Vacation Day #2 - first day on the beach!

Yellow flags today. Water temp 68. High tide 11:51 a.m. Low tide 6:15 p.m. Our guards were Nicole, Brian and Joshua. All very life-guardy & gorgeous looking. They kept everyone to the rules of knee-deep only. At one point a boogie boarder disobeyed and went out too far. Lots of whistles and running ensued and the offending pre-teen was brought in safely.

Check out this cute swimmy frog thing for a small child

Wouldn't it be great if they made those for grown-ups?
It was pretty packed today, maybe because it had been high tide around lunchtime.

Books of the day: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie for me.

I actually traveled on the Orient Express when I was 19 from Lausanne to Paris overnight with my Aunt Ruth. It was a memorable experience on a train for many hours in a sleeping car, but that's all it was. Nothing so interesting happened on my trip as a murder! This is a classic murder mystery with Christie's Hercule Poirot meticulously and cleverly solving it for us at the very end. The language the author uses is very old fashioned, although I am sure it was modern writing when she wrote it. Set in 1931 you really get a sense of the lifestyle of the characters being so different from ours today. Even though I know I had seen this as a play, I had forgotten how it ended so it was a fun read for me. Two thumbs up!

Mike's book of the day was the Dangerous Book for Dogs by Rex and Sparky. A gift from me for his birthday.

The flowers are really in full bloom today.

Mike kept giggling while reading his book. Based on how quickly he read it and the number of times he laughed out loud, I think he would give it a two thumbs up!

Oh, we went to the Seaside boardwalk last night. No pictures to show, but it is like Ocean City pretty much. We will return when the kids are here so they can ride rides and play games.

Having a great time, wish you were here!

Here!

Traffic coming down the parkway to the beach was just terrible. AND it was POURING rain. Just pouring. It took us at least an extra 2 hours to get here. We stopped at a grocery store and the Wine King in Brielle (to buy beer and wine, what else?!) and got completely soaked going to and from the car. It was about 8:15 when we walked into the house. There were beautiful yellow roses waiting for us! As promised, I am showing off my knitting and thought the roses would be a good backdrop.

Here is my sock in perspective of a splenda packet:

The dryer was broken so we weren't able to wash the sheets from the last time we were here and since then others have been here. The dryer is now fixed so task #1 was getting the laundry going! While the sheets were in the washer we unpacked and got the groceries put away. Then it was off to say "Hi!" to Mike's parents and to the Crab's Claw for dinner. By then it was 9:30 and well after 10 by the time we ate. Back at the house, we enjoyed some Malibu Rum while the sheets dried and we finally fell into bed around 11:30 and dreamed that the sun would be out when we woke up.

Which it IS!!

WUWH!

Vacation Day #1 - Travel

Thanks for getting up at the crack of dawn on your day off this week and driving us to the airport Stef! We arrived in Dallas safely, most likely because we had Peter Parker (aka Spiderman) on our first flight. I knew we'd be safe with him on board. In first class, of course, but who knew he'd married, had a kid and developed an English accent?!

The next leg of our trip we are in first class thanks to Mike requesting upgrades. Yay!

I promise not to turn this into a knitting blog, but I have started to knit my first sock and I am very proud of it. I will take a picture of my skilful ribbing and post it later or tomorrow. I have to continue the ribbing - the leg of the sock - until Steffi teaches me how to do the rest when she arrives at the beach next week.

My new prescription sunglasses finally came in yesterday so I will be able to read without squinting on the beach. And it won't look like I am really wearing glasses.

That's it for now!! We are hoping to get to Lavallete in the early evening and be on the beach (weather permitting) tomorrow morning!

wish you were here!

Happy Birthday Mike!

Like I said before, it is Cake Week here - 2 birthdays in one weekend - Duncan's on Saturday and Mike's on Sunday. I baked my special Hot Milk cake with Fudge icing for Mike. I noticed he doesn't enjoy the fudge part as much as I do, but that's okay. It can work out - he can eat the cake and I can eat the fudge icing.

What? Oh, you noticed the candle. Yes, it is a 2! Mike is older than 2? ....hmmmm must have been the only candle I could find in the house. Note to self: buy birthday candles to have on hand.

So the other funny thing about this cake is that I had to get all of the bakeware and appliances to make it from my house. I knew he didn't have cake pans or cooling racks, but Mike assured me he had a mixer. Turned out he had a food processor. Two trips to my house to get everything. Ah. men. Another note to self: buy some wooden spoons.

Saturday night we saw a new band, Stoney Larue. They play Red Dirt Music. I am not sure what that is, but he and the band were really pretty good. Huge crowd at the Nutty Brown. Lucky for us we ran into some friends who had reserved a table and they let us join them for dinner. Sorry the photo is fuzzy. My camera was focusing onthe crowd and not the band.

On Sunday, we watched the British Open in the morning and then played golf ourselves. Stephen joined us. My 7 iron broke on the driving range and the head went flying out into the range.

Stephen broke a club also on one of the fairways. I have never broken a club in my life and to have two of us do it on the same day is just crazy. Check out this action shot:

It was a terribly slow round for us - over 4 hours, but I had a personal best score on the back nine (39) that was a real fluke. Afterwards we grilled steaks and ate out by the pool.

Hope you had a great birthday Mike!

Happy Eighteenth on the 18th, Duncan!

How time flies! It was just yesterday we moved to Austin and Duncan turned 2 and now he is 18. Actually this summer feels a lot like the first summer we were here - 1993 - it didn't rain from at least July 1st until September. As newcomers to Texas we thought that was normal. Now we know it does rain sometimes, just not in the summer of 93 or the summer of 09.

Duncan and his precious sister Stefanie. Bro-dre and Sis- dre together at Chuys.

I am so amazed at the young man you have become. Shaving, driving, getting ready to start college... I am proud of you sweetie and wish you a lifetime full of happiness. Have a great birthday weekend and I hope that your 19th year is the best yet!

Love you more, Momma

Better than Shark Week!

Duncan's 18th birthday is Saturday. And Mike's is Sunday (I won't give away the number, but he is closer to my age - 29). The forecast is for cake almost daily for the next week. Cake Week started this evening with a pre-birthday party for Duncan at Leslie's. Of course we had cake. Before cake, we played Phase 10 - Texas Rules (where we cheat to help each other win). I guess we are anti-competitive in my family - we want each and every one of us to win. Up until the last phase that is, and then it gets cut-throat. After Phase 10 we had barbeque from Whole Foods. We call it Happy BBQ because it is made from animals that were happy (up until the end). Ok, maybe we are a little bit delusional, but it keeps us happy.

Duncan got a new watch from Ant L. A perfect birthday present for someone who has reached the age of responsibility and needs to know the time, day & date.

He also got a leather bracelet with a medallion inscribed in another language with "God is the Greatest Protector, He is most merciful" from his Auntie Kara and Uncle John.

The cake was a silly one with a giraffe on it. We said it was a cake for someone tall. Fitting for Duncan who towers over all of us at 6'3"?!

How many candles on this cake?

It took several tries to get the candles lit because the fan was on. Duncan managed to blow them ALL out in one try!

A great start to Cake Week, I would say.

Fork? No SPOON!

Spoon played 3 nights at Stubbs this week. We caught the third show, last night. In Michael Corcoran's list of top 20 Austin bands of all time, Spoon is number 4. Pretty good. Michael is the local music reporter. He's got Bob (with the Scabs), as number 18, so clearly Michael doesn't know his music that well.

Katie had just arrived and we went straight to Stubbs and into the show. What a trouper. She wanted me to add the caption "Daddy with his favorite daughter." Katie had to pull the "I don't know, Daddy, what do you think?" when some creepy guy came up and talked to her. Scared him away real fast!

Katie had an enormous bag with her last night. It wasn't full, it was just large. Way too large to have at an outdoor concert, but Katie didn't know we were doing this so she just carried it. Mike is always willing to hold our bags and even purses and true to form, he offered to hold Katie's for a while! He is very silly, but such a gentleman.

Golf this afternoon with Lauren at the Circle C course now named Grey Rocks or something like that.

All you dog lovers out there, please say a prayer for Petey, he is not himself today.