Taking a trip

I can't believe that May is almost here, but it's only days away. I'll be spending the bulk of May abroad - 3 weeks in Jerusalem and another week in Egypt. I'll be taking a two-week course at St. George's College, Jerusalem (click here to read about the course), and then Nicole will be joining me to just be tourists around Israel and Egypt. I'm sorry to say that I won't be blogging frequently, if at all, while I'm abroad. However, I will be posting pictures and updates regularly on Facebook. If you're not one of my "friends" yet, click here. I'd love for you to follow our journey!

Family Fun Day

Today was our church's annual Family Fun Day and the kids had a blast. We had a great turnout and even better food (the fried catfish and hush puppies were incredible!). Here are some pictures of the afternoon.

Hitting the slide first

Such a cutie

Nic and Brayden - so cute

Buggie, hanging out in the hammock

B getting some hammock time with Mama

...then some hammock time with Dad

30 Rock(s)

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.
- Georges Clemenceau

I think that's a great way to begin my 30th year! (...here's to hoping!) My birthday was last week, and one thing was definitely true -- Nicole was BUSY for my birthday! The day began with the family, up and ready to start the day with a fun breakfast party of lemon-blueberry muffins and two kinds of scones!

The birthday boy

With my kids (love the party hats)

Another chance for a real smile

The day was off to a great start ...and it got even better when I opened the door to my office! Nicole met some friends from the church the afternoon before and filled my office with all kinds of fringe, balloons, confetti, and signage that was so fun to see (some is still up!).

My bookcase

My desk, full of fun

Luckily, I was leading morning prayer at our weekly staff meeting that morning, so I was "provided" with some celebratory vestments... how funny is this?!

Not the typical stole...

That night, Nicole and the kids took me out to dinner at a new restaurant, Flip Burger Boutique, which was great, but almost outdone by the view from their patio! Here we are at dinner, but check out the view behind us!

Eating some fabulous burgers

The blue cheese burger with a red wine jam (oh yes)

My nutella and burnt marshmallow milkshake (holy wow...)

The rest of the week was full of fun with friends - lunches every day, (and this week, too!) ...but Friday was the most fun surprise: a small group of friends from the church surprised me with lunch at one of the local bars ...and the goofiest thing about the lunch was the "party favors" (my face). Too funny!

Birthday lunch at Otey's

Remember Easter?

Oh yeah... I never posted Easter pictures! So here they are, only 2+ weeks late!

Opening Easter baskets

Ready for church!

Look who else is ready for church! ;)

Be The Tiger

On the afternoon of the same day we discovered the new park and river, we happened upon a free carnival-type-thing at The Summit after having lunch at Panera. (What a great day it was!!) The kids had a ton of FREE fun, like meeting some clowns show made balloon flowers and animals...

Layna's flower (please excuse her shirt, she had yogurt for lunch...)

The clown quartet

...an artist who sketched their caricatures (not super, but still fun!)...

B's looks good. Layna's, not so much...

...and another clown who painted Brayden's face! He was so excited to have this done (I think for the first time) and looked fantastic afterwards! Stay tuned for a video of the whole thing (promise, it's not long).

Be The Tiger

ROAR!!

Down by the river

More precisely, we rode in a (mini)van down by the river...

For whatever reason, I just happened to discover the most wonderful little spot last Saturday! We frequent the Trussville playground (which rocks), but it's been closed for the last few months while they completely redesign the parking lot. It will be a great renovation, but the weather's warm now and they're still working. Ugh. That means that we've had to be more creative. There's a little road just beyond the one we take to get to the playground (and library, another favorite spot) that we've never been down. I decided to take it and see where it went... well low and behold, it took us to a wonderful little park with a foot bridge and river! I couldn't believe it! We hopped out and played for an hour, then came back that same night for another two hours! The kids had a blast and I'm thrilled that they have an opportunity to play outside where things aren't paved and where they aren't climbing and sliding on plastic!

Today's post is a video AND pictures!

Walking onto the foot bridge

The view of the park from the bridge

At the top of the hill, hoping to see the train

Throwing rocks into the river

Here they are, having a great time by the river:

Wii Are Awesome

Nicole and I have never been accused of spending too much time playing video games. (ahem) Not that we don't find them fun, we just simply don't have time ...or choose to spend our time that way ...or whatever. We've taken a couple trips to Best Buy recently as we look to replace our desktop with a laptop and add another camera to our collection. One happy side-effect of our trips has been watching Brayden have tons of fun playing with the Wii on display. Here's an absolutely hilarious video of him as he plays/dances ping pong. Get ready to laugh!

Love in Target

Need a smile? -- watch this video. We were in Target a few days ago and the kids were following me around, "helping" me shop, when all of the sudden I turned around to find them doing this... It was so cute, even the Target employees were cracking up. I only recorded the last minute of their fun, but it had been going on for awhile. They're cute here, and then at each other's throats 10 minutes later. They are definitely siblings -- the good and the bad. Gotta love it.



And by the way, today is my birthday. And yes, I'm old -- I am no longer in my twenties. (single tear) I'm sure I'll have more on this Day of Death later (yes death: death to youth). One exciting thing about turning 30 is that Nicole is planning to take me to Flip Burger Boutique tonight (I've been dying to go!), with dessert at The Cheesecake Factory. Can't do much better than that! :)

A Windy Day

Although Nicole takes the kids home from school most days, I do get the occasional pleasure of picking them up every few weeks ...and when I do, it's a party all the way home! Seriously, I plug in my iPhone and we rock out to a whole host of dance party favorites. And of course the music is always child-appropriate, like one of my favorites, Miley Cyrus. Yes, friends, it's a party in the USA! But watch out for the occasional wind storm. Layna found out the hard way. ;)

(NOTE: unfortunately for you, the soundtrack of this video is not Miley, but Dora. Same difference.)

An Adventure

Today's video comes courtesy of Nicole's office complex, Liberty Park. When we visited Nicole a few days ago, the kids decided to go on "an adventure" while we waited for her to go to lunch. We are just outside the front doors of her building. What amuses me most about this video is that the kids are traipsing around outside the windows of and Ameriprise office. How funny would it have been to be gaining financial guidance or planning your retirement when all of the sudden a couple toddlers go walking casually past the office window. Too funny!

Riding His Tricycle

As promised, today begins a series of daily video shorts. They're a completely random collection of daily life (taken on my phone, so the quality is only so-so). BUT, they're too fun not to share.

Today's video is of Brayden riding his tricycle. For those of you who don't know Brayden well, you may not know that he is a textbook example of a perfectionist. He knows exactly how things should be and if he can't "do it correctly" then he doesn't want to do it all. This manifests itself in many different areas, such as not wanting to color or write on his own because he can't make the shapes and letters perfectly. One of the most frustrating ways this perfectionism strikes is when trying to do a relatively complex movement, such as riding his tricycle. He's perfectly strong enough to do it, he just won't accept trial and error to learn how. He's much older than he should be to finally be learning to ride properly, but better late than never, right? Anyway, he's been doing a great job in the last few weeks and I know that the summer will give him the time to develop some proficiency. Here he is on one of his first real rides:

Hello!

I've been taking a lot of little videos recently (and consequently, very few pictures). I'll post a few of the videos soon, but here are a couple of the pictures I have taken! Nothing terribly special, just cute candids of a day-in-the-life.

Such a cutie

The Little Man

Happy Easter!!

We had a glorious Easter morning, but I won't have pictures and video until later tonight (this is a work day, ya know!). ;)

Until then, and in case you didn't get to church today, here's my sermon from last night's Easter Vigil: click here to read the lessons, then click here to listen (or click here to read).

This is a picture of the nave of the church last night as we began the vigil. Check out the incredible reflection of light off the gospel book (on the altar) and onto the back wall!

Saint Luke's Easter Vigil (before the lights came on)

A little Diet fun

So what are you to do on a sunny afternoon after school? Of course, play with Diet Coke and Mentos! Inspired by a day of scientific discoveries at school, Brayden was very enthusiastic about showing us what he learned. Luckily I heard about this particular experiment early enough to get the "supplies" we'd need. In case you're not familiar with this idea, when you drop mint Mentos into Diet Coke, fizz erupts from the bottle. (Explanation: the caffeine, potassium benzoate, aspartame, and CO2 gas contained in the Diet Coke and the gelatin and gum arabic ingredients of the Mentos contribute to the jet effect. - from Mythbusters)

Here's our little experiment!



And in case you've never seen the ultimate Diet Coke and Mentos video, check this out: