A Hope and a Future

A weekend to remember

Dennis and I have wanted to go to NYC together for a LONG time; I like to joke that we said we would go for our 10th anniversary and instead we had three babies that year (ha!) Well this past weekend we were very blessed to be able to finally go (for our 13th anniversary coming up in a couple of weeks) and it was FABULOUS!! We are SO thankful to mom and Anna for taking care of the kiddos for us and to my cousin Lisa and her family (who live in NJ right now) for hosting us. It was like a dream come true:)

We flew into Newark, NJ Friday afternoon and made it to Lisa’s that evening after taking the NJ Transit train (and missing our first train since we newbies had NO idea what we were doing!).  Then Saturday morning we headed out early and took the train into NYC Penn Station. Coming up out of Penn Station onto the street almost took my breath away….for this (relatively speaking) country girl to be suddenly surrounded by people, noise, and TALL buildings was really something special. I’m sure people could spot me as a tourist from a mile away since I had my mouth half hanging open and was staring up at the buildings in awe:)

We had been told that the double decker bus tours were a great way to see the city so we spent a large portion of our day on Saturday touring the city that way. We were not disappointed. It was a really neat experience that I’ll not soon forget. We definitely hit all the “highlights” of the city that way.

 

Between tours we went down to Times Square and got a piece of cheesecake….it was VERY yummy:) There were SO many people in Times Square it was insane….

Then we did the second bus tour and headed back to Penn Station to catch the train….we were trying to catch a certain time train and we didn’t think we’d have time to get food but were STARVING….we sat down on the train and at the VERY last second changed our minds and jumped off the train to go back up and get some food and took the next train! We were very glad we did, too….we felt a lot better on the ride home:)

Sunday we again took the train (we became great friends with the NJ transit train!) into Penn Station and headed to take a Harbor boat tour. It was very neat….we went out to the Statue of Liberty and also could see the buildings and skyline from a different perspective:

Empire State Building

All our tour guides were big on pointing out things about Sept 11th (of course): the boat tour guide pointed out the skyline and said that on Sept 10th, 2001 you would have seen the twin towers framed on either side of the dark building in the middle of this picture; standing twice as tall as that building. It was sobering to be right there and think about it….may we never forget all the lives that were lost that day.

Loved seeing the Statue of Liberty up close!

After the boat tour we went and ate some lunch at a very yummy burger place and then walked around a street fair on 9th Ave…..fun!

After that was what we both consider the highlight of the weekend: our Broadway show! We saw Wicked at the Gershwin Theater on 51st Street. It was my first Broadway show and it was absolutely AMAZING. The set, the music, the actors, the whole show was just incredible. Something I’ll not soon forget!

After that we half-walked, half-ran TWENTY blocks to catch the train (hmmm….I think the theme of the weekend was “trying to catch a train!”) and JUST made it with about two minutes to spare. It’s not that we HAD to be on a certain train but they only run out of Penn Station south about once an hour and we didn’t want to wait a whole extra hour for the next one. We also could have taken the subway from the theater but we are both just stubborn enough that we thought “we can make it!” Guess that running I’ve been doing came in handy:)

We both feel like we got to see and do a LOT but there is SO much to see and do that we just scratched the surface! We hope to go back someday and take the kids when they are older. It is definitely a TOTALLY different world there; one that fascinates me but not somewhere I’d like to stay:)

It was wonderful to come home and see my precious children; it was SUPPOSED to be naptime but we’d been home maybe 5 minutes when Isaac came out of his room, threw himself into my arms and said “you bring present?” No really sweetie, don’t say you love me or tell me how much you missed me….it’s ok! THEN not a minute later Hannah comes out of her room and (I kid you not) the SAME scene was repeated by her! I laughed so hard:) They had been “prepped” by big sister that a present would be forthcoming:) Samuel stayed asleep for awhile (he’s my big napper) and didn’t seem to care about the present like the others did.

I am SO thankful for the precious time I got to spend with my sweet hubby….truly a weekend to remember!

Kudzu: A Southern Musical

Dennis is getting a neat opportunity right now to be a part of something he loves: musical theater! We have a really good community theater group here and I had thought several times that Dennis might like to try out for a play. Through a neat series of events he found out about a part he thought he could play and got the part! He has been really busy with it for the last six weeks or so; practices Mon-Fri evenings and the past 10 days or so performances almost every day. He has had a BLAST and has done an awesome job with his part! He actually joined the cast a couple weeks into rehearsals but picked up all his lines and songs with no problem. He plays a sidekick of the main character and his character is named Nasal T Lardbottom (I know!) He is a really big guy who wants to play basketball but can't even jump much less shoot a ball! He wears a fat suit and everything. He even shaved all his facial hair and he looks so different!

I got to see the play twice and the second time Rebecca went along. She LOVED it! She got the biggest kick out of seeing her daddy up there.

   

After the play Rebecca and I got to go bowling with the cast and she was in heaven! She loved meeting all the other actors and hanging out with them and it was her first time bowling. She was a little hesitant at first but soon was going right on up when it was her turn. I kept trying to catch a shot of her actually rolling the ball but kept missing it. She thought she was big stuff staying up so late; we didn't get home until 11:30 that night!

If you want to see more pics here and here are links to our local paper's stories on it. He is gone right now to the final performance; it's bittersweet because I know he has had a blast and I am SO glad he got to be a part of it but I'm also glad to be getting my husband back:) I think he is hooked now....he is planning on trying out for another one in the spring!
  

The day he catches up with me

Today marks my sweet husband's 34th year of life. What a year it has been! I could not be more blessed to be married to this man and am more thankful for him with each passing year. We are truly a team and I am so thankful for his help and that he is such a good dad. He feeds, changes, rocks, tickles, and loves our children right along with me.

Today is the 14th birthday I have celebrated with him; the first was his 21st birthday when some friends and I threw him a surprise party.....back in the day:) I wish I could post a picture but that album is packed away already; I guess you get off the hook, honey!

Happy birthday my precious husband.....I love you MORE!

Ha, Ha....very funny honey!

                             

This is what happened this afternoon when I asked my goofy husband to put Isaac's pants back on him....gotta love his sense of humor:)

Sweet laughter

Dennis is the greatest person I know to watch a funny show or movie with. He has a great laugh and he laughs loud, often, and with abandon when he is watching something funny. Last Sunday night we had the treat of having him home since he didn't have youth group that night because of the Labor Day holiday. We were hanging out together watching TV before the kids went to bed and I came across the show that back in the day used to be called America's Funniest Home Videos but now is apparently just called "AFV". Anyway.......Dennis and Rebecca had the BEST time watching that together and laughing at the silly clips! True to form he was laughing out loud and Rebecca was eating it up.

Fast forward to this Sunday and Rebecca remembered the show. She asked if we could watch "that funny show" again so I turned it on. This time Daddy wasn't home and it wasn't five minutes into the show that I heard her sad little voice pipe up and say "this isn't funny without Daddy here!" I think I melted just a little because that was SO precious to me. Dennis got home about halfway through the show and she was THRILLED that her daddy was there to watch it with her:)

My husband's sense of humor

Yesterday I mentioned to Dennis that lately he'd been leaving cabinets open after getting dishes out which is CLEARLY not a big deal but something unusual for him. Today while he was eating his cereal I walked into the kitchen and cracked up to see this sight:

                                                

THAT, my friends, is my husband's sense of humor:) Gotta love him!

She said yes

Today is the 12th anniversary of the day that my precious husband asked me to marry him so I thought I'd take the opportunity to record here a little of "our story"......

I met Dennis on January 25th, 1995 at a landmark on our college campus called "the rock". We were both part of a campus ministry called InterVarsity and were both going through training to go overseas on mission trips that summer. There were several others from our college doing this training as well and we were all meeting up to ride together to our first weekend session. I had met all of the others that were going but had never met Dennis. I didn't really think much about meeting him that day but that weekend we were paired up with someone to be prayer partners throughout the semester as we prepared for our trips that summer. I don't remember how we decided but somehow Dennis and I became prayer partners. As the semester went on we became friends; my family and friends kept teasing me about him being something more but I kept insisting that we were just friends and in my mind we were. Both of us were going on trips through the mission agency Pioneers (mine was to Senegal in West Africa and Dennis to Belize) and since we both had orientation in Florida we decided to ride down there together in Dennis' little Nissan Sentra. It was a "stick shift" and I'd never learned to drive one so that semester he taught me how (he was so patient......I'm sure it wasn't easy teaching me something new!) so that I could help with the driving.

                                        

This picture was taken at our orientation in Florida before we set off on our trips. Being in Florida together was the first time that I began to feel like this might be something more than friendship; I remember when this picture was taken I was analyzing the fact that he had put his arm around me:) I came to find out later that his feelings had begun to change even before we went to Florida but I was a little slow and did not realize this. We said goodbye and both spent 8 weeks working alongside missionaries and having amazing experiences. Through the summer I began to think about him more and more and wonder what would happen when we got home. I still didn't think he had feelings for me but I was starting to have feelings for him. I'll never forget coming back to Florida knowing I was going to see him again and being so nervous. And when I did see him he was suddenly SO cute to me.....and he had a goatee for the first time which made him even more so. I remember my heart beating so fast and I was thinking "what is wrong with me....it's just Dennis!" As we drove home we shared about our summers (I think we talked the entire trip home......8 hours or so I think)  and he showed me some sort of book (my memory is fuzzy on this one) where someone from his team had wished him luck with the girl he was planning on asking out. My heart jumped to my throat when I read that (and as I recall he was watching me read it and hoping I would get that it was me!) At some point on the trip he did ask me out and we had our first date near the beginning of the school year. Once we started dating it didn't take long for both of us to realize we had something very special together. Oh, except for those "three unmentionable weeks" (right, Heather?) where I wasn't sure and broke it off with him....then I came to my senses:)

By Christmas we knew that we wanted to be together forever but didn't get engaged yet since we figured we would freak my family out. By spring we were talking seriously about marriage and I was waiting....ummm patiently, right honey? for the ring to appear. Then on April 11th, 1996 (which was our 8 month anniversary of dating) he asked me to meet him at his apartment after our IV meeting. He gave me a sweet card and a mix tape (remember those?) he had made me. The card led me to believe that the ring was not coming that night but it would be soon.....which frustrated me because I felt like if he wasn't going to propose then he should stop talking about it already! Once he got me over my pout he asked me to dance to the mix tape and when a sweet country song called "She said yes" came on he got down on his knee and proposed! I was so shocked but thrilled of course. I actually hit him...then said yes! I couldn't believe he had tricked me like that. And in true Dennis fashion he actually had my diamond in one of those plastic ring containers from a gum ball machine. He always has been a jokester! This picture was taken a day or so later:

                                       

A little over 13 months later on May 31st, 1997 we were married. I have always said that marrying Dennis was the second best decision I have ever made (the first being my relationship with Jesus). Thank you for asking me, honey....I love you so much! 

Like Daddy, like daughter

It's no secret that my husband is a "big kid" when it comes to video games. He has always been a big fan of the Nintendo systems and has gotten each new one as it came out. So of course he had to have a Wii; he got it sometime last year. Recently Rebecca has become interested in it and enjoys playing this one certain game with her Daddy. Mario Party is a game that has lots of little mini games and he has been teaching her the basics of how to play them. She's actually not too bad at it and loves to have Dennis play with her. I love that she is spending time with her Daddy and improving her hand/eye coordination:)

                                                 

But that would hurt!

Lately Rebecca has enjoyed sitting at the table with Dennis and I while we feed the twins. She draws or colors and often she wants us to help her spell words. One day recently she was wanting to spell random words that she was hearing us say. She made one page for me and one for Dennis and put them on our nightstands. I must have been talking about feeding Samuel squash because mine says "squash" and "mama". It cracks me up everytime I see it on the nightstand because it looks like it says "squash mama". Last night when I went in the bedroom I noticed that it had been altered a bit:

My goofy husband........gotta love him:)

"Becca and Daddy time"

From time to time Dennis likes to take Rebecca out on a "date". This is something that I absolutely love and I hope continues as she grows. It's always been very important to me that my girls have a good relationship with their daddy. Yesterday Dennis took Rebecca out for the afternoon; they did a couple of errands and then went to see the new Veggie Tales movie together. She had a great time and they both enjoyed the movie:)