Inspirational

I know I'm a complete sap, but I watched this video last night and it totally brought a tear to my eye, so I of course had to share. I can't take credit for finding it--a friend posted it on their Facebook page yesterday. Although the video is apparently from the start of school last fall, it just seems appropriate this week, since so many teachers are headed back to school right now.



Isn't he just great?

It's My Birthday and I'll Be Tired If I Want To

I've had an eventful birthday today and it has been lovely, but I'll admit that I'm incredibly tired. After hanging out with our friends Robyn and Dan last night while watching the UFC fights, we didn't get to bed until about 12:30 a.m. At 4:30 a.m., Celtic woke me up because he was nervous about a beeping noise coming from the kitchen (don't ask). I didn't go back to sleep because the alarm was set for 5 a.m.

Why in the world would we get up at 5 a.m. on a Sunday on my birthday, you ask? Well, this morning was the Kansas City Race for the Cure, and my wonderful husband agreed to drive to KC this morning to participate in the very popular 5K that raises money for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Someone from my office put together a team, and since I hadn't participated since 2007, I thought it would be a fun birthday event! The race just gets bigger and bigger every year--this year there were over 28,000 people registered! Even though I can't run because of my back and Chad can't run because of his knee, we still had a fun time as we power walked our 14.5 minute miles. Here are a few pictures from the morning!



Chad followed up the 5K with two softball games, so he's probably way more tired than I am, but sitting out in the heat watching him was exhausting too! A few of our softball friends came over after his games to grill and hang out, and it was great having people over to the new house since it's so much closer to the softball fields! Everyone left at about 6:30 or so, at which time I promptly fell asleep while watching Tiger play golf on our DVR. I woke up just a few minutes ago, just in time to finish this blog, get ready for bed, and go back to sleep! I'm pooped!

I'm In Love

While I'm obviously still madly in love with my husband, I have to admit that I fell in love with something else today too. Yes--it's a "thing." Before I tell you what it is, I first must tell you the story of how we met.

Today Chad had a meeting in Lawrence, so at about 11:00 a.m. he called and asked me to meet him at home for an early lunch. A few seconds after I walked in the door, Chad excused himself to use the facilities. A few seconds after that, I heard a strange ringtone that didn't sound familiar at all. I started looking for the source, thinking that Chad had changed the ringtone on his Blackberry. The ring was coming from the charging station in our kitchen, but his phone wasn't even on the charging station, so I was completely confused. After another ring, I realized there was something behind the charging station making the noise. When I pulled it out to look, I saw this:


I knew immediately (after a split second thought of "who's iPhone is this?" that Chad bought it for me, because I'd already asked him for an iphone for Christmas, since that's when my Verizon contract was supposed to run out!

Isn't in beautiful? Here's another shot, just for good measure.

I almost took a picture of me kissing it, but I thought that might be a little much. :)

The point is, this thing is freaking amazing and I love it. I've been mesmerized pretty much all day long. Our evening was spent with Chad strumming the guitar while I downloaded applications and took pictures and videos. Here's one of the videos, which I uploaded to Youtube straight from my fantastic phone!!



How awesome is that, and how cute is my little Celtic? Chad thought the video was a little long, but I think that little guy is just precious!

Thanks to my wonderful husband for the terrific early birthday surprise today! I love you, best friend!

The Moon

I've been a terrible blogger this week. We've had stuff going on almost every night, and by the time I've gotten into bed in the evenings (my normal blogging time) I've been pretty incoherent. I'm working on some vacation stories, but until they are finished I thought I'd share some pictures of the lovely moon. It's been beautiful the last few nights/mornings and I've tried to capture that beauty to no avail. If I'd actually used a tripod, these probably would have turned out better, but even then I'm not really very good at low light photography!

The moon from our back deck early this morning.

The moon from our front porch this evening.

A fuzzier picture, just so you can see more of what I was seeing.

This was actually the only cool picture of the bunch--the church across the street from our front porch.

Maybe someday I'll learn to take better moonlight pictures!

The Tour

We had a pretty productive weekend--emptying a few more boxes, hanging a few pictures, and generally getting just a little more settled. We had some new furniture arrive on Friday, and while we still have several things we still need to buy, the house is certainly looking a little more complete. Most of the walls are still a little bare, but other than that it's starting to look like a real home.

Since several people have requested pictures, today I also took the time to put together a little tour, for all of you who can't come to visit us in person! Of course we'd much rather give you the real tour instead of the virtual tour, but for now this will have to do!



Now that the home transition is complete, I can finally get back to blogging about regular life. Tune in for some non-house related posts soon!