iphone, please give me my wife back!

for christmas we told diana's dad that we would like to buy him a new cell phone and have him included on our phone service. he had been doing the 'pay as you go' service, but we knew this would me a more convenient and cheaper option to just add him to our service for ten bucks a month. it took a while, but we finally got around to going to the phone store with him. here's where the trouble starts: diana was on a different, inferior carrier (cough at&t cough) and her contract was up so the plan was for her to get a new phone with verizon too. all was going well until she spotted the iphone 4. after that it was all over! she flitted her eyes, pursed her lips, and i knew i didnt stand a chance. so, she got an iphone 4. rats! her beauty got the best of me again! anyway, ever since then she has become obsessed with that thing! she spends all her time tinkering with that thing downloading different apps and surfing the internet. she is so in love with it that its ridiculous! i dont see what all the fuss is about (or at least thats what i tell her so that she will finally put it down so i can play with it again!). i'm sure when my contract runs up i'll be getting one as well so that i can finally beat her at bejeweled!

dad visits!

among our many guests during the week was a very exciting one: diana's dad came to visit! this is exceptional because its the first time he has come to see our place since diana and i first got married! better late than never, huh? he got here tuesday afternoon and was welcomed by diana, barbara, and josh. i arrived a hour or so later, after he had already taken the grand tour of our huge place (sarcasm). we got to talk and hang out for a while, then we went to get dad a new phone (part of our belated christmas gift to put him on our inexpensive phone plan). after figuring out all the phone stuff we headed to gino's east for dinner. everyone loved the chicago style deep dish pizza, dad even got a side order of anchovies to put on it (gross!). it was really cool to be able to have him come and visit, i know diana really loved to have him come and see the home she has made for us. hopefully it wont be another two years before he visits again! (more pics)

josh and sis

josh, one of diana's friends from her grand valley days, gave us a call a few weeks ago letting us know that he had a few vacation days ahead and was wondering if he could come and visit. we said 'sure!' so he came to stay with us for a couple nights and have some time to catch up with diana! he got here monday afternoon and we had a good time with him. that night we watched a movie and got pizza and talked till way too late (diana got tuesday off, but i still had to drag myself out of bed for work the next day!). barbara knows josh really well too, so she came down to stay with us on tuesday and the four of us had a great time chillin out and having fun. one of the really fun things we did was play a few board games, my favorite being monopoly- we even have the grand rapids edition, so we had fun nerding out to all the grand rapids stuff in the game. again, i had to call it a night early due to work so i missed out on most of the scattergories fun. dang work... (more pics)

re lob papa

mom and papa stopped by this weekend too! after a stressful week, mom and papa decided to get away by coming down to merrillville and spending some time with us. diana worked saturday, so i met up with papa for an afternoon of playing pool at a really cool cigar shop. by the time i got back diana was getting home from work and we headed down to merrillville to have dinner. we went to one of our favorite places: red lobster (or as the cool people call it: re lob). it was a lot of fun and included some memorable moments, from papa ordering a drink and saying 'surprise me' on which kind (which left my mom's jaw on the floor!), to me making a complete fool of myself to one of the waitresses... anyway, we had an awesome time! after dinner we went back to their hotel room and got to chat for another hour our two. you know, i feel really blessed to have such cool parents! i must admit, i would be friends with them even if we werent related! (more pics)

family thai's

our 'week of many guests' began on friday night with diana's mom, david, alanna, and tavish stopping by for a visit! alanna had been in hawaii for a trip and came home friday. diana's mom, david, and tavish went to pick her up at o'hare airport in chicago, so they gave us a call to see if we would like to meet up with them for dinner. well, of course we would! diana and i brainstormed trying to think of a place to eat and we all ended up going to the local thai food place- its soo good! we met them there and got to catch up with all of them. it was a great time- tavish is getting so big! alanna said she had a good time in hawaii, but really missed her little guy, and who can blame her! (more pics)

poco's well wishes

earlier this week it was barbara's birthday, and poco wanted to send her some birthday greetings...

book fair '11

every year we have a book fair at school and every year i am asked to do some decorations for it. the company that puts it on always has a theme, so i just try to work with the theme and make something at least a little bit fun out of it. the theme this year was the circus. i wasnt exactly sure what to do, but knew i didnt have too much time to make anything too extravagant, so instead i just went with some simple things to make the fair look a bit more fun.
(more pics, check out some of the designs used in years past here.)