Sun, surf, and sand...

After several days of record-breaking, 100+ temps around heare, a cold (cool?) front blew in yesterday. And October starts tomorrow... I guess that means it's really fall!

Since I last posted things have been busy, but the hectic days of summer seem to be coming to a close - not that we haven't continued to have a lot of visitors at the house! In the past couple of weeks, we've hosted book club and poker, a couple of Aggie games, and a few evacuees from Hurricane Rita.

Speaking of Rita, hugs to all of you that were ever in the path of the storm! Our thoughts and prayers were definitely with you!

We've been so happy to hear that no one we know was seriously affected. The worst I heard was Courtney's 17-hour trip from Houston to Austin with her two babies, Brigid's quest for a gas station (that had gas!) somewhere in between Houston and Georgetown, and Chris's missing pup (who has since been found, no worse for the wear). For our part, we were happy to host Aunt Tessie and Mackenzie for a few nights before the storm veered north and missed them (and all our other loved ones on the coast) completely. Once it was clear that Houston had (for the most part) dodged the bullet as well, we were able to join Lisa and Courtney and some other Houstonians to relax with some (what else?) 'ritas at the Oasis and spend much of the rest of the weekend hanging out at the lake. All in all, a pretty good 'evac-ation'!

In other news, Micah and Peter proudly announced the birth of their son, William Reagan 16 short days ago. Welcome to the world, William!

And while I'm here, I'd like to wish a belated Happy Birthday! to Jon and to Dad D and an early Happy Birthday! to Viet and to Amanda (next week).

I think that about catches us up. I'm still working on my Sequoia trip report and that will be posted eventually. Hope you have a lovely weekend!

... and you thought this blog had been abandoned! Ha!

Sorry about that - I just haven't been in much of a journaling mood lately. But I'll try to get things up to date in here.

I'll start with the easy stuff! Late happy birthday wishes go out to (in order of August date) Ramsey, Courtney, Paul Andrew, Mama B (H?), Geoff, Kerry, Micah, and Joy. Whew! Also, congratulations to Joy on her recent engagement! And to Anais (Natalie's friend from her Italy study abroad) and her new husband Wolfgang - sure wish we could have made the wedding... it was in Austria!

Since I was last here, we've been to the annual Matagorda beach party, had a rare visit from now Michigan-ian Scooter and his girlfriend Katie, went to a baptism reception for baby Kylie (of Darryl and Fatima), a 10-year high school reunion happy hour (has it really been 10 years?!?), a preseason Texans game, co-hosted a baby shower for Micah (baby D should be here any day now!), attended a surprise 30th birthday party at the lake for Geoff followed by Eric and Valerie's wedding (Congrats, y'all!), traveled to Sacramento for business (well, Natalie did) and then to Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks for pleasure. And most likely lots of other stuff that I've forgotten for the moment!

Oh, and I guess I skipped most of July too... a day at the lake to celebrate Brad's birthday, parties for Richie's company and with some neighbor friends of ours, a visit from now Lufkin-ians Ramsey and Carmen, and of course, the annual Concan trip. So, it's been a pretty hectic summer! Don't know where the time went!

I've got pictures for most of this stuff and hope to get them all posted this week. So check back soon!