International Guitar Night

So...Kathy is the most amazing wife ever invented. She got us front row tickets to go to International Guitar Night. It is basically a "round-table" type concert with four of the best acoustic guitarists in the world, each representing a different international flavor. This year's flavors were: American, Ireali/Middle Eastern, Gypsy Jazz, and National Steel/dobro/American. The only one a non-guitarist might know by name is the Lulo Reinhardt, who is a descendant of Django Reinhardt, the most famous Gypsy Jazz guitar player who ever lived...very popular during the 1930's.

Anyway, it was great music, plus I got to meet them and talk for just a few breif moments about their guitars and music.

Kathy rocks!

Funny Josh!

Aaron and I spent a lot of time with Corrine and Rob this weekend. Saturday they came over to our house for dinner.

As you know, we are always looking for different things to do with our time without kids. We thought cooking up a fun, authentic, Mexican Fiesta would be fun. Too much food for two people though, so we had company to help.

Joshua came along with them, but didn't eat as he is too picky. Corrine fed him before they came over. Josh is an extremely cute, highly functioning autistic, 11 year old. He's usually just kind of in his own little world, doing his own thing. Sometimes you forget he is there he is so quiet doing whatever it is he is doing.

We had been eating and visiting for about 1 1/2 - 2 hours. During this whole time of course, Josh was in the other room playing with his paper action figures that he made. All of the sudden we hear him say "The sooner we leave this place, the better!". It was so funny we just about died laughing.

We then obliged to take him home. What can you do? He was so patient up till that point. We just ended up going over to their house to play games.

A-Z Blate

Since my blog is tied into my facebook, and some of you facebookers are wondering what the heck a blate is, I will take a moment to explain.

A blate is something that Aaron and I came up with a couple of years ago as something to do with our family that lives out of State. Since we are too far away to do things with each other personally, this is a fun way for us to go on a date together. We pick some sort of topic, go on a date doing whatever the pre-decided thing is, and then blog about it to compare our dates. See... blogging your date.... blate.

This blate was suppose to be an A-Z date. Go out and do something for each letter of the alphabet and blog each thing. Here are our activities.

A - making paper Airplanes

B - Baseball

C - Carrcassone

D - Driving

E - Exercising

F - Fishing

G - Gas station Pop
(We got this for Jeff. He is having a super hard quarter!)

H - Hoola Hoop

I - Ice cream

J - Jumping Jacks

K - Kissing

L - Light saber fight

M - Muscle Magazine

N - Nintendo

O - Aaron didn't want me to elaborate :o)
JK - It was just the first thing that came to our minds, so....

P - Practicing

Q - Q-tip

R - Redbox

S - Snack

T - Trying on clothes

U - Underwear

V - Visiting Jess at work

W - Washing Hands

X - sign language X

Y - Yawning

Z - Zipping up my coat to go out

It took us a couple of days to get through the entire alphabet but we had a lot of fun. Of course it would always be more fun if we could all just go out together in person, but this is the next best thing. Amy, you come up with the next blate idea!

Love you!

Habla Usted Espanol

Hola! Buenos dias!

So, in an attempt to find things to do together for us "almost" empty nesters, Aaron and I have started a Spanish class together. There are several reasons why we picked Spanish as our first class.

1. Let's face it - it's inevitable. Our country is really turning bi-lingual. You can piss and moan about it, or you can go with the flow. We try to be flow people. It makes life so much more enjoyable. There are just more and more people here who speak Spanish, and we would like to converse better.

2. We love to travel! We have already been to Mexico twice, and am sure we will be there again. Especially once we truly are on our own with no kids. All of the sudden travel expenses will be cut in half. Half! So many of the trips we have just contemplated will become attainable. We love the Mexican people (at least where we have been) and think our traveling would be much more enriched if we could converse with them in their native language. I think it shows you care a little more to learn it. We also love studying other cultures, and this is part of the experience.

3. We are looking for avenues to be more involved in the community and meet new people. I am currently looking for volunteer opportunities, and I truly believe that Spanish will help greatly in that effort as well. The class is a great start to branching out and meeting more people. We have about 8 of us in the class, so it's nice and intimate - a great way to get to know a few people.

I have a feeling that Aaron is going to advance way faster than I am, and that I am going to have to work twice as hard, but that's okay. I'm used to it. That's pretty much how it is with most things we do. He is just naturally WAY better at retaining information than I am, and even though I think I am a pretty quick learner, he is even faster. Remember, he did test and genius levels in the sixth grade! :o) LOL!!

Hasta Luego

Finally!

I finally got my elliptical! Aaron has been looking around for a long time, and we have done a lot of shopping around, but the bloomin' things are so expensive. Aaron finally found one on Craig's List for a price we were willing to pay. I love Craig's List! I love my new elliptical! And, I love Aaron!

New Years Eve

A pretty simple new years eve for us. With all our friends either out of town or laid up from surgery, and Jess gone to her own party, we didn't really have anyone to do anything with. It's a good thing we like to be together!

As soon as Jeff got home from work Derek did come over and we just had our own little party waiting for Jess to get home. We watched "Return of the Jedi", ate pizza, played 2 intense games of Carcazone, ate lots of junk, drank lots of soda and cool-aid and just had fun. Aaron and I even did facials. Hey, we had to stay up until 2:00a.m. until Jess got home.

Woodland Park Zoo

Saturday we spent the day at the zoo with Weldon's family and grandma. It was a very nice day. Cold, but super sunny. Jade was a little grumpy because she hasn't been feeling well, but she played along a few times.

We got a wheel chair for mom so it would be an easier trip for her - it's a big zoo. I guess Aaron got bored after a while, because he started doing tricks with her. It was so funny we were all dying, and people who would walk by us would look at us like we were off our rocker. I took a few picks and then finally got a recording. By the time I got the video out though she was getting used to the wheely, so it's not quite as funny as it was at first. Still funny though!!