Dave's 30th Birthday!

I’ve been teasing Dave for months (years?) about turning 30 (after all, I’m so much younger…)…and since it was so monumental, we had a huge weekend planned to celebrate his birthday! On Friday night, we went to Texas de Brazil for dinner. We had never been there, but had heard incredible reviews….and it definitely lived up to its name! For those of you who aren’t familiar with TdB, it is a Brazilian steakhouse where “guachos” walk around the restaurant with huge skewers of meat. There is a card at your table with a red side & a green side, and when the green side is facing up, the the guachos stop at your table and offer you meat. And…on Friday night they had 14 different meats! It was incredible! Our favorite was bacon-wrapped filet mignon. Because there is so much food, we were there for nearly 3 hours…after another week apart, it was so fun to be together while enjoying SUCH great food and dessert-- citrus crème brulee & 5 layer chocolate cake. I think this is now Dave’s new favorite restaurant for birthdays. (And, if you sign up online for their e-newsletter, you receive a free dinner & dessert on your birthday & anniversary!)
I had planned a surprise birthday party for Dave at my parent’s house for Saturday night…and, I am so proud to say that it stayed a surprise! I had been so excited about it in the past few weeks that there were several times I came very close to slipping the secret to Dave! He thought we were going to my parent’s for a small birthday dinner with my grandparents, Uncle Kym & Aunt Bernie, and Uncle Jon.

Little did he know that many of our Keystone friends were back in my parent's kitchen….so when Dave walked past the family room and into the kitchen, he had a huge SURPRISE! He just stood there smiling for a few moments taking it all in. (He later said he thought he was being attacked because it was so loud with all the yelling, laughing, and kazoos!)


We had a great evening with our family and friends....after dinner we watched a video slideshow of pictures of Dave set to “My Next 30 Years” by Tim McGraw that our friend Holly made….and then we had cake from Sweet Memories! (What would a party be without Sweet Memories cake?) All in all, it was an awesome party—thanks to all our friends & family who helped make it a fun surprise for Dave!

Even the twins made it to Dave's party! (Way to go, Kimi!)Some of our sweet friends--Sawyers, us, Sprauls, and Collins"Mr. Dave" and the D'Amico boys!

New Year's Bash!

We had such a fun time last at a great New Year's party! It was at John & Amy Bain's house, a wonderful couple from our church! We had so much fun ringing in 2009 with so many friends! Sweet friends Sandi & JennyThe real dancing queens--Jenny & Amber! If you know Dave & me at all, you know that dancing isn't quite our forte....but even we got out on the dance floor at midnight! Happy New Year!

Mannheim Steamroller

One of our Christmas presents to our family was tickets to Mannheim Steamroller, which performed at the Meyerson in Dallas last Saturday night! Both sets of our parents love their music, and it was really fun to surprise them with tickets. We started the evening off at our house with appetizers, and then we all caravanned over to Dallas. The creator & composer of Mannheim Steamroller, Chip Davis, has apparently been recovering from neck surgery, so they said this was the first time in 30 years that he hasn't toured at Christmas....but, the other musicians were just as amazing! There were 8 back-up musicians (mostly string players), and then 5 main Mannheim Steamroller players. Each of the Mannheim Steamroller musicians played at least 2 instruments, and most of them switched between many more! It was so fun to watch them play--what a great evening!