Texas Blue Lime Productions

On our 3rd day of Christmas, we

• woke up early enough to get on the road before most traffic
• left Paris at 9:30 and and made it to Austin by 2pm
• settled in and had our own Christmas exchange and then relaxed for the rest of the evening

On our second day of Christmas, we:

• sleep in just a little (until about 9am),
  and then
• Mom finished a few meal and gift preparations
  while
• Emil ran all the virus and software updates on her computer and got the printer working, again,
  before we headed “over the river and through the woods” (not really) for a
• noon meal for the five of us (Lori & Emil, Lori’s mom, and her parents) at the grandparents’ home, at the dining table, with the fancy dishes,
  and then we shared
• gifts with the grands,
  and then went
• back to Lori’s mom’s for our nuclear gift exchange, playing with Roxi,
  and a bit of recovering from a busy day

Lori's grandmother's Southern relish tray (embellished by Emil)

the 2009 O'Brien Christmas tree includes Lori's mom's Baby's First Christmas ornament up top. It's red, so it matches her hair!!! LOL

We have been slow to update and that is mostly because we’ve traveled back to Bryan a LOT. After, getting the apartment, packing, and moving, we also traveled for these reasons:

• 30 May  – a wedding
• 13 June – a wedding
• 20 June – to have the carpets cleaned
• 22 June – to get something from the house that we both thought was already in Austin; Lori made a special day trip
• 27 June – Emil’s neice’s wedding
• 2 July – to Paris. Happy Birthday to Lori’s grandparents (3rd and 4th) and to celebrate Independence day with the Parisites.

For the 4th, we headed back to ATX. We wanted to hear the Austin Symphony play 1812 Overture with real cannon fire and see the fireworks over the lake. It was amazing.

photo from the Austin American Statesman

Read about the Austin festivities.

Happy Independence Day to you all.

Today was our annual “Thanksgiving 2″. We got up at six, left Bryan at seven, and got to Paris just after 12noon for Thanksgiving dinner with Lori’s mom and grandparents. We spent the day with them, watching the Aggies beat the Longhorns (Whoop!), and catching up with family. Lori worked on a scarf project, too.

Around seven, we headed over to Mom’s, unloaded the truck, and settled in for the night. It was easy to crash when it came time to crawl into bed.