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Emil showed me this conversation he had with his HS friend Denise on facebook…..

…and I just had to steal it for our blog.

Kids are not for everyone, including us.

Luckily, we’ve not had too much grief over it. Emil’s mom totally understands. My grandmother completely gets it. Others in our family do, too. I even suspect one person opened a can of whup ass on someone one time for repeatedly arguing with me about our choice.

I’ve started a list of some of our reasons. Currently the top three are pee, poo, and puke. Yes, in that order (but just to be funny). When I have at least 100, I’ll begin sharing it.

In the mean time, peruse the list over at Childfreedom. She hits the nail on the head.

#20 is one of my faves, that I’ll for sure be adding to our list.

#44 is definitely “us”

…and I’m going to speak for Emil and say that I know his favorite would be #10 on her list.

…and for Purrrrrl, Turtleor, & Marble: #88.

Our first day of Christmas (and our first major holiday since the move to Austin ) was jam packed.

9am – leave Austin for Bryan
11am – 2nd group to arrive on scene at Luza Christmas
12noon – giant family lunch, 65 in attendance, paper plates and a seat on the deck
1pm – visit with family, watch Mom and the kids open gifts
4pm – after the mass exodus of her home, we visited with Mom and the remaining family
5pm – leave Bryan for Paris
10pm – arrive in Paris

What a day!

Thanksgiving would have been our first try at this travel pattern, but Lori came down with a cold bug. She too sick to travel, but more importantly, we didn’t want to infect anyone else.

For the last few days, Sosta has begun to get worse. She’s all but stopped eating, drinks a bunch of water, and misses the litter box. Her eyes have lost their color and spark, as well.

When she made it through mid-October, we were so happy. That was longer than the vets anticipated. Truthfully, after she recovered from the surgery, she was far better than she had been before it. Having her for Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving was great. …but we neither one think she’ll make it to Christmas.

We’re going to call the vet tomorrow to see if we can manage any discomfort she’s having…but unless they can do something to improve her appetite, we suspect her time left with us will be pretty short.

Now that we neither one work for a university, our holiday cycles have shifted. For example, Emil had to work late for this year’s election day (He works for the County Clerk), but Veterans’ Day was a county holiday. So, he planned a wonderful little mid-November mini-vacay for us…to Fredericksburg.

Wednesday morning, we slept in, loaded the car, took a scenic drive, and were in town by 2pm. We found the headquarters for the B&B and checked in. Our cabin was ~15 minutes out of town on 21 acres. It was peaceful bliss.

The outdoor shower is amazing, even in November.

As soon as we had the car unloaded, we sat in the rockers on the front porch and watched the birds and butterflies. The weather was just perfect—~70 degrees and a gorgeous day—so there was much to see.

We made a few little and tentative plans for the evening. We hadn’t had a vacation in a long time and have rarely had one that didn’t have an agenda of events to attend and sights to see. It was nice to have four days with nothing particular to do. We’ve been to Fredericksburg several times. We’ve seen the shops and toured the wineries. This time, we were here without much new to see.

We headed into town for dinner at the Rathskeller. Lori had a glass of Columbia Crest Shiraz and the avocado crab dip, which turned out to be our server’s favorite menu item. Emil had the Weiner Schnitzel with buttered noodles (shocker, huh?). Our meal was fabulous! There were six desserts on the menu that all sounded wonderful as well. So, when we are craving sweets, that will be one of the first places we think of.

We returned to our cabin to take advantage of the amenities. The dew had already begun to settle, so without dry wood, we had to postpone a fire, but the sky was 100% clear and the stars were the brightest we’d seen in a very long time. We stargazed on the front porch and had a little mini-scrabble tournament with our own flex on the rules and no scoring. We determined the winner by who went out first. Lori won both matches. Once we crawled into bed, we were both goners. The bed had one of those Tempurdepic mattress toppers. The only way to describe this bed is to say that it “eats” you. At 5am Lori awoke to the cold (it was probably ~40 degrees outside and we slept with the windows open), so we watched dawn creep up and watched the sunrise all while still bundled under the covers.

We went for an early breakfast at Taqueria Altos de Jalisco’s. It was fabulous. Then, we drove to the Old Tunnel where we saw our first bat emergence a few years ago. The sign said they had emerged the night before, but only took ~10 minutes to leave the tunnel; the season had, technically, passed. We decided it probably wasn’t worth a visit at night. We walked down to the tunnel viewing area, saw the few bats that haven’t migrated, yet, and then took a scenic drive back to our cabin with a little stop at the visitor’s center for more information about the Nimitz museum (and the new part that is supposed to open in December) and other area attractions.

We spent the afternoon riding our bikes around the property, viewing the other cabin still under construction, and seeing the new bridge that the neighbor is building to cross a creek. We also spent another chunk of time watching the birds and butterflies. Again, it was great to have nothing to do!

bike trail

Thursday evening, we went into town for dinner and some German beer and then came back to the cabin. Emil was victorious in 3-out-of-4 games: Scrabble (with scores this time), Ticket to Ride, and the first of two rounds of dominos.

Friday the 13th started off true to fame. We were going to have breakfast at Andy’s, but it wasn’t in the cards. The place was crowded with only two servers. Of course, as luck would have it on this day, we got the much slower, weaker, forgetful server. She wanted us to want coffee and juice and was befuddled that we did not. Then, she was ready to take our order before we had read the menu. We asked for just one minute, but she never returned. We watched her take the order of several other tables, skipping us every time. We looked around, held our menus over to the side, and made eye contact with the other server. It felt like she couldn’t serve us because we didn’t fit the mold of coffee-drinking breakfast diners—-and we weren’t even the youngest people in the place! Emil’s comment was, “Clearly, she’s never played Diner Dash!” So, we headed back to Taqueria Altos de Jalisco’s where we knew we’d get good food and good service.

And then came the massages from Above and Beyond Day Spa. Emil signed us up for massages (a first for both of us) at our cabin. Mmmmmm.

The massage therapists had gotten lost on the way to our cabin and said there were some buffalo about three miles north of us. So, after the “massage-hangover” subsided a bit, we hoped in the car to go see them. They weren’t near the fence along the road, though, and we never found them. Instead we made the loop around to Enchanted Rock. Emil hadn’t been since he was a kid and Lori had never seen it. Eventhough we weren’t dressed for it, we made the short-but-not-easy hike to the summit. From the parking lot it was a 465’ climb over .6 miles. The top is at 1800’ and offers some fantastic views of the Hill Country.

The way back from Enchanted Rock led us back into town too early for supper, so we headed out to Luckenbach. It felt a little like a petting zoo this time. A guy with a longhorn and saddle was loading up his prop photo business as we arrived. One of the resident cats, Miss Kitty, let us love on her for at least a minute or two. And, the chickens and roosters were very active and quite entertaining to watch. It was nearing sunset, and they were getting ready to roost. It was funny to watch them go from the ground to a table to a roof to the limbs of the tree. Some of them even preferred to be way up in the tree and not just on the first branch they could reach.

When it started to get chilly, we headed back to town for supper. Dinner at Kelly’s Café was amazing.

After such an active afternoon, we were both ready to go back to our cabin for more of the R&R part of our trip. We each won one game of Ticket to Ride and then Lori beat Emil in two dominos matches.

We sank into bed early and then slept in on Saturday morning. We got up just in time to pack up, check out, have a leisurely breakfast, and get on the road to Austin for a big game day: a Miami watch party at the Daily Grill and the Settlers of Catan board game group at Dragon’s Lair.

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Bonfire that killed 11 students and 1 former student. While we did not know any of the victims, personally, we both worked in Student Affairs. Furthermore, several of our friends were directly affected by the death of someone very close to them. It was terrible.

Our clock radio went off that morning with perfect timing. The first words we heard went something like this:

“Once again, the Bonfire stack collapsed at approximately 2:30 this morning. Rescue crews have been working all night. Please avoid the area.”

Lori laid there, awake, and too shocked to speak for a moment.
Emil’s first words, “honey, did you hear the radio?”
Lori’s first words, “Poor Rusty.” (Rusty was Bonfire’s Advisor…what hell must he have been going through!)

Tonight/tomorrow, at 2:42am, there are remembrance ceremonies all over Texas (and elsewhere probably). It’s particularly special that the Leonid Meteor Shower will be brightest in the sky at the same moment as the anniversary of the collapse.

When looking for a ceremony in Austin, we discovered that the bonfire site is down.

It’s also a fairly active topic on Twitter:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23bonfire
and
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23aggiebonfire

In Memory

Miranda Denise Adams
Christopher David Breen
Michael Stephen Ebanks
Jeremy Richard Frampton
Jamie Lynn Hand
Christopher Lee Heard
Timothy Doran Kerlee Jr.
Lucas John Kimmel
Bryan Allen McClain
Chad Anthony Powell
Jerry Don Self
Nathan Scott West

The Eagle also did some great stories about each of the families of these Aggies,

Spirit of Aggieland

Some may boast of prowess bold
Of the school they think so grand
But there is a Spirit can ne’er be told
It’s the Spirit of Aggieland
We are the Aggies – the Aggies are we
True to each other as Aggies can be
We’ve got to fight boys, we’ve got to fight
We’ve got to fight for Maroon and White
After they’ve boosted all the rest
Then they will come and join the best
For we are the Aggies, the Aggies so
We are from Texas A.M.

We are excited to share some great news with all of you!

After quite a few months of research, house projects, listing our house for sale, job hunting/interviewing, and narrowing down what we do/don’t like, we are finally moving to Austin!

Emil has accepted a job with the Travis County Clerk’s Office and starts work there on June 1st.

Lori has been promoting her photography in the Austin area and plans to expand As You Wish to that part of our fine state.

In the spirit of the Thanksgiving season, we are grateful for all our family and friends. Thank you.

Enjoy the holiday weekend. Be safe.

1. 25 / 52: Be Grateful!, 2. 19970000 049 Luza Square in Dubrovnik, 3. Thanksgiving dinner, sans turkey, 4. Texas Windmill, 5. Fall Feast, 6. hot cocoa, 7. warmer days, 8. Scharffen Berger Chocolate Snap Pie, 9. warmth, 10. Autumn Trees, 11. When Autumn Leaves Start to Fall, 12. Fallen Leaves, 13. Portfolio Wedding – 1914. Fall leaves 15. Fall leaves16. Fall leaves

I rarely play Internet games, but this one was just too much fun to pass up.

Here’s how you play:

• type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr search.
• using only the first page, choose an image.
• copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker over at FD’s image maker.

The questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name.

1. blue eyed Lori, 2. A platter full of cheese!, 3. Paris; Eiffel Tower, 4. Color me lonely…color me blue, 5. Levels And Curves, 6. Let the Margaritas FLOW! – Mission24, 7. Alsace, France, 8. coffee and chocolate mousse cake, 9. Still in love? I think so ; ), 10. Peace Love Happiness Friends 63/365, 11. ” A Passionate Symbol of Peace”, 12. Portfolio Wedding – 86