Wow - I hope my 40th Birthday is a party that lasts as long as Shawn's has!!! I think this is day 8 - but you gotta love our spinning group at the YMCA. Shawn's been teaching there forever and he has a ton of "regulars" - so they wanted to do something fun for him at his class tonight.
The room was decorated all in Over The Hill stuff, all our bikes had a balloon, and Shawn's instructor bike had a lovely "Behold The Ageless Wonder" necklace and "40" button for him to wear. Then, after class, we celebrated with ice cream cake! I know, I know - totally killed the workout we just went through, but it was sooooo good!!!
Now they're all partying at the RAM restaurant! I'm guessing this very long birthday party will finally end at our best friends Labor Day party in Cincy this weekend - we're really looking forward to that too!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Happy 40th Birthday Shawn!
In celebration of Shawn's 4th decade of being on this earth, I wanted to do something to surprise him. It's virtually impossible to surprise Shawn with anything - but I managed to do it on his 30th birthday - so why not for his 40th too.
We've always wanted to go to a Colts game - just to say we've experienced it at least once in our Indy lifetime. Well, tonights game would've been really cool for 2 reasons: 1) it was the inaugural game in the brand new Lucas Oil Stadium and 2) it was happening on his actual birthday.
A friend of mine scored me an awesome deal on a pair of tickets (and they were AMAZING seats as you'll see in the pics below). So Shawn comes home from spending a few days in Cincy with his buddies doing normal party stuff (yeah right - don't think I'll be shooting guns at a target range, riding a hundred miles on my bike or kayaking for 6 hours on my 40th birthday - nope, just doesn't sound like fun to me), and we just decide to do dinner like we usually do on our birthdays. So I say "hey, let's go downtown for dinner" and he agrees of course cuz' there are lots of cool places to eat downtown. When we get there, he sees the stadium and asks me if I've seen it yet. I say no, and he says, well, let me drive you by it (like putty in my hands I tell ya). As we drive up to it, I pull the gift bag out from behind my seat and hand it to him. Inside is a card - and not just ANY card, but one of those cool yet sometimes corny musical cards. However this one fit perfectly because it says 'Happy 40th Birthday' and it shows a 40 yard line on a football field. When you open it, it plays the ESPN sports theme and says 'Just think of it as 4 touchdowns, 2 extra points, 3 field goals and a safety'. Again, perfect for the occasion and the tickets were inside the card. Then he unwraps the Colts t-shirt I got him to put on for the game. The look on his face was just like the commercial: PRICELESS!
So now we can say we've been to the inaugural Colts game and we spent a lot of time before the game checking the whole place out. It is so cool - if you haven't seen it, I would highly suggest you pay the ticket prices and go. We had the best time (even though the Colts lost - but we won't talk about that - it's still pre-season after all)!
Happy Birthday baby - I love you!!!
We've always wanted to go to a Colts game - just to say we've experienced it at least once in our Indy lifetime. Well, tonights game would've been really cool for 2 reasons: 1) it was the inaugural game in the brand new Lucas Oil Stadium and 2) it was happening on his actual birthday.
A friend of mine scored me an awesome deal on a pair of tickets (and they were AMAZING seats as you'll see in the pics below). So Shawn comes home from spending a few days in Cincy with his buddies doing normal party stuff (yeah right - don't think I'll be shooting guns at a target range, riding a hundred miles on my bike or kayaking for 6 hours on my 40th birthday - nope, just doesn't sound like fun to me), and we just decide to do dinner like we usually do on our birthdays. So I say "hey, let's go downtown for dinner" and he agrees of course cuz' there are lots of cool places to eat downtown. When we get there, he sees the stadium and asks me if I've seen it yet. I say no, and he says, well, let me drive you by it (like putty in my hands I tell ya). As we drive up to it, I pull the gift bag out from behind my seat and hand it to him. Inside is a card - and not just ANY card, but one of those cool yet sometimes corny musical cards. However this one fit perfectly because it says 'Happy 40th Birthday' and it shows a 40 yard line on a football field. When you open it, it plays the ESPN sports theme and says 'Just think of it as 4 touchdowns, 2 extra points, 3 field goals and a safety'. Again, perfect for the occasion and the tickets were inside the card. Then he unwraps the Colts t-shirt I got him to put on for the game. The look on his face was just like the commercial: PRICELESS!
So now we can say we've been to the inaugural Colts game and we spent a lot of time before the game checking the whole place out. It is so cool - if you haven't seen it, I would highly suggest you pay the ticket prices and go. We had the best time (even though the Colts lost - but we won't talk about that - it's still pre-season after all)!
Happy Birthday baby - I love you!!!
Shawn's 40 pose.
The Colts doing a little pre-game stretching.
We had awesome "seatmates" - Lori and Brian. Brian's brother was the replay camera guy and they were a blast to hang out with - we had a really good time with them.
We also got to see the roof open up. This is a picture of Blue the mascot getting ready to push the button to open it.
A picture of the roof (and the big picture window) once it was fully open. It takes 9 minutes to open completely.
Kickoff!!!
Shawn and I and the field from our seats.Saturday, August 16, 2008
Billy Idol "Rocks" On!
Some friends of ours through the YMCA threw a huge "rocker" party to celebrate both their birthdays and wedding anniversary (all 3 are within days of each other).
For those of you who know my husband - he's never one to hold back when it comes to dressing up. I think once we stopped doing our huge Halloween bashes in favor of the 4th of July party, he had some withdrawal issues as he LOVES to dress up and go all out (I'm sure it has nothing at all to do with the fact that he turns 40 next Sunday). So, when Sandra and Travis told people to dress up as their favorite rock star - Shawn seized the opportunity.
See below...
For those of you who know my husband - he's never one to hold back when it comes to dressing up. I think once we stopped doing our huge Halloween bashes in favor of the 4th of July party, he had some withdrawal issues as he LOVES to dress up and go all out (I'm sure it has nothing at all to do with the fact that he turns 40 next Sunday). So, when Sandra and Travis told people to dress up as their favorite rock star - Shawn seized the opportunity.
See below...
Billy Idol in the house.
Our awesome hosts Travis and Sandra!
Unfortunately I threw away all my 80's Madonna gear, but Billy still took me home!
A "shot" of the triathlon group from the Y. Hmmmmmm, not sure what alcohol and triathlon's have in common, but cheers anyway!
Hey Billy, you "pale" in comparison here! haha!
Sunday, August 10, 2008
NVCL's Kids Worship Weekend
Most of you know that I sing on our church's (Northview Christian Life) vocal team. It's one of my passions, and has been for a very long time. I've also had the pleasure of teaching 1st-5th graders in previous years in our children's ministry. This weekend was really special - especially for me. Apparently when the vocal schedule was made, Matt (our awesome worship pastor) had no idea that this would be the weekend the kids would be singing with us in the main church services. So, as fate (and God) would have it, I was scheduled to sing as well!
Even more awesome was that my middle son Grant got to sing with me! We had quite a few kids from Studio 6.7 singing with us throughout the services and they did an AMAZING job!!! We did 5 songs - 4 of which the kids also do down in their services. The difference is that the kids add movements/motions to their songs. I have to tell all the kids who sang this weekend (and their parents) how proud I am of them! Whether they sang 1 service or all 4, they were so much fun and full of love for the Lord!!! Even more inspiring was looking out into the crowd and seeing adults joining in and doing the motions with us! Wouldn't it be great if we (as adults) could always worship God with the childlike abandon we poured out this weekend??? I know I wish I could, and it's given me a renewed spirit to try!
A friend of mine attended the 9:00 Sunday service, so she took a few pictures for me. Our lighting is pretty crazy during worship as you can tell from some of the pics, but I think they turned out pretty well! Thanks Lesle!
Even more awesome was that my middle son Grant got to sing with me! We had quite a few kids from Studio 6.7 singing with us throughout the services and they did an AMAZING job!!! We did 5 songs - 4 of which the kids also do down in their services. The difference is that the kids add movements/motions to their songs. I have to tell all the kids who sang this weekend (and their parents) how proud I am of them! Whether they sang 1 service or all 4, they were so much fun and full of love for the Lord!!! Even more inspiring was looking out into the crowd and seeing adults joining in and doing the motions with us! Wouldn't it be great if we (as adults) could always worship God with the childlike abandon we poured out this weekend??? I know I wish I could, and it's given me a renewed spirit to try!
A friend of mine attended the 9:00 Sunday service, so she took a few pictures for me. Our lighting is pretty crazy during worship as you can tell from some of the pics, but I think they turned out pretty well! Thanks Lesle!
The kids and I during rehearsal Sunday morning (Grant is next to me on the bottom row in the red, white and blue shirt).
Friend of God
Tell The World
One Way
Your Love Is Deep
We Belong - for all you Pat Benetar fans out there!Thursday, August 07, 2008
Forest Park Aquatic Center
Today was my last day watching the girls for the summer - and we've been trying to do a "field trip" every other week. Since this is the end of summer technically for the kids (they start school Monday), we decided to take a trip up to the Forest Park Pool with Jill and her boys (poor Sophie and Delaney - they were outnumbered 9 to 2)!
Anyway, I've never been to Forest Park before - and now I wish I had found this place sooner. We all had a lot of fun, even Jill and I (oh yeah, we rode the big slide too during adult swim - but you WON'T see any pics of us doing it!!!). The kids had an awesome time, it was just a perfect day!!!
If you've never been here, I highly suggest it!!! Only $5 per person and the concessions were extremely reasonable too!
Anyway, I've never been to Forest Park before - and now I wish I had found this place sooner. We all had a lot of fun, even Jill and I (oh yeah, we rode the big slide too during adult swim - but you WON'T see any pics of us doing it!!!). The kids had an awesome time, it was just a perfect day!!!
If you've never been here, I highly suggest it!!! Only $5 per person and the concessions were extremely reasonable too!
Evan found one of his good friends in the splash park, his aunt brought him unexpectedly, so they had a great time hitting each other with the splash guns.
This waterfall was really cool, Sophie and Delaney loved it - and we even spotted another familiar face - the woman in blue was Grant's preschool teacher at Northview 2 years ago!
At one point a lot of the kids dispersed, so Grant, Sophie and Delaney had the waterfall to themselves.
Blake loved the blue wheel to the left, it didn't put out a whole lot of water, but he ran as far from it as he could after he turned it - I don't think he ever did get wet from it!
I was pretty surprised Evan went off the diving board, he never would've attempted that last year!
Grant about to go down the turtle slide - and if you look to the left, the way the picture is angled makes it look like Blake is about to be eaten by the turtle's mouth!
Jill's son Brad is about to go down the big slide, and Evan was right behind him - happily waving to anyone who would watch them!
Evan near the bottom of the slide.
Blake frolicking in the toddler pool area.
What trip isn't complete without at least one sacked out kid??? This one is particularly funny b/c Blake fell asleep in the car almost immediately pulling out of the parking lot with a blue raspberry ring pop in his mouth, this is what he looked like after the 15 minutes it took us to get home - blue raspberry residue all over his mouth, shirt and arms!!!Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Indiana State Fair 2008
We go to the State Fair every year - I never thought I would be one to enjoy it, but I think we love going just as much as the boys! We try to go when they have the Midway Specials (a wristband for one set price so the kids can go on as many rides as they want). Today was opening day - so we went when Shawn got home from work. It was actually a great time to go as it wasn't too crowded. We got into the fairgrounds and the kids were riding rides by 6:30pm. We were home by 11:00, the boys were showered and in bed by 11:30 - they're still sleeping now as I write this post!!! Guess they had fun too!
Grant and Blake thought they were pretty cool driving the cars in their sunglasses.
Grant leading the way on the bouncy bridge on the "Indiana Jones" maze - Blake was pretty brave - he was 2 inches shorter than the required height, but the nice guy working it said he could try it anyway (Blake kept insisting he could do it - guess he was persuasive enough, and he did it better than some of the older kids)!
Evan and Grant enjoying the bumper cars.
Driving the big rig trucks - it's always nice to see the 3 of them actually enjoying each other instead of fighting all the time!!!
Getting ready to take off in the Hot Air Balloon ride.
And no state fair is complete without a funnel cake - made by our good friends and employer for the races we work, Urick Concessions. They also won the State Fair Food Contest again this year for their Deep Fried Bananas Foster Cheescake on a Stick - can I just say DELICIOUS! Stop by one of their booths if you go - the food is always awesome!!!
A little slide fun - you'll notice Grant is a little upset that he didn't beat Evan and Blake on the way down! So cute though!
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