Birthday

Well, last weekend was one of the most enjoyable I've had in a while. It started with a fun Valentine's Day where the morning was spent cutting up trees and branches (casualties of the ice storm) and having new windows installed, while the afternoon was spent with my wife. We had some super yummy hamburgers with cheese and guacamole, went out for ice cream to Coldstone Creamery (I looove mint ice cream + Oreos), and came home to watch Stardust, an awesome fairy tale movie for grown-ups.

As if that wasn't a great day in itself, we also spent the whole day receiving phone calls from our family... because we finally broke the news to them that we're expecting! That's right! Christina's pregnant with the first baby on either side of the family, meaning he (or she) is sure to get lots of love and hopefully lots of free babysitting. We're super excited and can't wait to meet the little guy. I joke that we're hoping for a boy, because we can't agree on girls names. I'm sure I'll be happy either way, and we intend to find out as soon as we can. I can't wait to be a dad!

On Sunday we had a small birthday party here at home to celebrate my 26th year. A lot has happened, and a lot is poised to happen in the near future, making this a very exciting time in my life. Even in just these past few weeks I've gone back to school, found out I'm a dad, and made some decisions about what sort of career goals I want to set for me and my family with plans to start achieving those in the near future. It's all very exciting, and as always Christina and I are blown away by how good the Lord is in leading us down these paths.

Monday evening we got some friends together to celebrate my birthday with what has become my birthday tradition... steak, cake, and Dance Dance Revolution. That's right. We get stuffed at the Texas Roadhouse, come home and cut some rug in my living room, eat dessert, and dance until our calf muscles dissolve into goo. It really is a fun time, and we were privileged to share it with Lyle (the only three-year participant), the Taylors (a family from church), the Miesses (good friends from church who got pregnant the same week as us!), and the Brainards (Ben being our worship leader at church and Amanda being his very pregnant, non-DDRing wife). I got to ride the sawhorse in the restaurant, and as usual, Lyle destroyed us all in DDR. Christina posted a movie of said sawhorse ride and pictures of the night in general through my happy birthday blog post.