Week by week 34

(February 14-20) The week of Valentine's. What a week! We played a lot (Brian worked a lot) and that is about it. We had a "play group" activity with another ward at the church and I was happy to see a few other moms from my ward come play. Johnny-Lu thought he was so big playing with all the other kids. James had a hard time sharing some of the toys (of course, the other kids had a hard time sharing too). I guess sharing is hard for a 2 year old.Note to self: Watch James more carefully while he is eating strawberries. I found Johnny-Lu right beside James' chair chomping down on a Strawberry! He was enjoying it a lot (even though the pics say otherwise). He also got some new clothes from his Grandma Shelley and his bump (as we call it) was just too cute to not take some pics. Johnny-Lu has also moved into the "I-hurt-myself-all-the-time" phase of life. He seems to always have little bumps and bruises.
Moving on. This week Brian and I also celebrated our 8th anniversary!! Crazy eh? Well, we finally figured out how to use the timer on my camera. We just didn't figure out how to make it focus on us at the same time. I think Brian kept putting his finger in front of the camera and so it was focusing on that. We didn't have time to fix the issue because our babysitter arrived. Still the years are all kinda blurry now anyway so I guess these photos fit. Aren't we a cute couple?
I can't believe we have been married already for 8 years. It sounds a lot cooler when I say that we met in 1995 and started dating in 1996 when we were just 17! (That is 14 years together)! We waited till Saturday (Tuesday was our anniversary) to celebrate for obvious reasons. We went to a super expensive restaurant and had lots of awesome food. It was a 5 course meal!
We started with tiny pan-fried lobsters (to die for!) with Lobster brulee. Then we moved on to eggplant caviar (not fish eggs) with red lentils and fish (I'm not sure what kind of fish it was but it was good). From there we got to the main course of the most amazingly, yummy filet mignon ever! It was covered with the most amazingly, yummy garlic butter ever. It was served with steamed green beans (like 6), sweet potato puree, steamed turnips, and about a thimble-full (okay maybe a bit more) of awesome french fries. Seriously, the stake was cooked exactly perfect! Med-rare the way I love it! (Of course, Brian's was "well-done" which here means about mediumish). Then we moved onto a cheese plate. 5 different cheeses to try. My favorite was the Gruyere. And to finish some lovely little chocolate molten cakes served with super awesome, home-made, vanilla ice cream! And some lovely little fruit compotes (passion fruit-which I love!-and something red that was amazing but I didn't know what it was). Sorry, I did not dare take pictures because it wasn't that kind of restaurant. If you come visit we can go! Oh, and you don't want to know what it all cost. But it was totally worth it to me! I love going out and WE almost never do it (Brian gets to go out all the time with clients to these fancy restaurants).

So what have we done together in these 8 crazy years?
1...House bought and fixed up.
2...Beautiful boys!
3...continents visited together (North America-duh!, Asia and Europe) plus the Caribbean too.
4...temples in Utah visited together. (Bountiful, Salt Lake, Timpanogos and Ogden).
5...moves, 5 different wards, 5 cars owned and 5 strollers owned.
6...temples (outside of Utah) visited together. (Oakland, Atlanta, Dallas, Nauvoo, Madrid and Bern).
7...European countries visited together! Switzerland (where we live), France, Luxembourg, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Spain. (Brian has also been to Russia, Norway, England, Denmark, Ukraine and maybe a few others with work). We plan on seeing a lot more!
8...blissful years of marriage...and counting!