new pictures

Between my Christmas project for Mom and Leslie's sifting through some of her old pictures, I've accumulated some great new pictures of Murphy. This is one from the day we brought him home from my grandparents' farm in 1995. How could we have said no to this dog? You can find the pictures in the Murphy album, as well as some seriously interesting fashion statements by Leslie and me, located here.

I hope everyone had a terrific Christmas!

Happy Christmas Eve :)

I hope everyone is having a fun and happy holiday with friends and family!

The creator of Simon's Cat has been busy, this time for the benefit of the RSPCA. This video reminds me of someone who will be very missed at tonight's duck dinner at the Halls.

snow!

We got about an inch of snow today. Pene isn't too experienced with ice and snow.

Something new Pene started doing while we were in Hawaii was jumping up on the area around the grill (and looking over the fence to say hi to the neighbors). When she tried to jump up this time though, she slid into the fence thanks to the ice.

I had an amazing 2.5 hour lunch today at Amore with Robert Chambers, one of my best friends from the middle school era. New friends are lovely, but reconnecting with old ones is even sweeter, I think.

underwater pictures

I got the film developed from the disposable underwater camera we took to Hawaii. The pictures turned our surprisingly well for the semi-murky water and disposable nature of the camera. We had a hard time looking through the viewfinder though (goggles don't help), so the framing isn't the best. =P Check them out here: http://roberts.overt.org/main.php?g2_itemId=9125

Also, since Emily doesn't believe in blogging any more, I thought I should share this cake she made for a bachelorette party last week. Yep, she does special orders! Get one today!

true

more animals

did I mention...

...how awesome the Rock Band birthday cake was that Emily made for me? I just remembered to upload the pics to our website, so I thought I'd give the cake a shout-out.

Hawaii pictures

Officially announcing the arrival of all the Hawaii pictures (and 4 movies), mostly captioned, at http://roberts.overt.org/

12 Days of Christmas

We heard this version of the 12 Days of Christmas quite a few times while in Kauai - enjoy!

Numbah One Day of Christmas
(The 12 Days of Christmas local style)
by Eaton B. Magoon Jr., Edward Kenny, Gordon N. Phelps

Numbah One day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
One mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Two day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Two coconut, an' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Tree day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Foah day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Five day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Five beeg fat peeg... foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Seex day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg (that make TEN!),
Foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Seven day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson,
Five beeg fat peeg, foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Eight day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson,
Five beeg fat peeg (that make TWENNY!), foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Nine day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Nine pound of poi, eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin',
Seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg, foah flowah let, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Ten day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Ten can of beer, nine pound of poi, eight ukuklele, seven shrimp a-swimmin'
Seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg,
Foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

Numbah Eleven day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Eleven missionary, ten can of beer, nine pound of poi,
Eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson,
Five beeg fat peeg, foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.

(Numbah Twelve day of Christmas the bes', and the bes' stuff always come las'...)

Numbah Twelve day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Twelve TELEVISION, eleven missionary, ten can of beer,
Nine pound of poi, eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin',
Seex hula lesson, FORTY steenkin' peeg,
Foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree!

Music and lyrics published by Hawaiian Recording and Publishing Company, Inc., and copyrighted in 1959.

Home

We got home this morning. I haven't slept since Monday night. I think I might go to bed now!

Double mahalos to Mom and Dad for picking us up from the airport during morning rush hour.

I'm working on editing the full set of pictures from our trip and hope to get them all up on our picture website within the next few days.

Piper spent all day in one of our two laps. Pene is punishing us by pretending she didn't know we were gone for eight days.

Is it really December 3?

Aloha from Princeville

We're at our second location - a condo in Princeville on the north coast. It's no resort, but we love the extra space and the full kitchen. We enjoyed a very yummy and very cheap dinner of mac & cheese tonight. We've been watching the OU-OSU game too, while appreciating our absolutely amazing view of the ocean. It was rainy and windy today (we did as the locals do and ignored the rain) but it is hard to ignore ocean swells of greater than 25 feet! Hopefully we can find some calm spots to take our snorkel gear and places to swim without major risk of drowning.

Please to enjoy ... more pictures!

Yesterday's hike along the southeastern coast...we saw these crazy eroded limestone cliffs.

Glass Beach- a century-old dumping ground with all sorts of metal junk melded into the lava rocks. There is also glass all over that has been worn down by the ocean into smooth pebbles. The sand is sparkly and colorful.

Friday night was our luau - "the only beachside luau in Kauai!" ... well, it was raining, so it got moved to a ballroom. There are two things to explain about this picture: 1) that's poi I'm tasting, and it is nasty; 2) open bar. Matt and I had more than a few blue Hawaiians and mai tais.

Matt and his drink. We finally wised up and asked for the big cups (as one of our table mates said "you got a big boy drink!" ... although how "big boy" a bright blue beverage is, I don't know)

Today's hike in the rain. It is much more lush and jungle-like on the north/east side than it was in the south and west. There were vines and exotic plants everywhere. On our way back down, we found an avocado and guava on the ground that had fallen from their trees. There are some huge waterfalls in the background of this picture.

The view from our condo. It is cloudy and very windy. The wind and high surf aren't going away tomorrow, but it is supposed to be sunnier.

a few pictures to make you jealous

We're here having a lazy turkey day at the hotel so I thought I'd post a few pictures we've taken so far. The Cowboy game is an hour and a half away and we're eating Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel at 3pm our time (7pm to you Texans).

I'm exploring the rocks just outside our hotel.

Stopping for lunch at the Spouting Horn, the chickens were hungry. First the mama hen jumped onto the bench, and then one by one the chicks hopped on the table. We were surrounded.

Matt and his skydiving instructor Pete. That's our plane in the background. My tandem guy was much less of a dude than Pete so he didn't make the blog.

Matt looks out on Weimea Canyon. He looked like Moses with his stick.

We had amazing views of the canyon on our hike.

Greetings from Kauai

Hello from Hawaii! Or should I say Aloha?

It's really cool here. We got in last night - our flights were insanely easy. We didn't have a third person on our flight from LA to Kauai so we were able to spread out. Also, Venus Williams was on our plane (sitting in first class, of course). We had to drive in the pitch black to get to our hotel (the Sheraton resort on the south side) but only got lost once. The room is unremarkable (we didn't spring for an ocean view) but the resort is on an amazing stretch of beach. This morning we were able to see where the heck we were! We did some exploring, napped, and then spent the afternoon playing in the ocean. It's the perfect temperature and were surprised we didn't get chilled at all.

Tomorrow - skydiving!

roomba

I could see Piper doing this.

truckin' along on my way to 30

Happy birthday to me, the big 2-6. 30 will be here before I know it.

We had a fun time last night at Cisco with Mom and Dad, Mike and Eve, Jay and Stephanie, and Carolyn. It's pretty rare when we can all get together like that. This afternoon we're heading to the ranch for a fun weekend of birthday celebration. Mom is making a couple of her traditional Thanksgiving dishes at my request since we'll be missing her cooking on the holiday. In this case, she's doing her sweet potato casserole and green jello salad. Yum! And tomorrow, Rick, Emily, Taylor, and Alice are coming down and we'll have a great cold fall day at the ranch, no doubt ending in karaoke and a bonfire :)

Kingdom Hearts

I just beat the game Kingdom Hearts (released 2002) on the PS2. I'd had it for a long time and had made an attempt to play it several years ago but never finished it, so a couple weeks ago I pulled it out and started a new game. It's an action role-playing game that features Final Fantasy and Disney characters - you get to play in the worlds of Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Nightmare Before Christmas, Hercules, Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, etc. It ended up being pretty cool, actually. I picked up the sequel for $10 used (there's something to be said for playing older games) and I'll definitely be starting it soon.

It has been two weeks since Piper's disappearing act and I think we've all finally recovered. She got of the house out that Wednesday evening and we didn't find her until Thursday afternoon. Matt and I searched that night and the next morning, handed out flyers to our neighbors, everything we could think of. Susie came by Thursday afternoon to help me look and as we were in the backyard on our way to the alley, Piper responded to our voices with some plaintive meows - she was up at the TOP of our next-door neighbors' live oak tree. Their dog had chased her up there. We had quite a time getting her down and more than once we thought I might break my neck plummeting down to the Forbes' concrete deck. Susie was a superstar, climbing up the ladder after me, getting the cat hand-off from me, and going back down the ladder with Piper in her arms. Piper spent the next 24 hours hiding in Matt's closet and it took her a good week before forgetting the evils of outside and wanted to go into the backyard again. Her little paws were scraped raw from her adventure and she was very stiff from clinging to the swaying branches of the tree. Come to think of it, I was pretty dang stiff after the rescue too.

12 days until Hawaii!!

passport and things

I thought passports were taking freakishly long to get nowadays...and I just got mine in the mail ten days after my non-expedited application. Crazy. Maybe the flurry of activity that began when they started requiring them for travel to Mexico and Canada has passed.

I feel bad that I'm relieved the Aggies only lost 66-28 at home today. Sad times in A&M football.

Matt and I met Oscar and George the birds tonight during a very enjoyable evening hanging out with Rick and Emily at their apartment. I got to play some Little Big Planet and it was very cool. And we had Double Daves pizza rolls - friends, food, and video games - can life get any better?

Get Smart

Why didn't people like this movie? Matt and I just watched it and enjoyed it...maybe my expectations had been sufficiently lowered.

Solid as Barack-ack-ack-ack

Wee!

Our favorite election coverage on TV tonight: BBC America

What we were watching when they called it: Comedy Central Indecision 2008

Most ridiculous status update by a "friend" on Facebook: "[   ] doesn't see how people willingly vote for a socialist who wants to grant freedom to kill babies who survive failed abortions"

Texas/Texas Tech

For the first time ever, I was a Texas Tech football fan. What a game!

I'm also reminded of how stupid certain football fans can be.

Hawaii

The Hawaii trip is official - Matt's booking it right now. I can't believe we'll be there in just over four weeks! More details later...

=D

yo

I've been kind of busy lately, I guess. I went to Austin to visit Lisa, Eric, and Miles at the beginning of the week, and then I've spent the last few days hanging out with Matt, who was finally released from his hellish fall tax-extension season. It was particularly bad this year, with lots of late nights and one all-nighter, and it didn't help that his partner was up in New York working with AIG for over a week. But anyway, things are good now, except that Matt leaves tomorrow for training in Montreal that lasts until Friday. Boo!

Last night we went with John and Susie to a Lake Highlands football game. It happened to be homecoming, and the Wildcats kicked Richardson's booty. We had a really great time watching football in the wonderful cool fall weather.

On Thursday night I subbed for my old flag football team. We lost pretty badly but it was enjoyable. It's much easier to accept a loss when you aren't actually on the team. I am sore though...playing center and hiking the ball makes you use some really random muscles you wouldn't otherwise! Speaking of football, we were proud of the Ags for not getting slaughtered today by Texas Tech. I predicted they would score at least 66 points so I'm happy to be wrong. We actually led several times, which was more than either of us expected. It is kind of sad though that we've been reduced to hoping to not get killed rather than hoping for an actual win this season.

Austin was quite fun. I got there Monday afternoon and drove back Wednesday night. Miles is getting to be quite the little boy - he was so busy and active. While I was there, I got to spend a lot of time playing with Miles. We met up with two of Lisa's neighbors and their little boys at a pumpkin patch - I have some great pictures I'll try to get up on the internet tomorrow. Miles LOVES his pumpkins. We had lunch with cousin Michael on Wednesday, and afterwards I went with Lisa to take a tour of the hospital in which she is delivering baby #2 (she switched doctors and hospitals since she had Miles). We also ate way too much, repeatedly. It was great.

The biggest news I have is that I think we're going to HAWAII over Thanksgiving! Just for fun! It's what Matt wants to use part of his bonus on and I am in full support. I think we're going to be there for about a week and stay the whole time on Kauai. If anyone has tips or recommendations for visiting Hawaii, we're all ears. We haven't made any reservations yet, but it's most likely going to happen. Wohoo!

irritating

I'd really like to know what the keyboard shortcut is that I manage to hit every couple weeks that magically switches my keyboard to Dvorak and makes me think, as my mom used to put it when she tried typing on Leslie and Bryan's laptop, that I'm having a stroke. It's kind of irritating. Anyone?

oh my

Chalk it up to my own ignorance, but I didn't realize Tina Fey was quoting Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric exactly when performing her parody on SNL. Oh my...

That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the -- it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

UPDATE:
I know more than a few people despise Sam Harris, but I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I really enjoyed his opinion on Sarah Palin in this article in Newsweek.

Also, I refer my readers to my much more eloquent sister for some great Hall sarcasm related to the election.

cool name

Want to hear a cool name? I met a girl today whose name is "Yocheved" - I love the Hebraic "ch!"

I find I write a lot less day to day nonsense on my blog since I've been writing in my journal every day. I'm guessing you readers secretly enjoy not being subjected to a list of every activity I did in a day. But that is also my excuse for not having quite as many posts lately...I wait for something good before writing. Like a great name, or an interesting movie, or to report on how many times I've puked. I'm all better now, by the way. Two more people at Matt's work have come down with the stomach bug, so he's definitely the source of my sickness. Jerk.

I'm taking Carolyn out to lunch at Cisco tomorrow. It should be fun!

Happy belated birthday to Emily!

feeling better

I'm feeling much better. I've had a few real meals now and they've gone well, so I think I'm good now.

I just watched the documentary F**k (I'll use the polite starred-out version of the title like Netflix does) and it was interesting. I particularly enjoyed the quotations from people like LBJ's comment on Ford's economics, some history on the FCC and profanity, and did you know there's something called eco-porn? There were also interviews with and clips of some funny (and controversial) comedians. Plenty was said about the First Amendment too. Did you know in the first season of Deadwood on HBO they averaged using the f-word 69.3 times per episode? And that NYPD Blue wanted to have someone give the bird on camera in an episode, and when the network didn't like it, Steven Bochco said they could either let them do that, or they would use their contractually guaranteed right to use profanity 34 times per show to have Dennis Franz's character called an asshole 34 times in that scene? Also, F**k claimed that if their documentary were aired uncensored on network TV, they would incur like $260,000,000 in fines. Goodness. Definitely not for those who can't stand a little profanity (okay, a lot, 857 times or so).

Good weekend, until it wasn't

Boy howdy, I couldn't wish stomach bugs against my worst enemy. Things were chugging along for this to have been a great weekend. I had a really nice and relaxing time with Mom at the ranch - we even had a bonfire Friday night. Then we had Roberts family dinner on Saturday night with John and Susie, Rick and Em, and Luke. Highlight: John's famous mac and cheese. But then Sunday had to go and ruin it for me - I woke up early feeling unwell and right after Matt left for work, the floodgates opened. From 8am to 4pm, I was pretty miserable and vomiting left and right. Mom came over in the afternoon to work her mom healing magic, which definitely helped. At 5 o'clock I was cleared to try some Saltine crackers and Sprite and they went okay. By the time the Cowboys game came on (Go 'Boys!), I was feeling better and had even managed to get some Tylenol down to help with my aching body parts. Actually sleeping last night was another rough time but by 1:30am I was feeling brave enough to take my Ambien, so eventually I got some sleep.

Matt left for work this morning and won't be back until late Wednesday - he has work training in Chicago. Not the best timing from my view since I'm still pretty pitiful and recovering, but he's probably not too sad to be getting out of the vomit lair. First actions taken by me this morning: cleaning the bathrooms, Febreezing the hell out of everything, and doing laundry. But now my stomach is suggesting that it would like to supplement the dozen crackers I ate yesterday with something, so I'm off to check out what food we have in our bland section. Wee!

as promised

I took a picture of the stocking I'm needlepointing for Matt.

This is what it will look like when it is done (except I think I'll put "Matt" instead of "Jason" at the top!):

And this is what the actual stocking looks like right now:
The first step was the black and white boxes because they are done with special stitches (satin and Scottish). Then I tackled the dark blue, which is almost complete except for a few tiny spots in the more detailed areas. Right now I am working on the slightly lighter blue that appears under the dark blue - you can see I've filled in most of the right side with it. After I finish with that color, I will start on the cardinals and area inside of the circle.

I'm going to the ranch today to hang out with Mom. Pene's coming too, of course. Then I'm coming back tomorrow afternoon in time for family dinner at the Roberts house. Luke is in town for the weekend so it'll be the whole gang.

I'm loving my new iPod. Matt and I discovered checking out CDs from the public library; they have quite a collection! So we are being introduced to a lot of new music. So far we've mostly been getting CDs of artists that we have heard on satellite radio (I listen to Sirius through our TV and Matt listens to XM on his computer at work).

We picked up Rock Band 2 on Sunday and are enjoying it. I agree with one review I read, though, that it is more like an update to the original game than a true sequel. But that doesn't bother me a bit. The developers really listened to the gamers and fixed a lot things that weren't ideal in the original. The interface is a lot better and the new "Tour" mode is a big improvement. And of course there's all the new songs. We don't have a favorite yet, but there are definitely some good ones. We've only unlocked about half of them so far. Unfortunately our guitars are on their last legs - the Guitar Hero III wireless guitar's green button is completely shot - and we had to start using the Rock Band guitar, along with our Guitar Hero II guitar. The Rock Band guitar isn't 100% either, but it works well enough. So I've been doing more drumming and singing that usual, and my drumming has gotten inexplicably better since we stopped playing lots of Rock Band. Don't know how that happened...

Outsourced

Outsourced is a really cool movie. We just watched it tonight. I actually got to see and spend time with Matt yesterday and today and he doesn't even have to go into work tomorrow! This is after he worked until midnight on Wednesday night and sometime later than 2 am on Thursday. Things were going very badly on some of their September 15 (extension deadline) projects but they've resolved all that now.

We got quite a bit of rain today from Ike. No crazy wind or anything, just a good 1.5+ inches of precipitation. We don't mind at all.

The stocking is going really well. I worked on it a lot today while Matt was at work. I slept really late and with the rain and all, sitting on the loveseat watching/listening to movies while needlepointing seemed like the perfect activity. I'll try to remember to take a picture of my progress sometime tomorrow and post it.

Ooo, excitement - I got one of the new 120 gig iPods last night. It's so silvery and pretty and I don't have to worry about paring down my music selection any more because it holds it all.

Murphy

We had to put little Murph to sleep yesterday. He had been having all sorts of problems last week, and finally made it very clear that it was time by refusing to eat this past weekend. He spent the weekend in the care of Dad while Mom and I were at the ranch, and we returned to find him calm and seemingly not in pain, but ready to be done. Mom sat in the hallway when we got back and he let her hold and cuddle him like he hasn't submitted to in years. He spent Sunday night snuggled between them on the couch, probably trying to reassure them.

On Friday before Mom and I left for the ranch, I got one last picture with Murphy.

take it off!

I'm a fan of the Consumerist. Particularly because of articles like this: http://consumerist.com/5042178/woman-removes-bra-to-get-through-tsa

If you're a large-breasted woman, when you reach the TSA checkpoint you might want to yank your bra off and toss it in a tray. Not because TSA is demanding it, but because we'd just love to see that start happening a lot.

Pene's new toy

I got Pen a new toy at Petsmart today. She loves the squeaky ones but breaks them really quickly. This one - a bright orange abstract octopus - seemed fairly sturdy. I give him two days.

Anyway, it's quickly become the most annoying toy she's ever had. I offer you proof:



(so cute I made a picture album)

benzos...

I have a new line-up in my fight against insomnia: Ambien CR out, temazepam in. One night later and I'm not impressed. Anyone ever taken a benzodiazepine? I think my brain is definitely different that the average person, because this is the second drug I've taken that should've knocked me unconscious in a matter of minutes that instead did nada. I really don't think you're supposed to be able to read for hours and retain the information after popping one of these things.

I really like the ridiculous street names for temazepam. According to Wikipedia, they include: jellies, jelly, tams, terms, mazzies, temazies, temmies, beans, eggs, green eggs, wobbly eggs, knockouts, hardball, norries, oranges, rugby balls, ruggers, terminators, red and blue, no-gos, blackout, green devils, drunk pills, brainwash, mind erasers, mommy's big helper, vitamin T, big T, TZ...

a decade

Yesterday, August 24, was the tenth anniversary of the coupledom of Matt and Cameron. Ten years ago he came over on a Monday evening to watch some of the X-Files marathon (it was the summer of the movie release and FX replayed the first five seasons of the TV show over the course of the summer) and we had our first kiss in the backhouse of the old Haynie house. :)

I don't think I told the fam about us being an item right away though...he was my first high school boyfriend after all. At the time, I don't think any of us would have anticipated that Matt and I would be married and living in our own house Lake Highlands a decade later.

not a quickie

So I promised a real update, and I'm a woman of my word. Let's see...I guess I'll just go in chronological order as best as possible.

~~~~~~

Friday, 8/15 - We had dinner with members of the Roberts clan as Aunt Trish and Uncle Neville passed through town on one of their freakishly long car trips. We had a fun dinner at El Fenix with them, John, Susie, Luke, and Uncle Mark. We ogled John, Susie, and Luke's brand new iPhones and went back to the Roberts house and watched Michael Phelps get another gold medal.

Sunday, 8/17 - Matt and I joined Mom and Dad for an early dinner at Peggy Sue and heard all about their trip to Mexico.

Monday - Nine Inch Nails concert at AAC!!! I drove to Matt's old parking lot downtown and we took the DART train to the West End and had dinner at TGI Fridays. Our waiter was seriously jealous that we were going to the concert (I was wearing my concert shirt from the 2006 NIN concert so he figured out where we were headed). After dinner we took a quick jump on the train to Victory Plaza. The train thing was super easy and we only spent $3 for my daily pass compared to at least $15 for AAC parking. We got there a bit early, because that's just what we do. We picked up our super-cool nin.com fan tickets (they are even cooler looking than stupid old boring Ticketmaster printouts, sporting embossed red foil logos and everything) and went inside. The opening band, A Place to Bury Strangers, started at 7:30 and we lasted a few songs before retreating to the lobby to save our ears. They weren't bad for an opening band but we wanted to be fresh for NIN.

Our seats were amazing! Here's the seating chart:

We were in section 106, second row, and on the aisle closest to the stage. When we stood up and turned our bodies to face the stage, we had hardly anyone blocking our view of the band, because we were above the people in the pit and only had a row in front of us. My biggest problem was this tool that was across the aisle from me. He had a giganto head and spent the entire concert talking to his boyfriend in the seat behind him. The few times he seemed to get into the music and started dancing, he kept looking behind him to see if his boyfriend was watching his super-neat robot moves. And he kept talking and getting in trouble with the event staff that were at the front of the aisle. So basically he was a huge distraction, but sometimes he sat down and I could ignore him. Other than that, our seats were perfect.

You can see the annoying guy in the right of the picture.

Yeah, sorry, the pics are crappy...I was taking them with my phone. It's funny though - apparently the band didn't have a problem with people taking pictures, because tons of people had their digital cameras with them, taking photos, videos, right in front of the event people that usually yell at you if you try that sort of thing...had I known, I would've brought mine! They did do a good job of keeping people from smoking though, which I appreciated.


The above picture is from the slower, calm section during the middle of the concert. They brought out a bunch of different instruments. Here I think it was the guitar player who was rocking out on the xylophone. It was awesome.

I can't convey the amazing stuff they did with the lights, but I'll try to explain a bit. They had three separate "curtains" that were see-through and made of tons of LED lights. They were spread out so one was behind the stage, one in the middle, and one at the front. They lowered them at different times and did "simple" things like in the first pic - they each had a light behind them that pulsed with their music and changed color. The more complicated things they did were making an alien landscape with sand dunes behind them and the front curtain lowered about a third to make roiling clouds above the musicians' heads. It was ridiculously cool and it all added to the music.

The final picture is the entire front curtain filled with the band logo, which was the final image of the concert.

One thing that I don't think the pictures can show is how close we were to the performers. None of these are zoomed in at all, and I think they don't do our closeness justice. I'm not great at estimating distances, but my guess is we were no more than 50 feet away from Trent.

Aside from all the cool stuff they did with the lights, my favorite part was probably the always-moving "Hurt" near the end of the show.

We took the train back to the parking lot. They had a very long one waiting at Victory Plaza to take us all back, and it wasn't crowded at all. We got home a little before midnight and went to bed with music running through our heads and ears majorly ringing.

Tuesday - dinner at the Petroleum Club

On Tuesday night we had a dinner hosted by KPMG to celebrate the promotions to manager. It was downtown at the Petroleum Club and there were probably 60 people there. It included all the new managers in advisory, audit, and tax, and their significant others, and then some company bigwigs. I met the head of Dallas tax and we sat with the head of audit at dinner. The conversation at our table got the most animated when we started talking about the Olympics. Also, Matt and I discovered the audit partner has two kids in HP schools so we talked about that for a bit. We also got to say hi to Nick and Rachel, but they weren't at our table. The dinner was quite yummy (can't go wrong with filet mignon and chicken) and the three head partner guys each gave a nice toast at the end. All in all, it was a nice night and I came away with renewed appreciation for their appreciation of Matt and his hard work. :)

Wednesday - a trip to Arlington

A couple days ago I picked up Susie and we took the trek to Arlington to visit Emily at their new apartment. We managed to find it okay (thanks to Emily's good directions and Google maps). The complex is really nice - lots of smaller buildings spread out over green lawns and mature trees. It's like our old AMLI place in that the apartments have garages, and Em and Rick picked a second floor place so that, unlike us on the third floor, they have a private access to their garage from inside their apartment. It's a two bedroom/two bath apartment with a patio. The rooms are fairly small, but having two bedrooms and bathrooms makes it plenty big for two people. Em already had the furniture in place and some decorations up, but she was also leaving some projects for her dear husband, who was suffering through a conference in Hawaii this week. =P Speaking of Rick, a big congratulations to him for finishing his masters thesis! So we got the apartment tour and went to Double Daves for lunch (pizza rolls, yummy) and then hung out at the apartment a while longer. Emily hadn't had her internet hooked up yet, so she borrowed Susie's iPhone to look up the two bakeries she was interested in for work opportunities. And now it's time for congratulations to Em, for getting a job at the cake place less than a mile and a half from her apartment! Score!

~~~~~~

And so, that's all, I think. We got over five inches of rain in the last week. The lawn even recovered from my chronic neglect! I may actually try watering it more now that it's proved it has a will to live, since the super hot, baking days of summer are numbered (I hope). We're happy for the US teams that have pulled off gold medals recently - men's and women's beach volleyball, women's soccer. We're bummed about the softball team...that was supposed to be a sure thing. And we're following the IOC investigation into the Chinese gymnasts' ages with fiendish delight, although I doubt anything will come of it. It is going to be rough TV viewing for the next month, in the dead space between Olympics and new fall shows. We plan on watching lots of Netflix, including season 2 of Dexter.

Ah, speaking of Netflix, that reminds me. The Thomas Crowne Affair, 1968. Blows. Hard. Matt and I both like the 1999 version with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. Our main complaint with it was not really liking Rene Russo. So we rented the 1968 version because we were curious. Oh my goodness. We had failed to appreciate how much they changed the story. For those not familiar, in the 1999 version Thomas Crowne steals an expensive painting; in the 1968 version, he robs a bank, twice, and keeps the money. In the 1999 version he pulls off the heist with finesse and wit; 1968 -he hires five thugs with guns. And there is nothing appealing about Steve McQueen's Thomas. And Faye Dunaway's character has nothing resembling a conscience (and she's a whore). So basically it is an awful movie. Now we realize too that there may be a reason we hated Rene Russo's character - she seems to be trying to channel the 1968 version and does a remarkable job at it. We figured we wouldn't love the 1968 version, just because older movies move at a slower pace and don't have the special effects and superior technology that modern movies have, but everything about the original version is pretty much awful.

Oh yes, and one final thing: Final Fantasy IV (DS) rocks!

quickie

I have plenty to write about...NIN concert (amazing), Matt's new manager celebratory dinner at the Petroleum Club, my visit to Em's new apartment, how incredibly awful the original The Thomas Crowne Affair is...but I'll get to that soon.

Tonight I leave you with the awesomeness that is Susie's birthday card to John.

Pene's first Olympics

Pene doesn't really get into the Olympics like her mommy and daddy do. She wasn't nearly as excited as we were about the US men's victory over France in the 4x100 relay.


I think she's ready for bed...

And just so Piper doesn't feel left out:

Colorado vacation pictures

I've put our vacation pictures up on our web site. You can find them here: Telluride 2008. The only unfortunate thing is that we lost day 2 of Mesa Verde upon the self-destruction of our camera. However, there are still more than enough pictures to look at!

Gymnastics :/

Matt and I are bummed about the girls taking silver in the team gymnastics final. We were thrilled for the guys' bronze yesterday, who didn't have a single former Olympian on the team and were operating with like third alternates. But the US women losing to China...harder to accept. It did seem like China was just the better team, that if every girl had given their best and no one had screwed up, the Chinese would've still taken the gold. But the gold medal was in our reach but for Alicia Sacramone's major errors - a fall off the beam and a butt landing on floor - and that makes the losing harder. We lost by 2.375 points and those two deductions alone were 1.6 points. Add in how those costly errors screwed up the minds of her teammates and I think we could've won it all.

Well, here's hoping that our women step it up for the individual finals.

Oh, and GO Michael Phelps and team US swimming!

US swimming, baby!

There was just some major yelling just now at our house as the United States men won the gold in the 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay. Michael Phelps kept his 8-gold-medal dream alive, and equally important, we kicked the butts of the smack-talking French (“The Americans?” Bernard recently told the sports newspaper L’Equipe, “We’re going to smash them. That’s what we came for.” Psst - Bernard lost the race for them =P). Wahoo! Add fuel!

Olympics!

Have I ever mentioned how much Matt and I love the Olympics? We watch almost everything (admittedly, table tennis is not our fav). We just got finished watching the opening ceremonies and we're pretty pumped. Olympics! Add fuel! *clap clap*

Final Fantasy III

I started playing Final Fantasy III on the DS a long time ago - I think I bought it not long after it was released on my birthday in 2006 - but only started it up again while on our trip to California. I just beat the game and let me tell you something: the end is hard! That's kind of what one would expect from a Final Fantasy game, but here is what was sort of ridiculous about it. I got to the final boss of the main story after trudging though a dungeon with no saves points for something like two hours. During the dungeon leading to the final boss ("Cloud of Darkness"), I fought five other bosses, without an opportunity to save. Apparently there used to be a save point somewhere in there in the original game, but the developers took it out when they were making the new DS version. Gee, thanks. The bosses and dungeon before the final boss weren't actually too hard. Unfortunately, that resulted in me thinking I was leveled appropriately for the final boss...not so. I eked out a victory by the skin of my teeth thanks to ridiculous usage of elixirs. Cloud of Stupidness had up to four actions per turn, including two spells that hit my whole party (hard). You know, if you're going to make the last boss significantly more challenging that the surrounding dungeon, put a freaking save point in front of it!

That said, I found the DS remake of Final Fantasy III a great game. It looked pretty awesome on the DS and they obviously spent a lot of time and energy completely retooling the graphics. My final playtime was 31:35, and if you add in times from my "Game Over's", I probably spent at least 35 hours playing. Not bad for a DS game!

Aside from my issues with the end of the game, I only had a couple other problems with the game. First, you can't access the ultimate weapons, secret job "Onion Knight," or secret boss unless you have a friend code for someone else with a DS and the game, because you have to use the completely unnecessary Moogle Mail system with another real person on the receiving end to start the quest lines. Lame. Second problem: the job system. Honestly, I like options, but there were just too many in my opinion. You had the choice of 23 jobs for each character (including the secret Onion Knight, which I couldn't access) by the end of the game...Freelancer, Warrior, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage, Thief, Ranger, Knight, Scholar, Geomancer, Viking, Dragoon, Dark Knight, Evoker, Bard, Black Belt, Magus, Devout, Summoner, Sage, Ninja, Onion Knight...and you could have multiple characters using the same job. Four dragoons, anyone? There were quite honestly some jobs that I never ever used, not even once. It was hard to try out new ones because new jobs usually stink for the first few hours until the character has some gotten some job levels (like XP but, you know, for your job). Add in a penalty for switching between disparate jobs (e.g. chaotic to lawful or physical to magical) that temporarily lowers your stats and performance, and then you really don't want to test drive a job that looks questionable.

But for all that, it was a Final Fantasy game and an RPG and that means it would take a lot for me to dislike it! Now I'm excited to start in on the new DS version of Final Fantasy IV!

----------------------------------------
I had an eye appointment today. My prescription is still chugging along at -1.00, the same it has been for years. I found out that I was misinformed about the shape of my eyeballs. I'd been told they were "pointy" but it turns out it's the opposite - they are flat! And Acuvue just came out with a new contact lens that fits me and my flat-eyed brethren better than the old Oasys contacts (different base curve). The optometrist said it should be more comfortable. I'm all for that!

I'd mentioned the demise of our digital camera during our vacation. We got a new one on Monday, a Canon SD790IS. I hadn't realized how tiny the screen on our old camera was until I compared the old and new side-by-side. Wow! Now I need a reason to take pictures. :)

Matt and I are going to the ranch this weekend to check on things and do some watering while Mom and Dad are in Mexico (Puerto Vallarta). I'm sure Pene will enjoy it, because her life was much more exciting when she was there with Mom and Dad, or with Mike Shannon, than it is back at home with us. Also, I'm excited to try out the new karaoke discs I got Mom and Dad for their birthdays (Queen, the Beatles, Mary Poppins, Lion King, a modern one, and Americana). We'll sing Wild Blue Yonder for y'all.

poor kitty

Poor Piper...she had to get gassed today at the vet for her annual check-up because she's such a bad patient. Now she's wandering the house looking slightly drunk.

Pene embarrassed us with the neighbors last night. We'd gone over to give Brian (housekeeper boy #1) his money. Someone we didn't know answered the door (I'm guessing it was a brother). As soon as the guy opened the door and I'd started to introduce myself, we saw Pene tearing over from our house. Yep, she can now open the front door too. She ran straight to the neighbor's door and tried to go in and eat their cat. The poor guy, who'd just opened his door to absolute chaos, was like "what is going on?!" We grabbed Pene and I quickly thrust the envelope at him (more than a little crumpled at this point), said "this is for Brian...I'm so sorry!" and we made a quick retreat. Now the rest of that family is going to think we're psycho!

home again home again jiggity jig

We did a monumental all-day drive yesterday to get from Telluride to home. Piper was very glad to see us, although we could tell that our next door neighbor Kyle, who was cat- and house-sitting for us the second week of vacation, had done his job well. His instructions included coming over and playing video games and watching movies to let Piper hang out with him. We think he did this admirably, as the set-up Rock Band drums and mic, Wendy's wrappers in the trash, and reasonably mellow Piper attest. He's probably sad we're home.

The drive home went well. We split it up a lot between us to avoid fatigue. The coolest thing we saw along the way was a really long train with a bunch of different army vehicles and tanks on it. They were pretty small on the back of the train, but as we got closer to the front engine, the tanks got bigger and more serious until they were the huge ones with the gigantic guns.

The last few days in Telluride were nice and relaxing. We did a great hike in Ouray on Wednesday while Susie shopped in town. On Friday we visited the farmers market again and made some purchases - for me, that included some amazing cherries and apricots.

Pictures will be forthcoming. Our camera finally kicked the bucket, and all we have is the first day of Mesa Verde (the second day had appeared to be on the compact flash card, until we tried to suck the pictures onto Luke's computer). All the other pictures will be compliments of Susie and I'll have to get them via burned CD from her.

I read eight books on vacation and they were all interesting in their own way...

1. Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey
2. Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey
3. Kushiel's Mercy by Jacqueline Carey
4. Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea, and One of the World's Deadliest Jobs by Andy and Johnathan Hillstrand
5. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder
6. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
7. After the War by Tim Lebbon
8. The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company by David A. Price

I'd read the first two Kushiel's books before, and was excited about reading the final member of the trilogy that had come out in June. It didn't disappoint. The Time Bandit book was one I'd seen in the library right before we left for Colorado. As a loyal fan of the TV show The Deadliest Catch, I enjoyed the book, especially since I particularly love the Hillstrand brothers. However, from a literary standpoint, the book kinda sucked. Mountains Beyond Mountains was, I believe, a gift from Leslie. It is a non-fiction offering that details the work of Dr. Paul Farmer, who is basically trying to save the poor from infectious disease. His first and greatest success was treatment of TB in the central plateau of Haiti. The Glass Castle is a memoir and one that was highly recommended to me by Mom and Leslie. Turns out Susie has read it too and also threw in her vote of excellence. It was indeed a great book, and I wanted to slap the author's parents around like mad the whole time. After the War contains two novellas set in the same world as Dusk and Dawn, fantasy books by Tim Lebbon. I had read and enjoyed those before vacation, despite them being very dark, and so I picked up After the War. It was well-done, but perhaps even more disturbing than the original two novels. Finally, my read in the car ride home, the Pixar book. It was an extremely interesting look into the history of the company and how it got to where it is today. I particularly enjoyed the chapters in which the author described the creative process for each movie. For example, two artists actually climbed into a dead gray whale to help them understand what whales look like on the inside for the whale scene in Finding Nemo. They had all sorts of experts come in and talk to them about aquatic life, and a group was sent to scuba dive in Hawaii. For Cars, they went on a road trip down Route 66 (including a stop to eat the 72 oz steak at the Big Texan in Amarillo). A couple people apprenticed at a French restaurant for Ratatouille.

Kayak!

Matt and I went kayaking yesterday. I think learning the "wet exit" - escaping from one's kayak while upside down in the water - is one of the scariest things I've done. The practice came in handy though, since I did in fact overturn in the river! It was really hard to intentionally turn myself over when we were practicing.

We're having a great time here in Telluride; it is going to be hard to leave on Saturday. Especially since it's been 100+ in Dallas since we've been gone and it's 69 here right now.

*wave* from Telluride

Hello from Telluride. I'm sitting here in our wonderful house with a tiny bit of my attention on Casino Royale (the boys are watching it). I just finished working on our vacation puzzle for the evening. Since I'm such a puzzle-working master, I've decided to do this one without looking at the box to make it more challenging.

We had an almost effortless drive from Dallas to Albuquerque on Saturday, except for the ridiculous hail storm we encountered less than 60 miles from our destination. We had a nice dinner that night at a little Mexican place in the old historic downtown and hit the sack pretty early (time change helped with that) in our semi-ghetto hotel.

We were on the road by 7am on Sunday, driving to Mesa Verde. We arrived around noon, got our campsite in order, and then saw some sights. We did a self-guided tour of the Spruce Tree House cliff dwellings and then did a neat hike on the Petroglyph Point Trail, which took us by some really neat petroglyphs. The hike was also very uncrowded - we barely saw anyone - and was a good way to adjust to the altitude (Mesa Verde is about 7,000+ ft elevation). That night we cooked hot dogs on our campfire and enjoyed the beauty of the place. Our campsite was in a grove of oak trees on side and a meadow on the other. We saw deer in our meadow two different times. It rained some that night, but nothing too major.

We packed up our campsite on Monday morning and hit up the campground's pancake breakfast. We decided we weren't in the mood for any of the guided tours and had seen enough of the Native American sights, so we took a hike at the north end of the park, the Park Lookout Trail, which took us to the top of a mesa where we could see just about ... everything! We also saw a couple rabbits and the footprint and scat of some sort of cat. We were the only people on the trail the entire time, and we enjoyed cool, cloudy weather that made it quite pleasant. After that we left Mesa Verde and drove to Telluride, arriving there in time for lunch.

Our house here is lovely - the perfect size for the five of us (John, Susie, Luke, Matt and me). It is up in the Mountain Village of Telluride. It's your typical log plus river stone construction, and it has two bedrooms and three baths on the first floor, along with living, dining, and kitchen, and the master and a loft is upstairs. The ceilings everywhere on the first floor are just as high as the second floor ceilings, so it is very airy. And we have a nice little backyard with a hot tub.

We went on a nice hike today. :) The weather is so awesome...I was talking to Mom and it was102 in Dallas, while it was sprinkling and maybe 60 here. Yay!

another cat video

Simon's cat makes another appearance on YouTube.



And why does this link strike me as something that Matt and Luke might have cooked up for Hammy? http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2008/07/sure-i-have-a-l.html

WAHOO!

Microsoft stunned many in the audience by announcing that Final Fantasy XIII is now in development for the Xbox 360. Not only is the game coming to the console, but it will arrive on the same day and date as the PlayStation 3 edition of the game, with no timed exclusivity of any kind.

gamespot.com

summertime summertime sum-sum-summertime

We've had an eventful week and a half. It all started with an awesome trip to the ranch to celebrate July 4 with Mom and Dad, and John, Susie, and Luke. We spent the nights of July 3-4 there and there was much fun had by all. Lots of floating in the lake and eating good food. We set off fireworks both nights at Pou Beach, including the kickass "War of the Worlds" box-o-fire. There were quite a few spectacular fireworks displays going on around us - rumor had it one of the Pous' neighbors spent a cool 4 grand on theirs. On Friday we banded together to run the cows through the shoot to de-worm them. Mom and I did some great herding =D

Matt and I had our next big adventure on Tuesday when we visited Hurricane Harbor. Getting there right before it opened and having pre-purchased tickets, we managed to get something like seven rides in during the first hour. We tried the new "Mega Wedgie" (twice) and "Tornado," and hit up old favorites like The Black Hole (shh, don't mention that one to John Wiley Price), Blue Niagara, Der Stuka and Geronimo, Shotgun Falls, Hydra Maniac, Blue Raider, Kamikaze, and of course, a circuit around the Lazy River and a dip in the wave pool. Thanks to diligent application of SPF 85 sunscreen, we didn't even get burned. We also enjoyed the new locker technology. I wore a plastic wristband with a paper-thin chip in it that, when held in front of the locker panel, popped open our locker for unlimited access to our things. Aside from the $10 fee, it was pretty dang cool! But not too bad when I think back to the olden days, when you had to pump something like $3 in quarters into the locker every time you opened it up.

We just got back from another trip to the ranch, this time a Hall family gathering to celebrate birthdays (Uncle Mike, Jerry Washam, Dad a couple weeks from now). Lisa, Eric, and Miles, Mike and Eve, and Carolyn were all there, as well as the Pous and Washams on day two. Also, much to Pene's delight, she finally got to meet her cousin Travis (Lisa and Eric's big yellow lab) and they played and played. Pene has been passed out on our loveseat ever since we got home - she's exhausted! The highlight of the weekend was probably Carolyn's Better than Sex cake (the superior Hall family version, made of two layers of yellow cake with vanilla pudding, homemade whipped cream, pineapple, and coconut).

Other than that, things have been going along uneventfully. We're preparing to head out to Colorado at the end of the week. Miss Pen will be spending the time with her grandparents and Mike Shannon. Matt is adjusting to his new position of manager at work, which he's handling with ease. He is getting a Blackberry sometime this week to enable him to keep up with work e-mail and client contacts as a manager, and it'll be fun to play with. I finished the Xbox 360 RPG Lost Odyssey a few days ago, and it'll be nice to have that all beaten before going on vacation. I'll probably resume playing Final Fantasy III on my DS for my next gaming adventure (FF IV comes out for the DS later this month and looks very cool).

We're having dinner tonight with the Roberts at Gloria's - Em and Rick are in town this weekend looking for apartments and it will be great to see them.

WALL-E

We saw WALL-E this afternoon at NorthPark with Luke. It was fabulous! We loved it. Two robotic thumbs up! The graphics were amazing, the whole movie was hilarious, the story was very engaging and well-written...and the emotions they conveyed through robots and with barely any words...awesome.

promised California post

Saturday, 6/14
We left for California on Saturday, June 14. Our Southwest flight occurred in three(!) stages - first to Tulsa, then Las Vegas, finally Oakland. The one benefit was that we didn't change planes and therefore moved to some really choice seats at the front for legs two and three. Providing entertainment on part II was a drunk and loud threesome heading to Vegas. If you ever saw an episode of the A&E show Airline which was a real-life drama about Southwest Airlines, you will appreciate the craziness of these passengers. We thought our flight attendant might have to sic the feds on the guy, who probably should have been denied boarding under the "no flying when drunk" policy. Katie did well on her first airplane ride ever, although it didn't exactly agree with her tummy. Everything was on time and we arrived in Oakland safe and sound to pick up our trusty rental car, a mocha-colored Nissan Murano complete with GPS. Katie promptly named the GPS "Gizelle" and it stuck.

We drove to Berkeley and got settled into our two room suite at the Hotel Durant, the same 1920s hotel that hosted us for Leslie's wedding. Leslie had left us a care package at the front desk with snackages and other goodies, and she came over after we got settled. She walked us through the Berkeley campus and to their apartment, where I got to meet Sous Chef for the first time. She's a very well behaved pup, although less excited about our visit than we were. I got to see her tricks, which included "nose," "sit," "stay," and play dead at the word "bang." Very impressive. Ultimately we set out for a picnic at a local park by a marina on the bay (it was formerly a landfill and has excellent kite-flying due to its constant breeze). We were slightly under dressed for the low-50s weather and did a lot of huddling for warmth. Bryan grilled us burgers and fresh corn and we toured the park with Sous (who stopped by the nearest group of people several times to clean up the food they'd spilled on the ground). It was nice to see that Sous still has some mischief despite her excellent training =P

Sunday, 6/15
On Sunday we picked up Leslie, who then drove us all into San Francisco. After driving around town a bit to show Katie and Lisa the sights (this being Katie's first visit to California and Lisa's first in over a decade), we went to Golden Gate Park and toured the Japanese Tea Garden. We ended the visit by taking tea (okay, Mom, Katie and I actually had hot chocolate). We needed the warm-up, since it was again in the fifties. During our tea time, we called Dad to wish him a happy Fathers Day. We returned to the car and Les gamely motored us around some more. We even drove down the famously curvy Lombard Street and saw the Painted Ladies houses. We walked around Chinatown and went into the only fortune cookie factory in America that still makes the cookies by hand. Then we went to the Ferry Plaza and had a late lunch. That wrapped up our time in San Fran, and Mom and I spent a quiet afternoon in the hotel room while Katie and Lisa visited Telegraph Avenue, home to all things funky in Berkeley. We all met Leslie and Bryan at Downtown, the restaurant which hosted their rehearsal dinner last year, for dinner. I had the best dinner by far of the group - braised pork shoulder with roasted strawberries, rhubarb, and greens. The strawberries sound weird, but they complimented the tender pork extremely well. We had dessert at L&B's favorite gelato place down the street.

Monday, 6/16
In the morning, Les had breakfast with us at La Note (fabulous French food, the site of Leslie's bridesmaids brunch last year). It was a perfect end to our time in Berkeley. It was hard to get Mom to leave, though. Whenever she leaves Berkeley, she always has the instinct to take Leslie with her =D I drove us the four hours or so from Berkeley to Yosemite. We tried to check into our room at the Yosemite Bug but our cabin wasn't quite ready, so we went ahead and drove into the park. The drive was amazing - all along the Merced River, which was roiling and tumbling down the valley. A huge rockslide had buried the road on one side, which slightly complicated things by forcing the traffic to share the one lane on the other side (there were flaggers). Inside the park, we eventually decided to do the short hike to the Yosemite Falls, an impressive waterfall we'd seen driving in. Katie and I had a blast getting off the trail and scrambling all over the rocks to the base of the falls. It gave us an opportunity to get away from the hordes of tourists as well. Then we all continued down the trail to visit the Ahwahnee Hotel. We took the shuttle back to the visitors center and had pizza for dinner (we were hungry).

When we returned to the Bug, our cabin was ready but unfortunately there was NO parking to be had except at the very top of the property. It was straight up a hill and by the time I got the car parked, it was pitch black save the light from a nearly full moon. The walk down wasn't too bad aside from the blackness, but the hike back up the 45 degree slope to the car the next morning left something to be desired. Our cabin was called Mono Lake, and Katie and I shared the left side while Mom and Lisa shared the right. Our room was decorated with an Asian theme and Katie and I were more than a little creeped out by the sumo wrestler in our bathroom. It was a very acceptable place to stay though, other than that. It's a neat place in general because it offers a variety of accommodations, from private rooms with their own bath, to canvas tents, to dorm-type hosteling options.

Tuesday, 6/17
In the morning we partook of the buffet breakfast at the bug and then Mom drove us to Monterey. Along the way we stopped at this great fruit and nut stand/house. They had fresh and dried fruit and all sorts of differently seasoned nuts. I ended up getting the orange honey almonds and some banana chips, and everyone else got some interesting choices as well. We immediately hit up the Monterey Bay Aquarium upon our arrival in Monterey. My favorite exhibits by far were the three different otter enclosures. Otters are so cute and fun to watch! We spent at least a couple hours there and then it was time to find a place to stay. We decided we didn't want to try too hard to find a bargain, so we returned to a place we'd seen on the main road to the aquarium, the Victorian Inn Best Western. Katie and I again roomed together while the moms shared a room. It was a very nice little hotel a block from the beach, and as soon as we were settled and had partaken of the free wine and cheese reception, we took a long stroll down the beach.

Our beach walk was very fun. I found a washed up starfish that was still alive and sent it back to sea. We saw another that we thought was just a husk, and Katie spent a good 5 minutes trying to get it out of the waves without getting soaked, only for us to discover that it was alive too (it was a different kind that mine). So she tossed it back in the water too, except she used it like a ninja star. We saw a ton of wild sea lions sunning on the rocks and even got within a few yards of a cute white one that Katie and I collectively named "Snowball John Smith." Another favorite sea lion: the ridiculously large "Augustus Gloop" aka "Gus" who looked like an overstuffed sausage. We ended up eating dinner at a seafood place on the Fishermen's Wharf (I had coconut shrimp). Then we headed back to the hotel and Katie and I did our normal round of reading before bed. I was still working my way through re-reads of Mercedes Lackey, and she had several books with her, including the first book in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. It was a little sad being in California for Matt and my third wedding anniversary, but we had a nice long chat on the phone.

Wednesday, 6/18
We wanted to make our last half-day in California count, so we drove south a bit to the Point Lobos State Reserve, a place we'd found in the activities guide at our hotel that was supposed to have "the greatest meeting of land and water in the world." We even got a discount on our admissions fee, when Lisa responded to the question of "do you have any seniors in the car?" with "do hot flashes count?". The lady park ranger thought that they should, so we got in for the senior price! We drove the length of the reserve's beach and took a walk down to their southern-most beach. We went down some precipitous stairs and frolicked along in the sand, looking for treasures. Then we returned to the car and drove back up to Sea Lion Point. It had an amazing pebble beach (the last one was regular sand) of worn-down granite. At the point, there is this really interesting rock that is like concrete with small rocks stuck in it. The sandy glue-like rock is called "Carmelo foundation" and the whole of it looks like something man-made. Apparently in earlier months you can see whales migrating off the point. There was a colony of sea lions there and we got to see some swimming less than fifteen feet from shore.

Finally it was time to leave to allow enough time to drive to Oakland, return the car, and get ready to fly. I drove us north and we had great luck in traffic which allowed us to stay on schedule. The flight home was another three-parter, only this time we had to change planes in LA. Then it was on to Albuquerque, and we arrived late enough in the day that the place was only a third full for our last leg to Dallas (yay for an aisle seat with no on in the middle!). We got in and retrieved our bags and Dad picked us up around 11:00 pm.

And that's that! It was a very fun trip. I got to see a lot of things that were new to me, ate a ton of great food, spent time with Leslie and Bryan, met Sous, got to spend lots of time talking with Katie...pretty fabulous! And I got to miss the 100-degree day in Dallas, drinking hot chocolate instead in Golden Gate Park. Not bad at all!

All pictures are now located on my web site: California album

July 4 Weekend!

Happy 4th* of July!

We're off to the ranch for a fun-filled weekend with Mom and Dad, John and Susie, and Luke. There should be lots of lake activities and fireworks and good times. When I get back, maybe I'll even get serious about that California post.

*Yes, I'm a day early. Better than late, eh?

yes, yes, I've been back from California for over a week... =P

I know, I've been home for a while now so I should write about our California adventure. And I will...watch this spot :)

I'm starting to get pictures up on our web site. You can check them out (here).

the agony of defeat

Last night was the playoffs for flag football and it wasn't pretty. We were playing the same team as last week, the winless I MC HAMMER, and we were confident that we could handle them as easily as last week. I guess we were saving too much energy for the following games (playing for the championship would have taken three games in a row) and we weren't in sync, and we lost. It was pretty embarrassing. Also, the refs did everything in their power to screw us, but honestly, we didn't deserve the win (although we might well have gotten it if the refs had been paying attention). So instead of our anticipated rematch against McLovin' for the title, we were done before eight o'clock. I had a cooler full of water and Gatorade in preparation for the long night, and it was untouched. I gave it away to the team that had just beaten us because they were NOT expecting to have another game to play after ours. I don't know what happened after our game, because we all went home. :( The only bright spot was that I had two good catches, and Matt had an amazing deep ball catch (along with some other catches). Oh, and Mom, Dad, Susie, and Luke came to the game, and it's always fun to have them come, even though we didn't put on a good show for them.

In more fun news, I am going to California tomorrow! Mom, Aunt Lisa, Cousin Katie and I leave tomorrow morning and get back late on Wednesday night. It should be fun (the cool weather won't be bad either!).

Lisa's visit with Miles was a fun highlight of the week. She got into town mid-day Tuesday and brought Carolyn over to the house for an afternoon of chatting (while Miles napped). Then we headed over to Mom and Dad's for Amore dinner, where Matt was able to join us. Miles amused himself playing with the Mardi Gras beads. On Wednesday, Lisa and I took Miles over to Carolyn's for lunch - we picked up potato soup from Cisco, yum! - and Susie was able to come and eat and chat with us. She's an honorary great aunt for Miles ever since she helped take care of him last August when Carolyn was sick. And Carolyn loves her (who doesn't love Susie though?) and so she was thrilled and tickled that Susie came. After lunch, Lisa and I took Miles swimming in Carolyn's pool, which was extra special when one considers that both Lisa and I swam in that pool in our childhood. Lisa headed back to Austin on Wednesday afternoon, so it was a short but sweet visit. Miles is getting to be such a little boy now! He walks with much more confidence and gets much more interesting all the time. He followed Piper all around the house - she would walk temptingly in front of him, keeping about 18 inches between them most of the time. Pene and Miles were very interested in each other, but the size difference is still too great (and Pene too enthusiastic) so they had to observe each other with a door or crate between them. Otherwise Pene might have found out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Miles.

okay okay, you win

We won too. 33-6 tonight, but it was against the worst team in the league, I MC HAMMER, who made it through the season without a single win. But that meant that we had a LOT of fun, different people got to play, more girls got catches, because we didn't have to worry. I did feel sorry for the other team though: they had a double header tonight and almost had their first win of the season in the game before ours but blew it in the last minute. Then they had to face us, #2 team in the league. Not so fun for them. And yeah, we're #2 now, not #1, because we lost to McLovin' last week 14-12. Next week is the playoffs.

I guess my last post was right before Mike and Eve's wedding. Well, obviously we've had a lot between then and now. Wedding #1, aka Mike and Eve's, was fabulous. Amazing cool spring weather, lots of family. I got to spend a lot of time with Leslie and Bryan, which was a huge treat. We played with every ball in the ranch's possession (softball, football, soccer, ping pong), had two nights of karaoke, boated with Mike Shannon, had two bonfires...it was great. Mom and Dad have put a whole album up on their picture website (marcandsusan.overt.org).

Memorial Day weekend was wedding #2, aka Emily and Rick's. It was also fabulous. We started the weekend hosting the kids (wedding party and some close friends) at our house on Friday night. We played Rock Band, Super Smash, Mario Kart, ate food - including some wonderful homemade brownies by Emily and Liz - drank beer, and got to know one another. It was just what we hoped it would be: an opportunity for the rather diverse wedding party to get to know each other. And Rick reprised Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld, which would have made the night awesome alone. Matt and I also had the fortune to host Rick for the weekend in our guest room, and that made us feel pretty cool. On Saturday we had afternoon rehearsal and then the dinner at Blue Mesa. The food was excellent. Then Sunday morning was the bridesmaids brunch at Cisco. Matt and Rick took Pene for a walk right before I got home (Rick had some pre-wedding energy to blow off) and we followed that up with some Mario Kart. Then it was time for us to start getting ready, and let me tell you, nothing says "I'm a groom and it's my wedding day" like coming out of the bathroom with 20 (okay, 5) pieces of toilet paper stuck to one's face because of shaving mishaps. Rick fought through the blood loss to help Matt and I try and figure out how to tie Matt's bagpiping outfit's bow tie (we watched a YouTube video but still didn't get it right).

The wedding itself was beautiful and perfect. Matt piped before the ceremony, while I was locked up with the bride and maids. The church (Royal Lane Baptist) was lovely and fit the size of the wedding really well. Emily looked gorgeous and sweet and demure and entirely like a bride. (Pictures are at randallstewart.com). Rick looked handsome and nervous and entirely like a groom. The reception was at Northwood Country Club and it was pretty great too. I had to give a toast, which had me quite nervous, but it seemed to go over well. I had a great time getting to know Rick's groomsmen over the course of the weekend, particularly my partner, Best Man Matt. They were a really nice group of young men, and Matt was really fun to be around. Well, they were all pretty hilarious when they were three sheets to the wind at the reception. I'm sure I have some good stories tucked away in my head, but I can't recall them right now. I'm kind of worn out from my awesome game tonight. =D

We're heading to the ranch this weekend for some fun and relaxation (Pene is super excited). Then we have our last team practice and dinner at Peggy Sue on Sunday. I think Cousin Lisa and Miles are coming to Dallas for a couple days next week, we have the playoffs on Thursday, and I leave for my California trip with Mom, Aunt Lisa, and Cousin Katie on Saturday. Isn't summer supposed to be lazy? ;)