pura vida

(sorry this post is a little overdue)
Merry Christmas. For our present this year, the Shepherd family took a trip to Costa Rica. We stayed outside of Guanacaste. Costa Rica is an AMAZING country. Quick Facts- in the recent past they decided to give up their national army for public education. All citizens in Costa Rica are now offered an education. The majority of the power there is wind power, and they produce all of their energy in the country. While there, we went to the spa, played golf, hiked the rainforest, went fishing for marlin (and caught two), swam in hot springs, went kayaking, snorkling, hung out by the pool listening to live music, and ate wonderful food. This is by far one of the coolest places we have ever been! We stayed at a resort called Paradisus Playa Conchal. Hold Up--the most special part of this trip was a special announcement by Molly and Jamey. It was at dinner the first night we were there that they told us they were having a baby!!! This will be our first nephew and we are very excited!

On our second to last day there, my mom, Brad and me decided to go on a trip to see the rainforest and the largest active volcano in Costa Rica. When we got up that morning Brad he wasn't feeling that great, but he nevertheless decided to go. On our trip we saw monkeys and birds. We walked through the actual rainforest and went to a natural spa resort. Unfortnately, Brad did not get to see much of this trip. He spent a lot of time sleeping and praying for the excursion to end. He did, however, see plenty of the roadside as we stopped several times for him to vomit.

Overall it was an amazing time and we hope that one day we will get to go back and we hope you will all come with us for our next visit.

two years

On August 19th Brad and I will have been married for two years!!! We celebrated this special date this past weekend. My aunt and uncle, Kelly and Wade, gave us an ever so sweet gift. We stayed at Hotel Palomar, had wonderful massages at Exhale Spa, and long fantastic dinner at Central 214. We both enjoyed our massages. Part of mine (deep tissue) was so rough I was actually pouring sweat, holding back screams of pain, as she worked the stress knots out of my shoulders. She actually had to turn the heater off on the massage table so I could cool down. I was a little sore the next morning, but am feeling better than ever now! Our dinner was AMAZING. They have the best crab cakes we have ever eaten. We are now a fan of the whole staycation concept (a short vacation close to home) as Hotel Palomar is a little over a mile from our apartment. Our baby boy, Hank stayed with our dear friends Jaime and Patrick. He was so excited to spend the night at their place. He must of had some great play time because he has been asleep ever since he got home! After our bad experiences with boarding, we are very thankful to have a loving home he can stay at. It was a great weekend and a wonderful way to celebrate two amazing years!

iphonetastic

Well, I got it. The new 3G iphone that is. I have been rebelling against it for over a year, but I finally gave in. I swore my allegiance to blackberry last year, funny how quickly things change.

I have had my iphone for exactly 3 days and it is the coolest gadget I have ever seen. I can't concentrate on anything other than looking through the apps store on itunes to see what fun awaits me. It is easy to use and just flat out awesome.

Now, I am not a technology nerd/guru. I don't understand much about what it does or what it is capable of doing. What I do know is that it is like any other phone in that gets my work email (that's actually a downer) and it works as a phone so I can actually call people when I am not texting them. The coolest parts about the iphone are the apps and itunes. There are so many apps that I have spent probably 5 hours this past weekend looking through them for cool ones to download and I probably haven't even looked at half of them.

Aside -> Have you heard of Airport Express from Apple? If not let me break it down. It is a small box that plugs directly into an electric socket. For you apple computer owners - it actually looks like the same box from the power cord that plugs into the socket for your computer. But here is the difference, it is a wireless router. It lets you play itunes from your computer over your surround sound system with out having the computer plugged into the system. You simply plug the Express into the electric socket, plug an ethernet cord into the Express and plug a cord into your surround sound and the Express. Set up is easy, especially with an Apple computer and before you know it, you are controlling your itunes from your computer.

Now here is the best part. With the iphone there is an app called "Remote". This actually lets you control your itunes on your computer with your phone. So at our house we now can open itunes on our computer put the computer away and control itunes from my phone. It is amazing.

This isn't a plug for the iphone, itunes or even Apple. I really like the phone its great. Really this post is an ad for blackberry 8800 for sale. Email me if you are interested.

hank is sick

Hank has learned a very obnoxious trick over the last several weeks. He will sneak into the pantry and break into our snacks that in a container on the floor. He did it again yesterday. He ate some granola bites and rice krispy treats.

This morning at 3:00 a.m. we were awaken by Hank vomiting in bed. Luckily were in time to keep it from getting all over the bed. Then at 4:00 a.m. we were awaken by Hank again vomiting. This time we had a towel underneath him. Unfortunately, some of it got on our sheets. So at 4:00 a.m. we took our sheets off our bed. I went to the guest bathroom to get a clean towel for Hank to sleep on. When I walked out of the bathroom I nailed a table in the hallway. My clumsiness caused a large glass vase to fall off the table and shatter on the floor. So at 4:10 a.m. Ashley and I picked up the broken glass.

By this time I was getting a little upset. I planned on getting up early for a 4-5 mile run before work, but now I worried I would be too tired. When we finally crawled back in bed it was 4:20 a.m. Thankfully I was not able to go back to sleep, but when I just about had Hank had another episode at about 5:15 a.m. After dealing with that, I managed to doze off for a while.

When my alarm went off at 6:15 I got up and went to the bathroom to start getting ready for my run. I paused. Then realized there was no way I was going to be able to go running and make it through a 10 hour work day - so I went back to bed.

I tell you that story as a parable of sorts. The true meaning, I am not ready in the least for a child. I can barely deal with a dog.

heylee photo shoot

Last weekend (July 20) our good friends Aaron and Jen Snow were in town. Aaron is a very talented photographer in OKC. He wanted to do a Dallas photo shoot and asked our friend Heylee to be the subject - with a cameo by Hank the dog. So Aaron, Jen, Ashley, Hank and I loaded in the car and went around town taking pictures. Needless to say they turned out awesome! If you don't believe us check out Aaron's blog the link is on the left of our blog or you can just go to http://aaronsnowphotography.blogspot.com.

Snow - when you are a famous photographer just remember us and share the wealth.

A quick sample: