Mardis Gras birthday and an Anniversary

Viivan and I have been able to enjoy a couple relatively quiet weekends together, which is just fine with me. Sometimes I worry we might be becoming an "old married couple," the kind who prefer to sit at home watching TV instead of going out with friends. Then there are times I feel like it feels quite right not to do anything at all, at least for a little while.

We did managed to get up to Dean and Sarah West's house last Saturday to celebrate her birthday, Mardis Gras style. We'd been meaning to visit Dean's new digs for sometime now and check out the dance floor he built into his basement. It was a fun night. Since the party had a Mardis Gras theme, everyone was required to come in "masquerade" style. It gave me an excuse to pull out my Phantom of the Opera mask and my tuxedo T-shirt. A friend of Dean's played DJ and even put on a dance mix of the Phantom of the Opera theme for us, which was terrific. We got to eat some King's Cake, and Vivian even found the baby inside — hopefully foretelling a prosperous year ahead.

The next night, we took Jack and Donna out to Outback Steakhouse to celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary. Stuffing ourselves with ribeye steak and a bloomin' onion seems to have become an annual tradition of sorts. We retreated to our house to have blueberry cobbler afterward.

Things have been relatively quiet otherwise. I do seem to be getting quite a lot of reading done. Our Wednesday night Journey group is going through Francis Chan's "Crazy Love" book together, which is giving us plenty of things to talk about. I'm also devouring Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in anticipation of the new movie coming out based on the story (or at least "part 1" of it). In addition, I'm hoping to start up a Personal Finance group at church based on The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. As a regular listener to the Dave Ramsey podcast, I've become fairly familiar with the stuff he teaches and look forward to giving it a look with some friends from church. (And by look, of course, I mean a rebuttal.)

V-Day 2011

Since our big trip to Las Vegas, Vivian and I have enjoyed a couple weekends of not doing a whole lot, which has been great. We had a week or two of nasty winter that seems to be transitioning quickly into quite beautiful springtime.

We had a couple fun events for the weekend before Valentine's Day. Friday night at JNO was the Pink Party, of course, so Vivian and I got to dance with several of our favorite Jitterbugs, including Lisa's mom. It was her birthday and she decided to have a dance in the middle of our traditional birthday jam, which was quite fun.

Sunday evening, Twin Valley had a Wild West themed potluck dinner for some reason. Vivian and I joined in the fun, and we got to duel with Pastor Drew and teach everybody how to do the Electric Slide. Tim provided musical accompaniment. There was also plenty of food, of course, including barbecue, cornbread, and a chocolate cheesecake that Vivian auctioned off for $32 (which went to the coffee fund).

On Valentine's Day, Vivian and I had several fun treats in store for each other, most of which involved food. I got up early enough to make her some heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast, and she made some heart-shaped cherry chocolate cheesecakes for me. I brought her roses and Panera chili for lunch at her workplace, and then made some homemade deep-dish pizza at home for dinner. I was lucky enough to find a recipe from my all-time favorite pizza restaurant in the world: Pizzeria Uno. I made the crust from scratch, which was a first for me. Nobody told me what a horrible, sticky mess that stuff is until you beat it into submission. The result was quite tasty. We also had a few gifts for each other. Vivian gave me a wine-tasting notebook and label organizer, and I got her some tickets to see Jeff Dunham when he comes to Omaha on March 4.

Needless to say, it was a wonderful (and somewhat gluttonous) Valentine's Day for the both of us. Of course, I'll jump at any chance I can get to make homemade pizza, especially if it comes in a heart-shaped pan.