Oh Snappy Day!

Because Mondays are, well, Mondays, here are some random summer shots to cheer you up.
They’re from a dinky little disposable underwater camera from the drugstore:

Our little Lucy, who used to be deathly afraid of water, is now jumping into the pool. On her own. Over & over. It’s pretty fantastic. Here’s her diving video debut…

Saturday we spent the day with my sister & her family in New Braunfels. Faith signed us up to join her at a stamping class.

Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, I was pretty proud of my little paper+ink+glue concoction….

… until I looked over at M’s. Lesson learned: don’t take crafts classes with an art major. It’s just no good for your ego.

While in NB, I got to chase my little niece around for some more pictures. Because, you know, the kid just is not photographed enough, the poor little curly thing!

Not only is she cute as a button, she can even defy gravity.

She likes to twirl & run… standing still is for sissies.

She just started pre-school. Can you tell she is very proud of this accomplishment?

Later that evening we had some friends over to try out our new Beatles RockBand game that just arrived this week. Personally, I really enjoyed playing their songs from the 50s and early 60s. The late 60s and 70s… not as much. But we had a great time as usual, and got to hear Ian’s vocal stylings watch M play that piece of plastic like it was a real guitar. Good times.

The revamped Pearl Brewery property is visual treat. We attended a San Antonio Magazine launch party last night in the Full Goods building, and there were so many interesting textures in the building materials and landscaping.

On Saturday we took off into the Hill Country, enjoying the back roads, views, and some lunch in Marble Falls.

Marble Falls had a lot of sculptures and artwork along Main Street, including this statue of a dog resembling Lucy, if Lucy were to wear a skirt & balance on one leg on a ball. We’ll have to work on that one, right after we teach her to fetch coffee in the mornings. In the meantime here’s a picture of Miss Lucy (right), taken with my camera phone (before it fell in the pool).


The mosaic on the wall at the theater/cafe where we had lunch…

Another fun statue on Main St.

On Labor Day we had a little BBQ & Wii RockBand get-together, and Isabella took her first turn on the swings in the backyard.
Check. Out. Those. Eyelashes.

She warmed to it pretty quickly, and we got a rare glimpse of her two bottom teeth as our reward…

I had been looking forward to Luminaria 2009 since Luminaria 2008, which happened to fall during our honeymoon (which meant we would be out of the country). So for the next 12 months I looked forward to going to this 2^nd annual celebration of the city’s arts.
It did not disappoint.


Many artists participate, from graceful fire dances, intricate “paintings” created out of dust on a car, even a light/video installation using the Alamo as a backdrop.





A spectacular fireworks display was the cherry on top of the whole evening.




Learn more about Luminaria 2010. See you there!

M and I like to take day trips & local mini-vacations, and try to hit the road whenever possible. The best part of day trips? No packing. I strongly dislike packing. And the second best part of day trips? Sleeping in your own bed!

One of our favorite day-trip destinations is Austin, a town we might both live in if it weren’t for a.) California-levels of traffic, and b.) a recent influx of hipster doofuses (fun fact: spell check didn’t flag ‘doofuses’… learn something new everyday!).

But in all seriousness, we loooove visiting Austin, love the offbeat shopping, the cafes, the music, the lake, everything. Austin really is both utterly non-Texan, yet completely Texan at the same time. If that makes sense.
Above: One of our favorite stores, Uncommon Objects

Above left: San Jose Hotel, where we would definitely stay if we ever stayed overnight; Above right: Laguna Gloria, part of the Austin Museum of Art
Below: One of the fussy feathered residents of Laguna Gloria:

Another repeat favorite is the Fredericksburg area, with the wineries, shopping, and lots of B&B options if you’d rather spend the night. They also have a huge monthly antiques flea market called Trade Days that is a must-see if you like that sort of thing (which we do). On the way to Fredericksburg there are some cute shops in the little towns of Boerne & Comfort as well.

Another day-trip destination in our area is Padre Island… well, NORTH Padre Island, which is only 2.5 hours from our house. It’s no South Padre in terms of water clarity and white sand, but it’s pretty darn good if you know where to go, and depending on the time of year. We tried, unsuccessfully, to turn this into an overnight camping trip, but now have empirical evidence that this is a daytrip or hotel-only location! Here’s a photo of my husband and our tent, before the wind won its battle and we had to hold onto the tent before it flew away! [This picture was taken with my cellphone, as I was not going to risk any of my sweet SLRs around sand & saltwater. Not bad for a phone pic though!]

Now that we have more time before the kids come, we will be taking more day trips to soak up this couple-only time while we still have it. Any suggestions? We are still looking forward to a (non-beach) camping experience, somewhere along a river or other swimming hole preferred. At least while it’s still warm.

And now, time for dessert, courtesy of the goodness that is Rather Sweet Bakery in Fredericksburg… this Mexican Chocolate cake was as tasty as it looks.

We celebrated M’s big 4-1 this weekend with his annual B-Day-Q…


This year we had the usual brisket…

… and added ribs to the menu. M smoked them from 9am-7pm, so they were both yummm.

Every year our crowd seems to get larger, and here’s the youngest new guy Ben, and his beautiful mama Lisa:
Zach, Ben’s older brother, found this costume that my niece wore for a previous photo session (which I will blog soon), and decided to try it on…
The pinata is always a lot of fun for the little kids…


… and the big kids (that was one tough pinata!).

M’s brother Jofre made the most awesome Tres Leches cake that everyone raved about (I’ll link to his cake company’s website, Piece of Cake, when it is launched) –

Towards the end of the night the rope swing got a lot of use…





Then it was time to end the night the way most of our parties end up… playing Rock Band…
… and at our house, if you want to play Rock Band, you have to take your turn singing. No exceptions!

Thanks to everyone who helped M celebrate his birthday! We had a blast!

Happy Birthday to my sweet niece Adelyn, who turns 3 today! In honor of our sweet girl, here are some pics from her 1^st birthday (will post pics of her 3^rd birthday next week). Love you Addy!

In July we took a trip to Dallas because M made it into the Fencing Nationals… a cool honor for him since he only recently picked up fencing again after being out for 15+ years.


He didn’t do as well as he had hoped, but I was just impressed that he made it to Nationals just a month before turning 41 (don’t mess with M!)….
Luckily the Nationals were held in Grapevine, just a couple miles from my best-friend’s house so we got to stay with her. I never got around to taking pics of them that weekend, but here’s one of Leisha and her niece from a previous visit (ignore my dead plants in the background… that’s how they’re supposed to look… when they’re dead).