Lion King

Dave and I went to see the Lion King this past weekend. It was so amazing. The costumes were fantastic! We parked near by and walk to the Music Hall. I would recommend watching this to anyone. Lots of people around had their kids with them. I found it to be pretty funny too. I kind of want to watch it again. There are some other really good shows that I will want to see there, so maybe I will just settle for those.

Also this weekend Dave and I met with a realtor. It was nice to sit down and talk with one just to get an idea of what is going to happen and how she can help us. She was really nice and straight forward. She did a really good job. She also knows her stuff really well, I feel very comfortable with her. I can't wait to start looking at houses with her. We are thinking of the Plano area. Hopefully come Christmas we will have found an area we like and by the new year a house we want. Our goal is to close mid February. So time to start saving money!!!!

Sports in Dallas Make for Such Happy Memories

Here is an update of the fun we've had in Dallas:

Dallas Cowboys vs. Indianapolis Colts

So I guess selling your soul to an accounting firm comes with perks (oh its not that bad... but then again I haven't worked the 60-70 hour weeks yet). The partner over my group has season tickets to the Dallas Cowboys and he was unable to attend their opening exhibition with the Indianapolis Colts - the raining Super Bowl Champions - poor guy. So he kindly gave the new hires his four tickets. They were $125 a piece for an exhibition game! That means the regular season tickets are 3-4 times more expensive. Here is a somewhat blurry shot of the view from our amazing seats. We got to see Peyton Manning and the starting line up of the Colts for two series and the Cowboys starting line up for 3. It was my first NFL experience and I loved it! The stadium is very old though. You can't see it well, but there is this really gross , green mold growing on the stadium roof. They are building a new one a few miles away that is costing $1 billion and will seat almost 100,000 people. It will be the biggest stadium in the NFL - any surprises? Not here in Texas.

Texas Rangers vs. Seattle Mariners

This same partner with the Cowboys tickets just happened to be out of town again for a Texas Rangers game - poor guy. So he kindly gave the new hires his four tickets. These seats were right behind the first base dugout (only $45 a piece for a regular season game, but the Rangers are considered one of the most mediocre teams of all time). Here is the view. Of course being close to the field makes you more susceptible to things like fly balls and camera shots. Well it just so happens that my favorite moment of this game (sarcasm) was being locked on the Kiss Cam with my coworker! OH THE EMBARRASSMENT!! Neither she nor I knew what to do, she being single and I being married, she and I both never being in visible-to-a-camera seats where things like this happen, she and I both being new to the professional world, and so forth. You might think of an easy solution out of the situation now, but when you are staring at your face on a 40 foot screen and everyone around you is yelling "kiss her, what is wrong with you! GO ON, KISS HER!!!" thinking takes a back seat to trying not to hyperventilate. An older coworker next to her leaned over and said "just kiss her on the cheek." We both heard the suggestion and it felt like the only way out of the dilemma. As I leaned over to plant the kiss, the cameraman got annoyed with us an left for another couple! Of course that was impossible for me to see staring at my coworkers cheek, so I ended up kissing her anyways. Gosh!! I hope you are all laughing at how silly the situation was - I am sure one day I will get there with you. For now I will stick to cringing at the slightest thought.

Needless to say the rest of the game wasn't as enjoyable.

Texas Rangers vs. Chicago White Sox

Sporting events on our dime are obviously going to turn out much different, right? Well, Dianna went with me this time. She isn't the biggest fan of baseball, but she was a good sport and gave me some good company. We arrived at our $2 seats (yes, through a ticket concierge I managed to get tickets for $2) and someone was sitting in them! Now this may seem common at a ball park, but the entire upper deck had like 30 people in it, and two of them were in our seats! Really weird. But because of the limited number of people in our section, we didn't say anything and just went one row down and sat in empty seats there. As soon as we sat down a lady came down the stairs and we thought she was going to make us move (again weird considering there was hardly anyone there). She asked if we were season ticket holders for those seats and we said "no, we are just sitting here because someone else is in our seats." She then told us that she was giving upgrades to season ticket holders but that she would give us the upgrade anyways. So we ended up getting really good seats in right field on the "Lexus level" which is like the premium deck in the middle of the lower and upper decks. We enjoyed the rest of the game from there and the Rangers won an exciting game 4-3.

So obviously it was a nice thing to happen to us, but honestly - what's the moral of the story? Tell us what you think.

Pinky

So Dave is going to be traveling quite a bit for work, and our apartment complex charges a ton of money to have a cat or dog in the apartment. So Dave and I compromised.

Meet Pinky!






She is my new Guinea Pig. I named her Pinky because she has one pick ear. I think she is cute and fun. We got a great little cage for her and so fun toys for her to play with. Mostly I like just holding her.

Anniversary #2

I suppose every anniversary won't be as fun as our first two, but we don't have really demanding jobs or kids yet. So I guess that makes it easy to have lots of fun on our anniversary!

Dianna and I took the day off from work to spend the day together. We went to the Dallas World Aquarium in downtown Dallas in the morning. We saw all kinds of interesting animals in this really unique format for a museum. The whole thing was laid out along a declining trail that went from the top of the forest canopy to the ground level and then underwater. It wasn't so big, but we still spent hours there. They did a really good job of getting the animals right up close to you, so that it felt like you could almost reach out and pet them.




After the aquarium we went to Best Buy to get our anniversary present: an XBOX 360! I call it our present, because come to find out, Dianna likes playing Halo and DDR just as much as I do. We also got the infamous "Guitar Hero" which is a simulated guitar game. It comes with a life size, guitar controller and allows you to play famous rock songs as if you were on stage. What a ton of fun!

From Best Buy we went to get Dianna a present at PetsMart: a Guinea Pig! This will require some more details from Dianna, so refer to her post later in the blog.

The rest of the day we just spent inside together. Even for dinner we had some steaks at home, followed by some store bought, ice cream cake.

Can you believe it: two years have gone by! Dianna and I are still doing very well, love each other very much, and feel very blessed to have such great families/in-laws! Here is to another happy year of marriage.

Welcome to the New Place

Here is a little picture tutorial of our new home:

Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas

On June 29, after loading our stuff and shipping it off to Texas, we moved on to Idaho. We arrived in Rexburg Monday night and then left for Island Park the next day. On the way my mom, siblings, and Dianna and I stopped to site see some beautiful waterfalls (Mesa Falls I believe). We found this old, abandoned mining tunnel thing that we hiked through. We then went to get dinner at a little place called Pond's Lodge. It turned out that we were like the seventh big party that walked in during the previous half hour and there were only three people working the whole restaurant. After about 20 minutes without water or even a hello we grabbed the waitress and offered to help. She actually said yes, so Dianna, Tini and I jumped up and started busing tables and washing dishes. With our help, we got our dinner in about 40 minutes which also meant that everyone else in the restaurant was fed as well. As a thank you the waitress split our bill in half. This was a once in a life time experience - so fun!

We spent three days in Island Park riding, biking, playing board games, and eating. We had a lot of fun with Dianna's Grandparents and cousins from Boise. Katy and Julie also joined us briefly for some good fun. We went back to Rexburg for a day to celebrate my sister Katy's birthday and then we went back up to Island Park until Saturday night. Saturday we floated the river and got ridiculous sun burns. But it was still a lot of fun. We spent Sunday with the family in Rexburg and then early Monday we left for Dallas.

We stayed Monday night in Colorado Springs with Dianna's sister Melissa. We walked around downtown and visited for a little while. On Tuesday we drove the rest of the way and had a stop in Wichita Falls to visit an old friend. Between Wichita Falls and Dallas (only about 150 miles) we got slammed by a serious thunderstorm and we thought we were going to get washed right off the road. Luckily we made it ok to Dallas and stayed in a hotel Tuesday night.

Early Wednesday we started our move into our new apartment. A good four days later we had mostly settled in and it was time for me to fly to Chicago for training.

California

On June 22nd we left Provo for California. We first spent a few days at my parents house in Upland. We met up with our friends Katy and Clayton for a temple trip. We went to the Newport Temple which is breathtaking, and then we ate lunch on the pier at Ruby's Diner. We also went to Magic Mountain and learned that Dianna has an even stronger stomach for roller coasters than Dave. We also went with our parents to Palm Springs for the Aerial Tramway. It is a tramway that takes you up more than 8,000 feet to this green forest above Palm Springs. We also stayed in one of the days and watched the first season of Lost - awesome!

We left Upland and drove down to San Diego for a few days just by ourselves. We did meet up with Liz and Ethan though to go to the San Diego Zoo. Dianna got to feed the Giraffes! While in San Diego we had great seafood and some really good dessert at Ghiradelli's (Dave's favorite). After San Diego we left for Las Vegas where we stayed with Garth and Jamie. We went to see Ratatouille with them and then had an all night Tetris-off.

We reached Provo just before Church on Sunday and managed to get there on time. Our dear friends the Sweetwoods then invited us over for a steak dinner! It was very good food and a nice break from vacation and road trip choices. The following day we packed up our trailer and shipped it off to Dallas (thanks to Dave and company for helping us move).

We had so much fun in California and we will miss it!

Moving to Dallas

Dave and I are offically moved in. The drive wasn't too bad and the move it self wasn't bad either. It felt like a complete disaster for a while, but I finished the last box today. Now I need to organize and decorate. Pictures will be coming soon so keep watch!

Cafe Rio Recipes

Upon request we have decided to post our Cafe Rio Recipes. For those of you who aren't familiar with Cafe Rio, its one of the best mexican style food places we've been to. We love making these recipes for family gatherings or parties. Enjoy!

Cafe Rio Dressing
1 cup light mayo (you can use half light sour cream too)
1 cup milk
1 pkg ranch dressing mix
2 Tomatillos (little, round, green peppers)
2 Serrano peppers (remove seeds!)
1/2 bunch cilantro
Place all ingredients in the blender and blend well. Keep refrigerated and shake well each time you use it.

Cafe Rio Cilantro Lime Rice
2 tbsp butter or olive oil
1/2 medium yellow onion diced
1 cup rice (long grain is best)
2 cups boiling water
2 chicken boullion cubes
1/4 cup cliantro
Juice from one lime
In large sauce pan sautee onions in oil or butter until soft. Add rice and cook for a few more minutes. Carefully add water and boullion cubes, stir until cubes dissolve. Cook for 14 mins or until rice is tender and water is mostly boiled off. Turn off heat, add cliantro, lime, and lime zest (if desired) to dish. Better if left to settle for 30-60 minutes. Take a fork and fluff/mix the rice and serve.

Cafe Rio Black Beans
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can tomatoe juice (comes in a soda can usually near V8)
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
In nonstick skillet, cook the garlic, cumin, and olive oil until the smell really comes out. Add beans, tomatoe juice, and salt. Bring to boil and then simmer for 10-15 minutes (at least). Optional: stir in a little cilantro just before serving.

Cafe Rio Pork
2 lbs pork roast
1 20 oz. bottle coca-cola classic
1 cup brown sugar
1 can chipotle chiles in ADOBO sauce (or small battle of taco sauce)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground mustard
Slow cook the pork in crock pot, 5-6 hours on low or 2-3 hours on high, make sure to cover half with water, salt and pepper to liking. Drain the meat and place on large plate, tear in large sections and let cool for a few minutes. Shred the pork as finely as possible and place back into crock pot. Take chipotle chiles out of can and place in strainer over a bowl. Dump the coke over the chiles to get all the sauce off (the chiles are extremely hot, we just need the sauce which isn't too hot, for a real kick add one chile to the sauce - it'll clear your sinuses). Place contents of bowl in blender with the brown sugar, cumin, mustard, and garlic into blender. Blend well and then pour into crock pot with shredded pork. Heat on high for another 30-45 minutes.

Cafe Rio Chicken
4-5 large chicken breasts
1 8 oz. bottle of zesty italian dressing
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cumin
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
Place all ingredients in crock pot and cook 5-6 hours on low or 2-3 hours on high. Remove chicken and shred, then place back into crock pot with sauce.

Dave's Guacamole (pretty close to Cafe Rio)
2 avocados
1/4 cup minced red onion
1/2 cup diced tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 serrano or jalapeno peppers, seeds removed and finely chopped
Juice from 1 lime
Salt and pepper to taste
Place all ingredients in bowl and mash with a fork. Refrigerate leftovers and use within 2 days.

Notes:

• You can find similar tortillas at Costco, they come uncooked and can be found in the fridgerator section.
• You can make tortilla strips by slicing plain corn tortillas into long strips and frying in vegetable oil.
• The proper Cafe Rio salad is tortilla with melted cheese, beans, rice, meat, romaine lettuce, cilantro, guacamole, grated romano cheese, dressing, fresh salsa, tortilla strips and lime.

Our New Home

Dianna and I ventured to Dallas over the weekend to hunt for an apartment. Lets just say hunting in a place you have never been before makes it... more interesting. Dianna and I got cozy in our little rental car driving around the Dallas area. I had no idea how good of a navigator Dianna was! She definitely has map skillz.

We stayed at a great hotel called the Magnolia. It had a library with a computer and printer which came in very handy looking for apartments and printing out maps. Our apartment locator turned out to be a bust and so we said goodbye after only one and half hours of looking with her. We then just did the looking on our own from the hotel computer! Needless to say we were a little scared, but ultimately we were very blessed in finding a place.

We found an apartment very close to downtown (picture #1). It is called the Marquis at Texas Street and is a very large complex with 300+ apartments (picture #2). We got a one bedroom to hold us over until we get into a house. Dianna's favorite feature of the apartment: a kitchen with an island (picture #3). Dave's favorite feature of the apartment: the pool/BBQ area (picture #4). They also have a parking garage which allows us to walk across a bridge from the third floor straight to our third floor apartment. And last but not least, we will have a dishwasher and a washer/dryer! Our penance at Wymount is finished. We feel very blessed to have found a nice place in such short time.

We also visited our new ward in Dallas and we felt very comfortable there. I sure appreciated the testimonies of the members there (it was fast Sunday). I felt something different from them that I haven't felt in Utah. I imagine it is much harder to stick to your beliefs in the "Bible Belt" and these saints had an extra strength that is hard to explain. On a lighter note, when I introduced Dianna and I in Sunday School the class president asked "are you an attorney?" I said "no, an accountant" and the whole congregation sighed and then laughed. I guess there are a lot of aspiring young attorney's in the ward. Huh.

Despite some long delays flying home the trip went very smoothly. We love Dallas and its humidity, food, and neighborhoods and we are excited to move down there in a few weeks.

News Update

Graduation

The family came in town for Dave's graduation; that's all six parents and several siblings. We had a wonderful time visiting with each other. At commencement Vice President Dick Cheney spoke and I was very impressed with his speech. It turns out his great grandparents were pioneer saints that crossed the plains and settled in Salt Lake! At convocation the future Worldwide CEO of Deloitte and Touche (another big accounting firm), James Quigley spoke. Elder Bednar, who had a son graduate from the Marriott School was also invited to make a few comments at the end. Thursday night we had a luau with really good Hawaiian food. Who knows... this may be the last excuse we have to go to Utah for a very long time! It was a great get together.

California

Dianna and I trekked down to California over the first weekend of May to see my sister Katy receive her endowments. Congrats Katy! We enjoyed seeing her in the temple. Other than the temple, we were pretty much driving in the car and listening to books on CD.

Birthdays

We also celebrated our birthdays this month, Dianna's on the 18th and mine on the 24th. We had friends over for dinner and games. Dianna made a fabulous cake that got eaten up real fast. She is getting really good with her fancy spring-form pans (and thats ok with me!). Dianna gave me a traveler's bag and neck pillow thing for my business trips, and I got Dianna a few kitchen utensils, a cake display thing, some crafts, and the customary plenitude of chocolate. We also want to thank all of you for remembering our birthdays too; we loved hearing from you!

So Long PC!

Well, the time has finally arrived: Dianna and I converted to Mac. Last week we received a 20" iMac as a graduation present from my father. Thanks Dad!

You know all those things they say about taking the Mac right out of the box and using it? Well they are all true. What a purely enjoyable experience. I kept thinking, "Where is the rest of the stuff?" but the whole package consisted of the computer (monitor + machine), power cord, mouse, remote, welcome booklets, and backup CDs. We plugged it in and it was ready!

I also researched how to transfer files from my old PC and set up a direct connection to our iMac, so our files were copied over about 10 minutes later. What a breeze!

To top it off, our printer works so much better on the Mac and I am very impressed with Microsoft Office 2004. Adobe CS3 is the big reason we switched over. It was made for Macs. Adobe also owns Macromedia now, which means CS3 comes with Flash and Dreamweaver! For those of you who develop websites, you know that is a biggy.

It also comes with a remote (like a little iPod Nano) that allows us to watch movies, listen to music, etc from anywhere in the room. Well, the list goes on and on, but those are the best things thus far.

We are so happy with our iMac. Thinking about switching too? Just give us a call and we will sell you on it.

Wow. This is hillarious!!

glumbert.com - Laughter is contagious

Dave went out and won...

A bike! Check it out:


So the story behind the prize is something amazing. Last Friday BYU held the annual "Senior Celebration" where they give free food and entertainment to the graduating seniors. Dianna and I got one ticket in the raffle and we didn't win anything during the first half. We enjoyed ourselves doing some rock-climbing and visiting with friends and then left to go to my vocal teacher's Masters Recital (a requirement for my vocal class) just across campus. The recital went late and we didn't get out until about 11:45 pm at which point I say to Dianna "why don't we just go home?" She said that we should go back to the Senior Recital to talk to our friends who were still there. I agreed. When we got outside it was cold and so, as we do by custom, we decided to run. As we enter the building we realize everyone is on the other end in the ballroom doing the last raffle. When we were about 100 yards away still I hear "and the grand prize goes to... David Crest." Holy Crap!! I looked at Dianna as if I didn't know what to do and she said "Run Dave!" So I come charging around the corner screaming from the hallway "I'm here, I'm here! That's me!!!" Just as he was pulling out the next name my voice finally came into the room and I ran to the stage and grabbed my brand new mountain bike! What an exciting moment! Not only was it the first thing that I have ever one, but it was done in excellent fashion and it is a MOUNTAIN BIKE!! What a blessing.

PS - When we got home I realized that the bike is actually a female bike meant for someone under 5'6". So I gave the bike to Dianna. She deserves it.

Salt Lake City and Jazz

Dianna and I had some fun last week going to a Jazz game and spending some time in downtown Salt Lake. We really like it there and we remembered just how much we are going to miss it in Texas. Here are some pictures: