May 16, 1997.  It has been 10 great years!  We had a small wedding with about 35 people attending.  We were married on a Friday night at St. Pauls Lutheran Church in Aurora.  Brett's kids, Rachel, then 13, and Drew, 11 were our wedding party.  Our reception was at The Roundhouse.  Everything was perfect!  We went to Puerto Vallarta for our honeymoon. 

Fast forward 10 years....we're back in Mexico!  We decided to take the daring route this time.  We booked a room at the Casa Isabel, in Zona Romantica, or downtown Puerto Vallarta.  It could not have been better.  If you are looking for a romantic getaway for adults only, this is it!

www.casaisabelpv.com



This is the view of Casa Isabel from the street, and the pool.  It seemed like the whole place was ours! 



This is my personal bartender, Brett, adjusting the poolside music.  Also, Memo's "casa de los hot cakes" was our favorite breakfast spot.  I had Kahlua pancakes one day.....yummmmm-o!  It was about a 3 block walk straight down the mountain to town.  It was a $3 cab ride back up!  We usually hiked it, but the cab definitely came in handy after some cerveza....



Here is the view from our bedroom (it had a wide open balcony!) and our kitchen.



This is a view of Casa Isabel from town.  You can see the red umbrellas right in the middle of the picture.



These were typical poses throughout the trip!  Brett was happy with his GRANDE margarita at Andale's.



These are pictures from our actual Anniversary.  We had reservations at a beautiful restaurant, Cafe des Artistes for dinner. 



Here is a picture of the garden setting at Cafe des Artistes.  They had rose petals on our table....it was an unbelievable place.  Dinners were a work of art.  I had a crab salad and grilled scallops.  Brett had wasabi ravioli and sea bass.  We couldn't have asked for a better evening....and then the dessert came!



This dessert was the most incredible thing I have ever seen.  On the bottom it says "Happy Anniversary" written in chocolate.  It was all on a mirror....about 1 ft. by 3 ft.  It had candles in rasberries, a molten chocolate cake, pieces of chocolate, a candy sculpture, "fireworks in the fruit" according to brett, and all different flavors of sauces in different designs.  Wow!



Here are sunsets from 3 different nights!  This was the view from our balcony.  It was incredible.  We watched the sun set each night, except for the anniversary night when we were at dinner.  There was also a pirate ship cruise each night.  You can barely see the ship sitting in front of the sun in the last picture.  When it was completely dark, there were fireworks shot from the ship every night.  It was so awesome!



Here are 2 of our favorite restaurants.  Yes, we ate good!  Joe Jack's Fish Shack on the left and Cafe de Olla on the right.  These were all within a few blocks from Casa Isabel.  We did not meet a meal that we did not like!



Here is our daily view of the beach.  We spent almost every afternoon here.  I acually read 2 whole books on this trip (Thanks, Traci), which is more than I have read in 3 years!  We found this wonderful shack of a restaurant, La Carreta,  right on the beach.  You could grab a couple of chairs, which included a table and an umbrella, and they served the best guacamole and chips with buckets of beer.  We drank Corona, Sol, Pacifico....I think we tried them all!  A bucket of 10 beers for 160 pesos.  That's about $1.45 each.  We definitely had a few buckets.

This was the first time we left Anna and Brady, so it made a 4 night trip seem like a week!  They were fine, Rachel stayed with them.  We couldn't have had this wonderful trip without her!

Boy, it seems like April 11, 2001 was just yesterday.  My baby girl is 6!



Anna woke up to some birthday presents.



All of the SNOW on the ground was NOT a present that she was wishing for!  Anna took cupcakes in the shape of a butterfly to school.  We had her party that night (yes, a Wednesday) for the girls in her class.  There are only 9 of them!  7 girls came to the party.  We did Lil' Lovables stuff-a-bears at our house.  We had Pizza Hut pizza (Anna's favorite) and a princess cake.  We had a pinata too!  I think their favorite part was the relay races led by Brett in the basement....Anna said it was the best day of her life!


Back:  Anna, Emily E., Jossalyn.  Front:  Kelsey, Taylor, Bayleigh, and Allison.  What fun girls!



May all of your wishes come true, Anna Grace!

We love to color our Easter Eggs!



Anna is ready...



Brady is ready....geee...some of the eggs got CRACKED.  I wonder how that happened?



Letting them "cook"!



All done!  They look so pretty!

Anna has been waiting patiently for a whole year for this night.  This year it happened to be on Brett's birthday.  What a great present!  They went to Red Robin for dinner (Anna's choice) and arrived early at the dance to get pictures taken.

They looked so good!




This was the only dance of the night according to Brett.  Once Anna found her friends, the dads got to know each other pretty well!  Anna's already thinking about the next Daddy Daughter Dance......

We left for Florida on Valentines Day!  What a great present.  We were a little worried about getting out of here...it was snowing pretty hard still!  But, about 2 hours late, we made it!
We flew into Tampa.  Arrived about dinner time and had a delicious Valentines meal at WAFFLE HOUSE!  Anna and Brady thought it was the greatest thing ever.  How funny.  We made it over to Orlando and got ready for Disney the next day!

Even though it was much warmer in Florida than in Illinois....it was CHILLY!  We had a great time, though.  We bundled up and didn't wait in any lines.  All of the Florida sissies were too wimpy to come out.  Fine with us!


Anna loved "sewing" like Grandma in Minnie Mouse's house.


Brady could have stayed on the train all day!


Anna was making sure that Brady wasn't too scared to go on some of the rides.  They had such fun.  So did the parental kids!!  Anna had her first "big roller coaster" experiences on Big Thunder Mountain and she even went on Space Mountain!  She is going to be my daredevil.  She was begging to go on Tower of Terror....we'll wait on that one!  Brady was very serious...I don't think he wanted to show that he was a little scared....Buzz Lightyear was about the most he could take!


We rented this cute beach house in Sarasota for a week after our 2 days at Magic Kingdom and Epcot.  It was so awesome!  Just steps to the beach or pool, and no neighbors!


Brett and Brady are heading to the beach.  I'm standing in front of our house.  The beach is just behind the house they are walking toward. 


Brady's trains made for very pleasant dinners out!  He just drove them around on the table.  Except for an occasional "WOO WOOOOOO" they kept him very quiet!


My little Mermaid....


Anna was flying her kite that Grandpa bought for her and it got away.  She ran after it and did a flying dive to save it.  This is her with a face full (and mouth full!) of sand.  She was NOT going to lose that kite!


Finally WARM!  The second half of our trip was perfect weather.  Still not hot, but beautiful.  I don't think we saw a cloud after Monday.


Don't you even think about messing with me!


She's still in the running to be "Siesta Key's Next Top 5 Year Old".


Well, our flight home on Saturday was cancelled due to the weather in Chicago.  We got to spend one more day in the warmth...we headed to the Sheraton with a nice pool and didn't worry about it.  I had us coming back on Saturday just in case....good thing!  They did have a very cute play area at Tampa airport.  It had airplanes and clouds to play on.  Brady decided to join all of the boys playing their games while we waited. 

What a wonderful trip.  We hope we can go back to the same place next year!

I have some catching up to do.  Like always!  This week I spent Sunday night/early Monday morning driving to dreaded Indianapolis for a meeting Monday morning after the Super Bowl.  Colts fans were everywhere.  On Tuesday, after my meetings were over, I spent 9 hours driving home in the snowstorm (should have been 4 1/2 hours).  What a double whammy!

Here is a quick summary since Christmas!



We had a quiet "Happy New Year" at home.  They both made it 'til 2007!  We have some night owls for sure. 

Brett made some good steaks for us!


We celebrated my sister's birthday before she went back to Indonesia.  It was so wonderful to have her here for 2 weeks!  She is doing some great things with her company "Build Change."  Check it out at www.buildchange.org.


We are getting SO close to having our basement partially finished.  We have done it all ourselves, except for the drywall.  Anna & Brady were helping here when we put down the laminate flooring a couple of weeks ago.  We just have some trim, touch ups and carpet in 2 rooms and the stairs to go.  Then we can start getting organized!



When this is done, I will have my own "studio" with a lock on the door and no toys inside!  Except for MY toys!   Hopefully I can get some creating done for Brady....the poor child doesn't have a single page done for him!  It will be my beach retreat studio....here's a sneak preview:

While I have 5 seconds I wanted to get at least one picture up from Christmas!  It was wonderful...my sister was home from Indonesia for 2 weeks.  Anna & Brady had a blast.  This is my favorite picture taken on Christmas!

Brady and Grandpa!

Anna's 1st (ok, I'll call it Annual) Girls Christmas Craft party was a blast.  It got a little loud and screamy a few times, but we had so much fun!  The 11 girls made a jingle bell bracelet, a foam penguin on a sled, some scratch and color ornaments and took home a Santa ornament.  I would have taken more pictures but I was alone with the gigglers!

Are they trying to tell me that I need to wrap some presents??

Wow.  September 12 was my last entry?  Come on.  This darn website has deleted the other 20 that I've entered since then!  Just kidding.  I'm blaming it on all of that laundry I can't seem to get done.

BUT NO MORE!

I now challenge Traci to a Laundry Duel!  Brady can even help.  He especially loves to try and change the settings.

Now I have no excuses.

I guess I can catch up on a few things:



We visited Rachel at SIU and had a great time November 11-12.  Brett's mom lives about an hour away and came and stayed with us.  We had fun swimming, eating and just hanging out.  Brett and Rachel experienced the late night campus life!  Rachel said that old dad kept up pretty well!  Anna sobbed when we had to leave.  Just the other day we were saying that we wished Rachel was home for Christmas already and Anna said, "Just stop talking about her and I'll be fine!" 


We headed south again on November 24 to watch the Reapers with the 3A State Championship!  It was good to be in Champaign with all of the Plano fans.  GREAT JOB, REAPERS!


We had Rachel's Birthday Breakfast before she headed back to school.  Is everyone awake?


My cookie makers.  We made Christmas Cookies for Anna's First (and/or Last?) Annual Christmas Craft Party.  Am I crazy?  10 girls are coming over on Thursday for some after school crafts and fun!