First Post

Good morning all. Happy New Year!

Wow, 2008 was quite the year for us here at the "Oda" household. Oda Mae learned how to spell her name this year. Oda Momma and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. I decided to change careers. Looking back, is always interesting. The other day I saw a montage of celebrities who passed away during 2008. You see these things and you always go, "I forgot about so-and-so, was that this year?" or "I didn't know he died this year." The real fun though, for me, is looking forward to the new year in anticipation of what is to come...

I am looking forward to spending more time with Oda Momma this year. Gran and Sis gave us monthly "Oda Free Weekends" for Christmas.

Tomorrow we start a New Testament reading program with the church we are joining. We've attended a local church for the last 3-4 months and have really enjoyed going. It's a large church with plenty of opportunities to plug in. It is Christ centered and they really seem to have their act together in all the right areas.

Oda Mae will turn 4 this year. She loves to dress up and dance more than anything else, so I think we'll enroll her in some kind of dance class after her birthday.

I should finish my pre-requisites for nursing school this summer and hopefully I'll get accepted for next spring. A year ago, I was stressing about an audition I took in March. This year, I'm actually excited about taking Chemistry.

Last night Oda Momma and I went out for dinner at Texas de Brazil. If you've never been, start saving your pennies and plan an evening for the future. A massive salad bar with imported cheeses, meets, vegetables etc. and if you're man enough go for the complete dinner which includes MEAT. Servers come by your table with all sorts of meat on large skewers and they sliced it off for you right on to your plate. Oda Momma and I both started with the salad bar. Then I proceeded to turn over my card to the green side that said "Yes, please."

This means that the servers bombard you with different cuts of meat until you have so much on your plate that you have to have time to catch up. At which point you promptly turn your card over to the red side which says "No, thank you." which in my case means "Give me time!"

Oda Momma opted for the salad bar only. At one point our waiter came by and asked her if she was done. Oda Momma gave him the look of death and he promptly replied with "Would you like a new plate." :) This is why I love HER. The problem for me at TDB, is that you never really know how much you are eating. They come by with just a little piece of meat and you eat it. Then they come by with another little piece of meat, you eat it as well. Then at some point you realize that you should have stopped eating little pieces of meat about 5 servers ago. Despite getting overly full, Oda Momma and I had a good time. We came home and watched a movie and slept into the new year.

Now we're headed over to Gran's house for a New Years lunch and to pick up our child. I have no doubts that Oda Mae had as good a time as we did.

Dominus Vobiscum,

Oda Daddy