Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Our weekend with Mom and Carrie

My mom and sister, Carrie, came in for the weekend. Carrie's kids were in Buffalo, so she was free to have an adventure of her own, and of course I made my mom come too. They flew on USAir with Carrie's flight benefits, but had a long day with a three hour layover in Phoenix. Finally they made it in Thursday night at 11:00.
On Friday we got up bright and early and took Ben to work at 8:00 so we could walk at Town Lake. I hadn't been to Town Lake in a couple months and due to all the recent rain, it was totally flooded. Here is a picture of part of the trail as it normally looks. Now it is flooded here and the little ditch that leads off to the left is full of water.

At one point we made it down to the trail to look at the flooding and my dad called the cell phone. While my mom was talking to him on the phone we looked over to our right and saw a huge group of guys running through the water on the flooded path. GROSS! We watched with amazement as they got closer. They were running in a big line, two guys per row, and they were hanging onto a rope in the middle. Each guy was shirtless and wearing little blue shorts. At first I thought it could be some sort of fraternity hazing, but then realized that most frat boys did not have six pack abs, but rather had beer guts from drinking six packs. These guys were all in way too good of shape to be frat boys. When they got up to the the dry part of the trail we realized they were ROTC boys when they started their little chants. On behalf of Carrie, my mom, and me, I would like to thank the UT ROTC for running last Friday. My only regrets are 1) that I didn't keep my sunglasses on so they couldn't see me staring, and 2) that I didn't take a picture with my phone.

The rest of our walk was just lovely. Since I moved here last year I have wanted to walk on Town Lake with my mom and sister because we always used to walk in ABQ, so I accomplished my year-long dream.

Friday afternoon our big adventure was to go to Costco. It was fun because Lucas got to eat all the samples too, which kept him quiet. Carrie and I were harassed by Costco's fish guy, who was laughing at Lucas because he's so cute. His name was Darryl and I thought Lucas was going to cry because of his loud laugh, but Lucas was so perplexed that this guy had a hair net on his beard that he just stared at him. Then Darryl asked us if we were sisters and said we must have really good looking parents because "fruit don't fall far from the tree." We tried to get away, but he kept talking and talking. When my mom met up with us again he came and made sure to compliment her on her beauty as well as that of her fruit. Thanks, Darryl.

Friday night we headed downtown after another nap time to pick up Ben. We went to Iron Works for BBQ, which was really yummy. Ben informed us that he had to do some work at 10:00 that night at a printer in South Austin (Ben has been working insane hours lately - poor Ben), so he would drop us off and head out again. BUT, on the way home we decided to go bid farewell to Lady Bird Johnson at the LBJ Library at UT. After all, how often do you get the opportunity to do something like that? So, off we went to UT. The library and campus was beautiful. We basically went into the library, which is kind of like a museum, waited in a line while looking at pictures. Then went up some big stairs to where the casket was, turned around and walked down the stairs. My mom and sister talked to one of the ladies in the library and she said everything from LBJ's presidency was in that library. If you wrote a letter to LBJ, you could find it there.

After that, it was too late to take us home, so we went with Ben to his appointment. What was supposed to be 20 mins, turned into an hour, and we were home by 11:30. Luckily, Lucas slept in the car the whole time. Carrie and I attempted to play frisbee in the parking lot, but her sorry excuse for a frisbee didn't work, so instead we did some lunges and kick boxing exercises she learned, while my mom talked on the phone to our cousin.

Saturday morning Ben had to go to work again. We spent the morning being lazy. When he got home we left him with Lucas and headed to the outlets in Round Rock. We were kind of rushed, but managed to find Carrie a couple pairs of pants for work, as well as some shorts for me.

When we got home we discovered that Ben had built a "play time facility" for Lucas. He taped three huge boxes together to make a barrier, so Lucas couldn't escape the room. Ben was exhausted and it's really hard to keep Lucas from crawling up the stairs, eating the curtains, crawling into the fireplace, banging on the TV, or eating fiberglass from under the fridge, so he came up with his own solution.
Here is a video of Lucas playing in it on Sunday:


Saturday night we didn't do much. Mom and Carrie had to leave early Sunday morning, which was sad. Two days just isn't enough, but it's better than nothing! Here's the only picture we took while they were in town. Next time we'll have to do better.

Thanks for the fun time, girls!

Monday, July 16, 2007

Kali, the dog

A couple weekends ago we watched a dog for Ben's coworker. I wasn't too excited about the whole idea of having a kid and a dog, but how could I refuse a dog who needed a place to stay?
Kali arrived Thursday during lunch time and immediately took to licking Lucas' dirty hands and the food off the floor. The great thing about having a dog is that she cleans the floor when the baby throws his food on the tile. The bad thing about having a dog is that she licks the baby because he generally tastes just as good as the floor.

Overall, Kali was a very good dog. She dug a few holes in the back yard and scratched the back door, but she was very sweet to Lucas. No matter how often Lucas pulled on her tail or ears, she never even let out a growl. It was also nice to have a dog follow me around the house, sleep at the side of my bed, and generally love me, but at this point I don't think all that affection is worth the work.


Here's a little video of Lucas and Kali:

Monday, July 2, 2007

Swimming with Lucas

Over the past couple of weeks I've managed to take Lucas to the pool a few times. Sometimes he has a good swim, and sometimes a bad swim. This past Saturday Ben finally made it to the pool with us to see Lucas swim. Lucas wasn't as excited to be there as we had hoped, but we got a cute picture of him at least. The hat he's wearing (thanks, Margaret) is a toddler size... and he's only 10 months. Poor big-headed baby.

Here's a video of Lucas making fun noises with his new found mouth skills.