We celebrated our anniversary. Again.

Wow, it's been a while, huh? I have a good excuse for not posting lately. Jenn and I spent the night out last weekend, which killed the whole weekend, our daughter was home sick from school, then Jenn was home sick. Sound good?

So last weekend Jenn and I went up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and stayed at the Grand Geneva Resort for a night. We won the night stay in a silent auction last year, so we thought we'd stay there and run in a 5K they have up there as part of their winter fest. Well, after our major snow storm only a couple of days before the race, we knew we weren't going to run, but we were certainly going to go up there anyway.

We dropped of the kids with my brother and sister-in-law and drove up there on a Friday night. It was a nice drive with all the snow, but it would have been even better if we didn't get stuck in traffic in Woodstock, IL. Which is home to the Swanky Spa. You know it's good if Swanky is in the name of the place. I didn't have my camera ready to snap a picture of the place, but the nice website with the bright teal background will suffice, I think.

Also, we passed through Hebron, IL which is home to the 1952 State Basketball Champs. They had a great water tower painted up with a basketball and everything. When we drove passed it I told Jenn that they might want to think of something a little more recent to be proud of, but then I read up on them a little. Turns out they won the championship and they had a total school population of 98 students. That is pretty cool. In the current age they would play against schools of similar size, which they didn't do then, so it is something to be proud of.

But, back to me. We got up to the resort around 6 PM and decided to walk over to the steakhouse inside to get a reservation for 7:30 PM. They receptionist took our name and asked if we were celebrating anything special so Jenn said it was our anniversary. I was kind of embarrassed at first. But it paid off. When we came back they had a nice table set up for us with rose petals spread out on the table, we got some free champagne and free cheesecake. So, Geneva Chophouse, thank you. The food was great, as was the service.

After dinner we walked over to the bar that was next door to have a couple of drinks. Hey, we weren't going to run in the morning, and it was our anniversary as far as anyone there knew. It was a nice relaxing night.

Here is the view from our balcony then next morning. It was much colder than it looks.

Oh, and this is something we need in our house:

A TV in the mirror! I'd never leave the bathroom. Though, it is kind of weird when actors are watching you go to the bathroom.

Tomorrow is the big day

Tomorrow we head out to pick up our new puppy. I think the kids are going to go crazy. The grandparents are coming over to watch the kids and we are telling the kids we need to go to a mommy and daddy meeting. Then, when we get home, we are going to pretend that the Easter Bunny left the dog by the front door two days early. There is just one little problem with the plan:

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO IL
1153 AM CDT THU MAR 20 2008

...HEAVY WET SNOW WITH SIGNIFICANT ACCUMULATIONS EXPECTED
OVERNIGHT TONIGHT THROUGH EARLY FRIDAY...

So much for the first day of Spring! So far the forecast is for the worst of the snow to be along the Wisconsin-Illinois border and we are heading south, so we should be OK. The last thing I want to do is drive 90 minutes each way in a snow storm.

I'm looking forward to the new puppy, but I am afraid of the amount of work it will create. When my wife and I got our first dog we didn't have kids, and the dog was already six months old; much easier to train. Not to say he wasn't a problem, he was, but we had very few accidents in the house. Although one time the valence from the blinds fall off when he was under it and landed on him. He wasn't hurt, but it quite literally scared the crap out of him. It was pretty funny, looking back on it.

Another problem is the middle of the night potty breaks he's going to need. We are nice and used to not having to get up in the middle of the night anymore. Now we have to do it again. Yay! The good thing is that puppies grow out of that stage a lot faster than kids. Right? Tell me I'm right even if I am wrong. Please?

It will be nice to see the puppy grow up along with the kids. Cosmo, our last dog, was six when our son was born, and eight when our daughter was born. He was used to being the only "kid." But, he was good with the kids. He never snapped or snarled at them no matter what they did to him. That is why we are getting another Golden Retriever. They are supposed to be good with kids, and Cosmo lived up to the claim.

So the next time you wake up in the middle of the night think of us, we are probably outside with the puppy.