Some Catching Up To Do

Hi everyone! We have some catching up to do, so I'll just jump right into it.

Easter. Ours was great...hope yours was too. We had a nice, relaxing day of going to church, followed by an Easter egg hunt for Ben. It was very cold in the morning, but the afternoon weather was gorgeous, so we grilled out for lunch and dinner and spent the majority of the day playing outside. Here are a couple of before church pictures....

Ben and Greg:

And Ben and I (I was playing with all the fancy effects on this one):

Please ignore my hair in the above photo. I have been having serious hair issues lately. I had planned on working with my natural wave/curl so I wouldn't have to straighten it, but I ended up looking like I had been electrocuted, so I opted for the last minute ponytail....but even that ended up looking messy. Oh well.

Here are some pics of Ben hunting eggs:

Don't you just love the ears? They were a gift from Gigi and Grampy. Very cute.

You will also notice a new addition in one of the pics above. That is our new goldendoodle (golden retriever/poodle mix) puppy, Lamar. He has been with us for about 2 weeks now and has been keeping me on my toes for sure (as if Ben hadn't already cornered that market). Lamar is adorable, but it's kind of like having another child around the house. Ben really likes him, but is also a bit jealous, which adds an interesting dynamic I hadn't prepared for. As for Lamar, he has two modes: asleep and buck wild. Luckily, we already have him in puppy obedience training, so the buck wild part should be under control in the next couple of months (I hope). Here is a pic of Lamar's first day at our house:

And Lamar in "buck wild" mode:

Ok, so, the name "Lamar". Everyone asks about it, so here goes. We have a donut shop in town called "Lamar's". We frequently get donuts from Lamar's on Sunday mornings. It is a little family tradition we started (very healthy). One morning, I mentioned it would be funny to name a dog Lamar. And it stuck. So there you go...we now have a dog named Lamar. Yes, it is unconventional. But not as strange as you may think..... our new-ish neighbors have a dog named "Steve". We agreed that Lamar and Steve should definitely hang out some time :-)

I signed up for the Disney marathon (it takes place in Orlando in early January). I'm so excited!! Apparently the course is nice and flat so it will be great for my first marathon. My training will likely start in August/September. It works out perfectly because that's when Ben will be starting pre-school (twice a week). That will give me time to train without feeling guilty for leaving Ben and Greg :-)

We had crazy weather this past weekend with all the tornados and storms and such. On Saturday night, the tornado sirens went off around midnight. So, we got Ben and Lamar and went to the basement. Even after the sirens quit, we decided to just sleep in the basement for the rest of the night, just in case. Let me tell you...that was a treat. We have a large sectional couch in the basement, so Ben, Lamar and I all slept on it. Poor Greg took one for the team and slept on a makeshift pillow bed on the floor. I think the only one who actually slept was Ben.

Other than that, we had a pretty low-key weekend. Greg and I decided to splurge and order a movie on Saturday night. It came down to "Young Adult" with Charlize Theron or "Drive" with Ryan Gosling. We decided on "Drive". It was.....interesting. Very, very slow to get going and then very violent. Not at all what I was expecting. I kept having to close my eyes because of all the gore. Normally, I would say you can't go wrong with a Ryan Gosling movie because he's a great actor and, hello, it's Ryan "easy on the eyes" Gosling. But I can't say I would recommend this one.

Welp, that's all I have folks. Hope you're all having a great week! Later!

Brooke