Our 20th anniversary

 

A little later this week (and plus 20 years), a couple crazy kids had "taken the plunge" and were joined in holy matrimony.  To celebrate our anniversary (20th...really?), we arranged for Hope's dad to pay us a quick visit to watch the kids, and we took a couple days to ourselves in Little Rock.  We stayed at "The Empress", an impressive 1880s vintage home turned into a bed and breakfast not too far from downtown Little Rock:


Our room ended up being in the round cupola part of the house above the main entrance.  It was an enchanting place to spend a couple days, full of history and antiques.  We spent the weekend visiting antique shops and other "boring" things the kids grouse about...

Over the last few weeks, we've kept busy taking the kids around to their events...especially Kenny's marching band.  Below are a couple of pictures of Kenny and his fellow bandmates practicing their marching prior to the first game of the season:


This was just practice, so if some of the players don't seem too enthused...


...they certainly were for the half-time show!  Note that the young man on the lower right of the picture below is not dressed as the others--he is a member of the football team, and is still in part of his uniform!


Well, the band outperformed the Monticello Billies football team that night (Kenny is in the front, almost on the 40 yard line):


The day after Kenny's first band performance, the boys and I jumped in our canoe and paddled a few miles down the Saline River.  It was a beautiful morning for a float:


We also had a lot more gravel bars visible to hunt for petrified wood on, as Stephen and Kenny demonstrate below:


Oh, and someone had a birthday during the last week--the kind where there would be too many candles to put out individual ones, and they get the numbers instead...  Below, Beth eagerly awaits light the coconut cheesecake that she helped make:


and Stephen tried to help by taking pictures of the old birthday boy...but only really succeeded in getting the picture above and the selfie below:


Our other big news as of late was the replacement of our reliable but aging 2004 Dodge pickup with a newer used Ford F-150:


In addition to needing a vehicle with fewer miles and more power, we needed one with the bigger crew cab to hold our increasingly tall offspring...this silver truck will fill the bill nicely!

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