Birthday Surprise

Last night, Heather worked with my parents to surprise me with a birthday dinner. It was really a surprise, I did not expect a birthday dinner a month after my birthday, nice work. Heather and I got home from work and I had the idea that we should go out for dinner. She agreed but we couldn't decide on where to go. We changed and got ready and I kept saying to Heather "Alright, lets get going" and she kept stalling. I didn't really pick up on it. I should have known something was up when she said "Let's look through the Menard's ad before we go." Unaware, I gladly sat down with her to figure out how we could "save big money". Then a mini-van pulled into our driveway and my parents, Christa, Wade and Morgan came inside and said "Surprise! we are going out to dinner for your birthday." We headed to Flying Mango for some tasty BBQ.

My parents were excited to check out this hidden treasure in Beaverdale.

Wade and Christa are all smiles as we look through the menus.

Morgan got a head start on dinner with some yogurt.

...and bring out the food! Heather ordered the pulled pork sandwich and I went for the 24 hour brisket with cowboy beans and a sweet potato pancake.

My dad ordered lime shrimp with black pepper linguine, he said his was on the spicy side.

After dinner, Morgan and Heather got into a tickle fight, I am pretty sure Heather won.
Morgan was fascinated with the lights in the restaurant.
All in all, we had a great time. The food was really good and the company was great. I was definitely surprised, nice work you guys!

New favorite song

I don't know if anyone caught the Grammy's a few weeks ago, but there was a live performance by T.I. featuring Justin Timberlake, that both Heather and I thought was outstanding, they performed "Dead and Gone". Not my usual style of music, but I can't get enough of this song.

T.I. - New Music - More Music Videos

Happy 1st Birthday Morgan!

This past weekend, Heather and I went down to Indianola to help our niece Morgan celebrate her 1st birthday! My parents hosted the party at their house and we had a great time. My grandpa and two aunts from Omaha made the trip over to celebrate. Morgan also had a bunch of her friends over as well. The decorations were pink and green and Morgan's cake was made out of cupcakes.

Morgan, Aunt Judy, Christa and my mom, all super excited to party!

Dad and daughter; I think Wade should of put a matching pink bow in his hair.
My grandpa and Morgan are all smiles as they check out how many presents Morgan got!

Time to get down to the business of opening gifts.

This party animal seems super excited to dig into her cake.

After the cake...sugar high!
We had a great time celebrating Morgan and her birthday with family and friends. It is hard to believe she is already a year old. She is a lot of fun and gave us lots of laughs. Happy Birthday Morgan!

Doggie Daycare

For the past 10 days our home was transformed into a doggie daycare. Coco, Gary and Barb's dog, came to stay with Riley while they were traveling and speaking in Central America. Coco was at our house for 10 wonderful days. The last three of those days, Riley's other friend Abby came over for a big slumber party.
After the initial butt sniffing, all the dogs got along great. They had so much fun chasing each other around the house that they wore each other out. One night, they were especially tired because all the dogs feel asleep and were snoring before we were able to fall asleep. It was a cozy weekend at the Comforts!

Bad News Bears

With the weather becoming nice, I have been biking to work. If I don't bike, I have been riding the bus, in an effort to go green and save money. With all of this our sassy Sable doesn't get a lot of use and it sit out on the road in front of our house. I try start it once a week to make sure everything is still working, well on Tuesday I went out to start it and it wouldn't start. Then on Wednesday, my friend Ryan Faircloth came over to take a look at it. We popped the hood to find a nest of leaves and grass and what remained of several chewed wires. You can still see some of the leaves in the picture below.

I am guessing a squirrel got in there and tried to make a nest and went to town on the wires. Pretty much everywhere has teeth marks on it. The three that I am holding in this picture go to the spark plugs, or they are supposed to (click on the picture to see details of the damage).

With a chance of snow tomorrow, Ryan and I managed to push the car into the garage, we will see what happens to it from there. I am hoping that whatever animal was in there left before we moved in into the garage. I am thinking it was a squirrel because I am not sure a mouse could have gotten through some of the big wires.
Even though they may look cute, don't be deceived, these guys can cause a lot of damage in a short amount of time. I think we are dealing with a super squirrel.

New Adventure...2nd try

Saturday evening, my parent, Heather and I went to the Drake basketball game and this time the opposing team was able to make it to the Knapp Center. We started the evening with dinner at the Mexican restaurant in Beaverdale, Mexico Viejo. It was good food and good service. After dinner we headed to the game.

We had cheap seats in the upper deck, but they weren't crowded so we thought they would be good seats.

Then with about 5 minutes before the game started, the "Event Staff" guy in our section told everyone in the upper deck that we could move down to the lower level if we wanted too. We headed down closer and found blue bulldog towels on everyone seats! We ended up in row 15 or so with a great view of the game.

The blimp was flying around the arena and my mom thought that was the coolest thing ever!

And here come the bulldogs!
After a good warm up and announcing the teams, the game got underway.

It was a great game. Drake shot a sizzling 58.8 percent from the floor in the second half en route to posting a 68-54 Missouri Valley Conference victory past Bradley Saturday night, while snapping a three-game losing streak.

Guards Josh Young (Lawton, Okla.) and Josh Parker (Harvey, Ill.) led the Bulldogs, who also halted a three-game home losing skid, with 18 and 16 points, respectively.With the score tied at 17-17, Bradley went the last 6 minutes 58 seconds without a basket to end the first half. The Braves missed five shots, while committing six turnovers during the stretch.Drake took advantage going on a 13-3 run fueled by six points from Young and five by Parker.
Drake improved its record to 15-10, including a 6-7 league mark.

We had a great night with lots of laughs, lots of fun and a great basketball game to watch!

Back on the bike

With temperatures expected to reach the 40's today and into the low 50's tomorrow, I was back on my bike this morning riding into work!
The ride in was great. It was still dark out, but my headlight shines bright. Even though it is supposed to get into the 40's, it wasn't that warm at 6:15 this morning. It was 20 with a wind chill of 10!

But despite the brisk morning, it was fun to be back on the bike and riding to work. Go Green!