Our anniversary weekend

I know I'm a little late in posting this update, but I thought I'd let you all know how last weekend went.

After dropping off Mara, we went to see the new Get Smart movie. I was a little hesitant going in to the movie because I was a big fan of the show (in reruns of course) and hadn't read any reviews about the new movie. I was pleasantly surprised by the movie. I was laughing out loud during several parts, and it usually takes a lot to get me to actually laugh when watching a movie or something on TV. I would definitely recommend the movie, and we already plan on getting it when it comes out on DVD.

Back at our fifth anniversary, we decided to pick up a few CDs and find a song or two that we could identify as "our song." I wanted to do that again for our 10th anniversary, so after the movie, we headed toward Target. We couldn't really decide on any CDs there, but we goofed off for a while and picked up some snacks for our weekend. We then swung by Wal-Mart and finally found some CDs we liked before checking in to the hotel.

After searching for a few weeks, we finally decided to stay at the Hyatt Place hotel right here in Plano (and yes, that really is the hotel lobby pictured in the link). I drive by it almost daily on my way home from work, but it gave us great access to all the things we might want to do on our weekend. We also had a nice big room with plenty of space. So, after we checked into the hotel, we lounged around a little bit while trying to decide what to have for dinner. We finally decided to go to Cathy's Wok for dinner, and then we walked around Stonebriar some before heading back to the hotel to listen to some music and play Star Wars Legos on the Wii.

We had breakfast at the hotel and then played the Wii until it was time for us to check out. When we left the hotel, we knew we wanted to do something more but didn't know what to do. We ended up coming back home and catching up on some of our shows that we had recorded on our DVR. Later in the afternoon, we went to lunch/dinner at Cristina's in Frisco.

When we were ready to pick up Mara, we called my family only to find out they were getting ready to take the kids to see Kung Fu Panda – a movie Mara had been asking to see for a few weeks now. Mara had only been to one other movie at the theater. We took her to see Cars when it came out, and she did OK (had to leave the theater a couple of times). Ironically, it is now one of her favorite movies.

Well, they were heading to the theater at Stonebriar, which was right behind where we were eating, so we joined them for the movie. Mara was a little tired after spending the night with her cousins and then not getting a nap that day, but she enjoyed it and the movie was good. I think we'll take her to see Wall-E when it comes out.

We dubbed Sunday as a "family day" since it's so rare that we get to spend all day together. Aside from eating lunch with some of our friends, it was just the three of us that day.

All in all, it was a nice way to spend our 10th anniversary.

Life is precious

As we were leaving our house to meet some of our friends for lunch, we noticed several fire trucks heading up toward our church. About a minute later, we also saw CareFlight. For some reason, I just knew it had something to do with our church since it was right before 11 on a Sunday morning. The thing we couldn't figure out, however, was how there could have been an accident or something bad enough that CareFlight would respond. Mainly because there are police officers all over the place directing traffic as people leave church (both in front of the church itself as well as up at the remote lot up the road).

When we got home, I checked my email, and there was a message from our pastor. It looks like I was right. Apparently, a family had just left church when a car ran a red light just north of the church next to the remote lot (not even a mile from our house), and the accident killed all five people in the minivan that were on their way home from church. There's a new story about the accident here. The CareFlight helicopter we saw was on its way to pick up at least one of the people involved with the crash.

It's amazing to think how easily we could have been witnesses to that horric accident. Even worse, it could have easily been us. With something like that happening so close to home, it really does remind you how precious life is.

10 years ago...

Ten years ago today, I married my best friend. It's hard to believe that it's been that long, but at the same time, the time has flown. Some much has happened to us over the years, but each things has only brought us closer together.

To celebrate our anniversary, my dad is picking Mara up from school today, and we're going to go stay in a hotel in west Plano. I'm looking forward to our little getaway; however, this will be the first time we've left Mara overnight. I know she'll be fine, though, as she's going to have a sleepover at Lani's. They were begging to have a sleepover last weekend, but we told them they would have to wait until this weekend. Those two little girls are going to have a lot of fun while we are enjoying our time together.

Happy 10th anniversary, John!

I Created a Monster

As most of you know, I love to take pictures. It's rare when I don't have a camera nearby in case I need/want to take a picture. I already knew that Mara had that same love for taking pictures. She always wants to help me take pictures, and one of her favorite presents from this most recent birthday was a Fisher Price digital camera.

The other night, I wanted to take some pictures of John and me since our 10th anniversary is next week. Plus, Mara's school had also asked for a picture of John for something they were working on (for Father's Day, I assume).

However, Mara wanted to be in the pictures as well. In fact, she wanted to be the one taking the pictures. First, she insisted on dressing up for the pictures, and she put on the dress she wore for Robert's graduation the previous weekend. Then, she took over the remote we use to take our family pictures.

After we got some family shots, she wanted to sit on the barstool and take some pictures of herself. We did manage to wrangle the remote away from her for a little bit to get a couple of pictures of just the two of us.

Here are some pictures from our photo shoot. If you look closely, you can see the remote in Mara's hand in some of the pictures. :)

New Layout

I'm playing around with a new layout for this blog, so you might see things changing around here over the next couple of days. Eventually, I want to create my own header to kind of jazz it up a bit.

Not as planned...

Pregnancies just aren't going as planned this year. First, I had my miscarriage. Then, my friend Shari had her little girl four weeks early. Now, one of my other friends Melissa had her twin girls roughly nine weeks early on Wednesday. They'll be in NICU for a few weeks, but it sounds like they're doing fine.

Congratulations to Melissa and Wes on your cute little girls!

Recovering

I had planned to take this afternoon off for a couple of months now. Today was most likely the day we would have found out whether we were having a boy or a girl. It's been hard, but John and I decided to spend this afternoon at a movie to help take our minds off of what might have been today. We went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. It was pretty good and a nice escape from reality. :)

While it's been hard coping with everything that has happened the past five weeks, I've been slowly learning that it's all for the better. Over the past three weeks, I had two people on my staff resign. I was anxiously awaiting the day both of them turned in their resignations, so I was very relieved when the day came. I had been having issues with both of the people for a few months now, and the atmosphere in my department is so much better now.

On the downside, that means that I have to replace half of my department. Luckily, we found one replacement almost immediately (she starts on the 16th), but we're still looking for someone to fill the second position. I'm really looking forward to what my department will become now that we have the rotten apples out of the way.

But back to the original point of this post. I see now that it would have been very difficult if I was expecting a baby in July as I originally wanted. It would still be hard on my department if I was due in October too. So, I guess God does know what He's doing. ;)