Spring Happenings

Spring is closing out, so I figured it was time to give an update!

We had our first camping trip of the year in March and went with our Sunday school class up to Lake Georgetown. We stayed close to home because we were trying to get more non-campers to join us. Over the 2 days we had about 11 people and 3 dogs so it was a success!

Bernoulli was visiting for the weekend so he got to join the fun

Zelda with her backpack

A few weeks later, we had another cousin wedding in my family. David and Skye had their wedding in Houston and so we drove in Saturday afternoon for the rehearsal dinner then the wedding was Sunday afternoon. They had the ceremony in a chapel, then the reception was half indoor, half outdoor. The outdoor area had cornhole and giant jenga for people to play games which was kinda cool. 

playing with baby Daniel at the hotel

It was really great to spend time with family, I just love big gatherings, its so fun!

We are now owners of 7 Quail! Our friends Aaron and Jean have been talking about backyard quail and all the ins and outs of owning them. They have a pretty small footprint, are quiet, and a lot easier than chickens. They also are high producers of eggs. Anyways, Aaron wanted to try it out, so we agreed to help and let our backyard be the host of this project since they live in a small apartment. So Aaron built a really cool house for them to live in that we can just drag around the yard to different areas. There is chicken wire all around, so no cleaning required, they just poop and it falls out the bottom. There is also an auto food dispenser that we just fill up and the water is similar, we just fill up the outside container every few days. They have the first room that's open, and then under the slanted roof they can go for protection from rain and thats where their food and water come out. They are pretty fun and have started laying eggs, we are up to 14 now!  He was right, they are pretty small even full grown, and very quiet. Gaius is pretty unsure of the whole endeavor, but he is adapting pretty well. They also have a built in dirt bath and then another container we put in for a second one. We fill it with top soil and they love love it. Its pretty funny watching them get dirt all over themselves.

Michael planted his spring/summer garden a few weeks ago, and it is already doing really well! We did beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, watermelon, cilantro, blackberries. potatoes (those are the big ones in the middle), and started an asparagus bed. He also puts wildflowers around the edges for ants/other bugs on congregate on and stay away from our good plants. The potatoes and watermelon are a new venture, so we will see how those turn out! The dwarf peach tree is doing well in the back, hopefully it will give fruit this year?

In true spring fashion, we did some spring cleaning out of our flower beds! We spent all day on a Saturday about 2 weeks ago when Michael's parents came to town to clean up and re-do some of the front flower beds. There is just SO MUCH and its been needing work for awhile. So here's the before:

And the much much better after!

So glad to get that done! We still want to line the walkway with bricks or stone to make it look a little more polished, so hopefully we will do that soon. Longer term, we may take out all the bushes in a few years, but for now, it looks so wonderful!

Fall Fun

Life has been full of pretty fun things lately!

Labor Day weekend was my mom's family reunion plus the first UT game of the season. I rode to Dallas with Kristen and her new boyfriend Connor on Friday afternoon, and then Michael came to Dallas with the pup on Sunday morning. Michael stayed back in Austin for his fantasy football draft that was all day on Saturday. Kristen, Connor, my dad, Connor's mom, and Connor's sister and her 2 kids all went to Six Flags on Saturday. I haven't been there in YEARS and we had a really fun day! It was nice getting to know some of Connor's family a little better. His mom and sister are really sweet and she has some pretty cute kids. We spent part of the day riding smaller rides with them, and then split up to go ride roller coasters. The best part of the day was getting in free since Connor's family has season passes that allowed each person to bring a friend in for free!

Sunday was the family reunion, and then Saturday evening, we all went over to Aunt Ramona's house to watch the game! Their house burned down about a year and a half ago and they just finished re-building and moved back in a month prior so we were able to enjoy their new media room with a massive screen. Perfect for watching football games :). Ramona, John and the kids are not really into football so they all pooped out about halfway through, but the rest of us are all huge fans and stayed up cheering til the end. My Grandma lives with them and she is also a huge UT fan (mostly because of the rest of us) and she was right in there with us and stayed up the whole time! It was a lot of fun. We even skyped in Vincent for some of it!

Michael's engineering friends from college go every year to the TX/OU game in Dallas and this year they had some extra tickets and so we went with them! These guys are really fun to hang out with and most now have either wives or girlfriends who I really like!
Both Michael and I took off Friday and went early to spend some time with his family. He played golf with his dad and Josh while Lisa, myself, his mom, and the 2 little girls went to the pumpkin fest at the Arboretum. The big girls were in school, but since 1st grade gets out at 230pm, we still had a good amount of time to spend with them. We actually made them late to school because we were having such a good time at breakfast Lisa lost track of time. Whoops!
Saturday was an early start at the fair so we could eat a lot of food and play games before the football game started. Collectively, I think we tried at least one of every type of fried food. We were able to see a few things plus do the petting zoo and even ride a ride (the huge carpet slide) before the game started. It was a sad loss, but still so much fun getting to be there! After the game, I was able to see 2 of my favorite buildings and the pig races before heading home.  We ended up driving back to Austin that evening to hopefully avoid traffic and it was a great decision because the roads were totally clear!

pumpkin village

Anu's "poop on stoops" toy he won on the midway

I love love love the fair and can't wait to go back next year!


The very next weekend we went on a group camping trip with our Sunday School class. Well, we invited the whole class, but it ended up just being us, the Yarbroughs and the Herbs. The weather was totally perfect and we had a great time. We went out late on Thursday, then Aaron and Jean came out at lunch on Friday. The Herbs joined us by dinner that night and Saturday night Aaron's sister and her boyfriend came out in time for a late dinner. We camped out at Garner state park which is about a 3 hour drive from Austin, so that is probably why we didn't have more people willing to come. Next time I think we will try somewhere closer.
This was my first time at Garner and may is it a huge park! Great campsites though with lots of good trees and a river that runs behind part of the campsites. We were able to get a couple of sites that were a very short walk to the river and the Yarbroughs brought tubes so we could float down the river a bit. We of course did some hiking and were able to see some great views!

Michael re-living his college days when he used to do handstands everywhere he went

the campsite

tired but happy pups

the river behind our campsite

Since we had such a great time camping at Garner, a few weeks later, just Michael and I took another long weekend to camp again. He has some extra PTO to use which is nice with me having every other Friday off. This time, we just went about an hour north to Inks Lake. Very nice hiking and lots of water, but the campsites are a little crowded for my taste. It was still a very nice trip and even colder which was fun for having a campfire. We were able to do a lot of relaxing, game playing and book reading which was perfect.

Gaius loved the water

No more camping planned for now until after the holidays which at this point are just around the corner. Crazy! We have a new music minister at our church who is really awesome and reminds me of a younger version of Fred. He is very much a pastor and you can tell he loves people and in many ways and has been a breath of fresh air. We even have a lot of people coming back to join choir who previously left which has been great! The Christmas concert should be really nice this year.

We are now all caught up, can't wait to see the family for Thanksgiving!