The Ricks Family: 2008

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Halloween Costume Party: Oct. 25

On Saturday night, we attended a Halloween party with some of our friends. While the food, games, and decorations were reason enough to go to the party, the costumes were definitely the funnest part of the night. The discussions Andrea and I had this week about our costumes came at the same time as our conversations that I needed a haircut (see last blog post). So since I needed a haircut anyway, I decided that for just one night, I would like to have a mullet. We planned the rest of our costumes (my unshaveness and Andrea's black eye, etc.) around my haircut.

On Saturday afternoon, Andrea cut the top and sides of my hair to a normal length, but left the back untouched. Then she straightened all of my hair and styled it into the awesomeness you see below. After the party, she chopped off the mullet into a normal haircut, and I shaved. Just in time for church on Sunday morning! (Oh, and it took just one shower to get my hair curly again.)

Wow. We really look pathetic. One other good thing about our choice of costumes was the total cost. Believe it or not, we had everything already in our home except for the ugly $3 hat we bought for Andrea.

Isn't Andrea's belly cute? Olivia must already love Halloween (or hate her parents' costumes), since she was really kicking up a storm all day.

I'm glad to say that it took a lot of work and a lot of makeup to make Andrea's eye look like that. I had nothing to do with it. Well, my fist had nothing to do with it. I did give her some pointers on how to make it look realistic.

Here I am in all my glory!

This one doesn't deserve a comment. It's all there for you.

Actually, those used to be one of my very favorite pair of jeans. Now they're Andrea's favorite pair of my jeans :)

Here are pictures of some of our friends.

David and Stephanie with their son Joshua.

Jason and Sheena.

Bryan and Breanna. (Steele is expected about 2 weeks before Olivia.)

Bill and Karen (and their unborn little jack-o-lantern).

Matt and Addy with Conor the bumble bee.

Don't I look natural in a rock band? Here we've got Matt on the vocals, David on drums, Brett on guitar, and I am on the bass. Jason (Dog, the bounty hunter) is going to beat up whoever makes the next mistake.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Weekend in Connecticut: Oct. 16-18

This past weekend, I went on a trip with some friends to Connecticut. The nine of us that went are the senior board of our law review, an organization at NYU that I spend a lot of time participating in. We decided that a weekend retreat would be good for our spirits. We left Manhattan after school on Thursday and returned on Saturday afternoon.

It was certainly a nice break from school, though we didn't spend much time discussing editorial policy, the finer points of grammar, or even the future of the organization. We also didn't do any trust falls or team building games--we went on a hike instead to build group unity. Here are some pictures.

The house we stayed at (Nelly Ward's family's home) was on the lefthand side of the lake at the top of the photo. We had a lot of fun taking canoe trips in the lake. Sam Nitze, our fearless editor-in-chief, was the only one that took a swim in the cold water.

Here I am, sitting on top of the mountain, missing Andrea. I'm sure she would have loved the view too, though the hike might have been a little rigorous for her with that cute growing belly of hers. As you can tell, I didn't do my hair for a couple of days. That was one of the nicest parts of being away. But I guess the picture confirms what Andrea has been telling me for weeks--I need a haircut. :)

Alex, Meghan, and I are the Senior Executive Editors, or the "4th liners" as we are called internally. Basically, we are the last (or fourth) line of defense on the journal and we try to make sure that no errors creep into the articles we publish. But just because I am a grammar fiend normally doesn't mean that I carefully proofread my blog posts.

I found a walking stick. Isn't that what boys always do on hikes?

Here's a picture of the whole group. Front row: Julia, Meghan, Brian, Nelly, Drew. Back row: Alex, me, Milo (Sam's son), Sam, Matt.

It was a great trip, and I feel fortunate to be friends with these amazing people!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Caribbean Cruise: Sept 20-27

This past week we went on our first cruise! About a month ago, we decided that it was time to splurge a little bit and go on a nice vacation. Since we never really got a break this summer, since Daniel's grades this year don't matter too much, since our anniversary is next week, and since we won't get a chance to do something like this again before Olivia is born, we decided to head to the Caribbean. Although travelling in that part of the world during hurricane season can be risky, we lucked out and had good weather in all four of our ports: Labadee, Haiti; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Georgetown, Grand Cayman; and Cozumel, Mexico. We sailed on Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas, which is the largest cruise ship in the world. We had a wonderful time.

I got to spend a lot of time during the cruise with three of my favorites: Daniel, food, and sleep. Here is a picture of us in the dining room on one of the nights that we got to dress up.

Olivia really liked the cruise. I'm pretty sure she never got seasick, and I think she liked the food too. And while I have been able to feel her movements for nearly a month now, Daniel can also feel her kicks regularly. We think she's pretty strong for me being only 21 weeks into my pregnancy.

I didn't let Daniel do anything crazy on the cruise, like parasailing, scuba diving, or hiking. We'll have to save those things for when I'm not pregnant and can join in. But he did get into a little scuffle with some ancient Egyptians!

I did, however, let him do some climbing on the rock wall on the top deck (Deck 14) of the ship.

One of our favorite excursions was in Grand Cayman. We took a snorkeling trip with Captain Marvin, which took us to a coral garden and a coral reef. The fish there were beautiful. But the coolest thing was swimming with the stingrays in the middle of the ocean. There was a sandbar that was only about 4 feet deep (even though it took a 30 minute boatride to get there), and so we could stand up in the ocean and play with the tame stingrays. Yes, those dark shadows under the water are all stingrays.

There is a legend that kissing a stingray will give you 7 years of good luck. So I guess we'll be lucky folks for the next few years!

On Thursday, we took a ferry from Cozumel to mainland Mexico to visit the Tulum ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula. The Mayan ruins overlooked the ocean and were pretty amazing.

All in all, we had a wonderful week together. It was hard to come back to New York after such nice weather and beautiful ocean views. But now we are hooked on cruises and can't wait to go on another one!

Trip to Utah: Sept 12-14

On Thursday, September 11th, we had our ultrasound and we found out that we are going to have a little girl! Her name will be Olivia. Since we were already going to be in Utah for the weekend, we decided to wait to tell our families the good news in person. We bought some cute baby girl outfits, wrapped them up, and had our families open them to see what the baby's gender is. Here are some of their reactions:

The reason we were in Utah that weekend was to hear Daniel's youngest sister, Amanda, who is 15 years old, perform the third movement of Saint-Saens's second piano concerto. Because Amanda won the annual University of Utah SummerArts piano competition, she was invited to play with an orchestra at the University of Utah. This is the second time she has been able to perform in this concert, and again, she did a great job! (And don't you love her dress?!) Go Amanda!!!

And the last exciting news is that Olivia's cousin, Belle, who will be in the same year of school, was born on September 11th at a healthy 6 lbs. 15 oz. We are glad that Belle is healthy and we can't tell if she looks more like her mom, Heather, or her dad, Platte. What a cutie!

Monday, August 25, 2008

From Coast to Coast

Welcome to our blog!!! (As you can tell from our blog's address, we are the Rickses, not the Ricks, the Ricks', the Rick's, or the Rickses') :o)

We are excited to be starting a new chapter in our life. This summer we spent three months in Newport Beach, California, where Daniel had an internship with a law firm called Latham & Watkins. I had intended to spend the summer practicing the piano, but pregnancy quickly changed my plans (for the better). We feel very blessed to be having our first little baby in February.

And just as the morning sickness was wearing off, we moved back to New York City. Back in the Big City, we both have been busy working and entertaining Adam, Daniel's brother, who just got back from his mission in Ekaterinburg, Russia. We are settling into our 575 square foot apartment wondering where our new little baby is going to fit.

Daniel has accepted a full-time offer of employment at Latham beginning in the Fall of 2009, after he finishes his last year of law school here at NYU. While we are excited to be living in New York for a few more months, we are so excited to move back to California. We are especially excited to be moving there as a family of three!

Here are a few of the things that we have already been missing about life in California: