Hard to believe it’s been that long already. Nine years ago tonight, on a hot, sticky night in Charlotte, NC, Becky and I exchanged our vows and became Mr. and Mrs. Chris Hubbs. (Our first stop after the wedding was in a Home Depot parking lot that had an available dumpster, but that’s a different story.) God has blessed us greatly, and it’s been a wonderful nine years.

So today we are celebrating in Orlando. Becky woke up at 2:45 CDT this morning to finish getting ready so she could catch her 5 AM flight from Cedar Rapids to Minneapolis, and from there she headed down here to Orlando. I picked her up at the airport about 1 PM. We grabbed a little lunch and then came back to the hotel. I think she spent some time at the pool while I grudgingly attended the afternoon’s technical sessions at the conference.

Tonight we ate dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. It was my first time at a Ruth’s Chris, and given the price I wouldn’t be able to eat there very often even if there was one close to Cedar Rapids. That being said, tonight I had what was hands-down the best steak I have ever had in my life. It was a filet, cooked medium, and just the smell of it on that sizzling plate as it came to the table was almost worth the purchase price. I will say this: Ruth’s Chris knows how to do service right. When we made the reservation online, the form asked if it was a special occasion, and I noted that it was our anniversary. From the time we arrived at the restaurant and gave our name, each staff member who spoke with us first wished us a happy anniversary. Then they gave us dessert “on the house”. It was tasty, too. Bravo, Ruth’s Chris of Orlando.

Two more days of conference and then we have two days on the beach before heading home. Nice.

We had the whole clan over this weekend - well, almost the whole clan. Ryan came in from Chicago, Aaron and the folks from Wisconsin, Andrew from his job in Illinois. Becky’s folks were already here visiting. We were only missing Rebecca, who is finishing up her six-month DTS in Panama. She’ll be home in about 10 days - sure looking forward to seeing her.

We took a whole ton of pictures over the weekend and I’m in the process of uploading some of them to a Memorial Day Weekend set on Flickr. Here’s a couple samples. Enjoy!

This weekend we had very nearly my whole family over to visit.   My sister is still in Panama, but otherwise, my parents and all my brothers came in on Friday and got to stay through Sunday afternoon.

We had massive amounts of food and celebration; fortunately then we were able to send some of the leftovers home with them, otherwise we’d be eating them for a week and there’d still be some to go bad.   There is still a bit of birthday cake hanging around, though…  I’m looking forward to another piece of that carrot cake - yum yum.

Things are staying busy with the family these days - Mom and Dad are busy as usual; Ryan is waiting to hear on his acceptance to Georgetown grad school, Andrew got accepted to George Fox University and will be headed there in the fall…  and not leaving Aaron out: last week he bought a b-e-a-utiful Taylor acoustic guitar.  We had to keep a towel around just to wipe up all the drool. 
I’ll post some pictures once I get them off of the camera.

If only to get my scary pictures off the top of the blog.
I’m finally back to work today after a 2-week holiday. It was great to be off, but now good to be back to a more normal routine. The last couple of days we’ve had visitors; my brother Andrew and his girlfriend Heather have been down here and so we’ve enjoyed time with them and getting to know her. They’re headed back to Wisconsin this morning.

The basement is pretty well cleaned up from the great flood; the last big task required to restore normalcy is to purchase a new printer. Thanks to my brother Aaron, I have a BestBuy gift card just waiting to be used! I think we’re going shopping this afternoon.

Last, but not least, it will be good to get back to the gym after a couple weeks of being a lazy bum. Somehow I managed to not gain any weight over the past two weeks, which is a cause for rejoicing. Now I need to work on dropping some more…

This post is only a day belated, but let me wish my parents a very happy 35th anniversary! Don and Marj Hubbs were married on December 26, 1971. 35 years and 5 children later they are still going strong, and are a blessing to each of us. Congratulations Dad and Mom!

So how was your Thanksgiving? We spent the weekend in Wisconsin with my family at my parents’ place. It was the first time we’ve had everybody together in about a year. We ate far too much, shopped a little, played lots of Speed Scrabble, and I did some reading. We made it home last night about 5 PM, in time to get unpacked and get the girls to bed. It was a great time, wonderful to see everybody again.

Becky says we’re building up endurance for road trips over the next month or so. The trip to Wisconsin is only about a three-hour drive. Not too bad. Now this Friday we’re headed for Omaha (to see the Andrew Peterson Christmas concert!), which is just over four hours away. But those drives will all be wimpy in comparison to the road trip we’ll be taking in three weeks, a mere 20 hours to the great state of North Carolina. Fortunately, we’ll split it up over 3 days on the way down there, two 10-hour days plus a day in Nashville in between driving. By the time we get home on New Years’ we’ll be ready to stay home for a while, methinks.

I should note that I am not opposed to road trips - I have taken long ones in the past. But it’ll be a whole different experience with a 2-and-a-half-year-old and a nine-month-old occupying the two back seats in the van. We will get some mileage out of the portable DVD player for sure.

The road goes ever on and on…

Happy Birthday today to my father, Don Hubbs, piano technician and town clerk extrordinaire. Relationships with your parents as you get older are funny things; somewhere in there they make the move from being authorities whom you put up with to being wise older people who you can learn so much from. I can’t pinpoint the day that my perspective changed, but I know that now I am benefiting from the wisdom and example of my dad.

Thanks, Dad, for being a good one!

Tomorrow morning Becky will be taking off for Chicago to spend a weekend with her friend Juanita who is up here visiting to celebrate her (Juanita’s) 30th birthday. They’re going to see Blue Man Group while they’re in town, which makes me a bit jealous. But that’s cool.

So, from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon, I will be spending a lot of quality time with my two little girls. (I will get a little break on Friday night when my sister watches the kids while my brother and I go to a Randall Goodgame house show…) Everyone who hears that I’ve got the kids for the weekend asks me if I think I’ll survive. I’m not quite sure what the big deal is - isn’t a Dad supposed to be able to manage for a day or two with the wife gone? Sure, we’ll be ready to have Becky back on Sunday, but I’m glad she can go. Goodness knows I’m gone often enough. Seems only fair that she should get to go when the occasions arise.

I sense a Happy Meal in Laura’s future for this weekend.

My dear mother celebrates her birthday today. I should be a good son and not tell how old she is, so I’ll tell a story instead. Back when Mom turned 40, she was hoping to keep it quiet and under wraps - no need to make a big scene. But it was a Wednesday, and as we showed up at church for supper and AWANA, one of us kids (and I’ll blame it on my brother here, since I don’t really remember who it was) ran into the fellowship hall where everyone was eating and made it known in a loud voice that “Mom is 40 today!”. So much for secrecy.

And that seems like a long time ago, though it was only… um… 15 years ago, I guess.
Hope you have a great day, Mom!

Last night I was headed to bed at a relatively early hour, and as I prepared to go to sleep I decided I’d get up and run this morning. I haven’t run much lately, and I need to. This morning was going to be relatively warm, good for running.

Then the Bears staged an amazing comeback and won the football game. I had to keep watching. The game ended at 11 PM, I figured I’d still be OK.

Then Laura woke up at 3 AM. And again at 4:30 AM. She pitched a fit when I told her she had to go back to sleep. I left her in her crib. At 5:00 she was back awake. So I brought her into our bed. She was awake until 5:30 when I finally got up to get ready for work. By 6:20 when I was leaving the house she was finally sleeping. Hopefully she sleeps in a while.

Needless to say, I didn’t get any running done this morning. And I think I’ll be finding something to drink with caffine in it here very soon now.

Children are an amazing blessing. But that doesn’t mean they won’t keep you up at night one way or another.