Nick and I hosted a Coming of Age Anniversary Party at US Pizza in honor of our first date which was 21 years ago (1988)- we can now legally drink as a couple! With the input and instigation of some friends (you know who you are), we went all out with an 80's theme. It was great fun hunting down outfits for everyone. Well - not quite everyone. Nick is wearing his own original t-shirt & jeans from the day. Crazy! I put single-use cameras out for everyone to use, but I think mostly the kids used them. It will be interesting to see what the party looked like from the point of view of the youngest generation. At one point Brandon dropped a camera off the balcony. He said it flashed when it hit the ground, and it still worked when we retreived it. I can't wait to see that one! Took a lickin' ... Jamie and Fran were, like, totally, fabulously 80's

I ordered a special cake from The Blue Cake Company for the occassion. They did a wonderful job - it looked great and tasted amazing. The top two layers were white cake with raspberry filling (just like our wedding cake in 1995) and the bottom layer was chocolate with chocolate filling. The pictures on the wires are from our 80's days (junior & senior prom, homecoming, twirp dance), along with the cover of a Guns & Roses album, the Who Framed Roger Rabbit movie, and the Bye-Bye Birdie musical. For a quick history lesson on Val & Nick ... Sweet Child O' Mine was our song, we saw Roger Rabbit on our first date, and we met doing the pit orchestra for Bye-Bye Birdie at the Straw Hat Theater (Ashtabulas Arts Center)
It was a shame to cut the cake - but we did it anyway... and everyone was glad we did. It was delicious!THANK YOU to everyone who came and made our celebration such a fun evening. Nick, Brandon, Laedyn & I all had a wonderful time & hope all of our guests did too.

Nova did some filming in Nick's lab a couple months ago. The show is airing on July 14th. Below is a link to a brief video called "Aiding Aging Muscles." Nick appears briefly. Check it out!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0403/03.html

We went for a hike at Cane Creek Lake at the end of May. It was an interesteing park, but the mosquitos were AWFUL!!! It was also very hot & muggy. Not the most comfortable day for a hike. I think I set a record pace just to get away from the bugs. The mosquitos were explained by the small slow creeks criss-crossing the trail. I think there were nine foot bridges to cross in the 2.5 mile trail.

See how far ahead of the family I was? They kept stopping to look at mushrooms, plants & bugs. I never slowed down except to take a couple pictures. Most of the trail looked like this:We finished our hike just ahead of the storm rolling in, & decided we had time to get a closer look at the lake from a little fishing pier. Cane Creek Lake is interesting to look at with all the dead trees sticking out of it.

There's a little cove on the other side of the pier. Not visible in this picture is a boat launch ramp and a pavilion with a sand volleyball court. The pavilions at this park are enclosed and have air conditioning! NICE! The park also has an RV camping area, including a permanent RV you can rent.Self-timer pic of the day... I should have set the flash to go off. In order to even see any features, I had to crop in close & radically change tinting, saturation and contrast... oh well.While we were enjoying the view from the pier and taking pictures, the storm arrived. It was a real frog strangler, and showed no signs of letting up. See that car off in the distance? Yep - that's ours.

Nick ran all the way over to get the car in the pouring rain & then came down to get Laedyn. Brandon and I made a run for it next. Luckily we had a couple towels in the car - I have no idea why. We don't usually have towels on hand but it sure was nice to have them that day! On the drive back to Little Rock, we saw a sign for a place called Tar Camp Park. It's an Army Corps campground, and according to the link above was voted one of the top 100 family campgrounds in the country! They sure did have a nice playground. When Brandon saw the rock wall he insisted that we stop so he could get out & play.Laedyn, who had been fast asleep in her carseat, must have sensed the fun to be had. She woke up and just had to check out the swings. We weren't there for more than 15 minute though before the rain we'd left behind at Cane Creek caught up to us and forced us to call it quits for the day.

Tar Camp Park is about 32 miles from our house in Little Rock - it takes about 45 minutes to get there.

My parents came for a visit in May and we took them to Petit Jean for a day. I got one self-time group shot that day. We rented a minivan rather than drive two cars. Brandon loved the minivan and was sad we couldn't keep it. It was nice to have space for everyone!

Our first stop (after the picnic which I took no pictures of...) was Cedar Falls.

Laedyn hitched a ride for a little while.

After we looked at Cader Falls, we went to look at Mather Lodge. There's a restaurant, gift shop, lodge rooms and cabins. This is view from behind Mather LodgeAfter Mather Lodge, we went to the Bear Cave trail. The rock crevices are pretty interesting.

Papa took over backpack duty for awhile.

With Papa on backpack duty, Nick got to climb the wall. He & Mark disappeared for quite awhile. I don't know how they got back down.

After Bear Cave Trail, we drove a scenic loop and stopped at a few overlooks. Mark the daredevil went out on a precipice. It was scarier than it appears in the picture.

All of the exploration, in addition to the kid's energy, wore Papa out and he snuck in a quick catnap. Brandon & Nick thought Papa's idea had merit, and made themselves comfortable on a rock ledge too.

Brandon spotted a pretty yellow butterfly in a parking lot. Unfortunately it had a broken wing.At the top of Petit Jean Mountain there is an old building that used to be used at a camp. We spent awhile climbing around in it exploring. Mom & I both took lots of pictures - I wonder how different her pictures are from my pictures??At the back of the structure, there was a deep hole with an exterior door opening but no obvious way to get down in. There was water trickling out from under the structure (a spring?). I wonder if it was a cold celler to store food? We saw a snake sitting down there, so no one went down to investigate further.

The view from the top of Petit Jean ... & Mark. I let Nick take Brandon off the trail to get a better view although all these heights make me extremely nervous about the kids.The last thing we saw on this trip was the gravesite of Petit Jean. After that we loaded back into the minivan for the drive back to Little Rock. Just in time too - the rain began just as we were looking at the gravesite!

Easter - that was a ways back - but I took some pictures!

The Easter Bunny brought Laedyn some cool sunglasses.It was rainy on Easter, so the easter egg hunt took place indoors. Brandon was very successful.
He was also very good about letting Laedyn find some - even helping her to do so.

I'm going to try to catch up a little on what we've been up to. I've been very busy with work and haven't had any spare time to keep up with this, with Facebook, with Flickr, with ANYTHING! I did, however, manage to take some pictures!

Brandon played t-ball this spring. Here are a couple of pictures from a game back in April. His team was the Orioles.

Brandon's preschool "graduation" was on Thursday. These five will be moving on to kindergarten in the fall.Ms. Linnie teaches Brandon's class. She's been at his daycare for 18 years. The kids all LOVE her. She really is great.

Brandon's best friend at school is Townley - they've been at daycare together almost since they were babies. We're sad they won't be going to the same kindergarten. Hopefully we'll keep in touch and have occasional playdates.Each of the kids got to choose a song to sing. Brandon chose "On Top of Spaghetti" which was by far the longest of the solos. He did a great job!

Brandon turned 5 on March 10th. I made this "cake" for him to take to daycare. It's really a big pan of brownies. He was really happy with the Spiderman! He was worried Laedyn would touch it and mess it up.

When Brandon chose his birthday dinner - he chose Chuck E. Cheese. I invited some of his friends to join us. It wasn't really a party -- no cake or anything -- just dinner & games. We all had lots of fun! The Lombeida family joined us -- Tori is Brandon's age, and Abby is 2 years younger (I think).Brandon, Townley and Jackson on a wave runner. Jennifer came to help celebrate.

Brandon & Kaleb were in daycare together from the infant one room until Kaleb left last fall to go to public preschool. We still get together for socializing, and they are on the same t-ball team this season. Brandon really misses having Kaleb at daycare with him.

We did not have a birthday party this year. I offered Brandon the choice between a party or a trip to Dallas to go to the zoo & aquarium. He chose the trip. I'll post pictures from that soon.

March 4th was our wedding anniversary. Nick & I got dressed up a bit and went out for dinner. Jennifer came over to babysit for us. It was a very nice evening. Compared to us in 1995 at our wedding - 14 years ago ...

...and then again in 1989 when we'd only been dating for a year - 20 years ago (are you kidding me???)

(Don't know why this is sideways or ow to fix it. It's not like this on my hard drive...)