Movie Surprise, Cake, and Football

Oh boy do we have more to report today! The Sharon birthday celebration continued on Saturday with Matt's gift (aside from looking the other way as wardrobe purchases continued unabated.) First, some back story. Sharon is a die-hard and dedicated fan of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series of books. She has read them all and is madly and deeply in love with them. She discusses them with friends, buys them for birthday presents for the un-initiated, and generally is devoted to all things Twilight. Conveniently enough, the movie version of the first book opened in theaters on Sharon's birthday. This got Matt to thinking, how could Sharon's birthday be uniquely celebrated while incorporating the Twilight movie? So he made some phone calls and discovered that, for a reasonable fee, a screen at the local theater could be rented before the theater opened for a private screening.

Matt called Sharon's good friend Cori Graham as co-conspirator. Cori first floated the idea during a book club of church friends to see if there would be adequate support for such a surprise party. Needless to say, there was adequate support. So Matt began working with the theater to set everything up. With apologies to any who work in the movie theater industry, Matt's experience with the average Malco theater general manager was less than impressive. These are definitely not the corporate and civic leaders of tomorrow (although based on the previous election maybe they are.) Success was ensured through consistent harassment of theater management. Oftentimes phone call reminders of the reservation were met with complete surprise as if Matt had never spoken to an employee of the theater before, about anything, particularly a birthday party. But tenacity of purpose is a hallmark of Matt's.

Keeping such an event a secret is nearly impossible, and Matt was seriously nervous that eventually things would get back to Sharon. The excitement over the party wasn't just within church friends, word even got out to the local hairdresser. Sharon came home from the hairdresser on Friday and mentioned that, for some reason, the hairdresser knew who I was and had been talking about me. Matt hoped beyond hope that the hairdresser resisted the innate hairdresser urge to spill the beans; luckily the secret remained safe and Sharon remained unaware. Matt's boss even fielded a phone call from his wife saying "You'll never believe what Matt is doing for Sharon!" To which he replied, "I think that is supposed to be a secret." Her response; "I'd better go make some phone calls, then."

Sharon, Matt and Sharon's sister Cathy drove over to the theater bright and early on Saturday morning with Sharon unaware of the purpose of the trip. Sharon became even more confused as they pulled into the theater parking lot. Confusion reached a peak when she began recognizing familiar cars and faces in the parking lot. In the end, Sharon was thrilled as she got to watch a movie she was highly anticipating surrounded by great friends. Attached are a few photos from the event. And as a side note, the movie did not disappoint.

After the movie folks gathered at the Gosney house for cake and ice cream (and for the Twilight officionados, a detailed discussion of the critical elements of the movie -- such as how beautiful Edward was.) Sharon's favorite aspect of the cake and ice cream, aside from the actual cake and ice cream, was the addition of some of her favorite little kiddos. Sharon is a bit of the pied piper of three year olds, as can be seen from the photos. Kids just tend to follow her around, and Sharon loved that aspect of her birthday surprise.

Finally, Saturday evening was spent having dinner and watching football with Cathy as well as Jace and Karis Stapley. Jace and Karis are dear friends (Jace and Matt went to BYU together and were even roommates for a summer back in 2002.) Jace has taken a position with Wal-Mart working on Matt's team, so they are relocating here from Arizona. (Apologies to Jace and Karis if this was still a secret, but we're thinking the cat is out of the bag.) Matt and Sharon are very excited to have them move into the neighborhood, and Jace and Karis were properly initiated into hanging out with the Gosneys by attending their very first OU football-watching party. Here is photographic evidence of the Stapleys safely in NW Arkansas. One look on Matt's face will clearly demonstrate the outcome of the game. The observer will also note that Matt took no chances with the Stapleys accidently jinxing the game, thus appropriate clothing was provided.

Apologies for a very long post! Things are going well here as you can see. Matt and Sharon are taking Cathy to the airport today, and then down to Oklahoma on Wednesday for Thanksgiving with Matt's family. If there is no posting until after Thursday, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Happy Birthday Sharon!!

Sharon is 30 years old today! Or, perhaps a better way to put it is this is the first anniversary of her 29th birthday. She is a beautiful, wonderful person and Matt considers himself extremely fortunate and blessed to have her as his companion. As a senior missionary couple used to refer to each other in Matt's mission, Sharon is his "Eternal Passport."

Matt proved his love to Sharon by lying to her for the past several weeks about various activities that were designed to block off Sharon's calendar. Sharon was told that a big important dinner would be occurring on Wednesday evening with Matt's bosses' boss, so a few visiting teaching appointments were re-scheduled to accomedate. Then Sharon was invited to a day-long Franklin Covey class on Thursday. Both the dinner and the class were not real, however. Instead Matt picked Sharon up from work on Wednesday, went by Sonic (Dr. Pepper with extra ice is Sharon's drink of choice) and drove two hours to Tulsa. Sharon gave lots of puzzled looks and tried to figure out why dinner wasn't actually happening and what the plan was instead. Matt and Sharon drove to the airport with Sharon still unsure of what was occuring. It wasn't until they walked into baggage claim where Sharon's sister Cathy was waiting for them that Sharon realized her birthday surprise. (The picture is of Sharon and Cathy at the airport.) Cathy is here visiting for several days and those two are having a lot of fun hitting all of the important shopping venues. Yesterday was not spent in a Franklin Covey class but instead at the mall, Matt had arranged with Sharon's boss for a vacation day on Thursday.

As you can see, Cathy got to meet our dogs -- including Auggie. Auggie didn't know what to think about a new addition to the home, and spent most of Thursday hiding behind Sharon and occassionally barking at Cathy. But by Thursday evening he'd decided she was okay to have around and even cuddle with. Of course, cuddling with Auggie can be an overwhelming experience as Cathy is finding out in the picture. He either likes her or is trying to get her off "his" sofa, one of the two. Either way, you haven't really visited the Gosney's until you've had a Mastiff lay on you.

Happy Birthday again to sweet, wonderful Sharon!

D.I.Y. Gosney Strikes Again

The Do-It-Yourselfing continues over at the Gosney household has we have been emboldened by last week's successes. This week, light fixtures! But first, some back story.

The time is 2005. Sharon has just purchased her first home and is in love with everything about it, except the battleship gray paint in every room. She decides to take a week off work and, with the help of her roommate, paints every square inch of the house -- including the master bath. In the master bath are some hideous light fixtures which must come down and so she asks for the help of a friend in removing them. Unfortunately the hideous light fixtures were poorly installed and large gaping holes are revealed behind the fixtures. Sharon vows to find some better fixtures and have them installed as soon as she finishes painting. By the time she makes it to painting the master bath, however, she is exhausted and quite possibly impaired from the effects of huffing house paint for a solid week. Therefore, she only manages one scraggly coat of paint before calling the project complete.

Fast-forward to 2006. Matt and Sharon have began dating. Many promises of home-improvement tasks are made by Matt in an effort to look impressive, including the repair of the light fixtures. After marriage these promises are promptly forgotten.

Fast-forward to mid-2008. Matt and Sharon have, in fact, repainted several of the rooms in the home already and at last tackle the master bath. They repaint the master bath, this time with the appropriate two coats of paint, and say that perhaps this is the year they will finally address the giant holes in the wall that are so large some creature could easily crawl through. Probably right as Matt gets out of the shower.

Fast-forward to Friday. Matt and Sharon visit Lowes to look at light fixtures again. This is an activity they have done in the past to make themselves feel like they might actually address the bathroom issue. Unlike previous visits, however, they actually purchase light fixtures. Matt is convinced the correct approach is to hire an electrician to install these new fixtures. Sharon asks the teen-age cashier how hard they are to install to which the cashier replies that she installed some herself for her grandmother and that they were quite easy. The take-home message, of course, is that a teen-age girl is more handy than Matt.

Fast-forward one last time to Saturday. Matt, feeling brave due to last week's blinds success and not wanting to be found less capable than a Hannah Montana fan, dutifully reads the instructions on how to install light fixtures while also ensuring that his life insurance policy is paid to date. Miraculously, after one emergency visit to the hardware store (electrical tape) and no curse words uttered, Matt and Sharon managed to install the light fixtures (and they work!) Matt feels this is a good time to retire from the D.I.Y. scene, going out on top.

Hope everyone is well!

New Background! New blinds!

It's new stuff all around on the Gosney blog. Sharon is slowly becoming more and more interested in this blogging thing and has even ventured out to comment on other people's blogs. This is a fairly major step in her life, so everyone please be supportive as she embraces this new lifestyle of communicating with other people. Sharon decided we needed a new background to the blog and, thanks to sister-in-law Shonnee, we were introduced to the cool website that has free backgrounds. Free is a good price, so here it is! Ta-dah! Gosney Blog 2.0.

Yesterday we decided that if anyone ever were to stay at our house in our guest room we'd cause them extreme trauma from the fact that there are no blinds on our windows. Now, we're not saying that our neighbors are peeping toms, but still some privacy would probably be appreciated. The challenge, of course, is the fact that Matt is not exactly the most "handy" person in the world. He scores extremely low on the "Norm Abram" scale. However, he still managed to figure out how to install shades in the bedroom without destroying the shades, or the bedroom, or himself. This is a cause for celebration in the Gosney household, as other such projects have not been as successful.

Otherwise, not much to report this week. Another successful Pack Meeting was held, with more singing on the part of Cubmaster Gosney. Saturday was spent Christmas shopping and watching another University of Oklahoma victory. There is a significant compromise in the Gosney household. Matt agrees to watch Grey's Anatomy with his wife and Sharon agrees to watch OU football games with her husband. Each is reluctant to admit that they've begun to enjoy watching each other's shows, but deep down that is most likley true.
Have a great week!

Baby blessing

After a really fun day spent doing homework (Matt) and working on month-end close for Wal-Mart (Sharon) we got an invitation to go down to Fayetteville with Dave and Cori Graham. The original plan was to make it down to Dickson Street and catch a band that was playing at a local club, until we found out that the band didn't even go on until 10:30 at night. Back when we were all young, single, and dumb that would've been just fine. But given the fact that we usually go to bed at about 8:30, we decided we'd have to find alternative entertainment. Luckily we were parked right next to one of our favorite seafood places down here (The Powerhouse, excellent fried shrimp says Sharon) so that became the new plan. We followed up our extremely exciting night with a dual family weekly shopping trip to Wal-Mart. Watch out, when the Gosneys and the Grahams hit the town, things are going to get crazy.

We had to actually make sure we got to bed at a decent time because we actually made a one day, there and back trip to Oklahoma to participate in the baby blessing of our niece Lucy. Lucy is Will and Lauri's second, and she is one very sweet baby (the sour look on her face in this picture not withstanding.) She is pretty much the exact opposite to her older brother Talmage (we call him TAG, for Talmage Andrew Gosney.) Tag can be a bit, uhm, spirited. But he's also smart as a whip and absolutely adorable. Tag's demonstration of how an empty bag of goldfish can be used as a telescope while being held by Grandma Gosney can be seen below. Clearly he has lots in common with his Uncle Matt. Maybe not the smart and adorable, but at least the orneryness. Evidently Matt wasn't always a joy to be around when he was 2 1/2 either. Anyway, Tag has taken quite a liking to his Uncle Matt and tends to stick like glue whenever we are around. There was quite the emotional goodbye where Tag had to be reassured that we'd be visiting again for Thanksgiving. It's nice to be loved. Photographic evidence of the 2 1/2 year old meltdown can be seen in the last picture. And yes, Matt does not look good in the extreme close-up. But it only seems fair given that Matt made Sharon take a close-up of the new braces.

So we had quite the long day of driving, but it was completely worth it. It was fun to see a lot of family and have lots of kids crawling all over us during church. Actually, that is Sharon's regular experience working in the nursery, but Matt quite enjoyed himself. We're glad to be able to participate in those kinds of events and to live close enough to at least one set of family to visit somewhat regularly. So now we're gearing up for this week, where Sharon goes in for two more teeth to be extracted. The transformation to toothless Arkansas Hillbilly is nearly complete. Matt is thinking of taking up the banjo just so he can better fit in with his wife.

Hope everyone is well!