The Kapallen’s Top 8 in 2008

8. Pacey, our loving Vizsla, turned 2 in March.

7. Amanda had 6 months off of work (February to August).

6. Crosswinds Church moved to a new 100-year old building in the heart of Bloomington’s west side. Dave had a big role to play as the Director of Finance at our church.

5. Dave’s first political endeavor was running for a seat on the McLean County Board. Not due to his lack of effort, he lost to a Democrat riding Obama’s coattails.

4. Vacations! The Kapilla family went to Lake of the Ozarks in August. Boy, was it HOT, but the babies loved the water! We also enjoyed a weekend trip to Lake Michigan with our neighbors.

3. Time with neighbors, friends and family over the year. We are so thankful for each of you!

2. The births of our niece, Gabrielle Bustamante, and nephew, Nate Laughlin. This makes 4 grandbabies for the Van Allens and 6 for the Kapillas.

1. The birth our son Jude Mark, born February 23rd at 6:33pm weighing 7lbs and 19” long. He now weighs 20lbs and is 29’’ tall, is saying momma and dada, crawling, furniture surfing and getting into everything.
Jude is our dream come true!

Blogging ain't easy! (kapallens enhancements)

For the readers of my blog, I owe you an apology. Reading the kapallens can be a daunting task. Based upon user feedback, I've recently taken a few steps to help improve the site.

This includes:

• Reducing the number of Snap Shots previews. In my opinion, it's a great feature and even better now that the fine techogeeks at Snap Shots have figured out how to not make every link have a preview.
• Adding an email option. For those that would rather receive an email instead of checking back here frequently, you can opt in to receive an email instead of coming back to check manually for updates.
  
• Fixing my Picasa Slideshow photo albums. By default, Google/Picasa makes all of your web photo albums searchable. I didn't like this option and made them all "unlisted" albums, which broke the links. They're fixed now.
  

Surprise . . .Happy Valentine's Day!

After Tuesday night's practice run, I was a little worried that my little surprise wouldn't work. Well not to worry . . .it worked exactly as planned!

Look at that picture of her . . .isn't she the most beautiful 9-month pregnant woman you've seen?! Thursday was Valentine's Day, and after Amanda got me last year, I couldn't resist repaying the favor.

Last year, Amanda went in together with some girlfriends and surprised me and two of my co-workers (Scott and Rob) with a singing barbershop quartet. Imagine 3 guys standing next to each other being serenaded by four old-timers. Yep, and not to just one song, but two!

This year, Amanda's third hour class was able to witness first-hand the depths of our love. They were happy to partake -- and skip out on their planned quiz. I hope they thank me this Tuesday when I come in to wrap up week 3 of our Junior Achievement curriculum.

On a side note, you can't beat the price on this hot deal. The price tag includes two songs, a rose, a box chocolate and photos of the event with your significant other in full surprise mode -- which is priceless!

Our new year's resolution

It's the start of a new year, and our new year's resolution is to become better at documenting our lives for the benefit of our family and the little one growing in Amanda's belly . . .

And so we've bought a Sony DSC-W80 digital camera, a Canon ZR800 digital video camcorder, and I've started this blog. There are usually just a few sites that I check out when I'm looking for electronics and technology, and one of them is TigerDirect.com. They're reputable, have very competitive prices and a decent return policy.

While I'm on the subject of technology, I'll add that I also recently purchased an LG Rumor LX-260 phone from Sprint. It comes with a 1.3 MP camera. I just might have to add Internet so I can post real-time!

Where was I? Oh, yes! I'm going to try to add a few older posts, cut and pasted from old emails. Going forward, my goal is to post on a weekly basis. Help keep me honest!

happy anniversary!

Happy Anniversary Amanda! A friend of ours owns B. Bellissimo, a jewelry business, and I was able to get Amanda some pretty cool chunky jewelry for her.