It's been a month since I wrote in my LJ last, I think -- need to get better about that... I don't think I'll try to recap a whole month, but might allude to things if I think about it.

5 Years...
This past Saturday was our 5th anniversary - how the time flies. It's really pretty hard to believe it's only been 5 years; we've done so much (but there's still so much to do together!). Ryan's nearly two... It's all just so crazy... Can't even think of how to put it all in words, it makes my head spin...

Katie and I went out for dinner at Elevation Chophouse in Kennesaw (at McCollum airport) - which was actually pretty darn good. It's right on the runway,so you can watch the planes come and go. Unfortunately it was a bit rainy on Saturday night, so there wasn't too much activity. Not /super/ fantastic, especially for the price, but we had a $25 coupon from restaurants.com which made the price pretty tolerable. Katie had one of their steaks, which she said was very good, but not quite as good as her favorite from Longhorn. I had their wood-grilled porkchop, which was very tasty -- I'm not sure that I've ever had a wood-grilled pork chop, so I can't really compare it to anything. Scallion hummace appetizer was very good, scallions were kinda spicy after a while. Extremely yummy Cheesecake and a Root Beer Float for dessert. Generally, pretty impressed with the service and the food, could have been a little easier on the onions, I think the chef put onions in just about everything.

After Dinner, we went over to the AMC to see The Proposal; which we thought was pretty funny, and it was a good date movie. Sandra Bullock I can generally do without, but Ryan Reynolds never fails to entertain me.

Sunday we went and got massages (courtesy of Katie's mom's Christmas Gifts to us) - it was my first time ever, and I can see why people go back over and over... Too rich for my blood though.

Katie's mom got Ryan a Power Wheels car for a good deal from the kids sale this week; He's pretty excited about it, but definitely intimidated by how fast it goes :) -- we figured he'd be that way, but went ahead and let him have it, to get him used to the idea.

I have a 10pm-8am work maintenance at the colo downtown tonight, and I'm not looking forward to it. We're overhauling the way everything's connected, and adding some new VM hardware, and removing some now defunct hardware that has been converted to VM. I should be napping, but can't.

Tags: date night, events

Few nights ago, we rented The Golden Compass -- really a interesting story, that sparks my interest in the books, especially as the movie is supposed to be pretty watered down.

Ryan and I watched Madagascar 2 this morning; which he loved.


Yesterday Katie and I had a date night, my mom and sis came over to babysit Ryan, so we got to go see Terminator Salvation.

I was really impressed with it overall. Without rewatching the first trilogy, I didn't see any gaping holes in the canon that upset me. I'm sure there are some, which the critics I'm sure will point out left and right - but without researching all the things that /are/ wrong with the movie, we both thought it was excellent overall. The action is pretty intense, and the story is pretty much what would have been expected as what lead up to Terminator. I'm very much looking forward to the next 2 movies.

Afterwards we went over to Longhorn's for dinner, and without too much trouble, found things that were ok for us to eat happily.

Tags: date night, movies, the list

Last Week started out rough - I didn't get my BP meds filled until about Tuesday, so I'd been out for a few days - and I THINK it was causing me to have chronic headaches until I got it filled. Or maybe it was psychosomatic or something.   Got those filled, and now I feed normal again.  Whatever.

We got the Camry back, it looks really good.  There are a couple of nit-picky things I want to take it back to Bradly about, hopefully I cna do that in the next few days.

LodgeNet stock has gone up nearly 300% in the last week (making that 367% since I bought last year), thanks to positive first quarter earnings, so - I'm trying to decide if I want to pull my money back out now, or roll the dice to see if it goes up more.   Wish I'd have had more money to spend buying in last year - but oh well.

Dad was in town on Thursday to visit with family and Amanda before her tonsil surgery on Friday morning; he was bearing good news for us.

He'll be Santa at Northlake Mall (Tucker) this year (pending contract finalization) which is pretty cool - it means he'll be in Atlanta for Christmas.  Last year he was at a mall in Memphis - he really enjoyed being Santa, but really wanted to get a position in Atlanta, but none were abailable for his rookie year.   So, he's pretty excited that this slot opened up this year.
Santa's hours are pretty rough, he works from Mid November until Christmas Eve, with /only/ Thanksgiving day off.   So, he's basically there from a bit after the mall opens, until right around closing - every single day that the mall is open.   Last year we celebrated Christmas with him the weekend after, since he was travellling from Memphis to ATL on Christmas day.
So, we'll actually be able to take Ryan to Santa, and he'll very likely not have the 2-year-old fit in Santa's lap (we hope).

Amanda's tonsil surgery went well, short and smooth and she's recovering well now - we went to visit on Saturday morning.

We had Date Night last night, Ellen babysat Ryan while Katie and I went to Ted's Montana with a $25 off $50 order (thanks 70% off restraunts.com coupon that cost $3).  While it didn't make our bill less than it probably would have been without a coupon, we ordered things that we wouldn't normally have.  we got their super yummy Onion rings as an app, Katie got Beef Fillet steak, and I got Bison Ribs, plus a dessert, it hit $54, so we got our coupon to discount it.   Bison ribs are really good, but the portion is pretty small - you can get a full rack of pork ribs for that price anywhere eise, vs the 8oz portion of Bison at Ted's -- but they were REALLY good.   I don't know if I'd get them again just because they're so expensive for such a small portion, but we were both super stuffed after the app and dessert with our meals.
Then we went to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine -- which we both loved.   

There are another 10 movies or so coming out this summer that we want to see in the theaters; hopefully we'll actually get to some of them.  I need to lay that schedule out for my calendar.

Ryan's getting to be more and more of a ham, doing summersaults and doing this wierd rolling twist flip deal on our bed that just makes him laugh like a madman.   He's also started climbing himself in and out of his booster at the dinner table -- jeez :)   He's getting so big so fast!

Finally caught up on BBC's Robin Hood; so now I'm waiting for the weekly episodes.   Watched the last laft of the new Knight Rider series -- which I didn't really think was a /terrible/ series, and was entertaining for the first dozen or so episodes, but they basically rebooted the series at about the 13th (of 17) episode, and completely lost me.   I watched it out, but I think I agree at this point that this series needs to die.

In Books:  The new Sookie book comes out this week - yay!  I'll have to go pick that up.   I'm read through Ruth in the Old Testament, and just starting 1 Samuel.

Tags: books, date night, family, movies, ryan

We went off on our church marriage retreat for the weekend, left on Friday afternoon -- Left The Boy overnight for the first time with Grandma. We rescinded the No Pacifier policy, realizing that it probably was not fair to grandma for her to have to deal with that for the weekend. We'll revisit that some other time. We got to Chattanooga around 5 or so, got checked in to our room at The Chattanoogan. The place was pretty nice, but had a lot of little nit-picky things that bothered me. ( Read more... )

Getting back home, Ryan had come down with something; he had a rash all over his body (Katie's mom called us while we were gone, we knew) but he hadn't had a fever or anything, so we assumed it was from changing laundry detergent a couple of days prior.   He had a doc appt on Monday anyway to follow up on the Ear and Upper Resp infections.

Doc gave us a little surprise:  Ryan had Strep Throat.  Great.   Now Katie's throat is sore, and I'm just waiting to get it too.

Ryan's new trick:
Turning on and off light switches, which he discovered (ok I helped him realize it) that he could reach while standing on the couch.   So, all night tonight he was turning on and off the overhead light in the living room.   This will get old.

Tags: date night, ryan

Ryan's having fevers off and on for the last few days, and being grumpy in the night -- we think its that his canines coming in...   Stupid teething.
Both my mom and my mother-in-law's computers putzed out last week, so I spent parts of my 5-day weekend fixing/replacing stuff in those - but I think I finally have both back in working order.   Now I just need to get them back to their respective homes.

We went and saw the Shopahilic movie on Sunday for Valentine's (Yes, a day late - we didn't want to hassle with the crowds on Saturday)...  It was cute, and I actually found it funny at times too.

Work's been increasingly busy, which is good.  We had a scare (self inflicted) when we heard that some SVP's were coming to Atlanta Weds and Thursday.  Seems like the last few times they've come down they left behind a few pink slips.   So -- I got panic'd last night, and started looking for a job again.   Made my Monster profile, and a few others.  Sent in a few resumes...   Makes me nervous - I have never really had to look for a job in my field before.   I had a foot in at my current workplace, and all my growth/promotion has been internal - so I just haven't been put through that ringer yet.   I got a cold call this morning from a recruiter that found my Monster profile.   I didn't have time to call him back from work today, and then forgot later.   Not good, I guess.   I think I know what job he's calling about, and it's neither up my alley, nor is it even paying what I've even making now.   So, I'll try to give that dude a call tomorrow.   I think as a manager that's always getting cold calls from recruiters pushing to get people hired, I have a personal annoyance with them.  I guess I need to get past that. 
Anyway, sidetracked...   It was a false alarm, they were in town for a big sales meeting with our whole sales force.  Guess flying 3 down here was cheaper than sending 7 up there.   The job hunting ball is rolling now - it's probably time anyway.  I'm getting tired of not knowing if they're going to close my office.   I realize another company is just as risky, so I figure at this point in time I can afford to be picky, and hold out for something that's worth the risk to take.

Started reading The Stand on Wednesday or Thursday or something last week.   I'm back in an old school Stephen King trend.  Got The Green Mile queued up after that, but it will probably take me a while to finish the 1200 whatever page tome.   Though, it's quickly sucking me in, so maybe it won't be too long...

Tags: books, date night, geek, ryan, work

It's been a while since Katie and I have made a regular practice of having a night out without The Boy - we both need it, to maintain some adult-ness in our relationship.

We went out last night - we skipped our church group meeting, so we felt bad about that, but we really needed the time alone.   Ryan stayed with Grandma (as he would have if we'd gone to group), and Katie and I went out to diner and a movie.

Ate Tequila's Mexican, and went to see Yes Man.   It was good - sort of a throwback to Jim Carey of old, with a more adult twist.   Cute and romantic - a good date movie.

We had a lot of fun - and really need to make a better effort to do this at least once a month, preferably more often - but it's just hard to manage the time sometimes.

Tags: date night