US Secret Service 5K Run

Our friends Paul & Tiffany invited us to run in this year's Secret Service 5K Race. I met Tiffany last summer at my friend Michelle's wedding. Tiffany is Michelle's husband's stepsister (and also from Fort Worth!), and since meeting at the wedding, we have become very good friends! (I sometimes joke that the only reason Michelle married Jeremy was just so I could meet Tiffany at the wedding!) Tiffany's husband, Paul, is an agent in the Secret Service.

The race was held in Las Colinas, a beautiful business/condo area with a gorgeous lake in the center. Because the race was sponsored by the Secret Service, they had armored Suburbans and a former vice presidential armored Cadillac limo on display. We sat in the limo and were shocked at how THICK the windows were! The doors felt like they belonged on a bank vault! Dave also had a lot of fun checking out the weapons that were on display.

The race itself was great; we've been having a "cold front" in Texas the last few days, so it was nice and cool. Afterwards, they had a huge spread of food--Chick-Fil-A, Starbucks, and a BBQ feast that was catered by President Bush's favorite BBQ place in Crawford!

Our New Bookshelf

After spending several Saturdays in our "woodshop," Dave finished the bookshelf! I might be biased, but I think it looks great! I am so impressed that he started with just a stack of wood; and, due to his craftsmanship, it is now a beautiful piece of furniture!
Now I get to think of what his next project should be! :)

Surprise Delivery

My sweet in-laws had these beautiful flowers delivered to me yesterday! What a wonderful surprise!

Spring Break Highlights

What a great spring break! Here are a few of the highlights!

*a full day of shopping at the mall!

*taking my Grandma Joan out for lunch downtown at the Secret Garden Tea Room

*spending time with camp friends from Minnesota--Nick, Katie, and Andrea--who were stranded for 2 days in Dallas/Fort Worth on their way to Mexico for spring break! They stayed with my parents, but in the meantime, I introduced them to Chick-Fil-A and Texas u-turns. It was SO good to catch up with them!


*having more wonderful Minnesota visitors--my dear friend Nicole and sweet little Beckett! We had a great few days together! Our adventures included....

dying our hair

emptying the dishwasher

tub time

eating Cheerios

pedicures, (another) trip to Chick-Fil-A, more shopping, watching "Sweet Home Alabama," enjoying walks outside in the warm weather, and a delicious meal at our favorite restaurant, Pappasitos!

Con Expo

Every 3 years, the world's largest construction conference is in Las Vegas! 150,000 people, including myself, attended this year's Con Expo. And, as a first-time attendee, I must say that it was INCREDIBLE! There was 2.2 million square feet of exhibits (which is equivalent to nearly 50 football fields!), and, in the 2 days that I was there, I didn't even see it all.

On one of the lots, they had TONS (literally!) of cranes all set up from every vendor imaginable. This picture didn't even capture 1/5th of it! One crane in particular had a lifting capacity of 800 tons (1,600,000 lbs.!) The hook on the block (hanging from the hoist line) was thicker than my torso and 18 parts to the line (the line running from the top of the boom to the hook and back up is considered a 2 part line).

Here's a few of the guys that I went with. We were living large at the Luxor buffet... Kal even got some prime rib! Although Missy was there, he was still able to eat amazingly well- even though he may never be allowed to eat another meal if she has anything to say about it. Kal just claimed that she wasn't going to be invited next time. :) Well, at least with the miles and miles of walking to the different exhibits he earned a little treat.

Here I am in the bucket of the Caterpillar loader they had on display. You too can own one of these babies for 1.6 million dollars. It runs on one diesel V12 but can carry 16 cubic yards of material in its humongous bucket. Believe it or not, Caterpillar makes a loader that is TWICE the size of this one here used mostly for mining operations... I'm sure it would have had a little trouble making it inside the building!

After a long day walking for what seems like forever, we had the evening to ourselves. As I'm not exactly a "high roller" I spent the time checking out the minature cities that are the hotels on the strip. Here at the MGM Grand where we stayed, the trainer in the "Lion Habitat" had one of the lions licking his hand... how sweet... meat?

TEACHER OF THE YEAR!!!

Bethany with some of her former students.

As my humble wife turns a lovely shade of red, I have to say it is my duty - nay - my great honor to announce that Teacher of the Year for Friendship Elementary School 2007/2008 is... (drum roll) Bethany Rinn!!
Being the devoted fan I am, this has been a long time coming... but I am her husband after all.:) On a purely objective note, I know how much time Bethany puts into her programs, lesson plans, and education towards her field. She truly loves ALL of the kids that she teaches; even the ones that drive her up a wall- and maybe more so those that do because I think she knows they need that love. I want everyone to know how proud I am of her and how proud the rest of our extended family is of her. Many teachers go their whole lives without such distinction and for Bethany to achieve this in four years of teaching- just two at Friendship speaks volumes! So to the love of my life I want to say, "I always have and always will believe in you. Congratulations, Sweetheart."

Here's a funny picture of Bethany--she's always trying to polish her "directing" skills! ;)

"It's a Miracle!"

This is what one of my students said yesterday while looking outside at the falling snow! Even though we are now Texans, we can both honestly say, having grown up in Minnesota and Colorado, that this really was QUITE a snowstorm!

At school, I was doing carpool dismissal during the very worst of it, and some of my students were TERRIFIED to walk to their cars in the snow. A few wouldn't even open their eyes, so they kept them closed while I led them to their cars! (In their defense, the snow was blowing completely horizontally and felt more like icy pellets than flakes!)

And, another student, while also looking outside from my classroom, said (in a very serious tone, I should add), "It hasn't snowed in generations." (Maybe she meant years?)

Since we thought the snow was so beautiful (and since we've never seen our house like this!), we had to share this picture!

The area out west where Dave is currently working received much more snow & ice than we did here, so he had a snow day! We got up really early to go out to breakfast together before I had to go to work.

(P.S. At this point, all the snow has already melted...but, it was exciting while it lasted!)