Our Family Album

"I did something kinda wacky. I used photoshop at work today to composite our faces together to see what our kids would look like... see? "Our Family Album"."

Ok, no I didn't. I may be good at some things, but Photoshop definitely isn't one of them. (you get bonus points if you can name the movie, though)

So, instead, I just imagine in my head...what would happen if you took a little bit of this...
...and mixed it up with a little bit of this little musher (the one on the right, though they are clearly both mushers)...


...or maybe if you took some of her features (on the right)...that great, curly hair and sparkling personality (to match her sparkly swimsuit)...


...and added them to this little boy's big blue eyes and cute, little mouth (that opens wide enough to fit an entire cupcake in at once...I think that's what he's eating, anyway) ...

What would you get?

I suppose we will find out soon enough...well, not soon enough for me, but we will find out in February what the first Taryn/Mike combination will come out looking like. "Baby Tike" is expected to arrive on February 13th! Not sure yet if it will be a girl tike or a boy tike, but we will find out at my doctor's appointment this week. After perusing through some of Mike's baby pictures, I am praying that all of our children look exactly like him...such cute, toe head blonde hair and the cutest, mushiest little face!

I really did think about trying to find a website that would mix pictures of me with pictures of Mike to create what our children would look like, but I was a little scared that the outcome would terrify me! (I've seen what they did to Brad and Jen in US Weekly back in the day, and if they can't create a beautiful child with two of the most beautiful people as the parents, then what hope do the rest of us have?!) So, until February, I will just daydream about what our baby will look like and hope for the best!

Fun Quiz

Which Twilight novel character are you?

You're Esme Cullen - Your maternal instinct to take care of people and be kind draw people towards you. You're compassionate and loving, yet firm when you need to be. You appreciate hard work and value the beautiful results of your dedication to any project. Take this quiz! Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

I found this quiz on my friend Kathy's blog. If you haven't had enough Twilight-series fun, try it! It only takes a couple minutes to take the quiz. Enjoy!

Book Signing at Borders

This past Thursday, Stephenie Meyer's book tour brought her to Fairfax, VA. As many of you are well aware, the third book in her Twilight series, Eclipse, came out a little over a month ago and she is touring the county to promote its success. It was a pretty hilarious experience! I went with some friends from my ward--Jessica, Mareille and Yanni--and I ran into my friend Kathy there too! Jessica had the clever idea to make us all t-shirts for the occasion. They said "Vote Edward Cullen 2008"--catchy, huh? A little play on the hero of the book and the ultra-political zone that is Northern Virginia. While our t-shirts were quite original, the idea to make t-shirts was certainly not. The average age of the attendants of this book signing was about 15 years old--hilarious! It's been a long time since I have been around so many screaming teeny-boppers...the last time was probably when I went to an N'Sync concert when I was 15 years old. Tons of young girls were already at Borders when I got there after work and some of them had some of the weirdest t-shirts I have ever seen!

Borders opened at 9am that morning and people were lined up since 5:30am to get a numbered ticket for the autographing line...my friends got there at 8:30 in the morning and still got 130th in line. When I got to Borders at about 5:30pm, I heard the next number for the autograph line was 800! There were probably 1,000 people at Borders for this event--second only to the last Harry Potter event they hosted. My friends got to Borders shortly before I arrived and staked out a great spot right in line with the podium for the Q&A. Some little punk teenagers were trying to box us out of our spot and we had to be very assertive about holding our ground. Telling some of these girls to "back off" was probably one of the most fun parts of the evening! hee hee.

Finally, Stephenie Meyer arrived at 7pm, did Q&A for about 20 or 25 minutes and then got to signing. She would sign as many copies of Eclipse as you put in front of her, and she would personalize them (i.e., first name only) and if you brought her earlier two books, she would only sign her name in the cover. Apparently they have done this a few time and the system her team had going worked pretty well and kept the line moving. By the time my friends and I were at the front of the line, we decided that each of us would take the picture of the girl directly in front of us as Stephenie signed our copy of Eclipse...although it didn't work out quite so smoothly for me. While I was taking Kathy's picture (a great one, by the way!), I lost my place in line and had to cut back in. As Stephenie was signing my book, I slightly leaned over the table so that Mareille could get a picture with both of us in it (no posed pictures with Stephenie allowed)...and the "handler" who was giving each book to Stephenie was yelling at me to not lean over the table...when I finally figured out that she was talking to me, I apologized and stood up straighter as Mareille still attempted to take our picture with my camera. Apparently, my camera was on play mode, so Mareille quickly switched to her own camera. By that time, Stephenie had signed my book and the "handler" was yelling at me to keep the line moving...and then actually PUSHED my back out of the way! It all happened so fast, I could hardly react! Anyway, the picture on Mareille's camera didn't turn out as bad as I imagined, given the circumstances, but I think it is kinda funny...I am smiling, but really I wanted to turn around and deck that girl! (She's the one with her cleavage hanging out.)

So, the actual signing portion of the evening was a little bit of a bust for me, but the rest of it was pretty fun... fun to be there with my friends, LOVED Stephenie Meyer--she was so great when she was answering questions, so fun and so down to earth, totally someone that makes you feel like you could be best friends-- and, we went out to get ice cream at Cold Stone afterward, so that made everything better. It was also fun to run into some friends from BYU that I haven't seen in years!

Fenway or Bust!

Back in the spring, when some friends (and Orioles fans) asked me if I could get my hands on some tickets for the Red Sox/Orioles series in Boston over Labor Day weekend, I decided that Mike and I would meet them in town for the game. (I'm not usually one to miss out on all the fun, at least not if I can avoid it.) On Friday night, Mike and I flew up to Boston to kick off our Labor Day weekend--our last weekend of freedom before Mike gets back into the swing of law school. On Saturday morning, my uncle Mike and cousin took (my) Mike golfing. After they got back, we had some lunch and then (uncle) Mike took us down to the Channel 5 station, where he is a the principal sports reporter for WCVB, to give us a tour of their brand-new, state-of-the-art HD set. It was pretty awesome...Mike gave us the inside scoop on how all the components work together to create a successful newscast. I had no idea how much went into what looks like a simple, seemless news broadcast!

Later that evening, Cameron, Anthony, Char and Kristin picked us up to go to the Red Sox game. Mike (back to my husband) had never been to Fenway Park before, so he was pretty excited about visiting such a historic ballpark. Little did he know, there was going to be a lot more for him to be excited about by the end of the night. The Red Sox played a great game, ultimately beating the Orioles 10-0. I wouldn't been satisfied with just the win...but rookie pitcher Clay Buchholz had other plans. In his second Major League start, Buchholz pitched the 11th no-hitter in Red Sox history at Fenway. The excitement and tension was palpable in the ninth inning as the entire stadium stood, cheering every pitch.


Here Jason Varitek, the catcher for the Red Sox, hoists pitcher Clay Buchholz after the final pitch of his first no-hitter as teammates start clearing the bench to congratulate the 23-year-old rookie. He is just the 21st rookie to throw a no-hitter, and the third to pitch one in one of his first two starts.

As we walked to the car, and even as we waited in an hour of post-game traffic, we were all on cloud 9, still not believing that we were actually at a no-hitter! What an unbelievable night!