Pumpkin patch

On Monday we went to a little pumpkin patch at a local church. A lot of churches around here use pumpkin patches as fundraisers for their youth groups. Who knew? I still remember when I was 17 and moved to a city after growing up in a little rural town and having no idea at all where people got their pumpkins. Where do you get a pumpkin if there isn't a farm near by. Where I grew up, grocery stores did not sell pumpkins. I'd never seen a pumpkin in a grocery store, ever. And now, we go to a church fundraiser to get them. Weird.

Anyway, we got some pumpkins. (Sorry about the crappy picture quality. Turns out there were finger prints all over the camera lens. I can't imagine why.)

Date night reports

We haven't stopped date nights, although G ha been away for a few. We have tried a few new places (and went back to Sago because it was so good the first time.)

Two weeks ago we went to DK Sushi, which is a little hole in the wall on Lamar just south of 2222. I've been wanting to try it for awhile and the stars aligned since we were at the DMV office across the street. It was refreshingly casual and mellow. And the food was good. Nothing fancy, just pretty straight up nigiri and rolls. But it was fresh and delicious.

Yesterday, we went to Foreign and Domestic, which I kept hearing about. It's just around the corner from us, so we decided to try it. If you look at the menu at that link, you'll see they are doing the trendy thing of just listing the ingredients but not telling you the preparation method. And, unfortunately, every entree had one thing that didn't sound good to us. We did get a couple of items from the happy hour menu and they were delicious, as was the white wine sangria. But, we didn't see anything else we wanted to try. So, we did what any Austinite would do. We headed from the upscale trendy restaurant to the taco place.

Torchy's just opened a new location near us. It was perfect. Trailer park, trashy. That's more our speed. Great date night.

First day of the year

Yesterday morning we headed to a nearby park that we'd heard great things about but had never been to. It was great, and Kate played in some water with a bucket of sand. She probably could have stayed all day. Give that girl sand and water, and she's happy.

Memorial Day Weekend

Last weekend was the long weekend and we had a great time. We went out a few time with friends, went swimming, went to the sprinkler park, ate yummy food and generally had a fun weekend. Here are some pictures.

Weekend highlight

Yesterday morning we went for a hike down to one of our favourite places, a swimming hole on Barton Creek. It's a quick hike down and then we take a slightly longer route back after hanging around down at the water for awhile. Kate loves it.

Feeling flush?

Although most of us aren't these days, if you are feeling flush, there is an online auction that ends tomorrow with some great stuff for sale. All the money goes to the Roy family, one of the Austin Mama families who are having a crazy hard time right now. We've been doing a series of fundraisers in the past few months to help them with medical bills, and this is the one that we've been working on for awhile. The online auction ends tomorrow and there is a live auction on Saturday from 5-7 at Ruta Maya. If you are in Austin and looking for something to do on Saturday, come to the auction! Even if you're not feeling flush, there will be food and drink. Only $5 to get in.

Weekend recap

Not this weeked, the last one. I have been looking through the pictures to find ones to illustrate what we did during last weekend's reunion, but all the pictures are just us sitting around. No action shots, or even location shots save for one of the Gruene water tank. But we did do stuff, although we mostly sat around and talked. And talked. And talked.

On Saturday morning, we had gifts and surprises. We do secret santa gift exchanges every year, so we had those to open and we also had surprises for both Ada and Tasha. For Tasha, the rest of us had been working on a collaborative wall hanging. It had been nearly a year in the making and planning, and it was (nearly, and actually was by the end of the weekend) done. She was totally surprised and loved it. We loved it too. I think it totally matched our vision and yet was more beautiful than we expected.


The surprise for Ada was a non-wedding shower wedding non-shower, or something like that. Ada and Katja have been together for a long time now, and we wanted to celebrate and fete them with presents. Katja was present for the party through iChat, and they were both surprised and maybe a bit overwhelmed by the presents. It was so great to celebrate them.

Once the presents were done, it was nearly Kate's nap time. Once she was asleep, the five of us headed down to Maria's Taco Express for lunch and then over to South Congress for some poking around the shops and a long coffee break at Jo's. Dinner that night was fajitas at home and a fire until very late at night.


Sunday morning we decided for something a little more active and we headed out for a hike on the greenbelt. I don't remember very clearly what we did during nap, but I think we just hung around the house and some people napped while other read or knitted or just sat. That evening we went to the Salt Lick for bbq. Yum. And we perfectly timed our return into Austin to drive over the Congress bridge just as the bats were pouring out. We'd been planning to stop and watch, but the view from the slow drive by was so perfect, we just headed home for another evening by the fire.

On Monday, Graeme had to go to work, so the rest of us piled into the van for a day trip down to Gruene. Lunch at the Gristmill, some window shopping and a beautiful drive on the back roads back into Austin.

It was a perfect weekend. Now it's time to plan the next reunion.

A Sunday in December (in Austin)

Today was a great day. It was sunny, warm and we kept remarking on the fact that it was December. Days like today make the summer worth it. We started the day by going to Chinatown (not a district, but the name of a restaurant) for dim sum. It was really, really good. Best I've had in Austin and rivalling my favourite place in Ottawa. It was pretty upscale dim sum. For instance we had these, the coffee glazed baby back ribs. They were amazing.


Kate liked them too.


After lunch, we went to a shopping area and wandered around. We got some ice cream, bought a few presents and played in the fountain.


After that, we had to get downtown to the Children's Museum where Graeme had volunteered to help out with a UT Chemistry event. When the museum closed, we wandered down to the path by the river, watched the birds and listened to the bells playing carols.



It was a perfect day. And it was in December. I don't miss winter very much.

Weekend recap

We have had a good weekend. It was a good mix of relaxing and fun activities. On Saturday after a lazy morning, we went to the zoo. The Austin Zoo is populated by rescued animals, so it's an unusual mix of animals that are often acquired, inappropriately, as pets. Some big cats, lots of monkeys, a bear, tortoises, and then the usual petting zoo collection of goats, sheep and pigs. Kate loves it.

We also played around the house a lot, including in Kate's new sandbox.


Today was the big event of the weekend. We went to the Maker Faire. It is described: "Maker Faire is a two-day, family-friendly event that celebrates the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset. It's for creative, resourceful people of all ages and backgrounds who like to tinker and love to make things." That is a good description. It was full of creative people and lots of fun stuff going on. Here is one of my favourite things:



That is the best use of those horrible singing fish that I've ever seen.

Another day at the pool

On Saturday we loaded up the bikes again and headed back to Deep Eddy pool. As soon as we got down by the pool Kate got very excited. She knew where she was. We went swimming, and then hung out on the grass for awhile. She loved having some outside naked time, since she doesn't get that often enough (way too many mosquitos at our house).

Here she is in her floating toy (thanks to the Andersons for it. Kate loves it.):


Playing with her most favourite toy, her mum:


Kisses:


Happy baby:

Tuesday's adventure

On Tuesday, Kate and I loaded up in the bike trailer (well, I wasn't in the trailer. She was. I was riding the bike.) and headed down to Deep Eddy Pool. It is about a 7 mile ride (I'm guessing) and we took the Shoal Creek Hike and Bike trail for most of the way. The pool is spring fed, so it's not chlorinated, it also means it's the same temperature year round and it's kind of cool. But Kate didn't seem to mind. They have a big wading section where we spent most of our time. It was really fun. We'll definitely go again next week. And this time I'll take more water for myself, as well as some lunch. I was hot and very hungry when we got home.

On our way home we stopped at campus to see Graeme. He took our picture. Yep, that is a floating toy strapped to the trailer. I was doing my part to keep Austin weird.

Yesterday's excursion

Yesterday, Kate, Westley and I went for a hike on the Barton Creek Greenbelt. The rain last week meant that the creek was flowing nicely. It was a super humid day, so we didn't hike for very long (maybe 25 minutes) before heading to the creek.