One year ago today...

I have fun writing these one year ago today pieces... it helps me to remember all the good times I've had over the last year. On this day 1 year ago, I was celebrating Valentines day with some great family that flew in all the way from Michigan to visit with us! In attendance were my two nieces, my incredible older brother, his wonderful wife Judy, my amazing mother, and of course my beautiful wife Leann. Leann was just one month along with little Ethan. We spent the morning hanging out at home, probably watching TV and eating eggs, bacon, fruit, sausage, and probably tons of other great food that my mom and brother cooked up.... I think every day I woke up to great food being cooked in the Kitchen while they were here! Around 3pm we all piled into the van that we had rented and headed off to South Mountain to do an afternoon hike. It took us a while to find the trail head but eventually we did. We headed off on what we thought was a 2 mile loop that went up the mountain... but after about an hour and a half and the sun starting to set behind the mountain we were getting nervous as the little ones were with us and it was starting to get a bit chilli. We then realized that the trail was 2 miles to the top and then we had to turn around. It was getting close to sunset so Bryan and I sent the girls and the kids the next 100 yards on their own up to the main road while we booked it back down to the van so that we could drive up and pick them up (later a drinking Bryan would make fun of me for telling him to be careful and go slow so as not to twist his ankle). The hike itself was amazing! Once we picked the girls up with the van we headed to the top of south mountain and looked out over the entire valley! There were lots of couples up there, since it was valentines day), but it was still fun... the views were amazing as were the pictures we took from up there.

After the hike we headed home and made reservations at Ichi-Bon's and Mom watched the girls for us while we headed off to dinner. We had a great dinner with Bryan and Judy, we laughed a lot and drank too much but a good time was had by all. Looking back it was soooo nice of my mom to let us go out while she wathed the girls.... it really allowed us to spend some quality time with Bryan and Judy. When we got back we had sticky hearts all over our mirrors in our bathroom that the girls put up! Those hearts lasted until about a month ago when I finally took them down :)

As for what we are doing this year.... well... we have little Ethan now... so we are ordering a Pizza and hanging out at home with the inLAws... tomorrow's date nite for us!