Trying to have a life, too!

 After page after page of pictures of the kids and their activities, I thought I should point out that Bryan and I do try to have a life, too!  Now that we have two built in babysitters at home (aka, Spence and Ty), we rarely miss a weekend date night.  We've been having fun eating out at cool places, and although we rarely take pictures of these weekly affairs, these couple of spots were pretty cool.  The Bracken Store Cafe, a burger joint about 10 minutes outside of San Antonio, and Specht's Store (why all the "store" names??) just a few minutes north of where we live.  We even got to see some belly dancers perform at Specht's - in between the live country music acts.  Yes, quite random.  The highlight was definitely the Barry Manilow concert, though.  I have to say, even at 70 years old he puts on a great show!!  We were singing and dancing along, of course knowing every word, and it was awesome.  And don't pretend that you don't love a little Barry! Anyway, we have had fun.  Bryan also participated in a triathlon this Spring, called the Regular Guy Tri.  And despite being the oldest one to compete (sad!), he still whooped them all - beat the 2nd place finisher by a full four minutes.  Who's old now, huh??  :)  Way to go, Bry.  Bryan also had a TDY up to Wisconsin this Spring.  It is always a drag when he leaves, and he never likes it, but this time there was a silver lining.  No, it wasn't the jail-cell-like dorm room he stayed in, or the chow hall food, it was the fact that his grandparents live just 4 hours away in Minnesota.  He planned to take his one weekend, rent a car, and drive to see his grandparents.  It would only be for two days, but totally worth it.  Well, as it turned out, the weather was really bad the first week they were there.  Snow, ice, storms, you name it.  It was so bad, in fact, that they actually canceled Friday's flying on Thursday, due to the terrible forecast.  So Bryan hears "no flying on Friday" and somehow misses "terrible forecast" and hits the road on Thursday afternoon for Minnesota.  To make a long story short, eight hours later, one snowy ditch on the side of the road later, and one tow truck later, Bryan made it safely to his very anxious and nervous grandparents.  Once they got over their relief of seeing him alive, they put him to work snow blowing the driveway, earning his keep, and then basically spoiled him rotten with food and treats for the rest of the weekend.  Bryan's grandparents are the most wonderful people, and he would have driven through 10 snowstorms to be able to spend a weekend with them.  He loved every minute of it.