Memorial Day weekend

We took only a few pictures of our long weekend, but have lots of special memories to hold in our hearts. We zipped over the mountains Friday and spent a fun night in Ellensburg with Jan's parents. On Saturday we made our way north to visit Jan's Grandma Phyllis, who is 90 years young and in a nursing home. We hadn't seen her in several years, and I'm so glad to have had time with her. We looked at old pictures and sang hymns, and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to visit again.


Saturday afternoon we waved good-bye to Jan's parents and flew down the road to my Grandma's house, where we spent the rest of the weekend. My parents were there, too, and we kept ourselves busy with games of Rummikub, Rock Band jam sessions, croquet in the front yard, and very special trips to the cemetary to visit my Grandpa, Oma, Opa & uncle. The entire weekend was priceless, from start to finish, and we are grateful :)

32 years ago,

there was Jan Michael :) (Although, of course, this isn't what he looked like 32 years ago, as he so helpfully pointed out just now, but we don't have any baby pictures of him and this is the next best thing, if you ask me.)
I am so thankful to be able to celebrate the life of such a remarkable person. Happy birthday, my precious husband.

Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays

Another birthday hoo-haw! We spent a very delightful evening with Troy, Beth, Joe, Danny, Gentry, Elaine, Victoria, Grant & Reid. Grant & I share a birthday, Jan Michael's is Wednesday, and Reid's was last week, so it was a celebration times four! Troy & Beth have the best backyard for fun - they have a trampoline and a swing, with a seat just big enough for those of us with older, and thus, bigger bottoms. (You'll notice I've not posted any of the pictures of me in the swing!) Besides a barbeque of grand proportions, we stuffed ourselves silly with Elaine's very tasty ice cream cakes, one with mint chocolate and one with coffee & chocolate. As always, though, the very best part was spending time with dear friends. We're inviting ourselves over again soon, you guys!





CAKE!


Grant shows us his stuff! He's very good!
If I didn't resemble a deer in headlights, this would be a very lovely group picture, wouldn't it?


Yikes.

We were messy guests, it seems :)

32 years ago,

there was me :)

Murder on Mystery Island!

It's the handiest thing to have both of our birthdays and our anniversary in May. It gives us the excuse to do all kinds of silly, fun things, and our friends are always very sporting and agree to participate in whatever schemes we come up with. This year we thought it would be fitting to celebrate our first decade of wedded bliss and our 64 combined years of life with a murder mystery dinner party. We had very authentic island-inspired decorations, a four course dinner with a hodgepodge of our favorite summer foods, a very messy birthday cake, and a dreadful crime to sleuth out. I was the murderer. No one suspected me. No one ever does with things like this.
We like to set the mood when we have a party.
We had a very motley cast of characters. Christina was the former college housemother for the rest of us, and Craig was a Hollywood script writer.
Christina, incidentally, was given the award for very best costume. She also stayed in character for the entire party; she's the kind of gal you want at a shin-dig like this.
Sheryl was a socially-challenged neurosurgeon and Bill was a saucy sea captain.
Jen was a very glamorous TV actress, and Caleb was a 5'2" computer genius. His pants were much too short and made us laugh and laugh, especially when we learned that he wore them to his real job for an entire week when AT&T instituted a dress code.
Jan Michael was a Midwestern business man on vacation. Isn't his get-up great? The picture doesn't do his shorts justice, though. It's hard to beat a pair of very short white Dockers. I was a brilliant soccer mom. It was such a grueling ordeal to dig up a pair of sweats and a hoodie as a costume. I never, ever wear those things, you know.

Happy early birthdays to us! And happy late birthday to Jen!, who turned 28 last week.

Mother's Day

We had lots of special things to celebrate yesterday. Besides being all together in one place (which hasn't happened in a scandously long time), we gave thanks for a mom that means more to us than we could ever express and a sister who throws her heart and soul into being the mama of our dear nephews. And, we sang happy birthday to Danny who turned 28 and ate a raw strawberry birthday cake made with love by Sara. I've said this a gazillion time before, but it bears repeating: I LOVE THIS FAMILY OF OURS.
Mother-and-sisters-of-my-heart :)







Our other precious mama came for a visit, too, and had a delightful tea party with the boys. Derek, by the way, prefers his tea with goat's milk.



Hoodlums!

The fun just keeps coming!

We rounded out our Mother's Day with a bike ride to the park with Derek and Sara. We were approached by a family who thought the cruisers were the coolest things in the world (and they are), teeter-tottered to our hearts' content, played a serious game of 'Around the World,' and turned cartwheels in the grass. A perfect way to end the loveliest of days :)




We've decided this is our official 10-year anniversary picture, and we're thankful to Derek for taking it :)

Dedication

I'd like to dedicate this song to my wonderful wife of 10 years and 1 day, we've been through a lot, I know her love has saved my life many times over the years. I can only hope to be as good a husband as she a wife.

I love you Hilary.

Happy, happy anniversary for us!

We practiced our putting, ate lots of Italian food, bought a croquet set, whispered sweet somethings, and were thankful all day for our first 10 years.



Someone was cranky about having to pay $20 for one measly round of putt-putt, and this is how he felt about being asked to rake our footprints.