the Shinoda Family

Until We Meet Again

2011-11-02T12:22:00.000-07:00

Grandpa Bill you will be sorely missed. We love you.

Pregnant in a Singles' Ward ~ Goodbye 195th Ward

2010-09-20T20:37:00.000-07:00

So Mark threatened to put in the Sacrament program that I was pregnant. Instead I go up and bear my testimony and talk about getting pregnant. The Stake President was there that day. Bad move! Yesterday Mark got released from the Bishopric. Granted we've been there longer than we're supposed to be, and they're doing this to help us more than anything else, but I'm still so sad about this whole thing! We're not in the ward, so it's not like we're still going to see everyone like in a normal situation. We're gone! I cried all day because I love these people so much and we're no longer going to be with them.

Just know 195th ward, you're always welcomed to our home and we're always available to help you with anything you need. Thank you for the past 18 months. We love you.

To the Sea

2010-08-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

Mark convinced me to get Jack Johnson tickets. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like Jack Johnson because I LOVE Jack Johnson, but I just didn't want to stand up all night and seats are expensive. He explained that it's at the USANA amphitheatre and they have grass seats. Well great! I'll sit next to the pot smokers and it'll be all good. We went with Taylor and Math and we get our tickets at Will Call. We all have our jackets and blankets bundled up and we look at the tickets--"PIT" Wha... Mark and Taylor are ecstatic at this point. Me? I'm 10 weeks preggers and I'm supposed to be in the Pit? yeah... Where are my grass seats?!

Mark and Taylor take everything back to the car and me and Math hold our places in line. We're there so early to get good grass spots, but now we end up sitting on the cement in front of the stage waiting for hours. We buy t-shirts, and I'm starving so I get a huge plate of Nachos. We make friends with the guard wearing a Steelers lanyard. We hear screaming coming from the side of the stage. What's going on? The screaming goes on for about an hour before Taylor and Mark go and see what's going on. Jack is having a concert on the side just for fun! We take turns going to see him while everyone else is sitting lamely in front of the stage holding their spots. Suckers!

The concert was amazing. There were huge tv screens behind him showing artistic camera shots of him. He sounds AMAZING live, and we all sang along the whole time. A few hooker faces showed up and forced their way in front of us and were disgusting and hookerish the whole time. They were there for probably half an hour before we harassed them enough that they moved on. It was so much better when they left.

Mark sang Angel in my ear when Jack sang it which was beautiful and touching, and Jack even gave us 2 encores. It was so much fun and even though I had to go to the back of the Pit and just sit a few times, it was worth it to be so close to the stage. What an amazing night!! (Minus the hour (literally) it took to get out of the parking lot, but why talk about that?) It was my first concert and Baby's first concert, yes I'm counting it. That's my choice.

Before the concert started. Look how close we are! I tried really hard to pretend like the sun wasn't blinding me. My retinas are still feeling it.

He was literally having a side concert. It was so cool!

We were so close!

The screens were a piece of artistic genius.

We're so lucky to have so many great experiences!

Ultrasound!

2010-08-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

We went to our first doctor's appointment today and we got to get an ultrasound! I don't think either of us thought that we'd get one this soon, but low and behold here we are!

Apparently our baby is already "cute" says the ultrasound tech. I'm not sure what she sees that I don't, but if "cute" is what it is, then cute is what it is. Currently the little tyke is the size of a gummy bear. I guess "cute" as in gummy bear makes sense.. I mean how cute is a gummy bear right? Anyway. Our experience was interesting.

The actual appointment with the doctor was great! The nurses and staff were super happy and everyone just kept saying "Congratulations!" and stuff. It's all so positive and uplifiting! Then we went to get our ultrasound. We had to wait for someone else to get out which was fine, we just sat and waited. They were in there for a while, so I thought that we'd be in there for a while too! Well no.

The lady got pretty upset with me. I asked the doc if I could film it with my camera and he said Of course. So I go in there and think that I'll be able to film it. She tell me no, that the doc has no idea what he's talking about and it's against the law.. well ok then. I still wanted to record something so I turn my camera from film to sound record. I start recording the heart beat and she catches me and throws me this look. So I stop it. Then it's over, she says it's cute and she walks out leaving me lying there with jelly on my belly. "Do you think she's coming back Mark?" "Nope." So I clean myself up and we leave. Nice bedside manners huh? Oh well, Baby's fine and that's all I can ask for.

Carrie UnderWho?

2010-07-05T19:44:00.000-07:00

This year we didn't have a family connection for free Stadium of Fire tickets, but we scored some good free ones from work! The star of the night? Carrie Underwood! She was awesome! Although Mark and I don't know her music very well, I was so surprised how awesome she sounded live! It was truly wonderful!

Sadly the highlight of the night was someone caught on fire to the left of us.... On the field they had fireworks set up on different stands around the arena. The one to our left misfired and instead of firing straight up into the air it shanked and went straight into the stands. A girl's hair caught on fire, and a man's pants caught on fire and he had to roll around on the ground to put it out. The weird thing was that the response of the helpers on the field were so slow. Either no one saw it right away or they were all just in awe that something that horrible was happening. They were able to put him out, but someone must have gotten fired for that.. it was awful.

Besides that horrible horrible mess, the fireworks were amazing! We weren't as close to the stage this year as we were last year, but that ended up being a good thing because we weren't covered in ash at the end of it all.

Beautiful and talented!

The fireworks were absolutely gorgeous!

The stadium was literally on fire!

I was surprised at how low the fireworks came. Especially after the guy caught fire, it made me pretty apprehensive.

We're so adorable. We had been tanning all summer. I think you can tell with me.. maybe not Mark. :)

I'm not Raggu! I'M PREGGO!!!

2010-06-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

YUP!

So.. I had an inkling that I was before we went to California, but I took a test and it was negative. It was too soon before my missed period for the test to really take effect. This is how I knew.

Mark and I were at work and we ate lunch together. They served pork chops. Generally I'm a pork fan, but that day after I ate it I felt absolutely horrible! I went straight to the bathroom and felt like I was going to puke! Oh Oh! Straight after work I went to the store and bought a 2-pack pregnancy test. With my hand shaking I peed on the stick (Too graphic? Then you can stop reading! It's my story!) "YES"! Well that's not an ambiguous line now is it? What to do now?! Mark wasn't home and I'm home alone in an emotional wreck! I always joked with him that I would just post it on our blog and wait for him to find out :) but now that I'm actually in the situation what to do?

I ended up calling him and telling him on the phone. I couldn't wait for him to get home so I had to call! Conversation went a little something like this "Honey, I just took a pregnancy test and it was positive." "Really?" "Yeah." "Oh, ok." "Um... yeah." "Ok, well I'll see you at home in a little bit.... How do you feel?" "I'm freakin' out right now!" "Really?" "Yeah." "Oh, ok, well I love you." "Love you too." Then I started crying. Why? I have no idea!

So that's how I told him. Not as imaginative as how I thought I'd do it, but there it is. Although I did imagine how wonderful it would be to see his surprised face when he walked in and me just holding this pink little stick... oh well. When he got home he told me to take another. HAH! I love his practicality. Not like we were preventing this from happening or anything, it just happened really really soon after we decided we would stop preventing it.. you know? Anyway.. I took another one just for him and made him watch so he knew I wasn't kidding :) (I may of may not have joked in the past that I would get a pregnant woman to take a test for me and take it home...) Well now he knows!

My first test.

The fist and second.

I'll say it for you-- Congratulations! Hey, thanks!

Another Fathers' Day in California

2010-06-20T18:58:00.000-07:00

We're so lucky Mark's family lives so close! We got to go to California for Fathers' Day and spend a weekend with them. On the way down we picked up Grandpa Bill and we took our merry journey. While we were there we went on a fishing trip. I had only gone deep sea fishing one other time before, but this used to be a Fathers' Day tradition for the Shinoda family.

While we were on the boat there were hundreds of dolphins all over! I'm not exaggerating. They kept coming up to the boat and swimming along side us. We would keep going and find another pod of dolphins after another pod after another. We have some great pictures of the dolphins.

They were literally everywhere you looked around in the ocean.

I don't know if we just smelt really good with all the sardines on board, but the dolphins kept coming up to us! It was like a sightseeing boat ride instead of a fishing trip.

That white corner of the picture is the boat, so they were literally swimming with us!

The sardines.

So.. I got a bit sick all morning on the boat, so I have no pictures of people actually fishing.. yeah I know.. Anyway, at the end of the morning we had so much sardines left! There were birds that kept flying around the boat so I told Mark's little cousin Ally to throw they up at them.

Mark actually threw one perfectly and the fish ate it before it hit the water. The boat crew were pretty upset with us actually... something about us having to pay for all the extra bait.. but it was a once in a lifetime experience! (and we weren't paying anyway :) )

Mark's Birthday!

2010-05-18T18:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I need a reason to be creative. This time it was Mark's birthday. I decided that I wanted to surprise him at work with a little treat. I was thinking about what I could do and I decided that everyone would love some icecream after lunch, so that's what I decided to do. But icecream is so boring in just a paper bowl right? Right! So I decided to make chocolate bowls to put a scoop of icecream in.

I can't take credit for this piece of supreme genius. I totally stole this off of another person's blog, but moral of the story is that it worked and it was so super cool to make!

Here's what you do. You melt candy melts in the microwave and let it sit and cool for a little bit. Then you melt some chocolate and drizzle it on top of the melted candy melts. Then you dip in a balloon, let it drain off, place it on a sheet tray of wax paper, and stick it in the fridge to harden. It only takes about 10 minutes. Poke a small hole at the top of the balloon and let the air leave. The balloon will pull away from the candy melts and you'll have a wonderful chocolate marbling as a decoration. So Easy right?! Here's what it looks like.

My refrigerator looked so fun!

I used water balloons. So hard to blow up, but the perfect size!

The balloons just pull away from the candy. It's magical.

Close up.

Stylish right?! And soooo easy!

Everyone loved it! The only downside was that I made these the day before and Mark couldn't go in the fridge at all. So basically if he needed anything I had to go in the fridge for him and get it. Oh well, it was a good surprise, so it was all worth it!

Mark's so easy to please some times. I asked him what he wanted to eat for his birthday the week before and all he said was miso soup. So I made him miso soup from scratch. I basically made him miso soup from scratch every day for 2 weeks! Love him.

Small Beginnings

2010-04-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

So, we're moving. No I'm not telling you where we're moving to! Stalker!!

Why are we moving? Our place is too small. We've been here for 2 years and want a change. And we don't have air conditioning and it's hot! We made it through last Summer, but we were just married so our love made it easier to handle, but now we're realistic and it's freakin' hot here! I'm sorry for the people who bought our contract... I didn't tell them that there was no air conditioning. I still feel quite bad about that, but we need to get out of here!

Our place is so tiny, I made Mark go around and take pictures of it to show our kids some day. It's a one bedroom/one bath in Union Square. A small little kitchen in it's own little nook with no window, so basically the fire alarm goes off when I cook because the smoke and steam have nowhere to go! There's a swamp cooler in the bedroom, so basically we didn't like being anywhere else but the bedroom in the Summer! We'd even watch tv shows online just so we could have cool air on us.

For my future children--here's where we started our little family. May you be luckier than us in the future. :)

Our tiny little kitchen. Big enough for Mark and I, but not much else.

When we first moved in I tried cooking banana bread. The first time it just burned and I thought I just needed to get used to the oven. Tried it again, same thing. Couldn't be a coincidence! I called the office and the maintenance man came. He turned on the oven and left a thermometer in there and noticed that it never stopped getting hotter, it just kept increasing. We got a brand new stove/oven :) How did the people before us live??

The living room was so tiny. You couldn't really move the furniture or anything. It was probably 10' x 10'. On to bigger and better things.

The sink was outside of the shower. It was nice having that. No foggy mirrors and least!

Shower and toilet. You had just enough room to sit down and close the door. Poor Mark.

Walk in closet. Quite nice actually.

Bedroom/Office. We got a new bed almost as soon as we moved in which was nice.

I don't know what prices will be like in the future, but this cost us $585 a month when we first moved in, then they raised the price to $595, and we heard right before we left that they were going to increase the rent price another $20... glad we left when we did!

Single Awareness Day.. Not for us Suckers!

2010-02-14T21:37:00.000-08:00

So there's not much to write about Valentine's Day. Mark and I decided that we wouldn't really celebrate it. Then I realized it was on Sunday, and I could be nice and make treats for everyone in the Bishopbric. So that's what I did. I made chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate covered braided twists, chocolate topped rice krispies and peppermint bark (Mark's favorite).

While I was in the shower getting ready for church I heard the front door open. That's weird I thought, Mark's already in his meetings. I got out and on the bed was a huge box from Mrs Fields. It was a huge cookie! Mark can be cute when he wants to be. What's funny is that every Valentine's Day Mark gets me something that he actually wants. He loves cookies and I'm not their biggest fan. Last year he gave me a caramel heart and he loves caramel! Next year I'll get a video game, I can just feel it!

Since it was my Valentine's Day present Mark said I had to take the first bite. Why not make it a big one?!

Driver, take me to Matsumotos!

2010-01-17T21:16:00.000-08:00

When we got back to Oahu we knew that we needed to spend time with Erin and her roomies. Not having a car, Hawaii seems pretty lame to them, so we decided to take them around and experience the island.

While we were there Mark really wanted to walk around BYU-H campus. Apparently it was some sort of big brother thing, so Erin took us on a tour. While on our tour Mark and I took a picture of this gem. Skateboards aren't allowed inside the library, so yes, of course you should make a skateboard rack! What? Yes, a skateboard rack. You saw it first here folks.

Hawaiian ingenuity and it's finest.

After classes we took Erin and Co to the different beaches along the North Shore to look at the huge waves. This is Sunset.

The waves are so disastrous to the beaches. Because the waves are so big and so powerful, as the wave recedes it takes the shoreline with it. Imagine that whole area filled with sand, that's how it's supposed to be. Trucks will have to dump more sand into the area to refill it.

This is Sharks Cove. The waves and swells were crazy! You can't really see it, but the tiny 2 bumps toward the right side of that rock are people. That's just a size gauge for that white wash!

The next day we took everyone to Matsumotos. Hawaiian shave ice baby! Mark loves it, and if I ever wanted to move back to Oahu, this would be my leverage.

Apparently this is a Shinoda thing... when a sibling is missing they put a gap inbetween them to make space for the missing person... I guess they missed you Emi!

We also took them to Buffalo Wild Wings that day! On another day we took them to Walmart, and shopping at Waikele and ate at a Korean restaurant.

*Parents of these children: We accept checks written out to us, or cash. Gift cards may be accepted,with approval only.

So back to these waves. This was the sign on the beach at Pipeline. Crazy stuff guys. Below is a short clip at Sharks Cove of the waves hitting the rock. HUGE! At least 20 feet high if not 30. Oh Hawaii, how I miss you.

Hilo! GrandmaGrandpaFarmVolcanoesBJ Penn

2010-01-12T20:48:00.000-08:00

After my brother's reception Mark and I got to take my grandparents back to their home on the Big Island. This time we were in Hilo! It was an interesting trip through the airport! My grandparents were both in wheelchairs all through the airport. I had never had to take anyone through with a wheelchair. We checked their 1 bag and went to wait at the gate. Mark and I originally were going to go on a flight before theirs because their flight was full when we booked ours, and wait for them to get to the Hilo airport. While we were waiting though, the said that our flight had seats open for anyone who wanted to go on an earlier flight. Fantastic right?? Wrong. Grandpa's bag didn't make it onto the earlier flight, so we had to wait at the airport until the other flight came in! What's the point. Anyway. We got our car and went on our merry way. Mark was very nervous driving us all in the rental.
Here's Mark next to a portion of the farm. Grandma and Grandpa are in their 80s and they're still farming, just not as much as they used to.

They live so remotely that they don't have a plumbing system and so they have to live off of rain water. Every time I flushed the toilet I felt like I was using a weeks worth of their supply! This huge wooden tank is what hold their water.

This is their little house. I think my Grandpa built it himself too. So old, but sturdy. Just like them I think.

The road to their house. It's the same in the other direction. How you know to turn I have no idea. Good thing we weren't by ourselves getting there.

They live near Kileaua, the only active volcano in Hawaii. At the National Park they have these steam vents. This is steam coming from the lava underground! When you looked around everything was steaming. It was slightly eerie, but so cool.

This next picture is the caldera. It's still smoking! Crazy to think that it the volcano actually erupted we would've been the first to die.
They also had a lava tube that you could walk through. A lava tube is created when the lava runs though an area and melts the rock down and creates a tube. The lava either stops, or finds another path, leaving a tunnel where it used to run. This is an extinct tube.

Mark in the tube.

We drove down the whole area all the way from the top of the volcano down to the water. Mark thought that he would be able to see actual lava. Me being practical knew that they wouldn't let people into that dangerous of a situation, so Mark was slightly unhappy that he didn't get to see anything.

When we got home Grandma had a huge lunch planned. Now we feel bad that we only stayed 1 night with them. Next time we'll stay longer. Promise Grandma!
One of the last things we did before getting on another plane back to Oahu was look for BJ Penn's training center. Mark was all excited to go and find it, but when we finally got there he didn't want to go in! Probably embarrassed, but it's ok, it was still cool to find it.

Now back to Oahu! So much traveling!

What the Car in the Ocean?

2010-01-12T20:07:00.000-08:00

Our flight got into Oahu late at night.

While we were driving along the very windy road home you won't believe what happened! Here's the backdrop. It's 10 at night, a we're following a very windy road that follows very closely along the Pacific ocean. There are 2 cards ahead of us. The road is S shaped and the first car in the line does not follow the S, but goes completely straight and falls head first off a 4 foot ledge and into the ocean. The truck in front of us doesn't stop! It just kept going!!

I wasn't watching what was going on, but I saw the headlights go down and flip around. My brother Simon stops the car and pushes my other brother Solomon out of the car yelling GO! Solomon didn't see it either, he just thought that it was an old car in the ocean so he was confused, but Simon pushed him out and he understood. While Simon called 911 Solomon jumped over the edge and ran to the car. Luckily it was low tide, so the car wasn't under water. The car at this time was tittering on it's side, the drivers side. Solomon tried to get into the car through the drivers side window, and then I see the feet. There was a set of feet poking out of the window onto the sand.

Solomon couldn't get the door open. At this point 3 other cars and stopped and ran to help. Solomon jumped onto the top of the car (the passengers side) and tried pulling open the door. It was locked. He yelled at the guy to unlock the door. He did after about 20 seconds. Solomon yanks open the door and smoke comes pouring out. What comes out of the smoke? Hands holding up a little girl that looked around 2 years old!!! Are you serious?! And she's bleeding from her head!

(While all this is going on, Mark and I are standing on the road and I'm shaking like crazy with shock) When I see the little girl I go over to the ledge and open my arms to receive her, but by then Solomon helped her dad out of the car and she was yelling at the top of her lungs for him! They both get out of the ocean and climb up the ledge and the little girl is put on the trunk of someones car and we wait for the paramedics.

The cops and ambulance come 5 minutes later. The dad and daughter get whisked away to the hospital about 30 minutes later. The mother was working just across the street and he was going to pick her up. He kept saying that he fell asleep at the wheel, but one of the other guys that helped him said that he wreaked of alcohol. Right when the ambulance was starting to leave the mother comes out to see them. She talks to them for a minute and leaves. My brothers give their statements and we're on our way home again. On the news there was a 5 second mention on if, but that's it. It seemed like something way more worthy of 5 seconds that's for sure.

I forgot all about this until now. In the pictures you can't really see the water, but know that the water is there.

Reception and Beach!

2010-01-10T20:37:00.000-08:00

So the main reason that we went to Hawaii this time was for Jared's wedding.

Mckenna wearing the traditional haku at the reception

Dad and Mckayla

Mark finally bonded with Mckayla!

But we also got to have time to ourselves! Mark and I only got to go to the beach to tan once. Every other day the tide and waves were crazy! While I wanted to lay down and tan, mark wanted to build a sand castle.

I made Erin into a mermaid. The cutest mermaid with the smallest fins!

The photographer!

Hawaiian Getaway

2010-01-10T19:28:00.000-08:00

Mark and I spent 2 days in Utah after our California Christmas before we set off for Hawaii for another 10 days! I know, we have a tough life and I bet you wouldn't want to wear our shoes. Oh well! We're just lucky that we had saved enough PTO to take the trips!

We went to Hawaii for my brother Jared's wedding. Since the Laie Temple is closed, we had to go to the Big Island for the wedding. The hotel we stayed at was great! There was an outdoor restaurant that stood on pillars only and had water running all underneath it. It was very very nice!

It was amazing, there were turtles everywhere!

While we were there the surf was really big, so we weren't allowed to go in the water (I tried and got yelled at by guests and staff, it was really irritating, but I'm trying to forget that dark mark on our stay and remember just just wonderful aspects).

The wedding was at the Kona Temple. On our way to the temple I realize that I didn't have my temple recommend! What?! So it took half an hour until I was actually able to get in. At least I made it on time and we got to be there. whew!

My family with my new sister!

While Jared and Lisa were taking their pictures, we got to play with my nieces. My niece Mckenna is so afraid of Mark, it's ridiculous. For one brief glimmer, Mckenna and Mark actually had a moment of mutual friendship. And the best part is we got it on film!

"I want to see the horses" - Mckenna
"You can't go by yourself, someone has to take you." - Dad
"Who?" - Mckenna
"Uncle Mark!" - Everyone

Smiles!

Duck Duck Goose - over and over and over!

When everyone else left to go back to Oahu to get the reception ready, Mark and I were still in Kona! We had to check out of the hotel, and we had half a day still left before out flight. What to do?! Mark found a Hawaiian temple online and wanted to drive to it. Since I grew up in Hawaii I didn't think much of it, but Mark thought it was going to be some huge Pyramid... I have no idea why he thought that. Anyway, it was a good hours drive all the way up the island, through Hawaiian lava rock dessert and no good radio stations. When we finally got Mark was confused. Is this really it? Where's the temple? It was hilarious! Of course I had to take a picture of him with his Hawaiian temple.

Yup, that's wall of stone is the temple.

They had a little visitors center and one of the interactive things there was this stone. This stone that Mark is lifting would have been just one of the thousands of stones that make up the temple. They made a huge human chain from the water (where the stones were) to the temple and passed this huge stones until the temple was complete. I could only lift the small stone.

On to Oahu!

Family Photos!

2010-01-06T19:02:00.000-08:00

Like I said in my last post, I was going to show our family photos! It's interesting to see the difference between Mark's family and mine. Mark's family actually wants to do these kinds of things, but mine doesn't really. Mark's family friend is a photographer and took these pictures. She brought her young son along who wasn't very happy to be there. Usually I have no problem smiling for pictures, but for me smiling is difficult when there's an unhappy child there and fussing every 5 minutes. Oh well, it was fun and the pictures are cute.

The Family

The Girls!

The Guys

This one's my favorite

The Siblings

Sometimes it's fun to be a Shinoda and this day was one of those days!

Christmas in California!

2009-12-31T18:30:00.000-08:00

So it's recently come to our attention that we haven't kept up our blog, not that it really matters since no one really reads our blog, but for the 2 or 3 people that read it, here you go!

REWIND! yes it's March, but so much has happened since we last posted that we have to go back in time.

December 2009:
For Christmas and New Year we took off 10 days and went to California to spend the holidays with Mark's family. Tiffany's brother Solomon got to come down with us and spend Christmas with us. It was great! It was Tiffany's first Christmas away from home (!) something we didn't realize until we were there. Mark's family was so cute they got a lighted palm tree as their Christmas tree and decorating it fully with Hawaiian decorations--fish, Hawaiian words (Aloha, Mahalo), and even finished it off with a sand pail full of sand straight from Pipeline! Erin goes to school at BYU-Hawaii and brought it back with her. It was a great surprise! Tiffany and Solomon both rolled their eyes slightly at the fake "Hawaiian" style, but loved and appreciated it.

Cute fish ornaments!

Lighted palm tree

Sand from Pipeline

Christmas Eve we had the Cannon family over and their parents, and Mark's parents got together and hid rolled up $10 bills in one of their Christmas trees. All the kids lined up and had 10 seconds to find one of the $10 bills. I find mine easily, but Mark couldn't. Of all people Mark couldn't find the money!! Surprise surprise to everyone in the room!

The best part of Christmas morning was Mark's dad coming out into the living room dressed up in a full on red outfit from top to bottom. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen and took tons of pictures. Apparently he does this every Christmas morning. Maybe I'll get used to this in the future, but until then I'm going to take pictures every time!

Mark got a bunch of Japanese handkerchiefs in his stocking and his dad decided that it was a bandana and put it on his head. I started laughing so hard because he looked like a Japanese house wife or Aunt Jemima's Japanese sister. Loved it!

For Mark's mom's Christmas present we all chipped in for family pictures. My next blog will show off those pictures. The last thing that we got to do before we left warm, sunny California was go to Mark's cousin Blaire's basketball game. We only got to stay til half time (sad!) because we had a flight to catch, but it was fun!

Erin and I made signs!

Oh California how we love to visit.

Just A Little Funny

2009-11-03T06:28:00.000-08:00

So after Mark and I found out that the estimate to fix our car would be $2,384 I was really bumbed out. 1) because we can't afford that, 2) our car isn't even worth that much. I got back into work and was on the verge of having an emotional break down when I got this email from a coworker. There were a ton of these little pictures, but this one made me laugh so hard I knew that I had to share it with the world (or at least the few people who actually read this blog).

Even now I'm still laughing.

I've joined the club...

2009-10-31T17:23:00.000-07:00

So... yesterday I got into a car accident. I've now officially joined the club of non-perfect driving records. I've still never gotten a speeding ticket, so knock on wood I guess.

This is the story:

It's 4:15pm, freezing cold and I don't have a coat. Instead I'm dressed as a Pirate because I dressed up for work that day. After stopping off at the pharmacy I started driving home. We were only going 20 mph through a stop light. We went one block into a residential intersection.

This is what the girl driving the car I hit told me: The car in front of her moved into the turning lane but didn't move all the way into the lane. She tried to pass the car on the right hand side, but there was a car that was in the intersection too far. She stopped so she didn't hit that car, and I slammed on my breaks.

For some reason I didn't slow down and I slammed into her bumper. After telling Mark's cousin about it, I realized that my breaks locked and that's why I didn't slow down after hitting my breaks. I didn't even know that could happen.

We pull off to the side of the road in the feezing rain, realize that we both have never been in a car accident, and then call our husbands. While we're on the phone I see her go up to her car and wipe off her bumper. Some of our paint transferred onto their car, but as soon as she wiped off her car we find out that nothing happened to her car. Our car, on the otherhand, was another story. The hood got folded up a bit and the front of the car was smashed up a little. We find out that we both live in the same apartment complex so we decide to leave the site and go to the complex. (yeah, I know)

Mark told me to call the Provo Police, so I did that and we waited for the cop to show up. The cop was an idiot. I'm glad that this wasn't a bad accident or else I would've died before he even showed up. He passed us like 5 times before I could waive him down. He got there and asked if anyone was hurt (no one was thank goodness), looked at are cars and said that no report needed to be filed because we weren't hurt and there was less than $1,000 worth of damages (thank goodness again). He told us that the worst thing to do is to leave the incident site.. so us leaving was the worst idea. He also said that we wouldn't have to go through our insurance companies unless we wanted to, which we opted not to do.

After we exchanged info I drove to the mechanics.

Here are pictures of our car.

Not the worst that could have happened that's for sure.

----------------------------

While all this was going on with me, this is what Mark was doing. Mark had changed shifts with his coworker so he was actually at work when this happened. I had to call our company's receptionist, get transfered to his department and then ask to be transfered to him. Luckily he wasn't on a long call, and luckily his supervisor understood and Mark got to leave work early. We had committed to babysit for Mark's cousin and I was supposed to be there at 5 to be with the baby. Mark had to go up to their house, get the car seat installed, figure out how to drive their car (it's complicated), get all the baby bag/stroller stuff together, and then drive down to be with me. By the time Mark learned how to drive the car I was already at the mechanics.

----------------------------

So I'm ok. All I have is a sore lower back. This was a great learning experience for me. Although I feel like a horrible human being for getting into this situation, I'm just glad that I'm ok and that I've learned a lot from the situation.

The mechanic took a look at the engine and took the car for a drive and said that everything is ok. They aren't even going to charge us for the inspection. :) Now we just need to take our car to a body shop to get the exterior taken care of. I definitely feel very blessed.

Stadium of Fire!

2009-07-05T15:56:00.001-07:00

Mark and I scored some free tickets to Stadium of Fire this year!! (Thanks Jeremy and Christina!) Our seats were awesome. This was our view.

To start off the night 4 F16 airplanes flew across the stadium and after we sang the national anthem, 2 black hawk helicopters flew by and around the flag.

The entertainment for the night was SHeDAISY and the Jonas Brothers. SHeDAISY was good, but the crowd went completely wild when the Jonas Brothers came out. All you could here for the fist half an hour was teenage girls screaming their hearts out. You should have heard the crowd when one of the brothers said, "We love you." Holy earsplitting screaming!

The best part of the Jonas Brother's act was when they told all the parents to get up and dance while they sang Sweet Caroline, and then told them "Go wild! ...but don't hurt yourselves." It was great. Even more fantastic than that would have to be all the teenage girls singing their hearts out while semi crying because this meant the world to them. It was, in a word, fantastic.

At the end of the night they retired the gigantic flag by putting it in a huge oven thing and lighting it on fire. It was pretty cool. It burnt like a huge candle. This flag was first made a looooong time ago, and then during the Olympics in Utah they used the same flag to hang up in Salt Lake. It was time to retire it I guess.

The best part, and the part that we were looking forward to the most, was the fireworks!! Here's a little clip of just a few of the fireworks that were lit. Mark and I had watched the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire for 2 years sitting on the grass away from the Stadium and now we actually got to see if first hand! The only part that we didn't like about it, was that we had ash and debris falling on us the whole time....

Can You Say "RELIEVED"?!?!

2009-05-25T07:34:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning at 4:30 needing to throw up. I've been having this throw up feeling all week, every morning and every night. Needless to say this got me thinking that I could be pregnant. Well this morning was the breaking point for me. I wanted to leave early this morning just to go to the store and pick up a pregnancy test to see what was up, but I thought Mark would be worried if he found that I wasn't there. SO I waited. I stayed up for an hour just thinking about "what if I were pregnant?" And started to FREAK OUT!! As much as I talk about wanting to have a baby the thought truly scares me. A million things ran through my head and I could picture Mark being just as scared if I found out that I was.

So when Mark left for the gym this morning I went to Smiths and bought a pregnancy test. I initially thought I should tell him about this, but I'm a very private person, even with Mark about some things, and so I wanted to do this alone. Plus, Mark never reads this blog, so at the back of my mind I thought it would be really funny that I would go through all of this and they only way he would know that this happened was if someone else read this blog and called him. I can really picture his face then, and I think it would be quite hilarious. :)

After I meticulously read the instructions I took the test and saw this.

YEA ONE LINE!!! Can you feel my relief?!?! Whew!!

Don't get me wrong, we still want to have children, but it's one thing to have a surprise, and another to start when you feel ready. Obviously I'm not completely there yet!

On a random note, I got this video from my sister. It's my brother making his baby girl Mckayla laugh. I love it. :)

Markie's Birthday!!

2009-05-19T18:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Markie's birthday :) I bought gifts for him weeks before and surprised him in the morning with them. We need to take pictures of him wearing his new clothes. We did a fashion show today, but I forgot to snap pictures! Needless to say, he looked stunning in the clothes I picked out for him.

Mark's dad called me up and wished me a Happy Birthday. He said that since we're married now, I get 50% of all the gifts that Markie gets. Both he and I had bought Markie suits recently, so I'm taking the coat and Big Mark is taking the pants. Good deal.

Besides my awesome gift giving skills, his birthday was also celebrated with cupcakes, and dinner at Outback with some of our bestest buddies here in Utah. We were missing Nora, Britney, and Matt though. :( Maybe next year we'll have them there with us, and since everyone is either pregnant or already has kids (besides us) we'll have our party at Chuck-e-Cheese. :) Fun times.

On our way to the restaurant Mark told me that Tim had a surprise gift that he bought from a dirty prank store. I told him if it was furry, smelly, or elephantesk that it was going straight into the trash. So far I haven't found out what it is because Tim didn't bring it to dinner with him. We'll see what happens.

Miracles DO Happen!!

2009-05-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

Mark GRADUATED from Utah Valley University Friday, May 01, 2009!!!

This weekend was a bit of dejavu for us. Almost exactly a year ago I graduated from BYU, and then we were married. This year Mark has just graduated and now it's our anniversary!!

We're very proud of Mark for all the years of hard work that he's put in to getting his degree. It's definitely been a long road for him, but now we can see the finish line and it is BEAUTIFUL!! He has his capstone class to take during Spring/Summer and then he's officially done!

The keynote speaker was President Thomas S Monson, the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He talked about 3 key things that the graduating students could do in starting out their future.

1) Glance Bakwards
2) Reach Outward
3) Press Forward

It was a fantastic talk and will probably come out in every church publication soon. Utah Valley University also gave Honorary degrees to President Monson and his wife Frances. It was so sweet because after they both got their robes put on them, President Monson gave Frances a kiss. It was really sweet. :)

Both of his counselors were there as well. Oh, and just in case you were wondering what kind of phone President Eyring has, he has an iPhone. :) He was having his bodyguard take pictures of himself with his wife, President Uchtdorf, and Sister Uchtdorf. That's just my little plug in for the iPhone. :)

Mark's mom, dad, and both grandpas (Jimmy and Bill) were able to come up to Utah to see him walk. It was a busy weekend. Thursday night we went to Red Robin to eat dinner. Friday was the commencement at 10:30 and then convocation the same day at 2:30. In between we went to Burger Supreme for lunch.

Side note: He broke our family tradition of eating at KFC on graduation day :( (he's obviously too good for KFC)
After Convocation we picked up Tucanos catering and had a family get together at his cousin's house. Sooo good!!! If there's one thing the Shinoda family does well, it's food.

Saturday we ate at Callie's cafe, went to Tai Pan to check out the competition, ate J-dawgs, took a tour of the Valley, look at houses at Midway, and ate dinner at Happy Sumo. It was definitely a busy day, but a great day. :)

Whom the Lord Calls He Qualifies

2009-04-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

Markie just got sustained today to be the 2nd Counselor in the BYU 195th singles' ward!! Exciting stuff. We haven't even been married a year yet and now we're back in the singes' ward. We started church at 9, and he just got back home at 4.

What's really funny about this is what happened before today. A few days ago we called our families to tell them the news. This is how the conversations went with Tiffany's mom.

"Hello! Guess what?!? We have great news!"
"You're pregnant!" (never failed to be the first assumption of everyone we called)
"No, Mark got a new calling. He's going to be a Counselor in a singles' ward!"
"That's great! So Tiffany's going to be a Sacrament widow."

That's the funniest thing we've ever heard.

The old Second Counselor who just got relesed today told Tiffany that it's a tradition for the wife of the Second Counselor to have a baby while they're in the ward. Tiffany's very excited about this :) Mark is not. :( Keep your ears open for any exciting news!

Cruising it California style

2009-04-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

During Mark's Spring Break we decided to go to California and see his family. Mark's kinda like Superman. If Superman is away from the Sun for too long, he loses his power. For Mark, it's the California sun and Utah weather is his kryptonite. So it was obvious that we had to go for Mark's health. :)

We got to play tourist while we were in California for the weekend. We spent a ton of money on shopping for clothes, ate out for every meal every day, and even got to go to Universal Studios with his family.

Here we are on the Simpsons' Ride. Joseph really wanted to go on it, but it was pretty lame as you can see by our faces in this picture. The weird thing is that I completely tore a nail off even though it's a stationary ride...

Mark's sister Erin couldn't come with us, so either there's a safety space between the two guys, or we were keeping a space for Erin to be. I'm not sure which one that is.

Joseph has a knack for always being able to squeeze in your pictures.

This was definitely a space for Erin. At the end of the day we really liked imaginary Erin. She didn't complain about anything, and we could still all fit together on the rides. :) We like the real Erin more though.

We decided that we could replace imaginary Erin with Homer's head instead, at least in pictures.

As we were walking out of the park there were some women selling long stemmed roses. I pushed Mark toward them, but he just kept walking. I was fake mad at him, so as I stood in line to get movie tickets for us, he ran back to get me a rose. Sometimes he's so sweet. Too bad I have to push him to do it sometimes. :-p

Single Awareness Day! Good thing we're not single :)

2009-04-04T19:53:00.000-07:00

Valentine's Day is definitely not my favorite holiday. There's too much pressure to get something great for the other person. I think that I feel even more pressure than Mark since I'm the "creative" one of the relationship. This is what Mark got me.

Chocolate truffles in a lip box.

A personalized caramel heart

This is what I made Mark.

A candy filled heart box. If you're ever doing paper mache I have a wonderful alternative to using a ton of Elmer's glue. I make my own glue out of cornstarch and water.

Cornstarch and Water Glue Recipe
Bring 2 cups of water up to a boil.
In the mean time mix 2 Tablespoons of cornstarch with 3 Tablespoons of cold water.
When the water is boiling add in the cornstarch mixture and whisk constantly until the mixture is thick and clear.

Let the mixture cool before you handle it.
It will not be smooth as normal paper mache mix, but it when it dries, it's perfect! Plus this is a lot cheaper method. You could probably even use this as a normal glue recipe, just use a squeeze bottle to apply.

For Mark's box I used just some red streamers and this glue recipe and it looked really professional. :)

Hate to burst your Provo Bubble...

2009-04-04T19:30:00.000-07:00

Provo is known as a "safe place," but apparently not in our neck of the woods. Here's the story. Mark leaves one Saturday morning at 6:30am because he works at 7. He unlocked the driver's side of the door, sits down ready to start the car and then he notices that it was as cold inside his car as it was outside. Hmmm... And then he noticed that there was no window... And where did all this glass come from all over the seat? And... what?!? His radio was gone.

The night that our car got broken into, 2 other cars also got broken into. Only our car radio was taken. The people who live in the apartment above us got their camera and iPod stolen. We didn't know who the other car belonged to. We thought it was too bad that they didn't brake into our other car and take that radio because that was the radio that didn't work. Obviously if someone wants something they can get it, so maybe the moral of this story is this: Don't lock your car door so that they thief can get what he wants, and you won't have to replace the broken window.

This is our neighbor's car that was broken into. I hope they don't care that we're posting these. hahaha

Christmas on The Island

2009-04-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

We got to spend both Christmas and New Years with Tiffany's family in Hawaii. When we got married Mark's parents promised us they would pay for our next trip there so we got to go for free :) Nothing like a free trip to Hawaii.

I don't know who let him have fireworks, but since Mark can't pop back in California this was a great experience for him.

This is a roll that we laid out on the floor. It went for a couple of minutes before it got to the end.

Besides spending time with Tiffany's family, we got to do a lot of touristy things. One thing we got to do was go to Kualoa Ranch and do a bunch of fun things.

We went horseback riding.

And ATVing

And we also got to go on a movie tour where they showed us a bunch of places they filmed movies and tv shows on the ranch... such as LOST (Mark's favorite!)

This is the penguin from 50 First Dates. He kinda fell over.

This is a print from Godzilla. It used to be 10 feet deep, but the cows on the ranch would fall in and die... so they filled them a bit more.

This is supposed to look like 2 gorillas kissing :)

And this is from Season 4 of Lost where Juliet and Jack kiss after they save the Island from blowing up.

This is the fallen tree from Jurassic Park where the kids are protected from the herd of dinosaurs running away from the T-Rex

It was soooo much fun and we got to see so many different things, but our camera decided not to work for part of our time there... plus it was raining almost the whole day. We got to see the tree stump that Yoda stands on in Star Wars too! If you find yourself on Oahu and have an extra $300 I'd say go and do it!

Another thing that we did while we were there was hike Diamond Head.

This is one set of stairs on the hike up. There's Mark's rump hiking up it.

This is the view from the top.

On our way back down.

Tiffany's brother Jared took us surfing while we were there too. It was probably the worst day we could have gone because it was soooo windy! It took us forever to paddle out there and the wind kept pushing us the wrong way. We caught a few waves each, but we were dead tired by the end and were pushed so far off from where we started that we had to walk a long way to get back where we started. Mark ended up cutting his heel on another board's fin and I have a scar from kicking the reef. Besides our battle scars it was still pretty fun.

Loaded up and ready to go!

We saw a Monk seal while we were there just chillin' on the sand. I thought he was dead, but then he started wormin' his way up the beach! Crazy!!

We took a photo shoot before we got in the water.

Then it was time to get to work.

And that was Christmas.

Gobble Gobble!

2009-04-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

2 of Tiffany's brothers came to visit us in Utah and she cooked her first Thanksgiving meal which was delicioso! (surprisingly)

We decided to do some hiking so we took the long drive down to Moab to Arches National Park. You could definitely tell that we could do with more exercise. It was really embarrassing when an old couple carrying heavier back packs than us were passing us on the trail...

Tiffany and 2 of her brothers in Osama's cave (who knew it was in Utah?)

We made it to the top!

It was definitely worth the drive and the exercise.

While we were up there, there were families that were eating lunch next to the arch. What the picture doesn't show is a ledge and a huge drop right next to us. While people were eating someone dropped a water bottle and it started rolling down this ledge. Not thinking, 3 different people ran after it!! Luckily no one fell off the ledge, but the bottle sure did and we couldn't see it after a few seconds. Could you imagine risking your life for a water bottle?? Crazy stuff.

After our first hike Mark decided to stay in the car and the rest of us went on another hike. This one wasn't as breath taking, but it was still pretty awesome.

And that was Thanksgiving.

Halloween with Many

2009-04-04T17:12:00.000-07:00

Mark decided that we should catch everyone up on what we've been doing lately, so we're starting with Halloween 2008, just because we have pictures (and also because we don't do much very often).

Tiffany really wanted to buy a pumpkin and carve a jack-o-lantern Halloween night. The thing is, she got really attached to the pumpkin, so carving it turned out to be a pretty traumatic event for everyone involved. The good thing is that he turned out to look really cute.

We named him Many (no, not many, Many pronounced Manny (MArk and tiffaNY = Many) see?? :) )

We tried to figure out who Many looked more like, and it ended up being Mark.

We bought a whole bunch of candy, but no one came to our door! This is definitely a different breed of trick-or-treaters. They got toward our complex, then crossed the street right before they got to us. :( At least we had Many, so that made it a little better. So that was Halloween.

We're Bloggers Now!

2009-04-04T15:52:00.001-07:00

Hello all,

Mark and I have decided to follow the examples of all our wonderful family and friends who have started blogs. Honestly our lives aren't too interesting, but we've been told that as soon as we stat a blog our lives will become exciting just so that we can write about it and post pictures. We'll see about that. :) Hopefully we'll have something exciting to post soon.