Old is new again

Vivian and I are continuing to enjoy our early and extended spring here in Omaha, getting outdoors for walks with Hannah and grilling at home whenever we get the chance.

On Friday night, Vivian and I dropped by Jitterbugs Night Out with Hannah in tow. I've been pleasant surprised at how well Hannah seemed to do with large, noisy crowds of people, and she seemed to enjoy making all sorts of new jitterbug friends with her infectious smile. The dance was held at InCommon on 13th street for reasons unknown, a small non-profit organization located inside a small building with a giant wooden floor that made an an adequate (albeit small) dance space. Vivian and I danced with several of our friends and enjoyed a lively playlist supplied by Jitterbug veteran Billy Sobczyk. I heard compliments all night about his selection of songs, which included old favorites Vivian remembered from her first danced at the Eagles' Lodge. Sarah also commented that the tiny space at InCommon reminded her of the Beehive Lodge, which was where the Jitterbugs used to dance before moving to 24th and Douglas. Old is new again, I suppose.

Vivian and I jumped into a birthday jam with Debbie before calling it a night, though we did stop by the Donut Stop next door for some completely unnecessary pastries before heading home. If the Jitterbugs get kicked out of the Eagles Lodge again, InCommon would be an ideal backup dance space, particularly with one of our favorite post JNO hangouts right next door.

On Saturday, Jenny hosted another one of her annual taco parties, though this one had a bit of a twist. Her guest list was shared with her new roommate Libby, so half the people in our group were people we'd never met. By some coincidence Katie and her husband Dan share a bit of work history with Vivian and me. That gave us plenty of things to chat about right off the bat.

After stuffing ourselves with a typical assortment of taco foodstuffs (including Vivian's kick-butt guacamole), we played a couple hilarious rounds of Telestrations and got good and silly toward the end of the night. We formed a human pyramid for some reason and probably made enough noise to get Jenny in trouble with the neighbors. I supposed after starting a snowball fight in her living room back in 2007, it was still an improvement.

The tradition lives on!

Spring forward

Spring is nearly here at last, though in a way it feels like it never left. This winter's been quite mild to say the least. Vivian's parents have headed down to Florida to attend a "celebration" in the wake of her aunt's passing away, so we spent some extra time stuffing our faces with them before we left. First was their first-ever fish fry down at St. John Vianney's (of course), and then an early St. Patrick's Day dinner at our house.

Later that week, I took Vivian and Hannah out on our first family picnic down at Roxbury Park around the corner from where I work. The weather's been so agreeable that I never know whether to wear a coat, long sleeves, or short sleeves. We had a nice family walk up and down a bike trail before heading back to work.

Vivian and I had a fun St. Patrick's weekend. We went out fish-frying at Famous Dave's with friends Phil and Jen. Then, we spent the rest of the evening at their place sipping Bailey's cocktails and watching The Naked Gun. On St. Patty's Day, Vivian made up corned beef and cabbage, and we took a walk with Hannah out in the fresh air. We also introduced her to our lawn, getting several pictures of her smiling and rolling in the grass wearing her St. Patrick's Day bib.

Sunday was Jonathan's birthday, so he dropped by to celebrate with us. Vivian made Chinese food for dinner and Jon and I played a couple rounds of Sub Hunt and Burgertime on his Intellivision, which we managed to connect to our TV. We finished off the night playing four-way Apples to Apples, which included Hannah drawing random cards. (What's crazy is that she nearly beat us.)

Small Worlds Collide

The marvelous season of "spent" is upon us again, and this means partaking in many of our favorite annual traditions, not the least of which is our annual feast at St. John Vianney's. Since 2009, we've been dropping in to binge on fried fish, pancakes, grilled cheese, and all our favorite beige foods. This particular parish has been our venue of choice for many reasons, one of which is that the line is relatively short. (Word must have gotten out, though, because the wait was about twice as long as it's been in years past.)

It was a great time with our friends as always — Tamra, newcomer Amanda, Mark Scheen, Jenny, and of course Lisa, who managed to win at the Meat Wheel once again. We also had one surprise guest among the crowd of fish friers — Nebraska Congressman Lee Terry, who apparently wandered in with everyone else just to buy some fish. I'm always amazed at how often I managed to bump into Terry in "real life," who always seems to be in an amicable mood just in case I needed to give him a piece of my mind. I only wish other governmental representatives were as easy to get hold of.

Vivian and I finished off the evening at JNO, bringing little Hannah along with us to meet more new people in our group. There was a fairly large crowd, much of it made of younger kids from a local ballroom dance troupe who performed a few minutes of east coast swing for us in a circle. We did have one very unexpected visitor in the crowd of newcomers — Pastor Mark Ashton from Christ Community Church. Vivian and had attended this particular mega church for a couple years but eventually moved to Twin Valley after we decided it was too big. Ironically, I'd never even gotten the chance to shake hands with Mark Ashton before, since we only saw him on Sundays and when he wasn't sermonizing via remote location on the telescreen, he was sharing our attention with those of a couple thousand other people. This time, Vivian got to dance with him. It was quite a surreal experience.

Moving experiences

Our little girl Hannah got to take her first trip to the circus this week! Vivian has become a stay-at-home mom, taking care of Hannah during the day for now and taking the job back from Grammy and Grumpy Daycare. It's going to be a financial pinch to be sure, but her move to be a full-time mom will allow her to do things like take Hannah to see live elephants march around the Omaha Civic Auditorium. That's what she did on Thursday with Donna. Hannah even had a cute little clown outfit to wear as she watched elephants and horrifying costumed characters drop by to hold her.

On Saturday, the whole Johnson family dropped by to help Jenny move out of her house in northwest Omaha and into an apartment down on Q Street. It was kind of sad to say goodbye to the house with the giant backyard that had been host to any number of parties — Christmas, Independence Day, Luau, and of course Taco. I forgot what a workout it was to try to squeeze a couple couches out a tiny front door and up a flight of stairs, but the whole ordeal was over fairly quickly. We had pizza and chicken afterward before dropping into a coma for the rest of the afternoon.

That evening, the Johnson Family dropped by the West House by Lake Cunningham to say Happy Birthday to Sarah. Hannah got to wear her "little black dress," we had shrimp and fruit with a handful of our friends as Dean and Sarah made music on a variety of instruments before we headed home.

V-Day Weekend

On Friday night, the Omaha Jitterbugs held their annual Pink Party, so Vivian and I decided to take Hannah to her very first night of swing dancing. The usual cast of characters was there in full force, of course, and we enjoyed being able to show our new baby girl to everyone who hadn't seen her yet. Hannah slept through the entire dance, including the part where I decided to take her out on stage for her very first father-daughter dance. Hopefully, this will be the first of many long, happy years of dancing for my baby girl.

On Saturday night, Twin Valley Church held a kind of Valentine's dinner / surprise 25th anniversary party for Rick and Tammi Hall. We all brought an array of Italian food, and I took my hand at a bulk version of fettuccine alfredo. There was also a heart-shaped cake and a bunch of cannolis for dessert. The Hall's wedding video played on a nearby television, and the happy couple gathered for cake-cutting and cake-feeding afterward (Jack commented, "Do what you wanted to do 25 years ago!") Savannah West was on hand to take romantic pictures of people underneath a makeshift archway in the other room, including a couple of the entire Hall family.

After dinner, Vivian and I participated in a "Newlywed Game," along with the Halls and the Sterups (who had recently celebrated 53 years of marriage). Vivian and I didn't score any points in the first round but wound up taking first place by the time the second round was over. Fortunately, I'd asked Vivian questions well in advance such as, "What item would you save first if your house were on fire." We wrapped up the night with a few kind words from the Halls' friends and family.

Naturally, I still had a few tricks up my sleeve for V-Day itself. I woke Vivian up with a surprise breakfast of heart-shaped "egg in a hole" and bacon before she left for work. Over the lunch hour, I dropped by with chili and cornbread for lunch, along with a special gift basket I'd filled up with for of Vivian's favorite things (note the tiny bottle of Bailey's). That evening, we had a big catfish dinner down at the Catfish Lake Restaurant and then got some ice cream at Ted & Wally's afterward to round out our lovely, romantic day.

It's the five-year anniversary of our first Valentine's Day, and I'm amazed at how far we've come since that night of meatloaf and wine. I love you, Vivian!

Snowmageddon and a Superbowl

Well, Punxatawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter, but we seem to have squeezed them all into just one short weekend. Vivian and I celebrated Groundhog Day last week by watching Groundhog Day, of course. I also took her out for pizza at the Pizza Shoppe as a surprise lunch date. This was all in anticipation of "snowmageddon" over the weekend, which was really the only snowfall to speak of that we've had all winter long.

On Friday night, while the roads were still drivable, I decided to make use of our grill one last time and make burgers for Vivian and her folks before the snow hit. The next day, Vivian and Hannah stayed warm inside for the most part, and I spent a couple hours getting a good workout shoveling our driveway (yes, I am still a member of the Order of the Shovel).

The snow had been cleared away just perfectly by the time Sunday rolled around, so church services and Superbowl parties were all still happening on schedule. Our mutual friend Hugh invited a bunch of us over to his house (for the first time since he and Sarah were married) to watch the Big Game on Sunday night. Nobody in our group was rooting for either the Giants or the Patriots, so we mostly visited and acted goofy in the kitchen and paid attention to the TV only when the commercials came on (the crowd you see in the photo above gathered when The Voice came on right after the Superbowl ended).

Sushi and hors d'oeuvres

Last Friday, Vivian and I celebrated our Sushi Anniversary, commemorating five years since we first started dating, and four years since I proposed to her. Since our relationship officially started shortly after eating at Sakura Bana in 2007, we've picked a different place for sushi every year since then (including a trip to the seafood buffet at the Rio in Las Vegas a year ago). Our sushi venue of choice this year was the all-you-can-eat insanity of Wasabi on West Maple. Vivian and I came hungry and devoured two plates of raw fish and rice together and washed it down with a glass of plum wine.

Afterward, we burned off what we could at Jitterbugs Night Out. Grammy and Grumpy were kind enough to take Hannah for the evening so Vivian and I were able to dance until midnight with our friends, just like old times.

On Saturday night, Vivian and I upheld our new annual tradition of Doing Something in January to break up the post-holiday monotony the month of January usually brings. Our idea this time was to have an hors d'oeuvre party, challenging our friends to make tasty bacon-wrapped things impaled on toothpicks and other bite-sized morsels. The winner for the evening was Tamra's googly-eyed crab rangoon, each of which were painstakingly shaped to have actual pincers of the sides. That was cute. Our grand prize was a plastic pig wrapped in a blue blanket. Get it?

Then somebody broke out the Riesling and all hell broke loose. The best part about parties with our friends is that Vivian and I can plan no specific entertainment whatsoever and we still wind up spending a few hours cracking up with each other. Jessica in particular bent over backward (or forward?) for our amusement in-between singing VeggieTales songs and being generally goofy.

Of course, adorable Hannah Marie also added to the fun of the evening. She got passed around to just about everyone, including Eric, who did a little dance with her on his lap that she seemed to get a kick out of. We wrapped up the night playing a couple rounds of Telestrations, concocting horrible new double-entendres that will likely be repeated ad nauseum for the next couple of weeks. (Anybody need to polish the coffin?)