Better Late than Never!

After receiving an outcry from the masses (okay, one email) to update the blog, I am here now to fill you in on all of the happenings in our life.

Firstly, congratulations to my twin sister Leah and her fiancé Ryan as they celebrate their engagement! Ryan proposed on New Year’s Eve and they are planning a summer 2007 wedding. All of us Lucas girls are getting married off! Congrats, guys!!!

Also, a shout-out to Shalyn, who received an offer to be an English professor at Mississippi State University. Dr. Claggett will begin her official teaching career this fall. Yay!

Things are going well here in sunny Denver. I’ve been in full wedding-planning, which is very fun. Less than 5 months until the wedding! I’m getting as much stuff done now as to avoid a full melt-down as the day approaches. Hopefully it won’t come to that—I’m looking forward to a calm, enjoyable time. As of late, we’ve created a registry, signed our caterer, dj, and rentals. Lots of smaller things have taken place also, of which I won’t bore you with the details. If you have a burning desire to hear about how I’ve designed the table assignments cards or my choice of linens, please feel free to email me. We can talk flatware and stuff. For all the family and friends who can’t make the actual wedding, we’ll host a big bash in St. Louis at my parents’ house in August. The party continues!

The great pet summit of 2006 is continuing without incident. Bowzer will enjoy another month of natural living in the mountains before he is returned to his mom and dad. He’s been a very good boy and despite a few ‘accidents’ in the house, he’s managed just fine. He is a bit of a bed hog though, as is the cat. It’s amazing how two pets, whose combined weight equals 30 pounds, can somehow fill a king sized bed, leaving but a sliver for the two humans who actually own the bed. The cat has found her ‘cajones’ and has transformed from a meek, shy scardy cat to an aggressive, attacking cougar! She thinks it’s ‘fun’ to chase Bowzer when he’s going for one of his toys and attack him. This scares the dog, who turns around to see what in the hell just occurred. At this point, the cat hisses at the dog and then runs away. It’s an interesting dynamic. Also interesting is that the cat now loves dog food (which combined her naturally inflamed intestines results in many piles of cat vomit) and the dog loves cat food (which, due to aforementioned inflamed intestinal condition is $40 per bag). Such is the jungle we call home.

We’re becoming gym rats (last night, Steve was officially elevated to this status as the gym receptionist had his membership number memorized. Now, instead of having to repeat our number like the multitudes of other occasional gym-goers, we’ll gain entrance into the gym with simply a nod of the head to the receptionist as he keys in our code. The power!!!). We started a challenge with the Weight Watchers gang at work to help us all get over our weight-loss funk. Randy, Kenji, Jack, Julia, Steve and I are participating in the “Road to Goal” WW Challenge. For two weeks, we’ve been working our butts off to see who is the weekly winner of a pot of gold (okay, $6) based on weight loss. Kenji took home the loot the first week and Randy claimed this week’s prize. We’ll keep the challenge up until the Final Four (April 1). We might do another one after that until the wedding, we’ll see. Up until weigh-in this week, we had been doing great. I’d lost 5 lbs and Steve 2. However, due to an unfortunate decision to consume pizza (Papa Johns=Evil) two nights before weigh-in, I experienced a 2 lb. gain and Steve a maintain. But, we’re back at the gym and working our tushies off to see the scale go down.

Steve is preparing to run his next 5k race this Sunday and another on the following Sunday. In order to prepare, he’s increased his running to one hour and more than 5 miles each night. Hopefully it won’t be 8 degrees and snowing this weekend as it did for his first race. Rock on, Steve!

We’ll be heading to Kansas City in March for Dan and Shelly’s wedding. Steve and Dan have been great friends since college and Steve will be a groomsmen. We’ve got to go his penguin suit measured this weekend.

My family, Mom, Leah, Sally & Charlie, will come out for a spring break visit the last week in March. We’ll do assorted fun things for the wedding and they’ll see all of the sites this great city has to offer. Charlie will probably be about 5’6” and 200 lbs by then. It will be great to see him again before the wedding and for Steve to meet him for the first time!

We’ll be having the gang over on Sunday to watch the Super Bowl, which should be a fun time.

Sorry for the delayed update, I’ve been a bad blogger! I’ll try to keep it more current.

Toodles!

Love,
Hannah