Good Times

Last weekend was B*U*S*Y. To start off...I drove to Spokane to go to my best bud Tara's baby shower. It was really fun. It is hilarious to see both of us pregos together, but for some reason I didn't get a picture of that.
This is Tara and her friend Courtney (left)showing off their prizes/presents.

Our other good friend Jen was the hostess with the mostess at the party. She did a great job organizing a very nice baby shower.

Here is the really adorable quilt (if I do say so) that I made for Baby Girl Sofie. It was so fun to make and now I can't wait to make something similar for Baby Rupp.

After the baby showere I jetted back to P-town for a shin-dig at our casa. Our good friends Jerica and Chad came down to visit from the Tri-Cities, so we partied it up with all of our old PU2 cronies.
Shaila and Jerica

Brian and I loved hanging out with Jerica and Chad's little boy Carter. He is so stinkin' cute. He loves to give hugs and kisses, and is just a fun little guy.

Malcom and Georgey showing all of us "old foggies" how to rock out on Rock Band.

Check out their moves.

The POWER STANCE- "For those about to rock, we salute you"

Jerica said that Carter hates wearing hats, but he was really diggin' on my Mickey ears.

Quinn showing off his Karate Kid moves. He is number 2 of 3 boys...so I think he uses this move and many others quite a bit.

Malcom, Georgey, Quinn, and Madi spent a lot of the party wrestling, so I think this is the aftermath. Notice Georgey checking to see if everyone is okay.

Lil and Carter were showing off their dance moves. These two love music

Mandi and George just hangin' out

Amy, Matt, Chad, Tracy, and Ben.

The real "Rockers" (or so they thought)of the party. In the words of ACDC "We roll tonight to the guitar bite".

BABY RUPP

It's a BOY!!!
Brian really wanted a boy, but I was so nervous that it would be a girl and he would be sad. He told me a couple days before our ultrasound that he really wanted a boy, and if it was a girl he might be a little bit sad, but that he would get over it. In my mind's eye I could totally see him gushing over this little curley-headed girl. But I think all along, I've felt like it was a boy. So the Rupp name will be carried on to one more generation, and w couldn't be more excited!

Ahhh...The Holidays

Well, I know it has been an eternity since I last posted anything. I am so sorry, but we have been pretty busy this past holiday season.
It all started with Thanksgiving in Kamiah, Id. We had so much fun with Brian's parents, brother and sister in-law, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends. I was finally over the Nauseous stage of pregnancy so I dug in full force at Thanksgiving Dinner. YUMMY. In fact, for most of the month of December all I craved and ate were Turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce. I guess Baby Rupp loves turkey.

We started off December at a running pace. Between work parties, church parties, school parties, and parties with friends, Brian managed to pull off one of his best semesters yet. He spent many evening in the Library, but all of his hard work paid off. I am so proud of him. Now just one semester left and he is officially a college graduate. Yeah!
For my Christmas bonus at work my boss decided to take his whole staff shopping in Spokane. We were all given, let's say, a fair amount of cash, and only 2 1/2 hours to spend it all. I made out like a bandit, bring home some really hot boots, two pairs of tennis shoes, a cute purse, lotion, shirts, and jackets. It was so much fun, but kind of stressful. I felt like I was on that old game show "Shop 'Til You Drop", where they would run all over the mall. Needless to say...I had little to ask for as far as Christmas presents went.


One of my cute co-worker, Kelly found out that I liked to sew, so she commissioned me to make Christmas Stockings for her family. It took me a few weeks to finish them all, but that is partly because of my own laziness. I also gave my favorite neighbor, Amy, a crash course lesson in stocking making. We had a lot of fun.
My favorite stocking was the fish stocking....I felt so crafty when I designed it. Plus Kelly loved it!
After finals and work were done for the month, Brian and I headed over to Long Beach, WASHINGTON, to spend Christmas on the beach with my family.
It took us about 8 hours to get over there. Partly because the weather here in the Northwest was crazy. Anyways, when we finally reached the coast, it was still snowing. (For those of you not familiar with the Northwest, normally it doesn't snow on the coast. And if it does it doesn't stick. This was kind of a weird winter.) We got the experience of driving through some of the coastal logging country. (BRIAN was in heaven). The picture above is of a stretch of trees that were blown down in the winter of '07 by hurricane forced winds. It was really eerie, but the cool thing was that Weyerhauser has already replanted a majority of the forest into regrowth. Yeah Forestry!

Well, we finally reached THE BEACH, where we met up with my parents, and my brother Justin and his family. We only spent about 20 minutes on the beach because it was so flippin' freezing. The condo we were staying at had an outdoor pool that was heated to 75-80 degrees. SO Brian and the kids went swimming every day. We basically drove around the little penninsula, ate a lot of food, and hung out.
The picture above is of Brian and my nephew Caleb. He is a red-headed fire ball, who loves Lego's, Star Wars and Brian. They had so much fun. On Christmas Eve he did a little singing for us. The best was his rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas", which included 10 Lords a "leaking", 5 Golden "Teeth", and a "Parch in a Jibber-Pear Tree". What a kid!
It was so windy on the beach that day....Hence the reason why my mom looked like she was wearing a Berka. Doesn't my mom make a cute little "Muslim" woman. She is so funny. She just bee-bopped all over the beach with that silly little smirk on her face.
The whole fam...except Dad, he didn't feel up to traipsing out in the cold.
Brian and I...Freezing our Hinnies off.


On Christmas Eve we had a white elephant gift exchange. It was pretty funny.This picture was part of Brian's gift. Lucky for my dad, he was the fortunate recipient of the gift. (Brian has asked that I not explain the gift, so that he can use the idea again for another gift exchange. What a goober)


This is Justin posing in the LOVELY Christmas Sweater that I gave. Isn't it Awesome! I got it at the Good Will.

Well, from there I stopped taking pictures, but we had a really good Christmas. It was nice to be with my family...they are so funny.
We got up early the next morning and headed back for Pullman. Luckily we beat the snow, but my parents weren't so lucky. They almost got stuck in Pendleton, Oregon. But eventually made it home to a busted pipe and a flooded living room. Yuck!
We had a really great holiday. We loved seeing all of our family and friends, and most of all just being together. We are super excited for the Holidays next year, just because we will have our little baby with us. It is so exciting.
We hope all you were as fortunate as we were, and wish you a very Happy New Year!
Love ya!

You & Me & BABY makes 3

You read that correctly. We're PREGNANT! I know it is hard for some of you to believe, but after about a year of trying, we're having a baby.
Baby Rupp is Due May 14th, just in time for Brian to Graduate. What great planners we are.
We are super excited and anxiously await the arrival of our little, or BIG bundle of joy.

From Moscow to Denver and Back in 72 Hours

Last weekend we drove 19 hours from Idaho to Denver, Colorado for a logger sports chopping show at Colorado State University. We left with 5 other members of the University of Idaho Logger Sports team from Moscow Thursday evening. Drove all night through Montana. Arrived in Wyoming just in-time to enjoy all of its flatness in the day light. And finally hit Fort Collins (just north of Denver)in the early afternoon.

We dropped off Brian's Teammates at the hotel and we headed 40 miles south to Thornton for a visit with my brother Shane's family. Unfortunately, Shane wasn't there that weekend because he was working in Texas. But we got to hang out with his wife, Nichole, and three funny kids.


Me and the kiddos. I had so much fun. Since they live so far away I couldn't pass up the chance to drive all the way to Colorado to see them. They are so funny. We colored, watched movies, and even played hide and go seek. It was so worth the trip.


This is Miss Bailee showing off part of her Halloween costume. The whole family dressed up as the Wizard of Oz characters. She was obviously the Cowardly Lion. My sister-in-law couldn't find a Lion costume she liked, so she improvised by sewing a curly mane onto a teddy bear costume. It was so flippin' cute. Even Brian loved it.


Bailee in all her glory. Shane and Nichole call her their Psycho Child...not because she is bad...she is just a little loud and crazy. She is a HOOT!


Averie is so sweet. When she wants your attention she always says "excuse me, excuse me."


And last, but definitely not least, Cassidy. He is definitely his dad's son. His mannerisms, the way he rolls his eyes and the way he is with his little sisters. He cracks me up. Such a cute kid.



When we got to their house the girls were napping, so Brian, Cass, and I were just hanging out. Then the girlies came down one at a time. Averie talked our ears off, but Bailee was the funniest. My brother Shane has been in Texas for a while and all of his kids miss him a ton. So when Bai came down the stairs and she saw Brian lying on the couch, she started shouting "daddy, daddy, daddy". She jumped on him, and then the reality that Brian was not her daddy hit her and she immediately ran to her mom. None of the kids have been around Brian all that much, so throughout the night he was either known as "hey, hey", or Uncle Tyson(one of my other brothers). But Bailee held onto to calling him Daddy all night. It was so cute.


The next morning Brian left early for his competition, and Nichole, the kids, and I went over later in the morning. The event was held at the CSU equine center. (VERY NICE-AND INDOORS)
The competition was set in heats, so you had to qualify to continue through the competition. Brian competed in the Hard Chop, Speed Chop, Jack and Jill Speed Chop, and various "throwing events". This is a picture of him after he finished chopping his block to win the Overall Hard Chop Competition.


One of the Competition Brackets. Notice who the winner is....When some of the other competitors first saw Brian they thought he was from Russia...Brian VonRuppski


Championship Speed Chop. Brian is like an Ox. He is so strong. This is a timed event, but he doesn't chop as fast as most guys. Instead he just hits hard. On some of his chops he got through the back side of the log in four hits. Holy COW!


Unfortunately, Brian never got to finish his final event-the Jack and Jill Speed Chop. When he stepped onto the log he slid his hand up the neck of his axe, and gashed his finger. This is a short clip of the first aid in action.


Like all good injuries, this one ended up in the Emergency room.


Lucky for Brian VonRuppski,he only had to have the cut glued shut. NO STITCHES. And the doctor cleared him to compete again at the next competition in two weeks. Phew!


This is a great Pic of Brians teammates...They were so sweet to let me tag along with them. COnGraTUlaTiOns U of I Logger Sports Team. You are a great bunch of kids!

HaPpY HalLoWeeN!

Happy Halloween Everyone! I just love Halloween. It makes me feel like a kid again.
I work in a pretty fun Orthodontic office, and we will use any excuse to get dressed up. Halloween is definitely a good excuse, but instead of one day of playing dress up, we played dress up ALL week long. Lets just say that by the end of the week we were pretty tired of our costumes.
We went with a "GREASE" theme. Dr. P was Danny Zuko (Check out his 'do) The Ortho Technicians were Pink Ladies. And we front office workers were Rydell Cheerleaders.
This first picture is of the view of the sun rise from our office. On Thursdays we open the office at 7:00 a.m. But isn't that a cool pic. A little bit eerie.


This is me and my favorite desk-mate Terriane. We have a blast together. Dr. P interviewed us on the same day at the same time...needless to say we hated each other at first, but now we are best buds.


Dr. P in his Danny Wig being Primped by the Pink Ladies. Seriously it was so scary...He worked on patients with that thing on his head all week. I think secretly he was channeling his inner bad boy. It's kind of cool to work for Dr. P because he is LDS, and in the Stake Presidency. It's nice to have someone in the office who understands my values. He is a really great guy.


Terrianne again....Showing how "much" she was loving being a cheerleader. Originally our outfits were way worse than the ones you see in the pictures. The original top for the uniform made us look like red and white nuns, seriously. Plus the shirts were short, so we would have had to worn the skirts around our ribs. I took the liberty of tracking down some cheap polos at Waly-World, and then I sewed the R on them. They turned out pretty good...wouldn't ya say.


This is my other favorite co-worker Tawni. She is so sweet, especially for letting me take her picture. She hates pictures, but she is so photogenic.


Well, I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween. Happy Hauntings!

Good Friends and Not so Good Cougs

Every Football Season Brian and I like to invite all of our old cronies back to Pullman for a little reunion. This year we chose the weekend that the Cougs were playing USC. Little did we know this summer when we bought the tickets that the Cougs were going to have a "regrouping" season, so we opted to get good seats.


Well, as most of you know USC is in the Top 10 this year, and the Cougs are not ranked at all. So the stadium was pretty empty on the student side. We bought seats on the front row of the Alumni side, but we had a hard time seeing. SO about five minutes into the game we packed up our stuff and moved to the section where we all felt more at home...The student section.
Needless to say, the game was terrible. I think the final score was WSU 0, USC 69. No lie. But the company was awesome, so we had a lot of fun

Andy and Brian- "Enjoying the Game"


At this point we had had enough and left the cold game for home. Oh Well! Go COUGS!