Happy Birthday Logan!!

Today is my nephew Logan's 1st birthday! Tomorrow there will be a birthday party for him and I wish we could be there to celebrate with everyone. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the gift we sent will make it there in time! I've only gotten to see him once, last year at Christmas, so I'm sure when we see him in January he will be such a big boy! Here are some pics of the cutie over the past year.




Logan in the hospital, minutes after birth!





Still in the hospital, slightly older. This is one of my favorite pictures of him.




Christmas time in Connecticut, meeting Logan for the first time.





He's getting bigger!!






He looks so much like my dad! Here he is around Halloween this year.


Happy Birthday Logan! I can't wait to see you in January!! Save me some cake!

Christmas Came Early!

About a month ago my mom asked if there were any items from Target that we wanted for Christmas, things that she could order online and have shipped directly to us since mailing gift can get complicated. The only thing other than household items or toiletries that we really wanted was two nightstand that we had seen on the website that we liked. Since we moved in about two months ago, we have been making due with no nightstand since I banished the old, hand-me-down, mis-matching ones from the new house. Not only did they look terrible with the wood color of the bed, they didn't even match each other. I have been getting by with a wooden bar stool and Andrew has been putting his clock and other items in a pile on the floor. We had seen the ones we liked on Target.com but for Target they were kind of on the higher end of furniture pieces, and we hadn't resolved ourselves to suck it up and pay for two. When my mom called and told me she would go ahead and buy us both(!) for Christmas/ a house warming gift, I was really excited! They were on sale at the time and had an offer for free shipping, so she wanted to go ahead and order them then. We got them in the mail the day we left for our Virginia trip so I wasn't able to open them or take a look at them. Last night and tonight I worked on putting them together (while Andrew watched tv...) and I love the way they look!










I'm so glad to have nighstands now! These were the final pieces we needed to make our bedroom complete. They are a pretty close match to the color wood of the bed and have a similar style. I'm glad Christmas came early this year! Thanks Mom and Dad!

The Good List

Usually coming back from vacation is a bit of a let down, but I have to say this week has been full of goodness! Here is a list of some of what is going down:

Free dinner (Monday night) at Fogo De Chao, thanks to TDS! If you've never been to Fogo or a similar style Brazilian steakhouse, you don't know what you're missing. It's a meat lovers dream!

• Free dinner tomorrow night, again thanks to TDS! This time it's Rudy's BBQ at our pavilion, but I can't complain!

• Brushfire Records released a Christmas album yesterday with several of my favorite artists. I picked it up today and have been loving it so far! Mason Jennings, my most favorite musician in the whole world sings "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Check it out here:

http://www.ilike.com/artist/Jack+Johnson

• My most FAVORITE restaurant ever, Freebirds, is opening a location in South Austin! Sure, there is one about 15 minutes from us in one direction, and another about 20 the other way.... but this one will be like five minutes from our house!!! I think I'm going to be able lower my Freebirds eating frequency average to 7 days or less. We drove by the new location tonight and I had to take a picture!!

• Friday night we are going to see one of our favorite Austin bands, Ghostland Observatory, at Stubbs and we can't wait! Ghostland always puts on a fantastic show and you can't help but have a great time. Here we are the last time we saw Ghostland... obviously having a good time!!

Thanks for tuning in to Best Week Ever!!!

Aaaaand We're Back!

We are back home in Austin after a great visit to Virginia. You've probably already looked at the extensive slide show, so you have a pretty good idea of what we were up to. I'll elaborate a little more.

On Tuesday night I told Andrew I had a surprise for him after work on Wednesday and I needed to see if he could get off a little early. He thought it wouldn't be a problem, and confirmed on Wednesday morning that he could leave by 4:30. During the day he tried to guess at what it was we would be doing. He checked concert schedules here in Austin, looked at movie theaters, etc. to try and figure out what the surprise was, but he couldn't come up with anything. I left work early on Wednesday afternoon, ran home, packed our bags, and waited for him to arrive. As you saw in the pictures, the dogs helped deliver the surprise (super cheesy, I know but it was the best I could come up with). Unfortunately when Andrew pulled in the driveway and the dogs ran to the door to greet him (as planned) the envelope got ripped off Macy's collar and fell on the ground. Andrew saw Beamer's note which said "Open Me Last" and was confused about what was going on until he saw the other note lying on the ground, "Open Me First". It took a few minutes for him to process it all when he opened the football tickets and plane tickets, so I said, "We're going to Virginia!!" To which he replied, "GREAT! When??" Me, "RIGHT NOW!!"

Since our bags were packed and we had about an hour and a half till our flight was leaving, we skidaddled out of the house pretty quick to get to the airport. All of our travel went very smoothly, for which we are thankful for. We got in late Wednesday night and spent that night with Andrew's parents in Arlington. Thursday morning we drove to Blacksburg, VA where Virginia Tech is located, about a 4 hour drive from Arlington. We had a great time in Blacksburg and loved watching the Hokies' win against Maryland. Friday morning we headed back up to Arlington and spent the rest of the weekend visiting friends. All in all it was a great trip, but as always, too short. We got back to the house tonight a little before 9 and were very glad to see the puppies, who were equally glad to see us.


Below are two short videos from the Tech game:






Touchdown Hokies!!!! Unfortunately the lady standing in front of me jumped up in excitement, but the video still came out pretty good.






Tech just made it over the line for a touchdown in this video, then the play was reviewed, but thankfully the call remained. The refereeing in this game was interesting for sure, but it ended up ok in the end.


What a great weekend!

News From the East Coast

Well for those of you who didn't already know, which I can't imagine is anyone since the whole world knew, I surprised Andrew and planned a trip to Virginia. We are in Arlington right now at his parents house, and are enjoying time with friends and family. On Thursday night we were in Blacksburg watching the Virginia Tech Hokies stomp on Maryland!! We had a great time in Blacksburg and being in the stadium for a Thursday night game was everything Andrew had always said it would be. I wish the trip could have been longer, but we are packing everything we can into the short time that we have. We leave tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 to head back to Austin. When we get back home I will post pictures and give the full description of how I pulled off the surprise. For now I will just tell you Andrew was shocked and had absolutely NO IDEA that any of the planning had been going on. It's been a great trip. Check back soon for photos!!

Election Day Memories

I would have typed out this story myself, but Melanie did such a good job of retelling it, I figured I'd just copy and paste hers.



In Melanie's words:

Circa 2003, my college roommate Katrina and I were discussing politics (me, a Republican and she, a Democrat) and looking back to the 2000 election, in which George W. Bush won after weeks of uncertainty and hanging chads. The night the news stations let us know he'd won the presidency, a soft snow had started to fall (kind of a big deal for the heat and dryness of West Texas).



Me, wistfully: I remember being in the dorms when they finally announced that Bush had won. I was laughing and dancing around my room, when I looked out the window and saw the snow. I thought to myself, "It's snowing, George Bush is president, and all's right with the world."



Katrina, deadpan: Really? I remember thinking, "George Bush is president and hell just froze over."



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Now I need to add a few personal thoughts. In the fall of 2000 I was a freshman at ACU, still experiecing some culture shock as a result of transplanting from Connecticut to West Texas. I had voted by absentee ballot in Connecticut, and was proud of the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, our own Joe Lieberman (before he deflected). Being in a land of Bush-lovers was like being in a foreign country. Add screaming southern girls who had never seen snow before, who thought that 2 flakes melting in the air was the most exciting thing since... the last Republican president, to the equation and my hell had, in fact, just frozen over.

Halloweening

Our Halloween set up, welcoming Trick or Treaters.




Obama and Kool Aid Man! We got lots of compliments on the Obama pumpkin!!




My favorite trick or treater of all!! Baby Kade stopped by to show us his fisherman costume. We couldn't get him to hold the pole or wear his hat for a picture, but he still looks pretty cute!





Andrew in his gorilla suit... he means business!! Macy was confused!





Later on at the party, Baby Kade is hanging out with his mom, the Homecoming Queen, and dad as a housewife... I think that was what Ryan was supposed to be!





Riana the Homecoming Queen




End of the night in San Marcos with Jaime, the white trash bride, and Marika as Brittney Spears!!