Ice skating at Pan Am Plaza in Indianapolis, IN

It’s been about 10 years since I had been ice skating, so we felt like it was about time to give it shot. The video was taken at Pan Am Plaza in Indianapolis, IN and man, did it end being a lot of fun. Some of our friends and family came along with us, too which made it even more entertaining (as you’ll see).

Check out the video below or over here on YouTube when you get a chance and here’s to the beginning of an amazing 2010! Stephanie and I (and Frank as long as he can still fit on the plane) head back to San Francisco tomorrow, but it’s been so great to see all of our friends and family the past month while we’ve been home. We’re extremely blessed to have all of the amazing people that we have in our lives and we can’t wait to see you all again!

January 3, 2010 | Filed Under great friends, hangin' with the fam, local to indy, new/random experience, video

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Check out my niece Madison (the praying pilgrim)

My sister just sent me over this pic of my niece that was posted on the Cincinnati Enquirer. Doesn’t she look great as a praying pilgrim (she’s the smiling blonde in the first row, second from the left)?

I wonder what she was praying for?

December 15, 2009 | Filed Under hangin' with the fam, quickies

The Hupfers invade the 2009 Indiana State Fair (and we have the pics to prove it)

fair_split-over One of the things that Stephanie misses most about not being in Indiana during their hot, humid Summer months is missing the ultimate in Hoosier hillbilly hi jinks, the Indiana State Fair. Out here in California I’m not even sure if they even have a state fair, but if they did I guarantee that it wouldn’t be nearly as awesome of an event as what the good ol’ State of Indiana can put together. It’s definitely something that Stephanie wishes that she could go to and honestly, I guess that I wouldn’t mind seeing a nice tractor pull or two if I had the chance.

One cool thing that you should know about the Indiana State Fair is that my brother Kyle is it’s official chairman and although I have no idea what that actually means, I do know that it includes him making an important opening speech during the first day that the fair is open to the public. Well, this is the first year that Kyle has had a beautiful new baby to show off, so he decided to take advantage of the opportunity to show little Adah to the rest of the world by holding her while he opened up this year’s state fair installment to the masses.

There are a couple of cool things that happened as he held baby Adah during his speech:

He was able to show the world (well, at least Indiana) the new tomato-themed outfit that my mom hand made for Adah to wear for the occasion (they gave my mom a shout-out in the caption, see below). You can see the outfit over here in this photo that was taken after the speech. I also have posted it below for you to check out. The outfit is themed Red Gold because they’re a very important Indiana-based company that is also a HUGE supporter of the State Fair each year. If you ask me, it’s about the best product plug that I’ve ever seen.
Adah was able to have her picture taken with this year’s Miss America, Katie Stam (who is from Indiana and who went to my alma mater, The University of Indianapolis — Woot!). You can check out that photo over here on Indy Star, too.
Kyle’s wife Jill, their son Ashton and my sister’s daughter Madison also got some face time in the photos as well. You can see their photo as well over here on Indy Star.

Of course, others took notice of the fact that Kyle made the opening ceremonies a family affair. The Indy Star State Fair blog aptly named “Deep Fried Blog” had this to say about my big bro:

Red Gold is the big corporate sponsor of the fair this year, prompting state fair commission chairman Kyle Hupfer to take note of the many “tomato colored shirts” at the fair. Nothing is red, all is tomato - even the Red Gold bonnet on top of his baby, Adah, who he cradled during his remarks.

I think that it’s pretty cool that my brother did this and that my mom turned into Martha Stewart and made Adah her cute, little outfit that caught everyone’s attention. So, I guess that even though Stephanie and I couldn’t make it to the fair this year, it’s good to know that the rest of the Hupfer’s were still able to make such an impact. Can I get a YEEEE HAW to that?

Here are some of the photos that I linked to above, as well as a bonus shot of this year’s official Indiana State Fair fat-filled delicacy, chocolate covered bacon.

August 9, 2009 | Filed Under hangin' with the fam, local to indy

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It’s about time for an update, don’t ya think?

Hey everybody! Our apologies for the lack of posts recently. Things have been mighty hectic out here in San Francisco recently, so now that I have a few minutes while sitting in the airport, I thought I would write up a little update.

And now for the past two weeks… by bullet

Ryan had his surgery and everything went great! He’s currently in a sling now and fending off the aches and pains of a brand new ligament implant, but so far so good! He recently went back to work and is starting to be a real person again:) Hooray!

We got a new little doggie named Frank. He is quite possibly both the world’s cutest dog and most wonderfully behaved dog. He’s almost 6 months old and just a little bundly of snuggly joy. We have quickly fallen in love with him, and I can guarantee that you will be seeing much, much more of Frank in the future!

I’m on my way back home for the week to do a litte bit (actually A LOT) of wedding planning. I have a meeting set up for every single day, but I’m certainly hoping to fill in some extra slots with some much needed friends and family time. Unfortunately, Frank coud not join Ryan and I for the trip but he’s soaking up the good life at my co-teacher’s house for the week. I told him he was just going to puppy day camp and that he would have the time of his life. So far it seems to be the case

That’s about it for the updates… I’ll keep you all posted on the wedding planning. Oh, and one more thing, we obviously did not make the Today Show wedding….. oh well…. we’ll have more fun at our own wedding anyway right?!

June 12, 2009 | Filed Under Frank, Today Show Wedding, Wedding Shtuff, hangin' with the fam

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Throw’d rolls at The Potatoe Patch in Houston, TX

We had to check out just one more thing before we left the beautiful, yet somewhat odd state of Texas. That one thing was The Potatoe Patch, a restaurant that’s been made famous through the fact that they throw their fresh, hot and tasty rolls at you while you’re eating. None of this pansy, non-Texas handing out of rolls. Oh no — they throw them at you. I mean it’s says ‘Throw’d Rolls’ right on the side of their restaurant in bright neon, so they are definitely not kidding around. Of course, it says ‘Fried Green Tomotoes’ on the other side, but that’s a whole other story.

Check out the video below or over here on YouTube to see some of the famous Throw’d Rolls in action.

January 21, 2009 | Filed Under hangin' with the fam, new/random experience, travel, video

Going down to China Town in Houston, TX

Today was our first full day here in Houston, TX and it was a pretty exciting one thanks to a visit to the local China Town. Now, the China Town here in Texas isn’t quite like the China Town in San Francisco that Stephanie and I visited last Summer, which is a huge part of the city and feels like you could literally be in China. This China Town is really just a weird, slightly rundown section of Houston that just happens to be where a large number of Asians decided to live ta some point. It was a little more cluttered than most other parts of the Houston suburbs that we’ve seen, but besides the Chinese signs and banners everywhere and an over abundance of fake purses, it felt fairly normal.

Between Stephanie’s dad’s love for the Asian culture (he especially loves to see them hit the live catfish with a pipe before they chop them up to sell) and Stephanie’s love for cheap purses and fake flowers (helllllo wedding decorations) we practically had no choice in visiting Houston’s China town and as always, it provided not only good shopping, but great entertainment as well. Here are a few pics that I snapped during the adventure — enjoy.

This place had a lot of nice stuff, which I thankfully didn’t broken because I would’ve need buy if I did.

You would think that they would have more than just that one Obama picture for sale.

Stephanie and her super-awesome stepmom Shannon pose with some potential wedding decor.

If you get invited to our wedding, you might just see one of these fabrics on your table.

You wont find these at Safeway.

100 year old eggs — a delicacy in Asian culture. Check out my buddy Kpet eating one on YouTube.

Which one of these is not like the others…?

This has been a great day here in Texas and we even had the chance to tear up some of Stephanie’s dad’s famous spring rolls and sushi and Stephanie even helped make them, too. Tomorrow we’re going to hit up the Bodies: The Exhibition that’s currently being shown at one of Houston’s museums. It should be pretty freaky.

Oh, and I realized that I never posted up our video from when we visited China Town in San Francisco a while back, so feel free to check it out below of over here on YouTube.

January 17, 2009 | Filed Under hangin' with the fam, travel

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The 2008 Hupfer Family Christmas

With all of the running around that Stephanie and I have done over the past week and a half (it seems like a couple months), I’ve only had a few chances to snag a couple solid hours on my laptop. With the time that I was able to squeeze in today I decided to edit up some video that I took during my family Christmas fun about a week or so ago. The video below (or here on YouTube) will give all of you a little glimpse into the madness that is now the Hupfer Family Christmas.

Some of the highlights include some dancing and a Hup and Steph theme song rendition by Madison, introductions of my nieces and nephews, a visit by Santa and a glimpse of my dad’s annual Christmas tradition of collecting all of the trash with his huge, yellow trash bags. It’s funny that after all these years those gigantic pieces of yellow plastic remind me of Christmas more than about anything and when they appear it still gives me and the rest of my family a great laugh together. You have to love the random family traditions - in my mind they’re what make the holidays something special.

Enjoy the pics and check back for some more Hup and Steph holiday fun as I we get a chance to catch up on everything. We take off back to Palo Alto tomorrow at 6pm, so we’ll be getting back to the ‘real world’ in no time.

Stephanie and Riley with a perfect pose

My dad and his famous yellow trash bag

Riley, Reese and the jolly fat man

I take one knee and Stephanie takes the other

This was Santa’s idea

The fam - I still can’t believe we were able to take this

January 2, 2009 | Filed Under events, hangin' with the fam, travel, video

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Time to brave the cold in Indiana

I’m sitting here at the San Jose Airport staring out the window at the last warm weather that I’m going to be seeing in quite a while. Today when I talked to Stephanie she said that it was ridiculously cold (30 degrees with frozen rain as I write this) and that the roads are terrible and that I was going to be in for quite a shock when I touch ground in the good ‘ol Hoosier state. I’m just hoping that there are no delays or anything that would make my all day flight even longer. As it is I’m leaving California at 2:30pm, getting to Denver around 5:30pm and will take off from there after an hour layover to Indianapolis, where I should arrive right around midnight.

I guess you see why I’d like to make all of these flights on time, eh?

I’m so excited to get back home to see everyone and of course to see Stephanie (it’s been over a day now!) when she picks me up at the airport. It’s going to be a bit hectic once I get back to Indiana, so if you don’t hear from me have a great holiday and be sure to get drunk with your family members at least once. I know that’s something that I look forward to at every family get together.

December 23, 2008 | Filed Under great friends, hangin' with the fam, travel

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Homeward Bound!

The moment that I have been eagerly awaiting for almost 4 months now since Ryan and I booked our flights to come home for Christmas has finally arrived. Right now I’m patiently waiting in the San Jose airport, getting ready to board my flight to Denver first before I head on home to Indiana. I’m praying that the weather holds out for me as I trek into the unknown abyss of snowstorms and freezing weather. Ryan is hanging around California for another day and then will fly back home on Tuesday. We’re so excited to see all of our family and friends and spend a lot of quality time catching up and just simply enjoying the holidays.

Since I’m sitting in the airport ( a little bored since I freak out about making my flight in time and end up waiting for hours once I get here) I’ll talk a little bit about how much I LOVE traveling. It’s not just the whole going to a new place part of traveling that I enjoy, I actually really love the traveling part. I’m so intrigued by airports and the fantastic people watching that can occur. I could sit for hours and watch people pass by and try to make up a story in my mind about each person and what their story is and where they’re going and why. It’s really entertaining for me and I feel that I could make a job of it if I could. Maybe one day Ryan and I will find a way to make traveling our job… some day…

I guess for now I’ll just sit and be fulfilled with the extra super great crowd of people traveling during the Christmas season and look forward to freezing temperatures, snow, and ice back in good ol’ Indiana.

December 21, 2008 | Filed Under hangin' with the fam, travel

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Good times at Disney On Ice

A couple of weeks ago me, Stephanie, my mom, my niece Madison and both of my sisters Angie and Megan headed to Oracle Arena to take in the best entertainment that the West Coast has to offer - Disney On Ice. We all had an amazing time and I would probably say that Stephanie and I had more fun singing than my 6 year-old niece did. But, don’t take my word for it - check out the video below or over here on YouTube when you get a chance. M-I-C…K-E-Y..M-O-U-S-E.