a date, three years later

three years ago today my life changed. i didnt know it at the time, of course. it was a saturday afternoon and i was driving in my car to some random town in michigan called buchanan. see, there was this girl who i had met online and had been talking to for a week or two. things had been going pretty well with our phone talks, so i asked if i could meet her. she obliged, and said 'sure'. after giving me directions that i was seriously doubting on that saturday afternoon, i gave my friend jeffry lee a call. i was about 40 minutes in to the drive to this girls house when i called him. i told him that i was meeting up with this girl for a date and she lived in the middle of nowhere! i said to him 'oh man, i hope this doesnt work out because i do not want to make this long drive again!' twenty minutes later i arrived and picked up diana for our first date. unfortunately for my car's mileage, it did work out and i ended up taking that same long drive to the middle of nowhere about 1000 times! we had an amazing time on that first date and less then four months later i asked her to be my wife! happy three year anniversary, my dove!
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go bears

now, i'm not much of a sports fan, but there was a whole bunch of excitement around these parts when the bears made it to the final game leading up to the super bowl. one of the girls diana works with invited us over to watch the game at their house. figuring it would be a good time (even with the football game playing), we headed over there. we had been to julie and franks place before and knew they had an enormous tv, so even though i wasnt that interested in the game, i would at least be able to marvel at the huge screen! we got there and had a fantastic time! they had invited a bunch of people over, 12 or more, and everyone was decked out in their bears gear. diana and i were about the only two people there with no football related clothing on! unfortunately the bears did not fare so well, but it was a great time watching the game and hanging out with some new people!
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tiny dog

our little gross dog has been at it again: being cute! he has totally enjoyed the fact that both of us are home a lot more over christmas break. there was a bit of traveling to grand rapids and south bend, which he always seems to enjoy! barbara even got him a new christmas gift: a little yellow giraffe that squeaks. it has become his new favorite and always pulls it out to play with when we both get home. its almost all he has in the world, so he seems to think that he has to show it off every chance he gets! we took the tag off the toy and put it around his neck for a minute. it says 'tiny dog' on it, so we thought it was pretty fitting...
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yahtz

ever since we were playing games with mom over christmas break, diana has become a game playing fiend! her favorite is yahtzee. over the past week or so she has become obsessed with playing yahtzee! we had been playing two or three games a day! fortunately, i also love the game and its one of the few that we can play with just two people. we've been keeping track of our scores on the inside of the box (that was barbara's idea. it seemed strange to me but she said that its what they always did with games growing up. ok, then). we have each had our winning streaks, so its been fairly thus far. i dont know how long her yahtzee kick is going to last, but its been a ton of fun so far!

her family christmas

after doing the christmas thing with my family and diana's extended family, we still had one to go! sunday afternoon we headed over to barbara's place for one last family christmas. everyone was there, diana's dad, mom, david, granda and bill, uncle denny and aunt gayle, sis and matt. we gathered around the extended table for some delicious turkey and all the fixins. barbara even made an exciting cranberry salad! after the meal we dig into the christmas gifts that were underneath the old christmas tree barbara had decorated so lovingly. this party didnt have any white elephant gifts, so we didnt have to worry about getting any more ugly coconut decorations...
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rack em'

the week after christmas my mom and papa had a day off and figured they would come down and visit us! we were very glad to see them considering we only got to see them for a few days over break. we didnt have any real plans for the day other than going to uno's for lunch. while we were at lunch mom pulled out her new ipod touch that my brother got her for christmas and got to play around with it and show her some of the cool apps and stuff she can use on it. after lunch diana and mom went across the parking lot to the merrillville mall while papa and i went looking for a cigar shop he had heard of in the area. we found it pretty easily, thanks gps, and checked it out. inside they had a whole big room full of leather chairs and games to play. we first went over to the pool table and played a few games of pool. i taught papa how to play 9 ball and he really loved it! he also dominated too, i only ended up winning one game, and that was only because he sunk the que ball while he was going for the 8 ball! after that we moved on to the fancy marble chess set and played a game which papa quickly won. i challenged him to a game of checkers, and finally i got my first real victory of the day! after a couple hours of play, the women were done shopping, so we headed back to pick them up. what a fun day! thanks for coming down, mom and papa!

the cobbler

while we were visiting my family over christmas one of diana's shoes broke. it was a nice pair of shoes that my mom and gotten for her last year, so we didnt want to throw them away. diana loves them and wears them to work every day, so it was worth trying to find a place to fix them. well, when i found out that we had shoes that needed fixing, i got very excited. 'does this mean we get to go to the cobblers?!?' i excitedly asked. yes, yes it does! a couple miles from our house is a cobbler that will repair broken shoes. that pleases me and brings me great joy. the fact that an outdated job like cobbling is still around and making a go of it brings a smile to my face! so we finally got to go to the cobbler and inquire of his services. we got them back and they did a great job for only a few bucks. awesome!

a gift from diana's dad

when we were leaving the christmas party with diana's extended family, her dad wanted to give us his christmas gift for us. we walked over to his car and he pulled out this huge box- it was a whole new 16 piece set of pots and pans! wow! we were totally amazed at this generous gift! we had gotten some pots and pans for our wedding, but as we used them these past couple years, we found that they werent exactly of the highest quality... diana's dad got us a set that is really high quality and they look beautiful! diana was so pleased that she was giddy the whole ride home! right away, before putting away all our stuff from the weekend away, diana wanted to rip into the box and see just how amazing this set is. here she is marveling at the awesome new pots and pans. diana was so excited that she even said that she might start cooking just to use them! (ooh, i might get in trouble for saying that last bit...)

allen christmas

the day after christmas we headed down to south bend to see diana's extended family. once again everyone was meeting up at uncle arnold and aunt nancy's place. this time there werent a bunch of chairs and tables set up for us all to dig into a huge dinner, instead it was a time to gather around and share gifts! diana's cousins kristy and fernando were there with their little girl lucy, who of course stole all the attention she could get! there were a bunch of gifts for little lucy to open, which she loved, and then we went straight into the white elephant gifts. this family has a strong tradition of white elephant gifts, among them are a couple of coconuts from hawaii that are carved to look like apes. they are hideous, which i think is the point... the goal is to try and avoid getting the coconuts, because then you have to return them the next year and try to avoid them again... most of the family members really get into it and have a ball! of course, aunt nancy doesnt quite understand it and seems to think all these tacky and ugly gifts are quite lovely, and she would gladly use each and every one of them! after the gifts we hung out for a bit and aunt becky brought up an idea for a fun game to play. we get into two groups and pick cards that have one word on it. each group then needs to sing a song with that word in it. this goes back and forth until one group runs out of songs with the word in it. it was a blast trying to come up with all kinds of different songs with one random word in it! the uncles really got into it- their competitive nature kicking in! after a great day of singing, laughs, and snacks; diana and i said our goodbyes and headed back home exhausted from the fantastic christmas weekend we had with both of our families.
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christmas: aftermath

after all the gifts were opened and dinner was eaten, we had quite a mess on our hands! most of it was gifts for the kids, so tim and jill got to take that mess with them (i'd hate to see what their house looked like after their christmas...). we had a fantastic time, giving gifts to each other! i think we should do it again some time. but for all of us, we were exhausted and soon headed off to bed. another successful christmas! thanks again everyone, for the gifts and great time!
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christmas dinner

finally, with all the gifts having been given, we sat down to have dinner. mom always likes to try something different for christmas dinner, but we were perfectly fine with having good old fashioned tacos! she did have some wonderful extras to go along with it too (thank you for the amazing deviled eggs- my favorite no matter what the meal!) as we were finishing up, the kids wanted to get back to playing with their new toys! so off they went. as the rest of us still sat around talking, the three of them came back in, each with musical instruments- aves on the guitar, bub on the drums, and tweets... well, she was just taking her fur real doggy for a walk!
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white elephants

after the kids had their prizes, we tried something we had never done before: we gave each other white elephant gifts. having never done it before, we werent really sure how to go about it. we decided on playing cards that were drawn to select who would go first. as the whole thing got going, we found some pretty amazing gifts among the group! i got a strange candy dish of some sort, diana got a half finished painting by jill of some random leaves and flowers, mom got a strange bee house thingy. the best of the bunch, though, was this fantastic photographic triptych that papa got from timmy! look at those amazing photos! that middle one is showing a bit too much thigh, i must admit... the whole thing went over pretty well, and i think we all had a bunch of fun! diana and i are still trying to decide where to put the amazing painting from jill...

time for prizes!

christmas day was finally here, so jill, tim, and the kids arrived in the early afternoon for the festivities! mom wanted to mix it up a bit, so we decided to open the gifts first and then have dinner (that way the kids could go play with their new toys after they finished eating and leave us in peace!). soon after the kids arrived, we dug in and had an amazing time giving and receiving the gifts under the tree. the kids, as always, were spoiled with far too many toys!
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oh, christmas tree

diana and i, for some reason, decided not to put up our christmas tree and decorations this year. we knew we wouldnt be around for christmas day and just kind of decided we didnt want to bother setting it up. actually, its not the setting up part thats the bother, its the taking down part... so it was lovely to see mom and papa had their tree up for us to enjoy- now i feel like i'm in the christmas spirit! the tree looked wonderful, especially when it has all those presents under it...