Sun, surf, and sand...

Hello all! Once again, I'm woefully behind here. Two weekends to recap:

Weekend before last we went to Mad Island for Dad B's birthday (Happy Belated Birthday, Dad!). We went out dancing with some friends on Friday night and left for Mad Island early on Saturday. We spent most of the day building structures to help prevent the erosion of a road that runs along the Intercoastal Canal. The road is used to teach schoolchildren about the ecology of the area. Once the work was done, the party began! Good food, good company, and nice ambience made for a wonderful evening. Sunday we came back to Austin to recover.

This past weekend, we had lots of visitors! Mom D and Auntie Gloria stopped by Austin Friday night on their way back from a conference in Dallas. We tried out a new seafood restaurant and made it an early night. We had breakfast with them in the morning and they were on their way.

Saturday was foggy and rainy, so we didn't do much besides putz around the house and get caught up on errands and chores. Brad and Amanda joined us for dinner and a movie. Our friends Courtney and Spence, currently living in Kansas City, called us mid-afternoon and said that they were going to be in Austin that evening. So we told them they were welcome in our guest bedroom and they arrived late Saturday night.

Sunday was a gorgeous sunny day. Spence got up early and made us all a yummy breakfast. Then we met up with Brad and Amanda and went out to the driving range for a little while to make fools of ourselves swinging at golf balls. We went back to our house and spent the rest of the afternoon playing board games on the porch and enjoying the weather.

Court and Spence had to get going, but we decided there was enough daylight left to get Knight Boat out of storage and go for a quick spin on the lake. Water's still too cold to get in, but it was a nice end to a beautiful day! (And the new truck did a great job pulling the boat!)

So I think that brings us up to date!

This week has been kind of exciting too. After several months of research and shopping, we finally found an upgrade for Natalie's RAV4.

It's a 1998 Acura SLX (basically just a gussied-up Isuzu Trooper). We were originally looking for a used 4Runner but discovered we could get significantly more (newer, less miles, more cargo space, etc.) for our money with the SLX/Trooper. Richie found one at a local dealer and we test drove it and liked it. The price was right, so we bought it!

Here it is... it looks green in the picture but it's really blue:



But it meant that we had to say goodbye to the RAV4, Natalie's faithful vehicle for almost 7 years:



It's been a good car and Natalie's sad to see it go. But the new vehicle will handle towing Knight Boat much better and more efficiently, and we actually have room to seat 4 adults comfortably... not to mention plenty of cargo space and humongous sunroof!

We're going to test it out at Mad Island this weekend - Natalie's dad's having his birthday celebration out there.

TGIF!

I realize I'm about to get way behind in here so I'll do my best to catch up...

Last Friday night we headed up to Dallas for a volleyball tournament - we split a hotel room with some of Richie's teammates. After a stop at Waffle House for breakfast, we were at the tournament bright and early on Saturday morning. The competition was tougher than Richie's team has faced in previous tournaments, but they came out 2nd in their pool and then lost in the semifinals, so they seemed content. Afterwards, everyone headed to Chili's for a bite to eat before driving back to Austin.

We got back to Austin late Saturday night, and then sat around in the hot tub for a while, so we decided to sleep in and relax on Sunday morning. Brad and Amanda were over and we made a big breakfast and watched football for a while. Then we started to feel guilty for wasting such a pretty day so we headed up to Belton to do some bouldering for a few hours until the sun went down. It was a busy but good weekend.

New pictures are up...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and all of that!

We are finally back home and trying to get back in the "normal" swing of things after a fun, but hectic, few weeks.

Too much going on to go into detail so here's a really quick recap... Christmas Eve and Christmas morning/dinner with the Selphs in Port Lavaca, Christmas afternoon with the Bergers in Port O'Connor. Day after Christmas, back to Houston to celebrate Christmas and December birthdays with Richie's family. Another mini-celebration with Natalie's Dad on Saturday. Pictures from all of these are up on our pictures page, if you haven't already seen them. We had a wonderful time - we really enjoyed visiting with everyone and we were completely spoiled with gifts!!

Sunday evening we went to MegaLAN at Dave and Jenn's house - basically an extremely geeky event where everyone brings their computer, hooks it up to the network, and play games where they shoot at each other. Actually, it was pretty entertaining.

Monday, a few errands, some indoor volleyball, and we headed back to Austin. Ah, to sleep in our own bed!!! We spent the next few days running post-Christmas errands, doing chores around the house, and generally recovering.

New Year's Eve, we had some people over for a really laid-back celebration, and New Year's Day Natalie made black-eyed peas (for luck!), but other than that, we did absolutely nothing productive!

Back to work for both of us on Friday, but it was a short and easy day. Brad and Amanda came over after work and cooked us dinner and we all watched a movie. Well, some of us watched it - others fell asleep! (You know who you are!)

Saturday morning, we headed back to Houston (yes, we are crazy!) to play some touch football with the gang. It was a lot of fun, especially when they had the girls (Nat and Lisa) quarterbacking!! Ha! Natalie is ashamed to admit that her team suffered a terrible rout. They say she has the arm but not the aim - case in point where Richie intercepted her throw in the endzone and had a spectacular run for a touchdown that ended the game.

Post-game party was courtesy of Lisa's mom, who as always tried hard to stuff us to bursting with yummy food while we watched the Titans playoff game on her new big screen TV. Luckily, the Titans emerged victorious or else the four rabid Titans fans in the room wouldn't have been much fun the rest of the evening! Off to the hot tub after the game to soothe aching muscles, then we rallied to go out downtown for a few hours.

Sunday, back to Austin again. We got the Christmas tree taken down, and then headed over to a friend's house to watch the Sugar Bowl. (Had enough football yet?!?)

Which brings us... finally! to today. We've had an amazing break, but ye olde routine is starting to sound really good! We'll have pictures from post-Christmas activities up shortly, hopefully....