My mother's aunt step mother's uncle's aunt twice removed cousin's friend's aunt's grocer's brother in law

Hey everybody who checks our blog. So you strangers or should I say acquaintances who I have never met who are my mother's aunt step mother's uncle's aunt twice removed cousin's friend's aunt's grocer's brother in law, apparently when I went to my contact list on Google and sent you all the link to this blog, I failed to look in details who you all were and how you got into my contact list (duh, why should I? with my hotmail and juno account, I have to add you in my contact list). But apparently Gmail will put email addresses from forward messages and cc lists and just about any open e-mail into our contact and although we have never sent you a single message, our my mother's aunt step mother's uncle's aunt twice removed cousin's friend's aunt's grocer's brother in law did and so you're now our friends and you're in our contact list. My apology for you all who happened to get a strange e-mail from us recently about some family in Washington and hope you will still enjoy reading our blog. Thanks for stopping by. Love, Thuan

Some Reflections

Today after talking to my sisters I realized something very scary. I'm only 25 now and that's not too bad but April, April is my fear. May is happy because the baby is coming then but April, what's coming for me is a scary number 26. Holy cow it hits me, finally. 25 is not too bad but 26, all of a sudden that's old. Wait until I turn 30, that would be scary but for now 26 seems extremely old. I thought that I was still a young buck when I went to Relief Society the first time in our ward and they thought I was one of the young women. I felt pretty good then and Sunday a brother in our ward thought I was 20 but after talking to my siblings who are younger then me, that's when I realized that I'm getting older. Somehow the last 5 years I felt like I'm just 20 years old just graduating from BYU. What have I accomplished in the last 25 years? I've always wanted to be as smart as Dan by the time I'm 29 and know all those random things he knows but can I? It made me ponder the things I've done and callings I've had since I joined the church. I was called on Sunday to be our Relief Society Instructor (It's my 2nd time now); I was a Gospel Doctrine Teacher in our last ward; taught CTR 4 and 5 twice as well; I was a choir director for our ward and a pianist for our Relief Society, both callings have increased my understanding of music a little more and got me into theater and Women's Chorus at BYU which was a great success because of the opportunity we got to sing in General Conference. But when I was asked to play the piano for our Relief Society because the pianist never showed up, I realized that I hadn't practiced the piano in months. Thankfully they were Christmas songs and it wasn't too bad but I was not prepared. I taught myself the piano because I was not fortunate to have opportunities when I was younger to take any lessons for anything. My parents were too poor. I don't understand those people who were given the opportunity and never took it and I'm jealous of those who did. But it's never too late to learn a new instrument or take voice lessons. I'm recording my first CD in January and I'm way excited! At least that will be a great accomplishment before I turn 26. I got my Master's degree in Counseling and although that's a huge accomplishment, I won't use that for a while. I'm hoping to be able to use a little bit of it when I work with a brother in the ward who owns a women and children's center. I don't want to go on and brag and brag about the things I've done but as I thought about big accomplishments in my life, the biggest 2 accomplishments I've had in my life was being married to my sweetheart and bringing a beauuuutiful and healthy 8lbs 15 ounces Reena into this world and carrying this baby that will join our family in May. It makes me so grateful for all I do have when yesterday I was reminded of a fellow I acted and modeled with whose picture showed up at one of the medical websites I went to who had a terrible experience with their first child. His wife carried the baby for 6 months and got everything prepared and announced when they found out that the child died but she still had to carry it to full term. It was extremely difficult for them as everyone was asking when the baby is due. They didn't want to go out in public and when the baby came there was no joy because it was dead. What a sad sad experience that was for them. I pray that this baby stays healthy and strong and that our other children will as well. There is one big dream of mine that I want to fulfill someday when our kids are all in school and that is to teach Counseling Psychology at a University but that dream is still not as big as the dream that all of our children will be healthy and faithful in the church. I have this hope for everyone...

The Weather

I just have to add this. The sun is out!!! After almost 2 weeks of snow and cloudy days (Yuck!), the sun finally decided to come out. I'm so happy. It was pouring this morning and I thought for sure it would be cloudy all day but the rains here are so weird, they come and go and come and go. Reena and I were so good at walking on our 4 mile trail when the weather was good and Dan and I were just beginning our work outs at the gym and it snowed on us. Nobody here knows what to do when it snows and everything is closed and everyone stays inside the house except of course those crazy people who think jogging is a must no matter the circumstance. I swear some people exercise so much there's nothing but skin and bones on their body, it's scary. But the snow is gone, all gone now so it's really nice and you can actually see people on the street and it's all alive again.

Dan and I have been playing games like crazy. Just 2 days ago I realized, holy crap, we've got a lot to entertain ourselves with that we don't even have the time to do them all. We both love Warcraft, especially DOTA and we love all sorts of video games like Trackmania and the Wii of course with games like Rock Band and Mario Kart that are so hard to stop playing. Then we also have lots of board games and two of my very favorite strategy games Settlers, especially Cities and Knights (oh yeah don't mention trivia games, I hate those! People who are older than you always win because those games seem to be geared towards their time) Then we've got a list of movies we want to see and we bought a big screen TV for that reason and the Wii so yeah, we've got enough to entertain ourselves. Just then I also realized that when I finally drop video games so I can have a more interesting life I scrapbook and make cards and they all seem to contribute to my family and Dan, Dan, well what does Dan like to do that could contribute to our family and then it hits! Dan could be our trips and vacations planner! Yes it was perfect because Dan loves to look up places and learn about them on the computer so why not make him our planner so he can get hotels and directions all planned out for us? With big cities like Vancouver, Canada being 2 hours away and Portland about 3 hours away and many other cities and places of attractions so near by, why not go see these places. I mean these are so close to home. How many other people out there can drive just 2 hours away from home and see all these attractions? So Dan's planning a trip for us this weekend to go to Canada. We're both so excited and Dan is way excited that he found something he likes to do with his free time that actually contributes to his family a little more and I'm so excited because that's one less thing I need to do! Yeah! Boom baby!

Oh the fun world of gamer nerds!

So we stayed up until 4:00 AM this morning playing DOTA (A Warcraft expansion game). OK how many other couples out there are as stupid as we are, oh please let me know so I can take comfort in knowing we're not the only idiotic ones? Thankfully our daughter slept in until 8:00 this morning so I got 4 hours and Dan got about 5 and a half hours of sleep. It was too fun and it had been too long since we last played so we stayed up killing, I mean fragging each other and arguing about the details of our moves. We made up later and it's all good now but yeah that probably was not the best thing to do when you have kids. Maybe 1:00 or 2:00 but 4:00? Oh the joy, joy to the world of gamer nerds (Sing it to the tune of Joy to the World)

Thuan's little ranting about Christmas!!

Candies and food and more sweets and treats, yes I'm so glad I'm pregnant. If I'm going to gain weight, it might as well be for the baby, which holy cow I've already put on 12 pounds. How do people not be able to tell I'm pregnant, I totally can. I was mistaken for a young woman at church!! I'm 25! I was only 102 pounds after Reena and now I'm back up to 114 pounds. When I'm pregnant though, I take every pound I'm allowed. I'm only allowed 35 pounds and I've got 5 more months to go? That's scary. Well, good news is in 2 more weeks I can find out the gender of my baby. Another girl would be ideal for Reena and for us because we already have all the girl stuff. A boy would be neat because then we would have one of each. If it's a boy, it would be Ronan Quin Stevens and if it,s a girl, it would be Debrey...Stevens. Don't have a middle name yet. Suggestions? Send them my way. Happy weekend to everyone and happy holidays, too! Oh yeah, take a peak at these before and after pictures!!!

Christmas 2008

Seattle Life

Fun Stuff

Random pictures

Christmas preparation near the end

Today we have officially finished with our Christmas shopping. It is so nice to get one stress out of the way. Our cards are mostly done and hopefully tonight we will get them all in the envelopes and on their out tomorrow. I'm so looking forward to playing lots and lots of video games (Yes this is Thuan speaking. I'm not just a creator, I'm a gamer, yeah!) Even a game of chess sounds better than Christmas shopping. The last time we played a game of chess Dan thought he would win in an hour or less, I carried him out 3 hours and almost won, too. This Christmas holiday should be nice and relaxing for us. We're going to get our first live Christmas tree tomorrow and we're so excited.

Christmas Newsletter

Five years ago a very confident boy met a dazed 19 year old girl and convinced her that she's the one for him. Now, five years later, they've added to their happiness, a fruit of their love with another one on the way. Now you know the premise of how they met, here is a sketch of their wonderful life together...


This year has been good for us. We have a lot of exciting news, so here it is in 500 words or less. Thuan was in the play Pirates of Penzance and did a great job as one of the General's daughters. Our yard started off as nothing but clay and rocks, but we put in sprinklers; laid sod; planted a garden, some trees and bushes; put in some rock and mulch, and now it looks great, though it's not yet finished. Thuan's sisters, Thanh and Thao, moved in with us in April after their graduation for a couple of months. In July we went on a trip to Sea World, Santa Monica Beach and Six Flags with them and Thuan's brother Michael. We stayed with Dan's Uncle Brad and Aunt Sheri while there and appreciated them letting us do so. On our way back up Reena got to see her cousin Aspen. A couple weeks later Reena turned 2 and had some friends over for a fun party. Then life got busy. In early August Dan was hired by Amazon.com. We went to Philly in late August to celebrate our 5th anniversary. We spent a couple of days with Thuan's family, then left Reena with them while we traveled to Rehoboth Beach and the Washington, DC temple for anniversary pictures. On our way home we were delayed in Chicago for 8 hours, thus missing our connecting flight. When we finally arrived in Vegas, we slept for a few hours at Dan's parent's house then caught the earliest flight home the next day. We got home just before the packers gave up on us. The next day the movers had cleaned out our house and we found renters for it just before we left. Our Fit had been shuttled off to Seattle, and our Toyota was in the shop (we sold it to Thanh later) so Dan's brother Lon let us stay at his house, and drove us to the airport the next day. Once in Seattle, we stayed on the 21st floor overlooking Elliot Bay with a view of the Space Needle behind us.. It was beautiful. While there, we learned that we are expecting our second child and we are very happy. We are now in Issaquah, 15 miles east of Seattle. We became good friends with another recently transplanted family with kids Reena's age. We had Thanksgiving at their house and it was delicious. We also started working out at a local gym. Now, we are settling in and starting to relax. All in all it was an exciting year for us. Reena did a lot of growing up and is quite a talker now. She is adorable. We are happy to be here in the Pacific Northwest but are most excited about the addition coming to our family. We love you all and hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Love Dan, Thuan, Reena and ?