Beautiful in KC

Nina had her last softball game this week. The girls really have improved over the season and they actually won their last game. They finished the season 6-4 which is a 1000 times better than last season.

Nina had a busy week up in Iowa for the first half of the week. Grandma Marsha took her shopping and swimming. Papa Dave and Great Grandpa took her golfing too. They were both very impressed with her golfing skills which are probably tons better than I'll ever be. Grandma Marsha brought Nina home on Wed for her softball game so she got to spend some time with Julia too.

What a very nice weekend in KC!! Friday night Mark and I went to the Royals game with our good friends Steve and Beth. The Cardinals were in town so the stadium was packed. First we met up with my friend Jeff who was celebrating his 36th bday!! Plus Jeff got us our tickets so big old thanks to him for that. The game was great as the Royals won 7-2.

Steve and Beth at the game.

Saturday night was a nice evening of hanging out with friends. Chris and Renee with their kids, Tim and Steph and Toby & Kori with their daughter came over for a cookout. It was such a beautiful night that we all were able to sit out on the patio all evening. It even got to be a little chilly once the sun went down.

Today Mark, Julia and I went to the downtown Art Fair. We haven't really been down in this area since it opened. There are just a ton of new restaurants that we need to try. It's such a nice area too and very easy to get around. http://www.powerandlightdistrict.com/ At the art fair we found very cute pictures for the girls' rooms. Each is a picture of a princess with different sayings. We also found a couple of fun little prints of dogs. A black lab with a martini and a dachshund with a beer. Haven't figured out where to put them yet but I think they'll make great conversation pieces. We ended up going to Gordon Biersch Brewery for lunch. It was surprisingly good. I guess i just don't expect much out of a chain restaurant especially chain breweries. But it was very good and about average in price with every other restaurant for lunch these days. We also ran into Mike and Margie and their girls. Always fun to see friends when you're out and about.

3 months old

Royals Game and Pool dates

Mark's company had its annual Royals night this Saturday night. It was a super nice evening with temps in the low 80's!! It was Julia's first Royals game but second baseball game since we took her to the TBones game for my company picnic. Julia did a great job for us and pretty much slept and looked around the whole game. The highlight of the evening was Nina's 5 seconds of fame as she was on the Royals big screen during the 2nd inning hot dog launch. For those of you who haven't been to the K this year to see the new video screen... it is HUGE!! I've never seen such a massive scoreboard/video screen and the clarity is amazing. Nina was front and center on this thing for a good 5 seconds. totally made her night!!

Other highlights from our week.... Nina's softball team won their 5th game in a row. Only one more game this season coming up on Wed night. She also finished her 3rd and final week of golf camp. She is up in Iowa this week with my parents. They are taking her to the Omaha zoo and golfing. Can't wait to hear how she does.

Julia is 12 weeks now and growing out of her 0-3 months clothes. She fits into some of the 3-6 months already. The clothes she has grown out of I have given to my friend Jen Regas who just had her baby girl yesterday!! Congrats to Matt & Jen. Little Alexa Lyn was born yesterday afternoon, 6 lbs 8 oz and 19". Can't wait to see her.

Finally, you know summer is here when Mark and the other neighborhood guys are making pool dates. ha ha Yes, the guys in the neighborhood including Mark all call each other up and make plans to head to the pool to pretty much drink beer and i think to get away from their wives/kids. Funny, i always thought this was a girl thing to do. :)

College World Series and Father's Day

We had a crazy weekend full of activities up in the Omaha/Council Bluffs area. Mark, Julia and I drove up to CB on Friday night. Julia's first road trip and first trip up to Iowa. I'm sure she'll have many more to follow. She did great on the trip up. She was awake 'til we hit St Joe then slept the rest of the way.

Saturday Mark and I headed over to Omaha for the college world series. If you don't know, this event has been in Omaha forever. I've been many times throughout the years but this was Mark's first experience. It is such a great time overall. We started off the day tailgating with a friend and coworker of mine, Jay. He has season tickets and a parking pass so we were right next to the stadium tailgating. After a few beers and a round of bean bag toss, we headed into the game. Great game between Stanford and Florida State. Very HOT though!! we definitely got some sun which i haven't seen for a year now so was happy to get some color besides pasty white. Great game turned into a blow out in the 9th inning as Stanford went on to roll up FSU but by that time we had retreated to the beer tent. We met up with a coworker of Mark's, Jeremy "Mac", and his wife Ashley. After the game, i think Mark wished we had tickets for the second game that evening but it was time to head back to my parents and see how Julia was doing.

Then came Father's Day. Mark's first and also a first for my brother in law Kurt. We finally got to meet Marissa, my sister's new baby girl (born a week after Julia). We had a great afternoon with my family and playing more bean bag toss.

Sorry, i have been slacking in my posts these days. Plus i don't have any pictures to post right now. Things have been so busy with us these days. Now that i'm back at work, we are settling down into a nice routine. Julia has been doing great sleeping 'til 5:30 or so every morning. Mark gets up to feed her while i go workout.... ha ha good one, huh!! I've been back to work for a week and a half and i've worked out once during this time. :) Okay so usually i go back to sleep. Still the morning routine is working great so far. After Julia puts down the bottle, she goes back to sleep which gives Mark and I plenty of time to get ready for work. I usually take Julia over to Cindy's house too.

Julia has been doing great every day at Cindy's. We get a full report of her sleeping/feeding schedule throughout the day. Apparently Julia is becoming the cul de sac baby too cuz the stay at home moms have all been coming over to see her during the day too. Our neighbors Jill Viso and Nancy Abraham (their son's are both in the same grade with Nina) have been visiting Cindy quite a bit these days. Then whoever gets home first goes over and picks up Julia for the night. Usually it's Mark beating me home. I've been trying to leave work around 5 each day but it's been hard with the workload I have.

Work is extremely busy. We have quite a few projects going on right now plus we're always chasing more work. I've been thrown into the fire on a project that we are pursuing for the City of KC and MoDOT. Proposals due next week and interviews for the project will be in July. Our firm goes through a ton of prep work and practice when it comes to marketing projects. Plus my supervisor has tapped me to help him run our section. He is so busy with a design/build project that he doesn't have time to do his normal office/business/employee tasks that he normally does. So he has asked me to help him in these duties. We have about 30 employees in our section that we manage so I am finding out that this is what keeps him so busy all time.

Nina has been in golf camp for the last two weeks since school got out. She loves it. I guess she's pretty darn good too. Her coach has commented that he looks for players at this age and already asked if Nina would be going to Blue Valley West HS. As of now, she isn't. But good to know that he thinks her skills are good enough that he would be hoping that she would be attending the school that he coaches at.

Our only big news lately is that we've finally purchased a Wii. Wow, this thing is so much fun. Nina had to show us how to play the games and run the controllers but we're old pros now. This is pretty much how we spend each evening. Now i just need to find one of those Wii Fit.

My BFF Sarah

Last week my very best friend Sarah and her family were here visiting. They had flown from Florida for Sarah's grandfather's 90th bday in Council Bluffs, but added a couple of extra days to spend some time here with us in KC and also a couple of days in Des Moines with her sister. Sarah and I have been best friends since 8th grade. Funny thing is that we had actually met for the first time when were about 2 years old. Funny how certain memories can come back to you when you are older but i always had this memory of playing with a neighbor girl when my family lived in its first house. Specifically i remember playing in a sun room because it was always bright in there. We moved from that first house when i was 3 years old. Then Sarah and I met for the second time in 7th grade. It wasn't 'til we started to hang out that our moms finally figured out that they were actually neighbors when we were little and thus had play dates. Funny how life is. Sarah and I must have been destined to be best friends. :) Throughout the years we've shared many adventures. TPing in 8th grade, our freshman year New Year's Eve party, my visits to Gatorville when Sarah was an undergrad and then to Tallahassee when she was in law school. Always we had the best time!!

So now our dynamics have changed and we both have children. I took them to TRex at the Legends for dinner on Thurs. night. I think Sarah's son Paul really liked it. He got to dig for fossil bones and everything. Friday we went to Deanna Rose's Farmstead. Nina and Paul got to feed the animals, see the new old time school house and Paul even got a pony ride. It was really fun. I've added a few pictures from our day.

Back to work

Today was my first day back to work. Almost as if Julia knew, she slept from 10:30 to 5:30 for us. She ate at 5:30 and went back to sleep. Gave Mark and I plenty of time to get ready for work. Taking her over to Cindy's went better than we thought. Julia was asleep and so it was a nice, peaceful drop off. Cindy had neck surgery a couple of weeks ago, thus the neck brace. She had little metal rods inserted between her vertebrae where they were fusing together. Ick!!

Work went just fine. The day actually went quicker than i expected. I was pretty much in meetings from the time I got there 'til about 2 PM. Then i was just busy trying to catch up and get some stuff done. My boss was very happy to have me back as he gladly gave back my projects to help relieve him of his workload. Tomorrow will be filled with more meetings and playing catch up again. I'm not quite sure what my team is all working on and so i need to get a handle on that.