Happy Bday Matt & Erin

We went to Des Moines last weekend to celebrate Matt’s birthday (11th), Erin’s birthday (13th) and to help them move into a house they are renting.

We celebrated Erin’s birthday Friday night at a Japanese steakhouse.  It was great food (scallops, shrimp and calamari for me) and an entertaining chef at the table which is always nice. I had my first Sake bomb. I didn’t care for it much. If you are going to do a shot….it might as well taste good, right? This one didn’t.

I have no idea what Matt & Joe thought was so funny, but they had tears in their eyes. (this is fairly typical when you get Matt, Matt and Joe together) :)

Saturday all day we helped Matt and Erin move into their house.  It’s a cute little house in a decent neighborhood with nice wood floors and a back yard, which will be nice for Wally & Ryleigh. I thought I had taken a couple photos, but see I didn’t, so you will have to imagine…..

Saturday night we had a party room at a local pizza restaurant and had more of the family at this one, including Erin’s parents and Al’s parents.

Of course we scheduled this before we knew that the Broncos would be playing at 7:00, so it worked out pretty good that there were lots of TV’s in the room as well.

Everyone was decked out in their Broncos gear.

Sadly it didn’t matter as they got walloped and it was pretty painful to watch. There’s always next year.

Trevor was a hit at the party and he got passed around from person to person all evening.

It was a great weekend! Happy Birthday guys!

Christmas

We had 2 lovely little girls in pretty Christmas dresses

3 grown kids

Two goofy guys giving their sister a smooch

5 puppies (with 2 that were decked out for the day)

A horse

A few tears (joe had a couple sentimental gifts this year)

Smiles

Musical T-shirts (they actually worked, although you can’t actually play a “tune”)

A car that drives on a black marker track

And a couple photos of Sarah and Erin mid-sentence (sorry girls)

And best of all….no snow!

We had a great day and I hope everyone else did as well.

Hickory Hills Halloween

It was the Halloween weekend at Hickory Hills last weekend and it was a gorgeous weekend for it.  Craig, Sarah and the kids came out, and Matt & Erin and Ryleigh came for the weekend.

We had Tai as a horse with a jockey rider. He did okay with it, probably because he’s used to wearing cloths anyway, but he wasn’t too sure about all the other dogs so he didn’t get to stay out too late.

And we had the Mario Brothers Mario and Luigi, complete with Princess Peach, Toad and the Koopa (turtle). (you know that I had to look the names all up on the internet!)

And we had Matt as “Ranger Al”. Everyone thought it was cute. I don’t think Al thought it was quite so cute.

Erin dressed in a buck hat (to go along with Ranger Al) and Wally dressed up as a flower to go along with Ryleigh’s bee.

It was a fun day. Now we just have to wait a couple weeks to go to Joe & Lauren’s for the real Halloween (of course because no-one ever comes to our house……can’t imagine why?)

A Beautiful Day for a Baptism

Sarah and Craig had Ava and Trevor’s baptism yesterday.

I loved the idea that they wanted to have it by the lake. It was an especially appropriate place I thought. We’ve lived in the park for almost 20 years now, moving here when Sarah was only 8. It was her backyard growing up.

Sarah and Craig were married here in 2006.

Last year they helped celebrate Joe & Lauren’s wedding here.

And as the Reverend said……what better place to celebrate their baptism surrounded by the beauty of God’s creation? It was a hot & sunny day, but thankfully the clouds showed up just in time to shade us for a little while.

Sarah was given a pretty bead bracelet from her co-workers that Ava was going to wear, but it broke right away.  I remembered some keepsakes of mine that mom had recently given me, and gave Ava a bracelet that was given to me when I was a baby for her to wear.  It even matched her dress. :)

We went back to the house and had a great lunch that Sarah prepared. It was a great day.

We also celebrated Ava’s birthday, but there are too many pics & stories to add here….I will make that another installment for tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Joe & Sarah

Joe & Sarah turned 28 years old last week. I cannot believe that I actually have kids that are 28 years old! It seems very strange…….I can’t be old enough to have kids that old, right?

Everyone came out to the house for dinner Saturday to celebrate. It was a perfect evening outside. We grilled and had a nice fire. 

I made their favorite (although not very good for you) treats for desert. (and made them take any leftovers home with them!)

Joe even helped “cook”.

Ave played with the dogs and loved on her aunt Lauren.

And met the buffalo and some snakes….

And went for a walk around the park. Obviously from this photo you can tell that Ava and the dogs didn’t walk much.

Matt bought Joe toys for his birthday…….so Ava has something to play with at their house. :)

Now we just need to get Trevor old enough so he can join in the fun.

Happy Birthday guys!