The Madness of March (Almost)

It's almost time folks!

The family bracket challenge gets pretty intense.

Can you guess who my pick usually is?

I made that shirt. Pretty good, huh? Too bad I don't have it anymore.

Truth be told, though I now know that Duke is truly a good basketball program and I love them, I started rooting for them in 6th grade when I had a crush on a boy who liked Duke. Thank you 6th grade crush for teaching me about Duke basketball. :)

Also, BYU may make a good showing this year. It's the year of the Jimmer.

Bring on the tourney!

Adventure: Fan Fest 2011

Hello baseball season!

For the past three years I have enjoyed going to San Francisco early in February to partake in the SF Giants Fan Fest. They open up the ballpark and all the players are there. You get to see the clubhouse, walk on the field, and have an all-together enjoyable day.

This year we recruited more friends to come with us. The more the merrier, right?

Well...apparently every Giants fan recruited more friends to come with them. Maybe this had a little something to do with winning the World Series last fall. I don't know. The gates opened to the public at 11:00 am. By the time we got there and parked about 11:30, the gates were already closed because they had reached capacity. And the first line we saw to get in wrapped about a mile around the park, across the bridge and through the parking lots. Yikes!

Instead of standing in line, we decided that the next best thing to do would be to eat. Why not? We zipped across the street to Amici's East Coast Pizzeria, and pretty soon we were enjoying delicious pizza with a great view of the park.

Clockwise from the left we have Ariane, Ben, Chris, Kristen, Nicole, David, and Chandra. Doesn't that look good?

After lunch we headed back to the park where the gates were still closed. We decided to wait until 2:00pm (about 30 more minutes) to see if anything happened. Here we are enjoying our time in line. It really was a gorgeous day in the city!

Finally, at 2:00, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we weren't going to get in. I suggested that we make the best of it and give ourselves a self-guided tour of the outside of the park. Everyone went along with that, and pretty soon we were off - looking at the plaques and statues that they have around the park.

THEN - we came to the next corner of the ballpark where there was one small gate. There was one security guy there, and the gate was open. We, surprised, asked if we could go in, and he said sure! No line. No wait. Why hadn't we done this sooner?!

That entrance took us pretty much directly on to the outfield. It was so packed with people, but it was still so fun to be there - where the game is played.

Last year we easily walked through the dugout and clubhouse. This is the mass hysteria of people that were in the dugout this year. We still went in though. :)

Then we went up to the press box - one of our favorite places. It has such a great view! Here are Ben, Chandra, and Ariane. I believe I was mlb.com this year.

We left the press box with about 10 minutes before they started to shoo us out. We decided to go upstairs rather than down, so Ari and I led everyone (well, we led those who could keep up) to the Q & A stage where we found these four (and this guy's big head): Will Clark, Mike Fontenot, Nate Schierholtz, and Barry Zito. Not bad for the last 10 minutes, huh?

Now, before I go on, you have to know that for the past two years, I have brought three baseballs and a sharpie with me to Fan Fest in the hopes of getting an autograph. But I've never even gotten close. This year, in the rush to get out of the house, I forgot. As we were pulling away, Ben reminded me about them, but I wanted to get on the road, and I figured it would be an exercise in futility anyway. So I left them.

After the Q & A, Ben grabbed his baseball and got an autograph from Will Clark! I was kicking myself (and still am)! I guess I'll have to go back again next year!

Here's Ben chatting it up with Will the Thrill as he pushes his baseball toward the front.

Triumphant! Ben was so excited.

We may have only had an hour inside this year, but it was still a total success! And now we can look forward to the season starting and the Giants going for a repeat. :)

Melt My Heart To Pieces

I know that everyone thinks that their niece or nephew is the cutest in the world, right?

I hate to break it to you people, but you're wrong.

I have the cutest. Period.

I'm not even going to discuss the adorableness of the twinners in the hats that Mollie made. I'll let the picture do all the talking. And besides, that's not really what this post is about.

But they ARE cute. :)

No, this post is about Kallie and how she melts my heart to pieces. Many moons ago she and I read the book Pinkalicious. It's a fun little book, as are its sequels. Just for fun I started calling her Kallilicious. Then she would call me Jennalicious. It's been our little thing for a while now.

Well, earlier this month my mom went to Idaho to visit their family, and she took Kallie on a date to Wal-Mart (her favorite place for some reason) to pick out a treat. She found a Pinkalicious box filled with stencils and stickers and all sorts of fun things. That's what she picked.

When my mom got home she said that she had something for me from Kallie. Here's a picture of what she sent from Idaho.

Mom said that Kallie wanted to send the whole box home with her so that I would be able to see all the Pinkalicious stuff. Since my mom said the box would be too big, they decided to just cut the top of the box to bring home. As my mom was leaving to go to the airport, Kallie realized that mom had forgotten to pack the box top and was a little upset. But she was appeased when she knew that I'd at least be getting her picture.

Isn't that the sweetest thing?

I have hung my picture by my bed so that I can think of my Kallilicious every day.

I wish we all lived closer.

Heart melting. :)

Four Generations of Keils

On Thanksgiving, with the exception of one cousin (Kristen was saving the world overseas), we had all of my family on my mom's side together. Since this doesn't happen very often, we decided to take a few pictures. Below you will find four generations of the Keil family. My grandparents at the top of the stairs, their three children next, then the grandchildren, and the great-grandchildren intermixed at the bottom. First we took a nice picture.

And then someone made some sort of joke, and this is what we ended up with:

But since laughing hysterically is how we like to enjoy our family gatherings, I guess this is just about as perfect of a family picture as we could take.

The only people (besides Kristen) who were missing were the spouses who were looking on. I think they looked at that staircase and decided to stay as far away from this idea as possible. :)

I love my family!

Don't Judge

OK - I know that maybe it's ridiculous, but I kind of am hooked on watching the new "season" of The Mormon Bachelor. I know it's kind of laughable of me, but the idea is so much better than that of the tv show, that I kind of want to see how it all goes.

The idea is this:

Girls apply to go on a date with the Mormon Bachelor.

Then the guy's friends screen the girls and pick 22 of them for first dates.

He goes on 22 first dates (many of them completely blind dates) in 22 days.

He then chooses 8 girls for second dates, and goes on 8 more dates in 8 more days.

Finally, he chooses one girl to keep dating and "meet the parents."

There are no cheesy roses involved - thankfully - and they have someone put together a 3-4 minute video of the date for a little recap each day.

Anyway...call it a guilty pleasure or whatever you will, but I've found myself tuning in each day to see what happened the night before. And, I must say, that the girls have put together some very creative dates. So, view if you will. :)

Some 2011 Adventures

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Ok - I know I'm a little late with that greeting, but we all know I'm not the most timely blogger. :)

For the past few weeks I've been compiling a new list of adventures, and I think I've got a pretty good start. Thank you to everyone who made suggestions! Unfortunately I won't be able to tackle all of the suggestions right now, but that's why my adventure lists have the equivalent of rollover minutes. If they don't happen this year, they can always happen next year.

So, here's a little taste of what's on the docket.

Climb Mount Diablo

Visit Filoli Gardens

Visit Villa Montalvo

Visit Hakone Gardens

Read something by Charles Dickens

Learn how to make bread/rolls

Learn how to fly fish

See a Broadway show

Learn how to arrange flowers

Make something that I'd actually wear

Publish a book

Read Shakespeare

Grow something in my garden (preferably tulips, hydrangeas or ranunculus)

Run a half marathon

Participate in the Ragnar Nor-Cal race

Visit the Getty Museum

Visit Hearst Castle

Attend the SF Giants FanFest

Visit the Legion of Honor

Free Museum Day

Concerts in the park

Learn to golf

Go to a festival

What do you think? It's just a start, and I know there's more that I can and will add to my list, but I think it should be pretty fun! Also, I think the spontaneous adventures are fantastic. For example, I didn't expect to go ice skating yesterday, but there I was. A fun little afternoon adventure with friends!

On a side note, I do believe the reason they close the Sacramento outdoor skating rink in mid-January is because it starts to melt. There were definitely some puddles on the ice yesterday. :)

Here's to many great adventures in the coming year!

Some things I love at Christmastime

There are so many good things this time of year! Here are some of my favorites:

1. Everyone's a little nicer. People say hello or thank you or Merry Christmas. It's just NICE. Yes, there are crabby people out there. But since I've done very little shopping this season I haven't had to run into very many of them, so I still can think that most people are happy.

2. We get to hear wonderful Christmas messages from the leaders of our church. I love the Christmas Devotional! It reminds me that all of the wonderfulness of this season is to celebrate the birth of the Savior of the World. And people throughout the whole world come together to remember and celebrate. It's amazing.

3. Christmas cards! I love getting Christmas cards. Anyone's Christmas cards. I open the mail at work, and I love it when the cards come in. I don't even have to know the people. I love the family pictures and the updates. I mean, it's far better when I get to read a card from someone I know, of course. I love that my mom saves all the family cards so that I can read them when I come home. It's just a nice way of staying in touch.

4. Music! I'm one of those cheese-balls who listens to Christmas music as much as I can during the holidays. And, as much fun as much of the music is, I have found myself drawn more to the sacred music the past few years. I love that popular radio stations can and will play songs rejoicing in the birth of our Savior. It's wonderful! I do still love the lighter music as well. This is my current favorite version of the 12 Days of Christmas. (Don't worry - it's not too long, and it's awesome!)

5. Food. Specifically baked goods. There's going to be a major withdrawl/detox period come January 1st. But for now I'm just taking in every bit of it. :)

That's all for now. I'm sure I'll be back with more things that I love about this time of year.

Adventures 2011

I need some help.

I am starting to put together an actual list for 2011 of different adventures I'd like to go on. But I'd like to hear if anyone has any ideas for me.

What do you think?

I also need a new word for adventure. I mean, it still does the trick, but I'm feeling the need for something new. I checked the thesaurus, but nothing jumped out at me. Thoughts?

My Family = Awesomeness

Sometimes I come up with crazy plans for my family.

Most of the time these plans are dismissed and we all move on.

BUT...This Thanksgiving one of my plans stuck.

In one of my hair-brained schemes, I came up with a Thanksgiving family fun run. In fact, I called it the "1st Ever Harlow Family Run Before You're Hungry." I even had some super amazing t-shirts made.

And everyone jumped on board. People actually thought this was a good idea!

And guess what? We had a great time!

We started and ended at my dad's school. He set up a banner for us and even had a starter's pistol and water bottles. So we ran through the neighborhood (some ran farther than others) in our matching shirts and had a great start to the day.

Thanks, family, for being so awesome and having fun with my crazy plans!

Get ready for next year! :)

How Did I Survive?

How did I ever survive winters in places other than California?

I'm currently sitting in my heated office with my coat on - FREEZING!!! Most mornings I fill a cup with hot water, wrap my hands around it until it's cool enough to sip and then drink plain hot water to warm me up.

And we've only hit freezing (literally) temperatures maybe once this year.

How in the world did I live for so many years in places like Utah and The Netherlands?! I know that winter wind blowing right off the North Sea was infinitely colder than the valley fog, so where did all my toughness go?

I may have to get out the "couch sack" tonight. :)

P.S. I am officially against the little oranges that look like they are going to be nice and sweet and turn out to be somewhat sour and full of seeds.