Christmas Eve

So far, Christmas in Austin has been great! Yesterday was a fun and beautiful day (sunny 74 degrees) and we enjoyed spending it together. We each had to go into work for a little while in the morning, but that didn't put too much of a damper on things. We met for lunch and drove out to Lockhart with some of my coworkers to eat barbecue at Kreuz Market, one of the top5 named by Texas Monthly. I had been before but Andrew had not and I knew he would love it.











After lunch we went back by my office and then headed over to TDS's exotic game ranch. We recently acquired two camels and I wanted Andrew to see them because they are some of the funniest animals I've ever seen up close. The following video was taken while I was driving the car along side the camel's pen. It's a little rough (hey, it's hard to drive and video at the same time) but you get the idea of how hilarious these creatures are. Please make sure to watch his lips while he runs, especially towards the end of the video where he starts to pick up speed.




Not quite as funny but still peculiar, here are some of our ostriches.





After that we headed home to enjoy the rest of the day work-free. It was so beautiful outside we decided to take the dogs for a walk and have some "family time". There is a large drainage field behind our neighborhood that is dry about 359 days of the year I'm predicting, and we thought it would be fun to let the dogs offleash and get a good run in. They loved it! Beamer ran himself ragged and smelled every square inch of the field. It was great to come home with two tired dogs!




Later in the evening we went to a beautiful candle light Christmas Eve service at University Christian Church. Our church, University Avenue Church of Christ, partners with UCC to do a lot of work in the community, and they have been doing this joint Christmas Eve service for many years now. The inside of the church was beautiful and the organ playing was great! Whenever we are in Austin for Christmas, we will definitely look forward to going to this service. After church we drove around and looked at Christmas lights in some neighborhoods near by. Some of these displays were unreal! I can't imagine how much the electric bill costs after the holiday season!

We finally headed back home since there was a pot roast waiting for us in the crock pot, although neither one of us was starving since we had such a huge lunch. I wanted to eat Christmas Eve dinner on our wedding china, so we got all the pieces out and served up our delicious dinner at 9:30, when we were finally hungry enough to eat again. Notice the candle light.





After dinner we unpacked Andrew's old Super Nintendo and settled in for the night with Super Mario Word! So fun!! The dogs participated in the Christmas fun by sporting their festive bandanas, gifts from "Grandma and Grandpa Keichline." All in all, it was a great Christmas Eve.




Today's activities are about to get underway so it's time to go! Hope everyone has a great Christmas!!