Friday, November 28, 2008

Welcome Home SGT. Lukens and 324th Troops

I know this is kinda a late post seeing as it has now been almost 2 weeks since the Troops came home from Afhanistan. But anyways, here it goes. Andrew (Julia's Brother) returned home from a one year tour to Afghanistan on Tuesday November, 18. It was a great day and one that I think we will remember for a long time to come. It was a joy filled homecoming, as he arrived just in time for Thanksgiving. We all went to the airport to see him in. The cool part was, they even let us go to the gate so we would get to see him right as he pulled up to the gate. There were, as with almost all stories, a few mis-haps. The biggest one, I think, is that the flight the Troops took was earlier than their normal flight. I know, your probably saying, why is that a bad thing? Well, it was not, however we all had to book it to the airport and unlike me, Andy's parents did not take the Tollway so they showed up about 10-15 minutes after he was off of the plane. The other Mis-hap was poor little Miley. Miley is a Chihuahua/Maltese mix and is tiny, she is Dan and Courtney's dog. She was on the escalator and got her back toe caught in the top of the escalator. Poor little dog was crying so loud I think they stopped traffic on the runway to see what was going on. She was hurting and definitely bleeding. Luckily she had a very loving "mommy" there to hold napkins to her toe until they could get her to the vet. The vet ended up having to do surgery and amputate the remainder of her toe.

















But anyways, we are certainly Glad that Andrew is home safe and sound as well as the rest of his unit.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

GO Air Force, GO BYU???


So last Saturday we (The Lukens Family) went down to Colorado Springs to go to the Air Force vs. BYU Football game. I (Matt) have been a long time fan of Air Force, and even wanted to go there when I was younger. Well, my lovely bride turned on me and she rooted for BYU (Brigham Young University) AKA Mormon college capital of the world as I call it. LOL. Well, needless to say, my beloved Falcons got beat out. BYU kicked their butts. However, I was extremely impressed with the sportsmanship of BYU as after the game they went around the stadium shaking hands with the front row people. Very well fit for the Mormon religion I thought. I have to say, I am extremely proud to be married into the family I am married into, even though when I first met them, I thought they were nuts, they are the best group of people that I ever have been around, and I love hanging out with them. I love my in-laws. You guys rock.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Happy October

So it has been a while since we have blogged, thanks Jessica for reminding me, but that does not mean we have not done anything. We have had a very fun filled month of October. We have had a few birthday parties and other parties. Our fun started with Matt's birthday party at the end of September. It was so nice we were able to put up a tent in our backyard and do a big cookout. It was really great because it was the first time that both of the families got together since the wedding and I think they all really enjoyed each others company. We also had some of Matt's new friends from his new job and some of our friends from church. Well then we were kinda slow for a couple weeks until all of a sudden on the other Matt's birthday, we received a call from Sandy while we were at work saying we are doing a surprise birthday party for Matt tonight. Well, that was a lot of fun because I have never seen my brother in law with so much silly string on him. We each had a can and covered him. It was pretty great.

Next we had my nephews 8th Birthday party last Saturday. Ethan had a few of his best friends over and we played all sorts of fun games including Pin the Tail on the Donkey (and Uncle Matt came no where close to winning.) I guess it doesn't help that Uncle Matt got spun 10 times and all the younger kids only got 4 spins... Hardly seems fair to us but thats life of an adult. Anyways, Ethan wanted to have foot long sub sandwiches from Subway so thats what we did. And then what good is a birthday party with cake, ice cream, and presents. Ethan is into pokemon right now so he got some pretty cool pokemon things and some pretty cool wii games from his Uncle Matt and Aunt Jewels. Our next birthday party at that house is Vaughn's 3rd Birthday... They grow up so fast.

What is October without having a Halloween party? About 2 days before Halloween I decided we needed to have some people over, so I texted some people. We ended up having about 10 people over watching scary movies and handing out candy to the little kids who came trick or treating. It was a very fun Halloween. And Halloween is when we found out that we have new neighbors across the street from us, and guess what? They are a young couple who have it looks like a set of twins who are about 1 year old, so our kids will have little playmates when we start having kids.

Yesterday was a blast... Andrew and Paul (Ashley and Jessica's husbands) have been deployed to Afghanistan for one year and they come home in about 2 weeks. Well to kinda celebrate that, and because Matt got free tickets for us, Matt, Jewels, Ashley, Jessica, and Steven went to Elitches for the day and had a blast. We have some pictures to post, but Jess has not emailed them to me yet, so as soon as I get them I will post them. We went through Brutal Planet Haunted House, which was known as the number 1 haunted house in Colorado for about 5 years (Although none of us could figure out why.) It was pretty lame and Matt was so disappointed he wanted to go to a different haunted house where he might actually get a little scared, but Haunted Houses are really expensive so Matt got disappointed again because we decided against paying $16 a piece to go through a haunted house. Maybe next year.

After Elitches, we went out and ate at Applebees, We had a very funny waiter. He took our drink order and as soon as he brought it Jessica just had to spill her water. I asked for a towel because we had a spill, and our waiter says "Already" we all laughed and went on about our dinner. Well later in the dinner, we got refills on our drinks. Jessica was drinking Diet Pepsi. He got all of our refill orders and read Jessica's back as "Diet Pepsi with a lid," we all laughed and then low and behold he brought Jessica's Diet Pepsi out in a to-go cup with a lid. I always love having a server with a good sense of humor.

Anyways, there is our October... Hope you all enjoyed reading this Blog. Talk to you all soon, and we can't wait to see you Andrew and Paul.