Family Time

Last weekend my Mom and Jack were in town to help Chris take care of Lucie and Audrey while Missy was away on a girls weekend (in Vegas! hard to believe that it was a year ago that I was there for Haley's bachelorette party!)

As always it was great to see them and I'm glad she got to spend some more time with Carl and get to know him better.

We had everyone over to our house for brunch on Saturday. With two little girls, who aren't on the same nap schedule, there's about a 2 hour window (during normal hours) where they can leave the house together.

Carl did most of the cooking and the meal turned out great - eggs benedict, hasbrowns, fruit, cinnamon rolls and mimosas.

Lucie and Audrey made themselves at home - Lucie climbing into chairs and drawing pictures and Audrey crawling all over the place, including getting herself stuck in the coffee table.

I'm reminded how lucky I am to live near them and get to see them so often. They are wonderful, adorable little girls and I can't imagine not enjoying the kisses and snuggles they (luckily) are so willing to give.

The rest of the weekend was great, too, with a clothing swap, trip to the park and more food!

Irish Roots (literally)

This past week was the annual community service day for LIVESTRONG. For the past few years, we've spent half of a day doing volunteer work in the Austin community the rest of the day at our annual picnic. Both are nice events, and a good break from work and our normal routines.

This year we decided to only volunteer at East Austin based organizations as a way to show our support of our local community and neighbors. As the head of our Sustainability Committee at work (note: Sustainability in the green/eco/environmental sense) I was asked to organize one of the activities and contacted our local farmers at Johnson's Backyard Garden (JBG).

They deliver our CSA (community supported agriculture) to work each week and it felt like a great place to give back to. After organizing 20 of my colleagues, we hit the road to JBG on Thursday morning for some potato harvesting. Yep, potatoes.

In true Texas style, we had some crazy weather for a few hours that managed to impact our work; but not our spirit (yes, that's cheesy - but true!)

After about an hour of potato harvesting, which includes shoving your hand (nope, I didn't bring gloves) into some dirt, scooping out a potato plant, pulling off the viable potatoes and tossing the greens, the weather started to change.

The sky was getting very dark, the temperature dropped at least 20 degrees and lightning could be seen in the distance.

The rain began - light and refreshing at first. Within an hour it turned into torrential downpours and hail. We quickly took to shelter and realized our farming was going to be cut short.

Despite my extremely muddy shoes, soaked clothes and dirty hands and nails, I had a great time. I learned something new and felt proud to work side by side with my colleagues who never complained about the hard (and dirty) work.

Updates

I'm sorry that I've been remiss lately in providing updates. I've spent more of my time lately out of town then in town. New York, Boston and St. Louis for work. One more work trip this month and then Carl and I are going on vacation for a week - a road trip to Taos, with stops on the way back across New Mexico and West Texas.

Taos has been on my short list of places to visit for years and since I'm not much of a skiier I'm psyched to go in the summer. Thanks to Kelsey and her parents (who are providing us a place to stay) for all of the great recommendations. I'll definitely blog about our trip when we get back.

I've actually got quite a few vacations lined up this year - more than I've had in many years past, cumulatively.

After New Mexico, we head to Puerto Rico for a wedding and we're spending almost a week there. In September I'm going to the Outer Banks of North Carolina with my family for a week at the beach and then Jess and I are taking our much awaited birthday trip together. In our 7 years of friendship we've never traveled together, which is crazy to me because traveling is so much a part of my life.

So we're heading to Sonoma for a few days to relax, drink wine and explore. Another place that's been on my short list to visit for awhile.

In the meantime, the housing projects are coming along. The shed is so close to being done - only doors are left. I helped Carl some this past weekend to put up the siding. I'm also in charge of painting it. Any takers to help me? Thoughts on color?

The garden is coming along - slowly but surely. After two tomatoes were sadly attacked by some unknown animals we've learned our lesson to pick them a little sooner. We have our first jalapeno as well as tons of herbs and swiss chard sprouting.

So while we can't quite live off our land yet, I'm still pretty excited!

Extra Storage Space

For the past few weeks Carl (with a little help from me) has been working on our next housing project. It's something that I've wanted to do since I moved in but out of necessity it's happening now - building a shed.

Despite the fact that Carl is pretty much a minimalist and doesn't have a lot of stuff, he does have a lot of tools and bikes and our house is pretty full already. There was limited storage for even just me so having some extra space will be helpful for both of us.

Carl keeps commenting on how slowly he's completing this project, but I'm more than impressed. Considering he's been traveling every work week, he's made the most of his time on weekends building an 8x12 shed.

There are a few more steps before it's complete but I thought I'd show some progression in the past few weeks.

Otherwise, life continues to be pretty hectic and great. In addition to Carl's busy travel schedule, mine has increased a bit. We went about 10 days without seeing each other, minus a few hours here and there we overlapped. We're apart again now for a week. We both do a really good job of staying in touch and making sure our time together is great. Considering how independent we both are, it works for us. I'm just very grateful that for the first few months we were dating it wasn't like this. I think it certainly would have changed our progression and since I'm so happy where we are now, it's hard to imagine things being any different.

Suffice it to say, living together continues to be great. Growing a garden and growing our love - one tomato (or five so far!) and weekend (well, most of them) at a time.

And, finally, just for fun, here's Lucie celebrating Easter:

Zoo Playdate

Last weekend Missy was out of town so Chris asked for some help with the girls. It was super fun to spend so much time with Lucie and Audrey. Audrey just turned 6 months and is getting so close to crawling. I may or may not have tried to tempt her to crawl by holding a toy at arms length to see if she would go for it....

On Sunday I took the two girls to Mayfield Park (otherwise known to me as 'Peacock Park') where they could check out the peacocks and peahens. Sadly, I didn't get pictures of that. I think the most important thing to capture was me trying to maneuver a double stroller down the hills of Balcones and trying to hold two small children in my arms who were both a bit scared of the peacock noises.

But I did get pictures from Saturday when I took Lucie to the Austin Zoo along with Jen, Larkin and Layne. The zoo in Austin is more of a wildlife rescue center. It's one circle with 1 bear, 4 lions, 4 tigers, a few monkeys, 4 wolves (one of which has 3 legs) and a bunch of goats. But the girls had a blast!

Between the train ('choo choo') that pretty much drives you around some statues and the feeding pens (again, more goats), the kids were in heaven! It was a great activity to do with the girls and it was one more special way I could spend time with Lucie.

I look forward to more special bonding moments with Audrey as she gets older (and more mobile) but will continue to enjoy the special one-on-one time Tia Mellie and Lucie get to have.

West Texas

For those of you not from Texas, you have to understand how large this state is. It's been a real adjustment for me since I come from a state where you can drive to 3 or 4 different states in less than half a day. Despite the fact that Texas is bordered by some water (the gulf only sort of counts) I feel pretty land locked at times.

In the 7 years I've lived here, I've hit the major cities - Dallas, San Antonio, Houston - but have never driven more than an hour west of Austin (which is fairly central in the state).

Until this past weekend....

There's a small town in West Texas (note: small is a population of 2000 people) called Marfa. Since I've been in Austin, I've heard about this cool, hip town that is about 7 hours west of Austin. Where there are great restaurants and cool art museums.

So Carl and I decided to check it out. It was 2 months out that we had to book our place at El Cosmico, a cool 'hotel' of restored vintage trailers.

So Carl, Buster and I hit the road early last Friday morning and spent the weekend in Marfa. I'll admit I was a bit underwhelmed when we pulled into the town. While I knew it would be small I thought it would a little more exciting looking.

But once we spent some time there I can see the charm. The food we ate was great, especially on Friday night at Cochineal and overall it was a very relaxing weekend. We slept great, enjoyed leisurely mornings with coffee, the nights staring at stars in an amazing black sky and hit the road back East on Sunday morning. Not before a swim in a cold springs just outside of town.

While I don't think I need to go back to Marfa (since we did pretty much everything there was to do) I'm so glad we went. It was also the first trip Carl and I have taken just the two of us. It was great to know we can spend so much time together and not get sick of each other. In fact, it makes me love him even more, knowing how easy he is to be around whether we're silent or joking around. So even if Marfa wasn't quite what I imagined, I'll remember it for so many other reasons.

Veggie (and Herb) Love

We have a garden! A real garden!

It's something I've always hoped to have. To be able to pick tomatoes and squash from plants I've grown sounds quite divine. But I didn't know much about how to get started.

We had a garden as kids growing up but my brother did most of the work. So I thought I'd start small with some herbs.

But Carl is ambitious and doesn't let a challenge get the best of him. So he built us a garden and we planted tomatoes, eggplant, squash, cucumbers, jalapenos, rosemary, basil, mint, thyme and oregano.

So far, so good. I think the biggest challenge will be keeping the neighborhood wildlife (a.k.a. feral cats) out of our garden bed. I'll be sure to send regular updates of how things are growing.