Cheesecake cupcakes, birthday and hair do's

This weekend was very fun! It started Friday night with Chick-fil-a at Klife, including a bounce house for the kids, so that was fun. I love Chick-fil-a, and Brian and I hadn't had any CFA in a while, so I was happy.

Then I went home and made cheesecake cupcakes for Anna's birthday! She said she liked chocolate cheesecake, so I kind of made up a recipe. I made 6 chocolate, 6-8 regular, 2 swirled, and 2 chocolate chip cheesecake cupcakes.

Brian and I woke up Saturday and cleaned up around the house and did some much needed laundry.

Then around noon I styled hair for a friend from church's sister for prom. She wanted a low, side bun that was kind of messy. It was fun to do hair again. I'll put a picture up on facebook or on our picture page with my other hair pictures.

When I got home, I wanted to play with my hair, so I gave myself a fun little side bun too, buta little neater with a braid.

We celebrated Anna's b-day on Saturday night and the cheesecake cupcakes were a hit and we had a great time with friends.

We'll have to post again later with our Mother's day events. :)

Secret Confession

Once, in Mexico, I sang in the worship band for the student ministry El Pozo (through Globalscope), thanks to my friend Whitney's encouragement. Not only was it singing in front of people, but it was singing in Spanish. At the time, I knew almost no Spanish. But it was so much fun! I don't have a rock star voice, but that's my secret confession: I wish I did have an amazing set of pipes and could sing

I don't want to be a famous singer or anything, I just want to belt out great songs and it sound awesome. Actually, if I'm in the car by myself, I'll still belt out the awesome songs, but I don't really know that it sounds awesome.

just wanted to share...

Do you have a secret confession?

Brian's Birthday

I have the best wife in the world.  No you can't argue with me over it, she simply takes the cake, yes intended since it was my Birthday weekend. Lindsey just was super sweet to me and I had one of the best birthdays I can remember.  A beautiful relaxing Saturday with my family. Me and Dad, yep beards are totally in now.

It started with some Wii with the family, while waiting for some of the others to be done with work/studying etc. This is me after playing probably the strangest game on Wii Fit Plus, that involves being a flying chicken and flapping your arms...  I was the only one who played it, and it was for everyone else to laugh apparently.  I still had fun, cause it was funny.

We also played Carcassone. This was the beginning:

I think they let me win, although I won because I luckily got the very last tile and it played perfectly for me. This is the board after we finished.

It was loads of fun.  We also played some Sorry Sliders, a few of us went for a walk to enjoy outside.
Once everyone got to the house, we were ready to go to dinner, to Ted's Montana Grill we went. This is the whole family, yes several them aren't technically related but they are family to us. :)

Dad and Eldest Daughter, aka Super Nurse:

Lil Sis aka Artist Extraordinare and Lil Sis' boyfriend/ our roommate

Having some fun with the complimentary reading glasses they brought to Dad before the food gets there:

This is me and my Kitchen Sink.  Oh so good.  I mean how can you go wrong with grilled mushrooms and onions, bacon, ham, cheese, fried egg all atop a B E A utiful bison patty. yummy.  Oh and you can see I had the broccoli instead of the fries, gotta be a little healthy. :)

A little healthy because I knew what was coming next.  Free Cookie and Ice cream dessert!  Pictured here is a snickerdoodle with vanilla ice cream

Then we went home and had real dessert.  My awesome wife, remember me telling about her?  She made from scratch a totally delicious Oreo Cheesecake for my BDay.  Here it is in the oven:

About to cut into the goodness.

After that we still had some daylight so we played a little KanJam, which you should all know about now.

Lindsey planned all of it and took such good care of me.  She really made it such a wonderful day and I totally enjoyed it.  She is awesome and has mad cheesecake making skills.

Easter in the Park

So this is a week late, well more by now, but wanted to share and actually show pictures of our Easter. We had a busy weekend for Easter, because Saturday we volunteered at Hop in the Park, which was Atlantic Station's Easter event.  There were all kinds of things going on, lots for kiddos to do.
They could make bunny masks:

Side walk chalk!

The ever popular bounce castle thing:

Ballons!

All sorts of games, complete with sugary prizes.  Parents I know you appreciated us hopping them up on sugar. (Pun intended)

Popcorn!

Bubbles! Bubbles and more Bubbles!

How many jelly beans are in here?  

(also our invites for our outdoor Easter service the next day)

We also for the first time in our 3 year partnership with Atlantic Station were able to both wear our church logo and actually talk to people about our church and what we are there for.

This is Karen and Connie. Connie is our director of mobilization and did a great job organizing everything for our event.

So you may be asking yourself, well what did you two do?
Lu was a face painter for approximately 4 hours.  Here she is hard at work.

I was sweating and working hard. Working hard? as a volunteer?  Yep.  This was me for the first hour or so.
Ready for my close up with and kiddos or puppies that wanted their picture made.  This was the humane society's booth and thankfully I only had to help out for a little while. :)  It was pretty fun though cause I was making crazy faces and you couldn't even tell.


All in all it was a lot of fun.  We had a blast and we sure were blessed the next day to see the fruits of our labor as we had around 370 people show up (kids included) to our Easter service outside in the park. It was a great day of celebration and the word was preached, several hearing for the first time.  My favorite thing about our outdoor service is that some people unexpectedly end up at church as they are just walking by and decide to stick around.  God is so good and our Easter was really great.


Wanted to share a little with you guys to get a taste of our service.  We opened with Revelation Song mixed with a Spoken Word piece by Celita Lewis.  Hope you guys enjoy.

Our 3rd Anniversary!!

As Friday morning (4/15), I knew that we were going to be celebrating our 3rd anniversary by going out of town somewhere and that's all I knew. Brian planned a surprise getaway for us, and I was very excited. I found out on the drive out of Atlanta that we were going to Tennessee near Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Brian had rented a cabin up there for us for the weekend. :)

This was our front porch, complete with rocking chairs.

This was the view out our back porch.

When we got there Friday night, we put a pizza and appetizer in the oven and unpacked. Brian surprised me with a 1 pound bag of Skittles (favorite) and with the information that he had picked this cabin/resort because there was a spa we could go to, if we wanted. :) Then we popped in a movie and enjoyed our pizza and spinach artichoke dip.

Brian had surprised me AGAIN and borrowed Disney's Tangled for us to watch. I had been wanting to see it! We had a very relaxing Friday night.

We even had a pet squirrel for the weekend :)

Saturday morning we woke up and decided to go on a hike at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Well Brian made muffins for breakfast first, then we went out for the hike.

We went to Rainbow falls.
It was 2.7 miles uphill to the waterfall (5.4 miles round trip), and it was a gorgeous day to be out in the park. The first part of the hike was beside a creek/river.

Then we got to cross the river/creek about 3 or 4 times.

At this point (thanks to the heavy rains the day before) we had to swim across. Well not really, but it was fun trying to decide which rocks to cross over on.

Then at other points there were these nice man-made bridges.

But we made it!

We enjoyed a packed lunch up here and then headed back down to the car. We kind of made our own routes back down. :)

We also saw this cool guy under the water.

After our hike we went into Gatlinburg. Oh, good ole downtown Gatlinburg. :) We drove through Pigeon Forge and they have an upside down house

and the Titanic (iceberg and all) along with lots of other carnival/touristy things.

We wandered around and also played mini gold at "Adventure Golf", complete with pirates, dinosaurs, and alligators!

As you can see behind me, we were held up, so we had some fun taking pictures.

Brian, in the "jungle".

Brian humored me and took a picture with the other alligator.

Saturday night Brian took me out to a nice place called The Peddler. It was a neat steak house where there Peddler comes to your table to "sell" you your steak and shows you the cut you'd be getting.

Us outside the Peddler.

That night, unfortunately we ran into a unwanted adventure. Stay tuned for post #2 for that story and more pictures.

Weekend Recap.

So the PE Exam is officially over!  So happy to have Lu back and she is so less stressed already it is great.  She finished, although didn't feel super confident about the test.  I still am positive she passed.  We won't find out till June though.

Still working on being a better blogger, which i guess means taking more pictures to put up here, so no pictures of our weekend but, we were thrilled to have guests this past weekend. My lil sister's boyfriend, has been living at our house and his parents cam to visit.  It was fun to have a full house and to get to meet his parents, they are really great.  I had a lot of fun.  Lindsey was still a bit busy with lots todo for our mission trip to South Africa, we are leading the team from our church.  but all in all she was able to decompress after months of prep for her test.

We went on a lovely bike ride and enjoyed the weather on Saturday.  Also had a blast with great friends coming over to visit for dinner and games.  Matt and Anna are so much fun.  After a quick bite down the road at Zaxby's it was back to the front yard for some KanJam. Definitely check out the link for instructions on how to play, but it is a frisbee based yard/tailgate type game.  Loads of fun.

We also got to play some Scrabble Slam! and some Carcassonne.  Really enjoyed a great evening with good friends.  Looking forward to this week.  3rd Anniversary is tomorrow, and we are getting away this weekend.  should be a lot of fun too.  I am excited, especially since I planned it all. :)

To all the fans.

Last post: Jan 15, 2011.  As the cursor blinks, all I can see is the subtle reminder of the lack of posting that this blog has seen over the last 2 and a half months.  A sad story for those who love and care about us but don't get to see or talk to us regularly.  I so easily forgot how much of a way of keeping up with us this blog has become.  Thanks to a good friend whom we got to see this weekend, I am very much reminded of that fact, and purpose to improve upon the previous lack luster posting record as well as endeavor to encourage my better to half to provide her own updates as well.

Lets see, to catch you up on the happenings around here.

Lu is taking one of the most important tests for her career this Friday, the Mechanical PE Exam.  That leaves me the house husband duties, laundry, dishes, general cleaning and just trying to make sure the house isn't a mess so she doesn't stress about that onto of all the studying and preparation she is doing.  I know she will do great even in dealing with how lengthy the test is and the mushy brain afterwards.

Beyond that work is going well for us both, nothing new to report, other than today my guest chair was missing when I arrived.  Not a big deal I guess but I was left a note that said it was removed to adhere to corporate furniture standards.  I have had that same chair for two plus years in my cubes, and have never been aware of furniture standards in the past but hey its all good, just come take my chair.  I am not upset just find it ridiculous because likely they removed it for a fire hazard, but hey if I can't get out of my cube with an extra chair in it, wouldn't the gene pool be better off?  Just my thoughts on that.

In other random news, I am really enjoying and being blessed by the opportunity to lead a small group of 6th grade guys.  I have great parent support and the guys just love being there.  They are all excited to learn and discuss biblical things.  I can't always say they get it, or remember it, but they are there and want to be there, which is so incredible with the innumerable options they have for activities.  Really really awesome.  Plus I have a junior who is co-leading with me.  Having a blast with that too.

I guess for those who haven't seen me in awhile, you might not recognize me as I am rocking a beard for around 3 or so weeks and have lost around 20 pounds since the beginning of the year.  Lu is talking like she will start training for a sprint triathlon once her big test is out of the way.  I can't think of much else to update on right now.  I will see what else I can come up with and maybe post more later this week.  Until then good bye blog fans and thanks for sticking with us.  We hope to be better at this whole actually posting thing.

Babies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, I'm not pregnant, but goodness gracious I know a lot of people who are! There was definitely a season of weddings a couple of years ago, and I feel like now is a season of babies. It's so fun to hear about pregnancies and new life and adoptions and families growing.

So to all our friends and family out there who have new additions or are expecting new additions soon, congratulations! I'll definitely be hitting you up for advice (and maybe old baby stuff you don't need anymore) when our time comes. :)

Graduation and Gifts

This past weekend we got the chance to go see my little sister officially graduate.  It was fairly typical pomp and circumstance, although the school president was exceptionally long winded and boring.  The commencement speaker, Pete Correll was pretty funny.  He spent his first 5 minutes talking about how he was so proud that the class of 2010 helped bring UGA back to its rightful place atop the rankings, and that while he was there every year they were number 1 so it was good to see them back as the #1 Party School.  He admired the sacrifices, long nights etc. that it took to get this prestigious ranking back.  It was very humorous.

After the ceremony, some pictures, which again I don't seem to have at this time, we went to take some more pictures.  And then off to the important part, LUNCH!  We went and had yummy Peruvian food.  I, oh course, had my favorite, Aji de gallina, most of the rest of the crew had lomo saltado, and for some weird reason Lu ordered a chicken quesadilla which isn't Peruvian at all.  But oh well it was yummy.

A few more photos and then we parted ways.  Lu and I were off to the lake house.  Her whole family was coming down cause Saturday was the extended family Christmas party.  We were the first ones there, and we tried to stay up till they got there but we ended up going to sleep and seeing everyone in the morning.  after a very relaxing day spent doing mostly nothing, off we went to the party.  Dinner was yummy as usual, and as tradition dictates we had Christmas lasagna, and spaghetti, (no they aren't italian but everyone was tired of having ham and turkey at thanksgiving and then again a few weeks later)  the lasagna was great, we took some home (we then forgot to actually bring it back to ATL with us...  whaa whaaaaa)

After dinner and desserts, we exchanged gifts, you know the game where everyone brings a gift and then in order you can unwrap one or steal someone's...  well I chose to unwrap one, got some 180's ear muffs and no one else stole them so I was happy.  Lu got a snowman salt and pepper shaker set.  Not a whole lot of thievery happened but when it did it was definitely amusing to see the reactions.  Lots of fun.

Had a great weekend.  and when we get the pictures off the camera I will try and post some.

Looking forward to a great christmas holiday and seeing both families.

Blessed...

So no real pictures to post.  Just happy to share that God is blessing us and me specifically. I got a promotion at work and am now a Sr. Analyst.  I am so very thankful that I have this opportunity to face some new challenges and new responsibilities. It has been very humbling by the support and recognition from my co-workers and my bosses.  I am truly blessed.  Excited to share what God is doing in our life and the excited for the new opportunities that this will afford me.  I will have more project management and development of tools and lots more working with other managers and Sr. managers.

So just a short post but excited to share the news.

Blogger Fail!

So this weekend had some great events that would be awesome for the blog, and you will be able to read a little more about them shortly, however, we failed miserably to take any pictures for evidence of said exploits, hopefully I can find some pictures from others to steal and put on here.

We were invited to the first little kids birthday party (of what I am sure there will be many more). Thankfully it wasn't weird that we didn't have a child to bring to the party. It was a lot of fun to watch the birthday boy and his other 2 year old friends run around playing and hopped up on sugar. A few highlights: About halfway through the gift unwrapping, another 2 year old comes over to help, and proceeds to steal the gift and run off with it. At least 2 if not more of the 2 year olds figured out where the cupcakes were and got an extra one, however, they left the icing evidence all over their faces, then denied having one. All in all it was a lot of fun. Being around that many kids under the age of 3 was definitely interesting and amusing. I laughed a lot.

Next on the party list was Lu's office Christmas party.

Here we are in some of our nicer party duds. There is a guy at the office who every year just takes photos and then they get printed out and given to/emailed to those who want them. Pretty cool. The party was at the Trolley Barn in Inman Park. Neat old building, a few interesting HVAC choices which of course were pointed out by the mechanical engineers in the room, kind of funny actually. The food was ok, the best was the ravioli from the pasta bar, with the pesto alfredo sauce. The office band played about 8 or so songs. For some reason Lu kept getting called on to come dance, but we stayed hidden. Then decided to dance later when the DJ was playing. In retrospect we wished we had danced to some of the earlier songs, they were more fun or more our style. Had a great time mingling and talking with her co-workers, it was a fun event, and they do a good job each year. Last year was families, this year was adults only.

Although it was adults only, there was one guy who brought his older sons, they might be highschool/college age not sure. It was funny/creepy though watching them enjoy themselves and check out the ladies from their dad's office. Kept thinking they would actually try to hit on them, I imagined them using some amazingly awful pickup lines and then laughing at themselves. anyway it was fun and I enjoyed spending time with my wife and her co-workers. She looked lovely as you guys could see.

Like I said wish I had more pictures to share, but alas could just find one so far. Until next time.

What to say...

Sometimes I find myself debating about saying something and not. I used to not put much thought into my words. Thanks to a close friend who challenged me on that I have come to realize how much damage I can do by not putting some thought to my choice of words. Now over time, I can't help but wonder if maybe I have gone too far in the other direction. Now in an effort to make myself clearly understood I can at times take too much time thinking and then the moment for a response is gone and the conversation has moved on. Or if I do say something I might reiterate my point several times to ensure that my message was understood as it was intended. This annoys some people, since I tend to be extremely detail oriented and point out the exact meaning I intended, which can sometimes spill over into over analyzing what others are saying.

Well the whole point of starting this blog was to talk about the times when I am not sure I should speak up. When I am thinking if I should open my mouth, I wonder; "Is this something that they need to hear?", "How will they react?","Have I earned the right to say something to this person or is our relationship not there yet?","Will it build them up spiritually, even if it hurts emotionally?", "Am I wanting to say something because it is really me who has a problem, yet I want to point out their's?", "Do I clearly understand all the facts or is my perception of the situation off base?". There are so many more questions I can go through.

Does anyone else do this type of thing? Do you find it to be a good or bad thing if you do it?

Just Curious.

Fox Thanksgiving

So here we are, already in December and I am finally posting about Thanksgiving. As with most families around this time of year we did our best to get with both sides of the family. Wednesday night we drove down the lake to hang with Lindsey's family. Yummy pulled pork sandwiches were devoured. The next morning, after enjoying a leisurely breakfast and time spent watching the parade together, we were off again. This time to Lawrenceville for lunch with my Dad's side of the family. In total there were 26 people/little people there.

That is us with my parents. Had to steal these pictures from family cause we didn't bring our camera or even think to take many pictures at all. It was great to see family, many of whom we hadn't seen in a long time, and really some we had but for less exciting reasons. As you can see Dad was there, he even got to eat some real thanksgiving food so that was fun. His favorite of course is the hershey cream pie. :)

The highlight of the day was that our family on this side is moving on to the next generation. We had 3 two-year-olds there! We are really spoiled though because all three of them are adorable and super well behaved. It was our first chance to meet Finley (left). But great to see Ellie (center) and Allyssa (right) too. Super fun to just watch them interact and then also watching all the adults, read grandparents/parents of the two year olds, work super hard to get cutesy pictures of the three of them together. I think this was the closest they got. :)

Friday wasn't nearly as exciting for me, I had to work, but fear not, Lindsey and her mom and sister braved the throngs of shoppers and went out to buy things. I luckly still got home in time to watch the Iron bowl with my father in law. His team didn't win, but I think we all enjoyed hanging out.

Saturday after a short shopping trip which I am sure we will post about later, we, Lindsey, sister Bari and I went up and hung out with my parents for the tradition of watching the UGA-GT game. We didn't win, although the team played pretty good. Couldn't get past the turnovers though and ultimately that really cost us the game more than just a missed PAT did.

All in all a great holiday. Hope everyone else enjoyed theirs. Oh and by the end of it, thanks to Lindsey being crazy awesome planning things, we are done Christmas shopping. How are you doing with yours?