Hello 2006!

New year's eve was awesome!
We started off the day with a long run on Town Lake. Brian did 14 miles and I did 11. Then we spent the afternoon setting up the fish tank that Brian's parents had given us.

I had called my parents at 6pm to wish them a happy new year, listen to Big Ben, and listen to my mum describe the fireworks in London as I desperately tried to find a new station that would show it. I was disappointed to find that nobody aired it. Mum did a great job with her description, though.

My one requirement for New Year's Eve was to be surrounded by my real friends. Mission accomplished (only a couple of people were missing).

It was a gathering of about 15 or so people, all of whom are very special to me. We ate yummy appetizers, including some that Brian made on our badass new grill, drank beer, wine, apple martinis, and of course, champagne. Mike and Tara had been saving a good bottle of champagne for a special occasion, and so had I (it turns out we had the same one). This seemed to be a good time to crack 'em open. We toasted in the new year and I got some smooches from my man, who said to me "welcome to the year that you become my wife" (or something very close to that). Awh!

I'm happy to report that, although I had consumed my fair share of booze, I was not hung over the next day. We ran some errands on New Year's Day, and went to the gym, then spent a low-key evening watching movies and making dinner. A great start to 2006.

Goodbye 2005

It's here! My favourite day of the year. New Year's Eve. The reason I love this holiday more than any other is because it's surrounded by positiveness. A new year signifies new beginnings and clean slates, and almost everyone is thinking about ways in which they can improve themselves for the coming year. It's a day full of positive energy and good intentions. Though I try to keep a positive attitude year round, I feel especially uplifted on New Year's Eve.

Today we finished off the year with a long run on Town Lake.

It's been a great year! Brian and I have been on three great vacations. I got to go home to England for a week on the company's money and spend some time with my famuly. Brian and I got engaged, we ran hundreds of miles together, I've learned a new language: I completed Spanish 1. We've learned how to do fakies on the wakeboard, and learned how to snow board. We've made many new friends and found out who our true friends are.

As I write this there is 35 minutes of 2005 left for my family in England. As is tradition, I'm going to give them a call at 6pm (midnight for them) and listen to Big Ben chime, toast the new year, and send lots of love over the phone :-)

I have no regrets for 2005 and I'm really looking forward to 2006. Here are my new year's resolutions (in no particular order):

- boldly go where I have never gone before (mentally, emotionally, and physically) ;-)
- sing every day
- continue learning Spanish
- be a wonderful wife to Brian
- become a mother ;-)

HAPPY HOGMANAY!

Lean, Mean Grillin' Machine...

Yesterday we picked up the grill from Lowes that Brian's parents bought us for xmas. Joan picked out the exact one I would have picked from the brochure, and it's awesome! Kev and I spent an hour assembling it on the patio while Brian worked. We were all eagre to grill on it so as I went to the airport to pick up Tiff, who was returning from xmas with her family in California, the boys went to the store to pick up things to grill. A side note: Tiff got 10 inches of her hair cut off, and donated it. Her hair looks great!
When I got back, the boys had made the most awesome garlic bread on the grill and had made burgers for them, and bought some Mahi-Mahi for me. We grilled some portobello mushrooms, too. Everything turned out delicious and we can't wait to grill some more stuff!

Reflecting on last year's resolutions...

Here's what I posted to my journal on January 1st, 2005:

1. Call my sisters more often
2. Pay more attention to my finances
3. Focus more at work
4. Be more organized at work
5. Be more consistent with my Kung Fu classes

One thing I really do need to change:
I need to accept that I'm in my 30's and start celebrating every birthday, rather than being depressed about my age and trying to direct attention elsewhere on my birhtday. So I will celebrate my upcoming 33rd birthday and be damn proud of it!"

So how did I do?

1. I added a calling plan to my cell phone, and I did call more often. I have noticed, however, that my family isn't calling me as often.
   
2. I have made an effort to pay more attention to finances this year. Brian and I have a joint checking account now and pay all our bills automatically out of it. Recently we added an additional payment to principal to the mortgage payment.
   
3. I am not sure if I focused more at work... I still get distracted easily, but I delivered on time, and within budget, so I guess it's not all bad.
   
4. I failed miserably at being more organized at work. I'll try again this year.
   
5. You could say I became more consistent with Kung Fu... in that I stopped going. They increased the monthly fees by quite a lot, and in keeping with resolution #2, I cut it out.
   

I did celebrate my birthday this year with a ski trip to New Mexico with friends. We had an awesome time, and I'm looking forward to my next birthday where, hopefully, I'll be skiing again.

I haven't given too much thought to my 2006 resolutions yet, though when I reflect on this year a couple of things come to mind. More to come on that subject later.

Post-xmas post

Xmas with the Baumans was good. The decorating of the xmas tree ritual started around 4pm on Xmas eve. In this ritual, Brian's dad carefully unwraps the xmas ornaments, one for each person, for each year, and hands them out in chronological order. Each person hangs their ornament on the tree and usually a short skip down memory lane accompanies it. The first year I spent xmas with them I got the free ornament from the buy 2 get 1 free offer, and this year we noticed that I didn't get an ornamed for my second year, so Kevin made me one from the tab of his Coke can. This is probably my favourite ornament on the tree now! This year's ornament for Brian and me was Shrek and Fiona. Fitting, n'est pas?
After the tree trimming Brian's parents' friends, Doug and Debbie Rambin, and Debbie's mum came over for xmas dinner. A feast of honey baked ham, garlic mash, sweet potato casarole, asparagus, and rolls was shared by all, along with wine. For dessert, Brian's mum made Chocolate Raspberry Torte. MMMMM!
After dinner we sat around the xmas tree and exchanged gifts. All were very thoughtful and fitting, but the prize for weird gift goes to Kevin, who gave Brian a skydiver tissue box cover. Very unusual. We were both surprised and overwhelmed by the gift that Brian and I received from his parents. A stainless steel propane grill, and grill cover. I can't wait until we get it and can start grilling!
Brian and I got up late on xmas day and lounged around for most of it. We opened presents by the fireplace that had been left by Santa. Brian's mum did a wonderful job of informing Santa of what we all liked. Xmas day dinner was great, we had salmon and even Brian ate it and said he enjoyed it. Stop everything and call the media! the pickiest eater in the world enjoyed FISH!
Boxing day was spent shopping at Katy Mills. I was looking for a coat but never found one I liked. I did, however, find some great trousers at Banana Republic. That evening we went to The Taste of Texas steak house and had a fabulous steak dinner. I had a filet with garlic butter and lemon pepper, and a portobella mushroom. For dessert we all shared a Guinnes Ginger Cake. After dinner I set off for the drive back to Austin. The cats were very happy to have their mum back :-)

As most of you know, xmas is my least favourite holiday, but I have to say a huge thank you to Brian and his family, who for the past 3 years have made it enjoyable for me. Maybe this Grinch's heart is growing a few sizes.

I'm looking forward to the new year, and all that it brings... including another birthday! ACK!

Season's Greetings!

I'm heading to Houston tomorrow to spend xmas with Brian and his family. Kev is home for the holidays and I know that more than anything, Brian is looking forward to spending time with his brother :-). Brian left today so he can spend extra time with Kev since he rarely sees him now. Meanwhile I've washed Ruby, and am now contemplating a quick run to help keep those extra holiday calories from sticking to my arse.

This evening I get to play Santa to Ethan and drop of a large number of Spiderman-related gifts. Ethan's very much into Spiderman right now so everything I got him has Spiderman on it, including the gift wrap :-) I can't wait to see him. Afterwards I'm heading over to Barbie's to hang out with her and her dad, Dave, who drove in from Iowa yesterday. I love Barbie's dad. He's delightfully inappropriate, unfiltered, and genuine. He always makes me laugh. I just wish Brian had got to meet him, too.

Last night Brian and I exchanged gifts after a wonderful home cooked meal, followed by two sumptious desserts at Freda's. We both got exactly what we had hoped for :-). We reserved one gift each to exchange with the family on Xmas eve.

To all my friends and family back home... I miss you terribly around the holidays, and I really wish I could see you. I'm sending you much love and high hopes for the new year!

Festivus for the rest of us!

Last night Tara and I started a new tradition. We joined forces to bring our friends a new holiday tradition. FESTIVUS!
If you've watched Seinfeld you might know that Festivus is a holiday made up by Frank Costanza. The Internet has this to say about Festivus:

Festivus is a non-denominational alternate Christmas-time holiday featured on episode No. 166 "The Strike" on the sitcom Seinfeld. Festivus was created by Frank Costanza after getting into a fight in a toy store when he and another man both grabbed for the last doll in the place. Frustrated at the commercialization of Christmas, Frank created Festivus.
Celebrated on December 23rd, the pseudo-festival had a traditional undecorated eight-foot aluminum pole (no tinsel, or ornaments), a father-son wrestling match ("The Feats of Strength") and the The Airing of Grievances, when each member at the gathering sat around the dinner table and insultingly counted down the reasons why other family members were such a disappointment throughout that year. The main Festivus meal consisted of spaghetti (or what looked like meatloaf?) covered in a red sauce.

No gifts are exchanged at Festivus. Mike supplied the traditional festivus pole and we added our own Festivus tradition, the wearing of the Ugly Christmas Sweater. Anyone not participating in this new Festivus tradition had to wear the Festivus Antlers of Shame.

Almost everyone was in the Festivus spirit, sporting their Ugly Christmas Sweater, or Festivus Antlers of Shame. Upon arrival, guests had their photograph taken with the Festivus Pole.
We drank wine and beer, ate the traditional Festivus meal of spagetti covered in red sauce, and of course aired our grievances with Mike's new Festivus Airing of the Grievances game, which was expertly duct taped to the Festivus Pole for the occasion.

After the last of our Festivus Guests left, Tara and I declared Festivus a complete success to be repeated on a yearly basis.

Happy Frickin' Festivus, Y'all!

Ski Trip Report

Our ski trip was wonderful! Here's how it went:

Friday, Dec 9th:
We left Austin at 6am and arrived in Denver around 10:30 after a brief layover in Phoenix. Our flights were uneventful, thankfully. We got an awesome deal on a rental car with our IBM discount and were shortly on our way to Keystone. The trip from Denver to Keystone was beautiful once we got into the mountains. I was really surprised at how flat Denver was, though. On the way to Keytstone we stopped in Dillon to buy some chips, water, and cokes for the room, and of course picked up some Crown Royal. We arrived at our hotel around 1:30 and I requested a room with a view of the slopes and on a high floor so we could get the best experience. Our hotel was in the Mountain House village. There are three main villages at Keystone. Our new room wasn't quite ready so we headed over to the next village, River Run, to pick up our skis. When we returned our room was ready. We had a wonderful view from our room, which you can see if you check out our photo album.

Because we couldn't ski on Friday, we decided to go soak in the hot tub, which was right next to our room. We met two guys from Hawaii in the hot tub and talked to them for what seemed like hours. After a few hours and a crown and coke in the tub we got ready and headed out for dinner. We went to the Bighorn Steakhouse, which was a recommendation in the Hotel's guide. It was just OK, though the prices were ridiculous. I had lamb and Brian had a steak. Afterwards, we headed to the shops to see if I could pick up some smaller goggles. The ones I had purchased in Austin were too big. We found some pink ones to match my outfit, afterall, looking good on the slopes is as important as how you ski, right? ;-)
After dinner we relaxed in our room and had another drink, and suddenly I felt extremely ill. I seem to have gotten food poisoning because the next few moments can only be described as a quandry as to which end to put over the toilet. A fine way to start the vacation. And it was going so well!

Saturday, December 10th:
We awoke to beautiful blue skies and the sun rising over the slopes. We got up and had breakfast at The Goat, which is a popular snowboarder's hang out right next to our hotel. Afterwards we got in our first day of skiing. It felt awkward at first. We did all greens today because we wanted to get our feet under us. After a while it felt as natural as running, it seemed. Though I did have a pretty bad fall early on, which looked like it would have broken my left leg, but it just gave me a bit of a bruise, thankfully.
We ate lunch at Edgewater Cafe in Lakeside Village then decided to take a trip into Dillon to pick up some groceries. There was a fridge in our room and we thought we would pick up breakfast and sandwiches. After we returned from the store we went skiing again. This was our first night to go Night Skiing.
I really enjoyed night skiing. It might have been because I was getting comfortable on my skis, but it felt peacful. There were less people. In some spots we were the only people on the mountain, it seemed. Depth perception is a bit off in the dark, so the slopes seemed less intimidating somehow. We stopped in at Fritz's Bistro in River Run for a drink and a rest before we continued our night skiing.
After a hard day of skiing we soaked in the hot tub for about 30 minutes and then got ready for dinner. We ran an errand in Dillon (to pick up new gloves for me), and the teller at Target recommended the Old Dillon Inn. We decided to take his recommendation. As we sat down and were served chips and salsa, Brian and I looked at each other and realized that our expectations for mexican food would make this an interesting meal. We ordered a "burritalada", which was best described as completely gross! After we left, Brian got ice cream at Cold Stone and we headed back. Thankfully, no food poisoning.

Sunday, Dec 11th:
Today we took our snowboarding lesson. We got up early and traded our skis for snowboards and made our way to the ski school on the "Discovery" hill. Our instructor was named Pete and he seemed really cool. Only one other person was in our class, Kristin, who lived in Hawaii (though had lived in Austin for 6 years prior to moving there 3 years ago). It seemed like a private lesson because it was just us three and Kristin had taken lessons 3 years ago and was just getting a refresher. We all seemed to catch on very quickly and Pete was really pleased. He taught us to get on and off the lift while strapped in to our boards with one foot, go down the hill both heelside, meaning heels facing up the mountain, and toe side, meaning toes facing up the mountain. Part way through our lesson someone else joined us. His name was Sean. He didn't seem to get the hang of it, though, and when we broke for lunch he decided to quit.
We ate lunch with Pete and Kristin at the food court nearby the slope, and Kristin asked if Pete would perhaps take us up to Schoolmarm for the rest of the lesson. He said usually they don't take new boarders up the greens but he thought we had progressed so quickly that he would make an exception. So up we went. The rest of the lesson was awesome, we learned to do S turns, Garlands, and Falling Leaf, and put it all together to get down a slope gracefully. We all fell many times and by the end of the lesson my tail bone was suffering so bad I could barely walk back to our hotel.

When we got back to the hotel I iced my tail bone for a while, then we got ready and headed for dinner. Piasano's in River Run was our choice for the night. Dinner was good, though I don't recommend the Lasagna at that place. Very strange. Brian's dish was awesome, though. He had the pasta aglio e olio. After dinner we went to Kickapoo tavern in River Run. They had some great microbrews. We took the free shuttle back to our hotel and chatted with the bus driver about snowboarding and snowbiking for a while. Afterwards in the hotel room I had to ice my tailbone and my left wrist, which was swolen. Ack!

Monday, Dec 12th:
We met up with our new friend, Kristin, and her parents at Starbuck's in Dillon. We had arranged to follow them to Vail. The trip to Vail in our Chevy Aveo was pretty funny. On the up hills I had to floor it and the car would drop down into 2nd gear and rev like crazy, but pretty much not do anything. We arrived at Vail around 9:30 and Kristin, Brian and I made a few trips down the learning hill at the top to get our feet under us on the board.
We all seemed to be doing really well, however, Vail doesn't have many (any) good green trails for snowboarders. Pretty much all of them had a ton of Cat Trails on them, which means you have to take a foot out of the bindings and scoot your board till you get back to a downhill. Somewhere on the way down Brian took a huge spill and landed right on his tail bone. When he fell he screamed in pain and it took him a few seconds to realize that it was HIM screaming. Needless to say that put an end to our day of skiing. Brian wouldn't let me call the medics to come get him down, though, and he struggled down the mountain and ended up in the fetal position when we got to the bottom. So today was his turn to ice his tail bone.

We left Kristin and her family at Vail and made the drive back to the hotel and iced down our aching parts. Later on we headed to Kickapoo Tavern for dinner, and later on Kristin and her sistyer Corey met us there.
We had an awesome time sitting by the fire and chatting. Afterwards, we drove the girl's back to their condo, after briefly getting lost, and made our way back to the hotel.

Tuesday, Dec 13th:
Today we switched our snowboards in for skis so that we could rest our broken tailbones, and after a run down Schoolmarm, our favourite green, we explored the other side of the mountain. There are no green trails on the other side of the mountain, but we both felt very comfortable skiing the blue trails, though some of the blue trails seemed equivolent to the Black trails we had seen in Ruidoso. Our final run of the day was NO FUN though. We went down Wild Irishman, with the intention of meeting up with Toads, which was a green trail, because I wanted to do an easy run for my last run, however, Toads was closed for grooming and it turns out that the Wild Irishman was ALL MOGLES! ACK! not just a few on one side of the slope. No, the whole thing, for 2 miles, was MOGLES! I kept falling over and finally got pissed and threw off my skis and walked till it eventually met another trail that was smooth. After that we headed back to our hotel and Brian poured me a stiff Crown and Coke and we went to the hot tub. We met two guys from Nebraska in the hot tub. They were so much fun, and kept refilling our glasses with cheap whisky and coke. We must have stayed in there chatting to them for an hour or so before we decided to go in search of dinner.

For dinner we tried the Summit Seafood Company, which was conveniently located in our hotel. Brian had a steak because he doesn't eat fish, and I had the Crab Stuffed Sole, which was awesome!

Wednesday, Dec 14th:
This morning we traded in our skis and got snowboards for our final day of fun! On our first trip down Schoolmarm, however, Brian took a major tumble and pretty much ended his snowboarding career. At least for this trip. I took Brian back to the hotel and prepared him an ice pack and we ate lunch.
After lunch I headed out to the slopes by myself. My first run up started off on the wrong foot. The gondola stopped twice on the ascent and we were left hanging for several minutes. After about 2 minutes on Shcoolmarm, I took a tumble that ended my snowboarding career, too. While going toe side, meaning I had my back to the downhill, the back edge of my board caught and dumped me over so fast that my head hit the ground with some major force, enough to pop the lens right out of my glasses. As I laid there assessing the damage, I had to check to make sure I still had all my teeth. My head had hit with such force that my teeth made the most awful cracking sound. Fortunately, they were all intact. And thankully, I was wearing a helmet. I dread to think how that might have turned out without it. After about 5 minutes of laying there I opened my eyes and realized I was missing a lens. I spotted it about 10 feet away from me up the hill, but a snowboarder went right over it. I scooted up to where I had seen it and dug around a bit and retrieved it. I sat on the mountain for a good while collecting myself as people whizzed by me. Nobody stopped to ask me if I was ok. I found that disturbing. I took a picture from my landing site.
After that, I gingerly started going again but the pain in my head and tail bone were too much and I decided to call it a day. It took me quite some time and a few more falls to get down the mountain. After that fall, all of my snowboarding confidence had left me.

I returned to the hotel around 2:30 and Brian made me a stiff drink and I iced my tail bone.

At 3 we headed out to Lakeside Village for our Sleigh Ride. A bus took us to Keystone Ranch where a sleigh with two huge Belgian Horses were waiting for us. There were probably 10 people on the sleigh ride and it was freezing cold and snowing, but the sleigh was equipped with fleece blankets to keep us warm. The driver was extremely knowledgable about the horses and the sleigh ride took us to a very quaint area of the ranch where we got off the sleigh and had hot cider and pet the horses. The horses were beautiful, though I couldn't help but feel bad for them because it was SO cold. The driver assured me that they were fine with this weather, though.

After the sleigh ride, we headed back to our room to warm up and relax for a while, then headed out for dinner at The Goat. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and watched TV and relaxed our aching bodies.

Thursday, Dec 15th: Today we are returning home. We got up and had a leasurely morning of packing and taking final pictures. We took some shots from the Hottub by our room, and then headed down to the river to take some shots there. The snow machine on the slope adjacent to us was causing a very strange looking cloud to form. I guess technically Keystone resort was making its own weather.

After we checked out we headed to Dillon where there are factory outlets. We decided to do a little shopping before we left. On the way to the airport it looked like we might run out of gas. It got a little hairy for a while and we had to put the car in neutral and coast down the mountains. We finally came to a gas station just in time!

We had a long layover in Phoenix so we settled in at a bar and had a beer and some dinner before continuing to our final destination. Austin. Home sweet home! Our cats were SO happy to see us. I finally slept. For the first time in a week.

This was an absolutely awesome trip! we got a great deal on the flight, hotel, car, and ski rental. We learned that snowboarding is WAY cooler and more fun than skiing, and we got to spend 7 days together, just the two of us. Sigh. The pefect end to a really great year!

Winter's Here!

Finally! it's cold! Yesterday I met an English guy in the elevator. He said "blimey, this weather's mad! two days ago I was in shorts and today it's freezing!" and I said in my best southern drawl "welcome to Texas". It's so true. Here in Texas the weather seems to have mood swings. There's no gradual change to get you acclamated. BAM! it's cold. Two days from now it will be back in the 60's. You watch.
Anyway, with winter comes winter activities. Tomorrow Brian and I are heading out for our ski vacation to Keystone, Colorado. We arrive in Denver at about 10:30 am, and will take a rental car to the ski resort. We've already got our skis and snowboards rented, we have our lift tickets, and we're staying in an awesome hotel that is only a few yards away from the ski lifts. Tomorrow night we will get to do some night skiing. Then on Saturday we will take lessons in Snowboarding. We plan to try snowboarding for the whole weekend because it takes a while to learn and the slopes will be quite packed on the weekend. The good skiing starts on Monday, when the slopes will be less crowded.
In addition to skiing, we'll be soaking our aching bodies in the roof top jaccuzis and of course, spending time at the local pubs. There's also fun activities like snowbiking, and tubing down the slopes. We plan to do it all!

I hope to get good at snowboarding so I can hang with Mike when we go in January.

I just checked the mountain cam... it looks like a beautiful day! http://keystone.snow.com/mountaincamslg.asp?camera_id=4

Broken

It's so silly how your mind and your emotions catalog a date and on it's anniversary all the memories of that day come flooding back. It's like I have some weird chronological marker in my psyche that makes me, on the anniversary of a traumatic event, relive it. This week marks a year since Ember's passing. I can't even count how many times I've relived the events leading up to his final trip to the vet. I'd give anything to have had one more day, hour, minute with him. Every time I drive down Anderson Mill (which is almost daily), I relive the drive to the vet, Ember in my lap, me sobbing all over him, and Em was being so brave, even though he was in such pain. I remember the song on the radio. Broken, by Seether. I've never been able to hear that song without crying since then. This Friday is one year since that drive. Thankfully, I'll be completely distracted because we'll be traveling.

"Broken"

I wanted you to know I love the way you laugh
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away
I keep your photograph and I know it serves me well
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain

'Cause I'm broken when I'm open
And I don't feel like I am strong enough
‘Cause I’m broken when I’m lonesome
And I don’t feel right when you’re gone away

You've gone away, you don't feel me here, anymore

The worst is over now and we can breathe again
I wanna hold you high, you steal my pain away
There’s so much left to learn, and no one left to fight
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain

'Cause I'm broken when I'm open
And I don’t feel like I am strong enough
‘Cause I’m broken when I’m lonesome
And I don’t feel right when you’re gone away

'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away

You've gone away
You don't feel me here anymore

Random posting

I can't believe I haven't mentioned this. Or maybe I have and I'm becoming senile. Anyway, recently there was a reorganization at work, consequently I have been transferred, yet again, to a new department.
I have mixed feelings on the subject. On the one hand it's great to be in a new department because change is good. I embrace change because it stops me from growing roots, and we all know I don't like to have roots. It also means I get a new manager. I haven't always seen eye to eye with my current manager, though I do like him. I think I would do better in a department with more creative thinkers rather than process and policy driven people. So I'm looking forward to finding out who my new manager and team will be. The down side, however, is that when you keep getting shuffled to new departments you're always having to prove yourself. It's hard to get a good review when you're being compared with people who are already established in the department as high contributors, and you don't spend enough time with your manager for them to see your contributions.

Anyway, in all I feel very positive about this change. Keep your fingers crossed that I get a good manager :-)

5 days off work!

Brian and I took a vacation day last Wednesday, then the site was closed on Thursday and Friday for thanksgiving. You can imagine that after 5 days of not working I'm pretty hooked! Thanksgiving went very well. Brian's parents arrived around noon on Thursday and Brian and Joan helped me with prep work for the Turkey. The turkey came out really well. The ginger was very subtle and the rosemary made the most wonderful aroma. I added pine nuts to my sage and onion stuffing and it was awesome! Also, adding a little orange zest to the cranberry sauce worked out well. It gave it a little, well, zest I guess ;-)

Jenn and Ethan came over around 4pm. By then Joan and I were well into our second or maybe third bottle of wine. I especially like to cook when I have had a few glasses of wine, though my knife handling skills go downhill a little after two or three. I'm happy to report, though, that I still have all my fingers. Dinner was wonderful and not too much left over of the side items. There was quite a bit of turkey left over but the thing was 15lbs. No matter... I love turkey sandwiches.

Joan made white chocolate orange surprise for dessert. It was kind of a cake with an orange sauce and chocolate on it, and a strawberry to garnish. It tasted wonderful! By the time Jenn left the effects of too much wine and food had hit me and I was feeling rather nauseous and had a pounding head ache. That's what I get for over indulging. But it's only once a year so it was worth it.

The day after thanksgiving, which is the biggest retail day of the year, Brian and his dad went to watch the football game at a bar, and Joan and I braved the crowds at Kohl's. But we left because it was crazy packed. The queue to the registers went to the back of the store on both sides! I did a little xmas shopping for my family in England at less crowded places. That evening we went to dinner at the European Bistro in Pflugerville. I have been wanting to try it for quite some time. I'd definately go back. I had the beef wellington, which was pretty good, but I think next time I'll order the yaeger schnitzel.

We babysat Ethan Friday night, but we were all so tired that we ended up passing out around 11pm, despite Ethan wanting to stay up and watch TV. He passed out between me and Brian shortly after laying his head down ;-)

On Saturday we finished our xmas shopping for the England portion of the family and spent a lot of time in front of the telly.

On Sunday we did a 10 mile run with Jen. Brian's knee started to bother him, though and we finished the last two miles walking. Sunday was spent in front of the TV as well :-) Now we're back at work and I'm trying to get my head around what needs to be done prior to the next holiday!

Giving Thanks

Well, it's that time of year again. American Thanksgiving. This year is a little different, though. In years past we've gone to Brian's parents' house in Houston for both xmas and thanksgiving. This year, however, we're hosting thanksgiving at our house. We're bot very excited becaue not only do we get to celebrate with Brian's parents, but we also will have Jen and Ethan over. The last time I had thanksgiving with Jen, she told me she was pregnant! Obviously it's been too long since I had thanksgiving with her.

I invented a new recipe for the turkey, which includes Ginger, Garlic, and Rosemary, and will be basted with Woodchuck Apple Cider. We will have blue cheese mashed potatoes, roasted rosemary potatoes, steamed broccoli, glazed carrots, sage and onion stuffing, yorkshire puddings, bread rolls, and today I made home made cranberry sauce with brown sugar, honey, and orange zest. It came out well, I think. For dessert, Joan is making white chocolate orange surprise, and for appetizers she's making spinnach cookies! I love those!

This evening I will make another batch of my Bailey's cookies for Brian. I'm experimenting with a low fat butter to cut down on the unhealtyness of them. Though the other day we observed that my cookies were healthier than Brian's breakfast cereal... now he thinks it's ok to have cookies for breakfast (sigh).

So things to be thankful for:

• Brian - Every day is an adventure.
  
• Nikki and Onyx - Unconditional love. Need I say more?
  
• My family - They're so far away, and I miss them so much, but I'm so thankful that they are the way they are. Wouldn't change a single thing about any of them.
  
• My chosen family - my mum always said "you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family". My friends have become my family, and they are so important to me. So in a way, you can choose your family.
  
• My new family - They're wonderful! and I'm gaining a brother. It doesn't get much better than this.
  
• My health - I'm in excellent health. Every check up for the past 6 years has revealed low cholesterol, low blood pressure, low resting heart rate, and well within ideal weight range.
  
• My job - It had to go on the list simply because it affords me the means to do the things I enjoy in life. Without it, life would be much, much different. Though it has to be said that I work to live, not live to work. I find people who live to work sad.
  
• Austin - Aside from the fact that it's surrounded by Texas, it's an awesome place to live. Running trails, world-class restaurants, lakes, biking trails, diversity. This city has everything (except proximity to the ocean).
  

one last thing... Hi Wassim. Brian tells me you no longer need to ask him how his weekend was because you read all about it here. I'll be sure to post any embarassing stories for you ;-)

IT hurts!

Sunday was the perfect weather for a race. I think it got up to around 55 degrees, but we started the morning at a very chilly 45 degrees, very little humidity, and a nice stiff breeze. The Motive Bison Stampede half marathon is a wonderful race with many challanging hills. I like to run hills because it uses muscles that I don't ordinarily use on my runs, and it seems that the hills give me a little kick of energy. The race went well, at least until the 8th mile, where I became aware of some pain in my right knee. I ignored it for a few miles because to acknowledge it means it's real. At mile 10 I complained about it but continued at our current pace. At mile 11.5 I started to slow down slightly. I encouraged Brian to go ahead and keep up with Jen and I'd meet him at the finish, but he wouldn't leave me. The last mile felt like the longest mile of my life. The IT band in my right leg was hurting so bad that I could barely run. And of course, when you're in pain you tend to compensate with the other leg so eventually my left hip started to feel bad, too. Brian and I crossed the finish line in 2:02:41, which is actually more than 10 minutes faster than I did the race last year. I'm happy about my finish time, though I secretly wished I could have broken 2 hours.

A big contratulations goes out to Jen, though. She did break 2 hours! WAY TO GO JEN!

After the race I iced me knee and relaxed for a while before we headed to the mall and to pick up some things for thanksgiving. The rest of the day was spent watching telly and eating bailey's sugar cookies. MMMMMM!

Busy week

This past week has been pretty eventful. On Monday night I went out with the girls.
On Tuesday Brian had a soccer game and I went to Barbies where we drank wine and spent entirely too much time in the hot tub.
On Wednesday Brian had dinner with Kendra, whom he hasn't seen in ages, and I had dinner with Renee and several friends in celebration of Renee's birthday.
On Thursday Brian and I saw the sneak preview of the new Harry Potter movie, The Goblet of Fire. I have to say that it was absolutely awesome. I was captivated. They did an awesome job of condensing the massive book in to a 2.5 hour movie and I didn't notice any glaring omissions, but that could also be because it's been a while since I read that book, and have read two more Harry Potter books since then.
Last night, Friday, we celebrated Jen's birthday. We went to Manuel's for dinner. There was a great turnout. After dinner we headed to Main Event and hung out at the bar for a while, then watched Jen and Aaron play Dance Dance Revolution. I'm awful at that game on account of my two left feet, but Jen and Aaron did a good job. The icing on the birthday cake, though, was the round of Laser Tag that we played. There were about 30 players and we were the blue team. It's hard to say how long a round of laser tag lasts, it seemed like 15 to 20 minutes. The blue team totally smoked the red team! GO BIG BLUE!
Today, Saturday, we are going to prepare ourselves for thanks giving, which is to be held at our house for the first time. Something funny that I have to share, though... This morning Brian got up at the crack of dawn and drove to San Antonio for autocross. About 8:30 he called me from San Antonio and asked me to check something on the web. It turns out that he went on the wrong day! HAHAHA! Hopefully not all is lost, though. Maybe he can go to the outlet mall and do some xmas shopping on his way back.
Tomorrow we are running a half marathon race called the Bison Stampede. It's a very hilly course and there is a competition for best water stop where each water stop team has a theme, and the runners vote on their favourite.

Meet the Weasleys

Many years ago Jen and I discovered that when we have had a few drinks our eyes kind of glass over lending itself to a very weasel-like expression. I think I was looking at myself in the mirror of a ladies' room at a bar upon first discovery. We immediately whipped out the camera and took a picture of my weasely look. It started a tradition that whenever Jen and I get together and one of us has a camera, we take a "weasely" shot. Sometimes we've been boozing, sometimes not. The results are always funny to us and nobody else. It's always been our little thing.

Last night we had girl's night at PF Chang's. We had the chef's table in the kitchen, wich I highly recommend as a one time thing. It was great to be back there, and it's a novelty, but honestly, it was a bit loud. Though I have to say we did a great job of drowning out the kitchen noise with our laughter. During the evening, Jen and I shared our weasely tradition with everyone and as we passed the camera around the table and captured everyone's weasely expressions we were rolling around with laughter. I imagine the wait staff thought we were nuts. Fortunately, at the chef's table, you don't cause much of a disturbance in the rest of the restaurant so we were free to act silly. Resulting from this, the gallery was born:
Meet the Weasleys

On a more serious note, though, I really had a great time with the girls. I think we all needed to spend some fun time together where our cares melt away. I can't speak for everyone, but for me it was mission accomplished.

More images from girl's night can be found here:
Girl's night at Chang's

Wurstfest pictures

Latest pictures can be found in the photo album. Here's a link to the Wurstfest album:
http://photos.brianandmandie.com/thumbnails.php?album=10

Check out the stain on Brian's shirt.... You can dress him up, but you can't take him out!

Winding down the weekend

It's been a pretty active weekend for Brian. Yesterday he played soccer in the afternoon. I framed my latest paintings and relocated some other paintings to make room for them. In the evening we went to Wurstfest, which is a ten day "salute to sausage" (their words, not mine), in New Braunfels, which is about an hour south of here. Mike, Tara, and Tiffeni went with us, which was perfect to only take one car. A small group of our friends were going and we made arrangements to meet them there. First order of business was the "Wurst Kebab", which consisted of 5 different kinds of sausage on a stick, and some beer. After much explaining where she was, and me not understanding, Jenny V came to find me in the main food court and took us back to the table where Aaron and Jenn's parents were sitting. Shortly thereafter, the rest of our friends showed up and hung out. We ate many more things that were bad for us, but oh so good! I got a Kartoffel Puffer, which is a potato pancake, and of course, Brian had to have Funnel Cake, which is best described as the stuff used to make doughnuts, but shot into the grease from a funnel, and then topped off with icing sugar. Not really my thing but Brian usually asks for them to leave a small area with no sugar just for me :-) (it's the little things he does that make him such a perfect [future] husband).

Thursday was an interesting evening. We went to dinner at the Iron Cactus downtown with several of Brian's co-workers, including an out of town guest, who was vising from Canada. It's not my first choice for good food, but it's a fun sample of Austin for out of towners because they serve Mexican food, have a great patio, and are right on 6th street. The chile rubbed pork tenderloin I had was mediocre, though I've tasted much worse. Wassim (sp?) let me eat all of the rasberries from his dessert, though, wich made me very happy! Many fun stories and a few margaritas later we made our way home.

In other news, Brian and I are doing well on patents. Brian has 11 and I have 10 that are being filed now! This year alone 9 of them went into File status! The patents we've gotten paid for so far have paid for our new bedroom furniture :-)

This morning Brian and I ran 13 miles on town lake. We did a 3 mile loop, then a 10 mile loop. The weather right now is unseasonably warm and humid. Today's high temperature in Austin is 88 degrees. It's November! Needless to say that the high temperature didn't do us any favors. This afternoon we're going to hang out with Ethan while his mum goes to an Ice Bats game. :-) I see some ice cream in his future ;-) (this is why he loves auntie and uncie so much - we bribe him with treats).

I've been thinking a lot about Ember lately. It's a year since his health started to decline. It's about this time last year when we found out about his condition. I can't believe it's been a year. I still can't believe he's really gone. Not a day goes by when I don't see his picture and run my hand over it. It's just amazing how the little buggers can get into your heart and stay there long after they're gone. I sure do miss him. I love Nik and Onyx with all my heart, but nothing will replace my Ember.
*sniff*

Bit of a lazy week

I've been a bit bone idle this week it seems. I didn't run on Monday because we rode bikes and wakeboarded, and we ran 10 miles the day before, so I gave myself permission to skip. On Tuesday I wanted to just laze about and watch House (very good TV show with Hugh Laurie), plus my body was aching from wakeboarding. Yesterday, Wednesday, we went to the gym in the morning as usual, and we actually did go for a run after work , then I went and got a massage. It was so relaxing. Just what I needed. My muscles have been really tight lately. Tonight I won't get to run because we are going to dinner with a work colleague of Brian's who is visiting from Canada.
I do plan to go to the gym as usual tomorrow, and of course dodance class in the evening, but that doesn't leave much time for running. I should get in a 13 mile run this weekend. I'm undecided on whether to do that on Saturday or Sunday. On the one hand I want to do it on Saturday because that might make me feel like less of a slacker for this week, but on the other, Brian has soccer on Saturday afternoon and I'm not sure if a 13 mile run is in the cards for him.

In other news, Jack, my office mate, and I have decorated our office. Instead of the awful flourescent lighting in our office, we've purchased a couple of hanging chandaliers. Nothing expensive, they're actually plastic and have coloured discs hanging down like mobiles. Mine's pink and Jack's is purple. I think we need one more because it's a bit dark. I also have my volkswagen beetle string of lights up, and my VW tiffany lamp on the desk (thanks to my former office mate of 5 years). I have hung the giant beach scene poster in front of my desk and a couple of scenic picures on the ceiling, so now I can just sit back in my chair and float away. Work can be very stressful at times... you have to create a work environment that can help you de-stress. All we need now is a fountain and some Japanese music. I think I'll go make myself some green tea.