Sun, surf, and sand...

TGIF and Happy Halloween!

My boss just told me I had to get home before dark so that I could hand out candy to all the trick-or-treaters. So I'm not going to argue with him (even though we only had 2 last year)!! ;)

Just a quick update and then I'm out of here!

This week's flown by. Wednesday night, we had our second annual pumpkin carving party. See how talented we and our friends are?



The rest of the pictures will be up on our pictures page soon.

We don't have very exciting plans for tonight or this weekend... which is actually kind of nice! Natalie's fighting off a cold, and Richie has to be up early tomorrow for a volleyball tournament. Looks like we'll be handing out candy tonight and maybe catching a late movie or something. Woohoo! :P

Good afternoon and Happy Monday!

We're recovering from an action-packed weekend celebrating Lisa and Geoff's wedding! Pictures are posted on our pictures page and the happy couple's wedding announcement from the Chronicle is posted here.

I think the pictures tell most of the story, but here's a quick recap:

Thursday after work, Richie and I headed down to Katy to hang out at Lisa's Mom's house with many of the other people in town for the wedding. We also got to meet Chris's (Bowes, not Taylor) new puppy Yoshimi, who stole the show.

Friday morning, the girls got together for a Bridesmaids' Luncheon in Katy, then we all headed into town to check into the Omni Hotel. We took busses to the rehearsal at Second Baptist, and then to the Four Seasons for the rehearsal dinner. After the dinner, the young folks went down to the Black Swan (at the Omni) to relax, dance, and visit.

Saturday morning came too early, as the girls' gathered for several hours of primping. We boarded a limo bus to the church and finished getting ready there. We ran into the inevitable wedding day glitches throughout the day, but luckily nothing earth-shattering. The wedding ceremony was beautiful, and the bride and groom made their exit under a shower of rose petals to their getaway car - a Dodge Viper!

Then more pictures and back to the Omni. Highlights of the reception were the bride and groom's first dances, the fairy-tale like decorations, a gigantic groom's cake in the shape of one of the buildings at Vanderbilt, a bar sculpted completely out of ice, and the amazingly popular photo booth! Wow! Lisa and Chris sure know how to throw a party! It was amazing and a lot of fun.

After the formal festivities, we (minus the bride and groom, of course!) headed back down to the Black Swan to keep the party going until we dropped (which actually didn't take very long!). Sunday, thankful for the extra hour of sleep we got, we headed down for a wonderful brunch, complete with a fountain of milk chocolate. We were obviously quite impressed with the fountain, as you can tell from the pictures! We hugged the happy bride and groom goodbye (after expressing our immense jealousy that they were heading to Hawaii for 10 days for their honeymoon!), and were on our way.

Finally, after a few errands on the way out of town, we were back on the road to Austin. A long drive when you're tired and the weather is yucky! But we made it in time to get unpacked, get our pictures uploaded, and celebrate the cooler weather by jumping in the hot tub. Whew!

Sorry for the lack of pictures on our site today. Imagestation, the site where we host all of our pictures, is down for maintenance. Hopefully it will be back up soon!

Hello and happy Monday! We've been blessed with another gorgeous fall day today... wonder how long this will last?

We also had another busy weekend...

Friday night, Natalie headed to Houston to spend some time with Lisa before the big day next week. The girls watched wedding movies, ran errands, and shopped till they dropped. I can't believe the wedding's next week!

Saturday, Richie played in the first indoor volleyball tournament of the year with his usual team, "Got Rice?" (named because all but a couple of them are Asian). The competition was stiff, but they managed to tie for first in their pool and ended up losing in the playoffs. They were happy with their performance.

Sunday, we just took care of some things around the house - with an emphasis on chores that allowed us to be OUTSIDE in the beautiful weather! Brad came over that evening and we grilled dinner and watched football.

It was a fun, relaxing weekend. A good thing, because this coming weekend (Lisa and Geoff's wedding weekend) promises to be much more hectic!

Oh yes, almost forgot. We put the boat into storage this week. Not that we can't get it out pretty easily if we want to use it, but for us this marks the official end of summer. (Yes, in the middle of October!) I don't know where the time went!!

Behind again! Call me a blog slacker, I guess.

Our Big Adventure
Last week I mentioned that I thought we'd found the perfect car for me? Well, we did... it was in Phoenix. Yes, the one in Arizona. But it really was perfect - in great condition with lots of new parts, new paint, right model, right color, right price (even including our travel expenses!).

So we took a chance, booked one-way tickets to Phoenix for Thursday afternoon, asked off of work, and headed off on our adventure. The car had been well-represented by the owner, so we bought it without any problems.

The drive home was long, especially using our portable DVD player as a makeshift CD player since the radio in the car didn't work! We also drove through heavy rain on the first part of the trip - in the desert! When we first turned on our windshield wipers, they disentegrated. (I don't think wipers hold up to well in the desert heat!) So we had to stop and ask directions to an auto parts store to replace the blades. Apparently everyone else in town was doing the same thing, because they were just about out of blade replacements. Luckily we found some to fit my car and were on our way again.

Sixteen hours on the road, plus three trying to sleep in the car at a rest stop outside of El Paso, we were back in Austin with my new baby:



Isn't it cute!! I love it! (More pics on our pictures page)

We spent a few hours in Austin recovering before heading to Houston.

Saturday, Richie, Chris, Viet, and Dave, along with a couple of other guys, played in an indoor volleyball tournament in Houston. For a team that had never practiced together, they did okay. But they didn't pool out so it made for an early day.

Saturday evening, Natalie and Richie were treated to dinner at Dad and Brigid's house - yummy as always! It was nice to get caught up with them.

Saturday night, Richie was worn out and retired early to Katy. Natalie made plans for a girls' night out dancing with Lisa and Rachel. We got a nice surprise when Viet, Chris, and Nick joined us at the bar and a good time was had by all. The boys even did their fair share of dancing, and even (*gasp!*) seemed to enjoy it. (Don't let them tell you otherwise!)

Sunday we slept in and then met the boys for lunch before going to see Kill Bill Vol. 1. The movie was extremely violent and gory, but if you could get past that, actually pretty decent. (Do I sound surprised?) ;)

We headed back to Austin Sunday evening and have spent most of this week running errands and getting my new car all fixed up (it's 10 years old, so a few things needed to be fixed!). The weather's been absolutely gorgeous here... sunny with highs in the lower 80's - perfect convertible weather!! Richie even "stole" my car one day this week to enjoy some top-down driving. (I forgave him though - he took it to get inspected for me!)

Oh yes, and a belated Happy Birthday! to Peter (the 15th). And I believe I've also missed the birthdays of cousins Marcie, Major, Brianne and Tyson - so happy birthdays all around! (Anyone else I've missed?)

I think that's about all for now... have a great weekend y'all! Get out and enjoy this weather!

Happy Tuesday!

I just realized that I'm way behind in here, so bear with me...

Last Wednesday, we had tickets (Dad Berger's Christmas present from last year) to see Grease at the Paramount Theater. We enjoyed the show and the night out, although I'll always be partial to the movie myself!

Friday was Viet's birthday, so a happy belated birthday to him!

Along with Brad, Chris, Viet, Micah and Peter, we spent the weekend at Pace Bend Park on Lake Travis, trying to get in some more lake time before the water gets too cold (and indoor volleyball season starts!). We camped out there Saturday evening so we really got to enjoy the beautiful weather. Hopefully I'll have pics posted soon.

Today is Ted's birthday... he's a friend of Richie's from Motorola and volleyball. We're headed out to Dave & Buster's to celebrate with him tonight.

In other news, we're car shopping! It's about time to replace the RAV4. We need more cargo space, more power to tow, and to be able to seat 4 adults comfortably. But Natalie likes driving her sport-cute and isn't crazy about "upgrading" to a gas-guzzling, hard-to-park, full-size sport ute. The solution?

Well, our ideal car would be the Nissan Murano:

It's built off of a car base, like the RAV4, so it handles like a car (and it's a little sporty too!). It also is very roomy on the inside both cargo and passenger-wise. But it's brand new this year and out of our price range.

So, we're thinking about getting one of these (a used Toyota 4Runner):


AND one of these (a used Honda Civic del Sol):


Both are reliable, economical cars (especially the del Sol - it gets 35 mpg!). The 4Runner can take care of our utility needs, and the del Sol will be a fun, around-town car for Natalie. (Not to mention she's always wanted one!!) The best news is that BOTH of those cars together will cost about half of what a new Murano would cost. We figure if we still want the Murano in a few years, then we can buy it used. :)

We've started our search by shopping for the del Sol, since it's both the cheapest and the hardest to find (they stopped making them in 1997). We think we may have found the perfect car, though. Stay tuned...