have a stellar remainder of the season. And it will be awesome.

On a happier note: I got a free fuf chair from the trade show I worked down in Vegas last week! It was rockin'. I mean, I won it playing guitar hero. How much cooler could it get?! And I'd never played guitar hero. I'd played rock band a total of once. And that's about it! And the guy said that if I beat him I could take whatever I wanted that wasn't sold out of the display room! Woot! And thus, the ugly colored, but highly comfortable camo fuf chair in my living room.

The end. For now.

Football

I'm so incredibly excited. Yesterday I scored a press pass to all of the home games for BYU (and probably whatever bowl game they go to!). I get to go into the press box, eat Tucanos...really, this is the life!

I love football.

I think that's pretty much going to be the gist of this post.

I love football.

And did I say I love football?

And the fact that the BYU v. Oklahoma game is tomorrow pretty much thrills me.

Star Trek

So, I don't know if you remember or not, but a while ago I posted about working on "UFO Hunters." Within that post I talked about how I was something of a nerd and obsessed with Star Trek growing up. Well, I think that phase has been reintroduced into my life. I saw Star Trek last night for the fourth time in theaters. It's true. And it is still awesome. You know that it's a good flick when you can watch it four times in a matter of months and still laugh at the funny parts and cry at the sad parts and be thoroughly engaged throughout.

J.J. Abrams is amazing, I really don't know how he did it. He stayed incredibly true to the Star Trek ideals and yet created this amazingly enthralling drama with completely different actors! I was talking to Kimi and we were discussing the difference in quality of the summer blockbusters, specifically Michael Bay's "Transformers" and "Star Trek." Both had equally great effects and action-packed adventures, but there was a seriously important element missing in Bay's film: humans and depth of character. That is my favorite part of Star Trek! I love it when a Hollywood blockbuster can not only use non-A-list (hah that's a lot of hypens) actors and make bank because the movie is so terrific AND have a meaningful film where there are stories within stories because of the characters, direction, and acting. I love it!

Star Trek rules. I'm a sci-fi nerd and a movie geek. And I'm cool with it...

Begin Again

So the school year officially started again in the Provo School District today, which means I could potentially begin substitute teaching again any day now (minus the fact that I'm working on a BYU Athletics video). Which is exciting in some ways. And not in some others.

I'm working on this BYU Athletics video, and I think we're going to be in need of some BYU student extras...so, you know, if you're interested, you can let me know!

Beyond that, one of the things I'm most excited for upcoming... FOOTBALL! Woot! Too bad I was lame and didn't get myself any tickets, I suppose I'll have to con them off someone or be okay watching on tv. *sigh*

Also something exciting: the fact that my little bro is getting married. Yup. On October 17. It's a little crazy. But it's fun.

Another something not quite so exciting: The fact that my cousin's wedding reception is on the 5th of September...yes, it's true. The opening game of BYU football and against Oklahoma no less! But alas...

That's about all the good news I can scrounge today. Maybe it will be better later. HAH!

SO JK

So just kidding about the whole posting in order... apparently the blogger extraordinaire didn't like my idea, and posted them backwards anyway... SO um... scroll down and read from the bottom up. I'm lame. I might fix it. I might not.

Enjoy anyway...

Tokyo and Nikko

So we headed to Shinjuku, got on the subway and went to the Hiro-o station where we promptly got off, got lost, and had no idea where we were going. Ah yes, it's like a metaphor, because where were we trying to get to? The temple of course.

So we felt fairly lost, because we didn't really get stellar directions. And we started walking and there! There beside us was the Church HQ in Japan... but alas it was 5:15 and all was locked up. Still at square one. Eventually we figured out where the park was that was supposed to be near, and lo and behold, there was Moroni. Yes. It's true.

So we went to the temple that evening. We met a couple who was actually from Ogden serving there. Weird. The Ito family. They actually knew my math teacher from high school... the wife was actually her cousin... and my PE teacher. Yeah it was all really too weird.

But it was really cool to do baptisms in Japan and hear it all done in Japanese.

We met up with the Kuwaharas there, Doraina's mission comp Tomoko and her family. We stayed with them for the next few days. They were AWESOME! Love them so much!

So we ended up staying in Saitma which is a suburb of Tokyo.

The next day Doraina and I went into Tokyo and went to the Tokyo National Museum.

Oh look...one of the buildings at the Tokyo National Museum. Imagine that. It was really cool with a bunch of neat artifacts.


After that we had an adventure in Kabuki. So we waited at the theater for about two hours to get $10 tickets...


But it was worth it. It was SO awesome. Especially the end murder scene... grisly I know, but awesome nonetheless.


The big gate in Tokyo. We went there late, so everything was closed in Asakusa.


The entrance into Edo Wonderland... the theme park of ancient Tokyo in the city of Nikko.


More Edo...


This was the water show... this is mild... water was coming out of everything by the end.


This is the ninja show. Bad picture. Cool show.


Geisha show. It was a comedy, but had a lot of dialogue, so it was a little hard to follow.


Streets of an ancient village... just kidding. It's still the theme park. But it looks real, eh?


More streets. This is where The Last Samurai was filmed. Tom Cruise walked here. Wash your feet haha.


Me killing this dude. He asked for it. Really and literally.


Cool trees!

So the last couple days we spent with the Kuwahara family. We went to the ward there and it was great! They were so kind and the RS President was actually from Utah, so she translated the entire three hours. It was so nice of her!

We drove to Narita the next day and ate Japanese style Ramen (so good) and flew home. Woot!

The end. Finally. It was long. I know.

Hakone

So on our way from Hiroshima to Tokyo we stopped at a little resort/spa town called Hakone. This is where we stayed at a Japanese Ryokan (traditional inn) and ate a beautiful spread of amazing food... most of which I didn't like because I'm not the biggest fan of seafood. But Doraina liked it enough for both of us, so it was great.


Being Japanese in our yukatas. Quite comfortable!


Our shoes. Cute eh?


Me in the full garb in our room.


To preface this: we went to the Hakone Open Air Art Museum the next day as we headed to Tokyo. So the next group of pictures are some of the things we saw there. This was really cool, as you can see from the picture. But the thing you can't see is the stream of water that trickles from her lower eye into the pool. Really neat.


This was on a hill, and looked really cool.


Some statues.


The koi in the pond that thought we were going to feed them or something. Just like my fish flick...huh...it must be a goldfish thing.


This is the outside of the building. Kind of ugly, no?


This is the inside of that ugly building! So beautiful!


Japanese Maple tree.


Haha. So we ran across this statue in the grass kind of by mistake. I walked past it, and then I stopped, took a glance back and started laughing my head off. Yeah. It's that funny.


This was an homage to dance. It was pretty cool. The black are males, the red females.


There was this Chinese family in the ropeway car with us. The kid has on a Monsters Inc. hard hat. I thought it was the funniest, but cutest, thing ever!


The hot pots/sulfur springs we flew over on the ropeway.


The European-style Man of War ships that we rode across Lake Ashi. Yeah. All the pirate statues were European. It was funny. But the boats were really cool!


Me with the "Japanese" pirate captain.


This dude always looked like he was shooting people. We spent most of the time up here with him on the top deck.


Us!


The other ship. I thought this was a pretty neat shot.


A group of cute school kids. We saw a TON of these groups while we were there!


Beautiful Mt. Fuji! Too bad that dumb cloud wouldn't move EVER!

After that we headed back to Hakone and got on a train to Shinjuku station, Tokyo!