Valentine's Day

Yeah.

My kids love this day and look forward to it for some reason, which is odd since they're homeschooled and we don't really do a whole lot for it.

Scott had a nice little blog post about it today for you to check out.

And if you think his is good, you should check out Perry Noble's post... excellent! I love my wife year round and we date each other weekly (or at least every other week), so why should this day be any different. She's my best friend and the person I grow more in love with every day - I pray that I don't show her this only one day out of the year!

Maybe for some relationships, it either helps them get started or is a nice reminder.

ok... I did get my wife a card though :)
Peace.

Lucky Thirteen

I'm not a superstitious person, so the number 13 doesn't bother me... it's the number of years I've been married to my beautiful wife.

This year I wanted to do something that we never get to do. Since our anniversary is on New Years Eve, we have rarely gone out on our actual anniversary date - everyone's partying, it's hard to find sitters for the kids, restaurants are all booked and doing special menus, etc. This year we had some great friends willing to watch our kids for us overnight. I also got some great recommendations for restaurants and hotels in downtown Chicago.

We had a fabulous time together. My wife and I love our kids a lot, but it was great to get to go out on our actual anniversary and celebrate together. We stayed in Hotel 71 and had a room with a great view of the city. The room was nice and the view was excellent. We also got to stay up till about 5 in the morning because of some partying neighbors... maybe I'm getting too old but 5am seemed late to be celebrating the new year.

We had decided to walk to our restaurant from the hotel so we got a little chilled. Fantastic restaurant though! Scott had recommended this place called Aria and I have to give him props! It was one of the best meals we've ever had! It's a bit on the expensive side but the food and environment was incredible. It was more than a meal - it was an experience! The chef at Aria is a freakin' genius with potatoes (Kristen says he's a potato Svengali, which I actually had to lookup as I had only heard it on Seinfeld, but yeah, he's the bomb). My wife and I had great conversation as well. We talked about our memories together and some of the goals we had for this next year. It was a great time together!

After 13 years of marriage, my wife is still my best friend. She is still so fun to hang out with and to just talk with. We've been together for 15 years now counting our dating/engagement time and I still look forward to my time with her. I can't see that ever being something that grows old, even when I do.

Not to mention she's smokin' hot!

Here's some pics we took, though they don't do justice to our experience (photos on the phone), but you get the idea.

Peace.

United Rocked!

Incredible concert last night! United rocked the house, though I felt my age amongst so many youth! Got to share my experience with my wife, my friends Doug and Joni, and about 3500 others... sold out, standing room only.

Pretty cool that they did some tunes from their new CD (which hit the Billboard charts at #60), but they also did some old favorites, most of which we do at the Orchard.

If you get the chance to see them, I guarantee you will enjoy the experience!
More later.

Peace.

A Date With Faith

Yet another of my children hooked on Starbucks... I really should start getting some type of commission from them for building future patrons :)

Got a chance to go out on a Daddy-Daughter date with my oldest, Faith, tonight. We made a deal with her and her siblings that after they read a certain number of books (for school) that they would get to go out on a date with their Mom or I to anywhere they wanted to go.

Faith chose Red Lobster because she's never had lobster and was curious what it tasted like. Probably not my first choice in terms of places to try this delicacy but more within the budget than other places. We had a great time! She's growing up fast and I very much enjoyed getting to spend some one-on-one time with her tonight. Of course no date or evening out on the town would be complete without a trip to Starbucks. Don't worry this one is also decaf (though she fought harder than her brother did the last time).

She's a great kid... er I mean young adult and I am very proud of her. She is very intelligent and very beautiful and I can see God already using her in awesome ways. I look forward to the years of ministry that are before her and to seeing her blossom as a Jesus follower. I hope that she got a glimpse of how a man should respect her and treat her when taking her out - when that day comes around in about 20 years (ok, ok, I'm sure it will be sooner than that but hey, I'm a dad!) Ha! Seriously she won't be dating :)

Peace.