Brad + Lauries Mom Dad + Kids place: April 2009

Monday, April 27, 2009

Lunch Time

It's the case of the mysterious nutritious lunch! Who dares eat such a meal?

Could it be Cosmo?

What about Dakota?

See if you can decide which of these it is, so hard to tell!

Friday, April 24, 2009

Laurie and I had a great weekend celebrating 29 years together. How did I get so lucky? Here's what we did. We started by going to the temple, the place where it all began on April 18, 1980 in Mesa, AZ. Of course, we went to the Dallas Temple:

This time, I had planned everything in advance and even had reservations. We ate at Saltgrass at LBJ & Midway (leftover gift card from our 2007 datebook...), then on to the Omni Mandolay in Las Colinas where we had a corner suite, watched "Taken" in bed, and slept in late as the rain pounded around outside. Ahh, the life!

Here we are in the living room of the hotel:

Nice, huh!

After a scrumptious buffet breakfast (we both ate a couple meals since they were so good), we had to go back and prostrate ourselves since we were too full to move, and since our next event required NO RAIN (it was still raining). After another movie, the rain finally quit so we took off across town to Billy Bobs and then to the Main Street Arts Festival in downtown Ft. Worth. Yes, that sounds very out of caracter for us. Us and crowds? No, not often. But we got in the groove for this one:

It was a really neat event. This is one of the stages they rotated live musical performers on throughout the day.

Much of the art was fine; some of it was not so fine. Overall, it was a mind-broadening experience for a couple of small timers like us.

The last vestige of our celebration was another meal, this time we split one, at our old Arlington hangout, Mac's American Grill for some blackened orange roughy and a goldbrick ice cream dessert. And lest we arrive home before everyone else was in bed, we hit another movie (another gift card leftover from the 2007 datebook), pretty good, "State of Play". Reminds me of politics.

We got one late congratulations this Wednesday night when we got home, our dear dear friends had decorated the yard! Dustin thanks them (you know who you are!) for letting him have the job of cleaning it up. We did leave it all for a day:0) Can you read the "29" spelled out in forks? Yes, new meaning to "stick a fork in it", almost as good as Amber's baked potatoes (haha)

Last, here's a photo of the most awesome new stadium around (at $1.1 billion, it should be, right!), the new Cowboys stadium in Arlington next to the Ballpark. It is scheduled to open with a George Strait concert on June 6. Come and party with us!

Friday, April 17, 2009

EASTER

K-Kai Kahu Elli E Bailey (OK, someone help me out on the spelling?)

We had a great big celebration at our home for Easter. After all, this is the MOST significant event in Christianity. Even though we make a bigger deal out of Christmas, it is really Easter that has all the significance. Before diving into the wonderful food, we had a family spiritual experience, mom telling about a YW event, then Terrell sharing her testimony of the improvement in her life and her relationship with the Savior since she was baptized, exactly one year ago to the day! It was moving. A few more of us spoke and there was a wonderful spirit with us, a very nice Easter gift from the Lord.

We had 22 of us there. For us, it was mom, me, Nick w/ Hannah, Zac & Dustin. Then we had David and Terrell, Sarah, Carrie & Kai along with Debbie (yeah--finally got her back, way to go Dave!). We had both grandmas, Thelma and Mary. Then we had all of Ora and Troy's family, with Chadler, Sierra, Hayden & Zoee as well as Troy's mom Betty and her husband Arlo Young (great name). Here are pictures, hope you enjoy them. We enjoyed making them happen!

Dakota and David became good friends (David the canine, not David the human) And the only pictures of Dave and Terrell are here, unfortunately without their heads...