Four Years and a Fruit Bouquet

On Thursday last week, I celebrated four wonderful years of marriage with my lovely wife, Vivian! We stayed in Omaha this time around, but I took the afternoon off work and Vivian recruited her mom and dad as babysitters so we could spend the afternoon at Fun Plex together. Vivian did manage to surprise me with a lovely fruit bouquet, which arrived in the morning at the office. I enjoyed showing off the arrangement of carved pineapples and chocolate-covered strawberries and apples to all my co-workers before leaving for the day.

It's been excruciatingly hot and dry here in the pit of Death Valley, Nebraska, which is typical for July, so spending the day at a water park sounded as good as it did last year and the year before. Fun Plex was having a special where we could visit both the water park and the rides at the large amusement complex for the same price. That meant in addition to lounging in the lazy river, the wave pool, and shooting down a couple water slides, we also got to play on some bumper boats, putter around in race cars, and fly around in the roller coaster (which I did twice, since there was no line).

After a long, fun afternoon, we headed over to Red Lobster for a gigantic dinner together. We also exchanged gifts. Vivian got me some lovely linens, and I got her a couple books. I also presented her with my traditional gift of a cartoon illustration featuring highlights of our fourth years of marriage together.

After dinner, we dropped by the Rave Theater to see Pixar's Brave, which was all right. We got done just as the kids were wandering in to see the midnight showing of the third Batman movie, and I almost wished we'd stayed to see that. Unfortunately, I had to work in the morning.

That weekend we celebrated Donna's birthday at our house. Vivian made some delicious quiche and fruit salad, which we ate at our house for brunch before opening presents.

That evening, our friends Phil and Jen were hosting another "Ingredient Party." I decided not to be as "offal" as I was last time and simply brought some ground turkey, coleslaw, and bread. They managed to turn it into a tasty pad thai stir fry, beet coleslaw, and bread pudding with the help of our mutual friends Lisa, Kristen, her boyfriend, and Phil's sister. We ate and spent the evening laughing at Monty Python, Spaceballs, and Top Secret. It was as fun as Skeet Surfin, but time seemed to pass with ludicrous speed, and we had to head home to get Hannah in bed at a semi-reasonable hour. She did seem to enjoy watching Monty Python when she wasn't banging around with her rings, but she needed her beauty sleep before her eight-month photo shoot, which we had the next day in our front yard.