It's Cold.... Let's Stay in and READ!

Tuesday night I hosted our fifth book club.  We read THE SHACK by William P. Young and had a wonderful time!  I served ice cream floats and my friend Maggie brought a few extra dessert items to share.  The book brought forth a lot of controversy and really good discussion topics.  We got to talk about what we liked and didn't like about the book.  I have so very much enjoyed getting together with all these wonderful women every month and discussing a new book.  Looking forward to next month already-- The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks!  :)

  

I LOVE a Reason to Celebrate

As we all know, last Sunday was Valentine's Day and I made some big plans for Jay and me. After church on Sunday we had lunch at Panera across from Town Center 20 movie theatre.  We had tickets for the 1:15 showing of, how appropriate, Valentine's Day.  It was a really cute movie!  We both enjoyed it.  After the movie we came back to the house to pack up our things for the night.  We had made a reservation at the Embassy Suites on the Plaza.  I had also made a surprise reservation at McCormick and Shmick's Seafood Restaurant for dinner.  After some trouble checking into our hotel, we finally made it to the restaurant and had a lovely dinner of seared tuna, stuffed shrimp, filet, california rolls and even a delicious piece of apple pie!  Oh my goodness it was so good.  We headed back to the hotel on a freezing Valentine's Day evening and spent the rest of the evening snuggled tight in our beautiful hotel room!  We got to sleep in on Monday morning because I had the day off, too!  We had a couple's massage scheduled for 10a.m. so we ate breakfast at the hotel and headed over to Plaza West Massage and Day Spa.  We were about 30 minutes early when Jay got a text message from one of his classmates asking him why he wasn't at the lecture??!!  He ended up having to go the the school for awhile so we had to cancel our massage!  It was a bummer, but overall we had a wonderful and romantic  Valentine's Day!  Yay for love.

Team Thorpe Times Two!

Last weekend Jay's brother and his wife came into town for a visit.  It was great because they had Rob and Billie watch their girls all weekend so it was just us four!  They got into town Friday afternoon around 3:30 and after I got off work we headed over to KYOTO-- the best sushi in town!  We had a wonderful dinner and came back the apartment to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics.  We also played a very slow and miserable game of Mexican Train. Saturday Jay helped me cook a delicious breakfast of waffles, eggs, hash and lil smokies!  YUMMY!  After breakfast Matt and Akina wanted us to take them to Nebraska Furniture Mart.  We had an overwhelmingly fun time there but, of course, we didn't find anything we couldn't live without.  After NFM, we went to the Plaza and had a half-price burger at Tomfooleries.  We shopped around for several hours but I was the only one who found something (a CUTE black blazer from Gap)!  We stopped for coffee before it started snowing and decided to head out for dinner!  We came back towards the homestead and ate dinner at Jose Pepper's.  We were barely even hungry!!  Mmmmm... leftovers.  After dinner, we didn't want to go home so we went to Sullivan's Steakhouse-- not for steaks, of course!  We enjoyed some after-dinner drinks and headed home to hit the sack.  Matt and Akina left Sunday morning and Jay and I went to church.  We had such a fun time all together!  Again, I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures.  That was terrible of me to do.  I will blog about Valentine's Day tomorrow!!  I'm getting caught up-- YAY!   

Girls Just Want to Have Fun

The first weekend in February was the annual Pine Cove Men's Retreat.  It's the time of year when all the boys from my mom's side of the family head down to Tyler, TX for the men's retreat.  It's also the time of year when us girls can get together at the same time since all our men are gone.  Unfortunately, this year Jay had his finals the week after so he wasn't able to go.  But instead of me "getting in the way" of Jay's studying in KC, I went down to Norman for a GIRL'S WEEKEND!!!  Mom, my big sister Allison and her girls all got together for a fun weekend of shopping and chatting.  It was so great to be home with the girls.  I left Sunday morning to head back for our community group Super Bowl Party-- GO SAINTS!  I love the New Orleans Saints and I got all dressed up in my black and gold for the big game.  It was a great game and fun time with friends.  I apparently took no pictures of the weekend so I am sorry about that.  Here's to getting caught up!  :)

January Book Club

Last month for Book Club we read Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.  My friend, Shea, hosted a wonderful chocolate fondue party.  We had the biggest turnout yet with 12 girls!  It has been such a fun experience getting together each month for girl time and book discussion!  We are currently reading The Shack and have our meeting next week!

A Birthday Background for Jay

Well, I originally had a festive St. Patrick's Day background but I decided I didn't like it.  So I've chosen a festive birthday background for my honey whose birthday is just 1 day prior to St. Patrick's day!  I like it a lot better.  I'm really going to put some more posts/pictures up of Book Club, weekend fun and Valentine's Day soon!  Be on the lookout...

Christmas in February?!

 Well, I am finally making time to post some pictures of Christmas and our winter vacation in Winter Park, Colorado!  Jay was able to go to Little Rock for a few days to see his family and he had a great time.  We drove down to Norman on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas snowed in at my parents house!  We left on the 26th for our week-long skiing trip in Colorado!  It really was such a fun time!  We had great weather and good skiing conditions!  We brought in the new year by packing and going to bed early... ha ha!  I hope you enjoy the pictures nearly a month and a half later!

Cute cute nieces!

Aw!  The group minus one...

Christmas Day:

 Opening up some presents

Winter Park:

 Cooking Lunch

Just about to hit the slopes!

On March Hare!

Look at those icy beards!

A beautiful sunset with a wonderful family!

Apologies Are in Order

So, I am a terrible blogger.  It is now February 1, 2010 and I have not blogged Christmas!  Yikes.  For that, I do apologize.  I'll get around to it someday.  Ha ha!  Well, as you have probably figured out, we are staying busy with work, school, friends and church activities.  We really do love it here but it has been too cold for my liking these days.  I'm pretty much done with the winter time.  I really will try to do a better job of updating the blog, even if it seems trivial.  Thanks for bearing with me!  We'll talk soon...