from October 24, 2010

Chris grew up going to these in Ohio and so we have brought this tradition into our family for the kids.

Tyler then got a hold of my camera and captured some memories for himself!

To create harmony, I gave Quinn my camera. I have done this before and they have shot pictures, but this is the first time that she has literally held down the button to take a picture. We came home with 180 shots. In fact, when placed quickly you could see the road going by, the cars…it was funny. So I did just that. Created a quick movie. It is uneventful, not very exciting – just what a drive home should be.

The opening slide says, “The ride home from Bastrop – from Quinn’s viewpoint”. Enjoy!

YouTube link (faster and easier to watch):

Click on the image below to view my copy – only do this if the YouTube one is unavailable because it will load much more slowly.

from October 23, 2010

The weekend after our Renewal, we headed to Bastrop for a little bit of nature. We tend to always do our favorite hikes which the kids sometime tire of. The kids were not in the best mood this day and were getting pooped when we reached the turnaround point. Nevertheless, it was a good to be out there with the pine trees. I enjoyed documenting it with my camera. There is something about collecting the moments, the sights that I cannot resist. In fact, I am often cranky when my camera is forgotten on an adventure – almost as if the moment will be quickly forgotten or didn’t happen if I don’t get a picture of it.

I loved my shots from this day and so am posting many of them. I love our hikes so very much. I really do.

from: October 18, 2010

Not clover. The heart-shaped leaves give it away. Clover’s leaves are not heart shaped. It has a wonderful lemony zing and now that we have identified it, we love finding it when we are out and about on hikes or outdoors.

We have been working on identifying plants on our Monday morning hikes. It is so fun to look around, recognize plants and know a little bit more about them. Winter has brought a shift to rocks, but we shall return to plants in the spring. In fact, once we have identified quite a few more, we are thinking about doing a hike where our snacks have to be found on our hike!

Kids are spending the night at Grandma’s. Ha! I could stop this post right there and it would make total sense. But there is a bit more to the story.

I wanted to take Chris to Eastside Showroom and maybe go for coffee afterwards, but the universe knew better. Way better.

Um, so we completely put out of our heads that Harry Potter was opening this weekend thinking we weren’t going to be able to see it for a while. My mother reminded me it was opening when she mentioned the review in the paper. Great Scott! I checked for tickets when I got and there were tons available. Yay!

So I call hubby at work and tell him to just come home early! He did and we hit a 4:10pm show. No lines, our pick of seats, few people – it was great! We got to see it opening weekend – so damn cool!

Heading out it was time for food..comfort food. So Kerbey Lane it was. We had a great meal. Chatted a bit about life and the kids. We eat fast, so ya know, that is about it.

Then I suggested we head to Bookpeople for coffee and book browsing. Oh my! We had the most amazing time. I recognized the manager who worked there which was cool – I love Austin is still a small town. Then I remembered a local poet whose latest book I wanted to find and I did!

Then to the stationary/card section – they have the most amazing selection! I found these awesome joke “borrow my pens” that I had wanted. I’d seen them in the window of a store in Fredericksburg, but the store was closed. Thought I would search on-line so was thrilled to find them here! Then found this great “High Five” nifty notes. It has things like, You: *showered *held it together *made toast * look good *made me look good *used your brain *showed them *were great last night. I was laughing my head off. At this point I decided if something made me laugh out loud, I was buying it.

The best one was the collection of 100 postcards from the Onion. Oh my god! My favorite on the outside of the box was “Head Lice Going Around Senate” with a picture of a nurse checking John Kerry’s head. I can’t wait to send these to friends..maybe in my Christmas cards! Hmmmm…

Then we ran into one of our best friends from college and another one of his friends that we used to hang out with years ago. It was so awesome to catch up, chat and laugh. It was great to see them.

Finally, I made it up to the kids section where i made a list of books for the kids for Christmas. Tyler just turned 6 and so I had to get “Now we are six” from A.A. Milne. I received that book when I was six and had to continue to tradition. I also got another autumn book to add to our seasonal collection and will give to Quinn.

Oh and we found band-aids for stocking stuffers – pirate ones for Tyler and monkeys for Quinn. My favorites though were the ones that looked like bacon and another that were police “do not cross” tape.

It was just fun! I told Chris I had an awesome night. It was all unexpected and full of great surprises! Now I am off to read all 100 Onion postcards and have a few more chuckles before I hit the hay.

I almost gave up on this year. The past years had been okay, but just not a scale that it was worth fighting the crowds. But I went into it this year with low expectations and they were far exceeded. My favorite band, Miike Snow, was on Friday, so by the end of that day, I was already happy. Saturday blew me away. By Sunday, I was just holding out for the National.

What also made this year fun was that I videoed a bit from each band. It was a fun way to share my experience with some friends and to capture my favorite moments. You can click here to check out my vids.

My favorite bands this year you ask? LCD Soundsytem, Matt and Kim, The National, Two Door Cinema Club, Miike Snow and Vampire Weekend. The bit of Spoon I caught and Black Keys were pretty good too.

For me it is all about the live show. The good shows make you forget about the heat or how tired you are. This was one of the best years in a long, long time. I think part of it had to do with ditching the chairs all together. We stuck to our guns and our schedule. On Saturday we saw 8 bands!

We are some of the lucky few who already score tickets for next year. I can’t wait!

Ah, this amazing fall weather. This past weekend was a really awesome weekend. I had an amazing dinner at Eastside Showroom with good friends Friday night, had a great date with my hubby Saturday night and then helped give a Blessingway for a Mama in the same circle of friends I saw Friday.

It was great, but I was pooped by Sunday afternoon. The weather was incredible though and we needed to do something. The idea of a bike ride had been floated, but I didn’t have the energy for that. Instead we had an early-ish dinner and headed down to Town Lake for a walk.

Oh my it was so wonderful! That gorgeous sunset over the lake. All the people out running. The clouds. The lake was so very still that evening that I could get all these reflection shots. There was even this guy in a skiff-like sailboat. It was heaven.

I told Chris on the way home that I was so blissfully happy. I realize more and more that we can so easily just go through the daily motions of life and not really be living. I think sometimes in having kids we just surrendered. There are always reasons why we can’t or shouldn’t do something. But the days we make a decision to do something fun, to go out into the world, I can see just how good we both feel. And so I plan to find more ways to make this happen – for both of us. Otherwise life just seems to dreary – all about surviving to the next weekend. And that is no way to live. And is certainly not what I want to model for my kids.