Sunday, May 14, 2017

Texas Tour: Austin

January 2017

We had some time in January, so we decided to visit the state capital of Austin. One of our first stops was try to get some lunch at a famous BBQ place. Though it had been open for 5 mintues the wait was already 2 hours. Apprently people line up hours before it opens! We did have lunch at a place our friends reccommended and had some delicous pancakes. Afterwards, we went to this graffeti park. It had once been a condo develpoment, but it never was completed and was turned into a place for graffetti art. It was really cool! I will see these artist did need some help with cleaning as there were spray paint cans all over the place.

We next took a tour of the captial buidling. It was really fun to see all the rich history the building had from the art work to the original seats for congress. The building was also everything Texas. The chandliers spelled out Texas, and the lone star was found all over the place. I think that Texas is really the only state that has so much state pride. It was a fun day trip. As tradition now with road trips we listened to a book. We continued to listen to Alcatraz and the Evil Librainis. (We love these books!)

New Years 2017

January 2017

Usually for New Years celebrations we ended up either watching a movie or just going to bed. (Wow. We must be getting old. We sound like my parents.) However, we had quite the fun time around New Years. Angela's family all decided to gather in Dallas for a few days. We stayed in a townhome and it was really fun being able to catch up with everybody, playing games, and visiting Costco. (I love Costco and nearest one is 1.5 hours away. So I was excited to learn we were mere minutes away. To answer your questions you are already thinking, yes I did get a hot dog and churro.)  We also went to an aquarium.  Our son loved looking at everything. That is what babies do at that age. Stare. However, we could tell he was very interested in everything. We were sad when everybody had to leave, but we enjoyed our time. School started back up again. This semester I am taking Labor Law, Organizational Behavior, Compensation, and Finance and Technology. (Half the class is spent understanding financial statements, and the other half is spent using advanced formulas in Excel) I think this semester should be much easier as I am not looking for an internship, starting school, moving in, or my wife is not expecting.





Catching Up: The Baby

October, November, December 2016

I birthed a child.  Now I'm raising a child.  Sometimes that still hits me by surprise.

I love our little baby, but it was a little rough getting him here.  I was in labor for a long time, the epidural didn't work as well as I would have liked, and it was all a little traumatic.  And then when our little baby was born, he decided not to breathe.  He made everyone nervous, but after some chest compressions and an oxygen mask, he was breathing on his own.  He was given normal newborn status by the time he left the NICU after a few days.

Our days (and nights) have been filled with feedings, diaper changes, spit-up, and some sleeping.  More recently he has also added smiling to his repertoire, and that melts our hearts over and over again.  We love this child, more than we thought we ever could.  We have found so many new joys and we are so happy he is in our lives.  Now we can't imagine life without him.

There have been so many firsts, including his first Halloween, first Thanksgiving, and first Christmas.

We have also decided to do a "Texas Tour" over Christmas break.  We started by going to Waco.  Many people ask, Why Waco?  Well, we decided to start small to see how the baby would handle outings.  We found out that he does very well!  That child likes to be around lots of people.  (What is is introvert mother going to do?) We went to the Magnolia Market - or Fixer Upper Heaven - and also to a local diner for lunch.  We also made stops for kolaches and fancy chocolate.  We had a great time!

We also went to Houston to visit the space center.  We easily didn't see everything there was to see, but we were there for 5 hours and were pretty exhausted by the end.  Highlights included going inside of a space shuttle, seeing the Saturn shuttle, and seeing mission control.  There was a lot of cool stuff!

Last week we went to Dallas where we hung out with my whole family.  My parents rented a house and we had some good together time.  The baby got to meet his Grandpa Howell and his aunts, uncles, and cousins for the first time. We also went to the Dallas aquarium, which was fun.