Category: Christine & John

Posted on by John

Last weekend, Frank (Christine’s Dad) came down from Dallas, and Michael, her brother, stopped in Austin on his way from Houston to Dallas.

Michael brought some furniture up from my Mom’s house that we’re going to use for a while… great antique furniture pieces… thanks Mom! He also took the green monster couch that Christine and I have lugged all across the country for the past 6 years. Christine’s grandfather built that couch a long time ago, and it weighs about 5, 000 pounds. Love the couch, but we just didn’t have room in the house for it anymore.

Frank came down to help us fix up the house, and finish getting it in shape, so that the house is decorated and ready for a baby that’s coming in November.

So, starting last week and ending today, we painted the ceilings in the remaining rooms in the house (7 rooms) and the walls in 5 rooms. Michael did some heavy lifting when it comes to painting, and filling holes, and the like. Every room in the house has been painted now, except the master bedroom (but at least the ceiling is done in there).

Michael went home last weekend, but Frank stayed the whole week, and boy did we get a lot of work done with him here.

Frank’s biggest job was replacing our old linoleum floor in the Kitchen. Frank ripped out the floor and subflooring, and then leveled the original linoleum and plank flooring before laying down some individual linoleum tiles that Christine picked out at Lowe’s. I think the floor job took the better part of 3 days to complete, spread out over about a week, and boy does it look great now!

Along with replacing the old Kitchen floor, Frank also fixed both screen doors be completely refurbishing them, installed a door on a closet in one of the bedrooms, and installed two doors on the baby’s bedroom.

I think Frank replaced just about every light switch and electrical outlet in the house (most of them at least) as well as two new light fixtures in the main bathroom of the house. He also helped us uninstall every piece of window dressing hardware that was in the house (we hated most of the stuff on our windows)… He also hung a ceiling fan in the baby’s bedroom.

I’m sure there are a few million other small things Frank did to our house while Christine and I were at work this week (a house built in 1949 presents plenty of little things that need to get fixed if you just look a little) and for all of his help, we are extremely greatful.

Oh yeah, and Frank also cooked most dinners this week… We ate two really good smoked chickens, a garlic chicken, some waldorf salad, chicken soup, and it was all gooooood.

Debbie and Raymond stopped by on Sunday afternoon to drop off some furniture we bought and help install some window treatments Debbie had made for us. We assembled the furniture, installed the window treatments and ate a late lunch from Freebirds.

So, the house is almost done. We’ll have a house-warming party in the coming month now that we can decorate and organize properly… nothing like waiting 4 months to get your shit together.

Thanks Frank, Michael, Josh and Elise, Mom, Mary (for letting Frank come help), and Debbie and Raymond for the help getting our house to where it is. Give us a couple more weeks and we’ll post a few pictures of the interior (still a little cleanup and decorating to do).

Average Rating: 4.5 out of 5 based on 287 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Saturday night, Christine and I went over to Stafford’s new house. Christine works with Stafford, and his older sister is one of her best friends from a past life. Stafford just bought his first home, and threw a little party to celebrate becoming a home owner.

We got there around 5 (after priming a room that we’re painting in our house) and immediately joined the group in teh backyard. We played dominos, ate some bar-b-que, and enjoyed the conversation long into the night. I took a few pitcures throughout the night.

Towards the end of the night, Stafford showed some real class, and offered to let me borrow a few golf clubs, since I’m just taking up the game. He said there’s no reason to buy any clubs yet, if I can borrow enough to start off. So, I’m now the proud care-taker of a 5 iron, 3 iron, a wood and a putter. Good clubs too. Now I just need a bag and a glove, and I’ll be set for a while.

On Sunday, I painted. I primed the ceilings of three rooms, the dining room, and the kitchen. I then proceeded to paint the dining room (two coats) and all three ceilings. I was done, and tired. I’d been painting for 5 hours or so.

Christine came home after spending the day shopping to decide that she didn’t like the color in the dining room, so she went out to Home Depot, bought a gallon of paint, and we painted the dining room again. Sound familiar? It should, we did the same thing a few years back in Fort Worth.

Next weekend? More painting, but that should be it. Should be done after that… unless ‘we’ decide on a different color.

Average Rating: 4.7 out of 5 based on 248 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

This past weekend, my Aunt Peggy brought Payton up to visit Austin.

They arrived on Thursday night, around 10:00, and we stayed up chatting for a little while. On Friday, Christine and I went to work, while they tootled around Austin visiting a few tourist stops, and doing a little shopping (Payton goes back to school this week).

Friday night, we took them to see Spiderman 2 at the Alamo Draft House — Good movie, great venue.

On Saturday, we got up and Payton really helped us out by helping me get the yard in shape. Payton weedeated and edged while I mowed the yard. We watered the flowers and then got ready for a full day.

Around 2:00 or so, we went to Freebirds, picked up lunch, and headed out to Mt. Bonnell for a little site-seeing and picnic, overlooking Lake Austin. It was very nice out there…

Then we drove around Austin a bit, stopping at Austin Found before heading over to Amy’s Ice Cream on Lamar for a quick snack, then home for a quick nap.

Later that evening, we went to the Congress Street Bridge to watch the bats come out. Wow! Christine and I’d never seen them so close, and it was pretty awesome to see them, and to just spend that time with Peggy and Payton.

We ended the night with a late dinner at the Shavy Grove, and then headed home to go to sleep.

On Sunday morning, Payton and I played with iTunes for the better part of the morning before Peggy and Payton headed home.

All-in-all, a fantastic weekend… I’ll have pictures from the weekend up later this week…

update: I’ve posted the photos, including a few of the bats.

Average Rating: 5 out of 5 based on 150 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Today, I swung a golf club for the first time in my life.

A buddy of mine, Kevin, and I met at the Hank Hankey Golf Ranch of Austin tonight. Kevin asked me earlier in the day if I golfed, to which I replied “no” and he asked me to hit the driving range with him tonight. I figured “why the heck not?”

So, we met around 7:45, and rented a large bucket of little white golf balls for $13.00. There were about 100, maybe 150 balls in the bucket.

golf ball

The section of the driving range set aside for drivers was pretty full, so we headed over to the side that’s set aside for irons, and I got my first lessons from a buddy.

The first advice Kevin gave me was typical Kevin: “You wanna know what the first thing you need to know about your golf swing is? Just try to look cool!”

I laughed.

Kevin said “No, I’m serious. It sounds stupid, but try to look cool, and relaxed. Don’t get too tight, be conscious of the fact that you look cool doing this, and you won’t feel so silly making the small adjustments I’ll tell you to make throughout tonight.”

So, I took his advice. And I hit my first ball with a 3 iron.

It went pretty far (I think) but sliced way to the right … waaaaay to the right.

Kevin was just impressed I hit the ball.

We both nailed about 100 little white balls down the driving range with irons before heading over to the side for the drivers. Then we polished off the rest of the balls before retiring to our vehicles to polish off a beer.

It was a lot of fun and I’m really looking forward to my future golf game. It can only get better from here.

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 257 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

This past weekend we hit the Guadalupe. Loads of fun, but exhausting… I think I’m getting old.

Evan and Shadel came up on Friday night (with Ella!), and we had a few old friends over for dinner. There were 12 people at the house: Allan, Brandi, Janeen & Alfonso, Josh & Elise, Evan & Shadel, Marc & Cyndi (and Rowan), Christine and myself. It’s the first real gathering of friends we’ve had in the new house, mainly because the house wasn’t ready (and still isn’t) to have people over. We still haven’t painted most of the rooms or gotten things where we want them to be decorating-wise.

I grilled corn-on-the-cob and steaks. Josh made his famous sweet+russet mashed potatoes. They all turned out pretty well. The conversations centered around high-school and what we’ve all done since high-school.

The next day, we got up and headed to the Guadalupe River. It was a gorgeous Saturday, and I personally haven’t floated the river since last summer, so I was looking forward to it. Christine and Shadel stayed home to take care of Ella while Evan and I headed over to Allan’s to collect him, then to Josh and Elise’s to collect them, before making the 45 minute drive to New Braunfels with 5 adults in my Jetta. We stopped long enough to pick up Brad, Carlo, Erin and her friend Phil and Toni.

We met Janeen, Alfonso, Brandi, Adrian and Alex (Alfonso’s cousin) at The Shanty (in Canyon Lake, TC), got our tubes, and walked to the river (Next time we’re going to Rockin’ R again). Adrian hooked us up with cheaper tube prices so the walk was worth it, but the walk from The Shanty to the river wouldn’t normally… Where we usually put in, you don’t have to pay for the extra tubes for your coolers, and there are more people there.

So, on the river, much beer was consumed, much conversation was had, and we ran into a bunch of people. I managed to get caught up in a tree root system once and had to work my way out of it. I came out relatively unscathed.

We had two water-proof disposable cameras, and took a few pictures of the events of the day.

When it was time to get out of the river, we all stopped, except for Josh, Alfonso, Janeen and Evan… they floated about 30 minutes further down-river and had to trek their way back up to where we were.

After loading up the tubes on the bus, and turning them in, we headed over to the Clear Springs Cafe in Leon Valley (might as well have been New Braunfels to me). Good catfish. Really good catfish (then I wonder if being super dehydrated and hungry as hell didn’t have something to do with my opinion.

After dinner we said our good-byes and drove back to Austin.

On Sunday, I awoke to discover I had a helluva sunburn on my tummy and upper thighs. Gotta love the river!

note: Josh posted his version of the events, and a few pictures from Friday night on his website.

Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 252 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Frank (Christine’s Dad) scanned in a couple of old baby photos of Christine.

I put them online here and we’re both looking forward to finding more old baby photos of ourselves and scanning them in to put them online.

Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 270 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Christine and I visited the Grand Opening of the Barton Creek Apple Store today, and while there, we spotted a Fischer FVD-C1 CameraCorder. The CameraCorder is an amazing little piece of engineering and swayed me with it’s tiny form-factor and great specs.

The machine is small (very small). It’s less than 3 inches front to back, 4.3 inches tall and 1.3 inches wide. It weighs about 6 ounces (about a third of a pound)

The specs from the sales website look like this:

  • DVD-Like quality video resolution (VGA:640 x 480; Full-motion 30 frames per second)
  • True 3.2 Megapixel digital still images
  • 3.2-Megapixel CCD
  • CD-Quality stereo sound (AAC Audio)
  • Up to 30 minutes of DVD-Like quality recording or 80 minutes of VHS-quality recording (with supplied 512 MB memory card)
  • Up to 491 pictures in high 3.2 megapixel resolution (2048 x 1536) mode or up to 3931 pictures in normal 0.3 megapixel resolution (640 x 480) mode (with supplied 512 MB memory card)
  • 5.8 X Optical zoom lens; 10 X Digital zoom
  • Lithium-ion battery and AC operation
  • Thin Film Transistor (TFT) LCD, with 110, 000 pixels of resolution

The specs and manual say that the battery should last an hour under normal video shooting conditions, and the 512MB SD card that came with the CameraCorder should shoot anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes of video, depending on the quality setting being used (actually, it says it can shoot a lot more than that, but I don’t anticipate shooting at the worst quality setting available ever). It also supports USB 2.0 transfer of data, so it shouldn’t be too slow to use (I was afraid it might be USB 1.1 or slower at the store). So, I’ll play with the CameraCorder this weekend and see what I really think about it.

The Apple Store will take a return for a 10% restocking fee, so even if I only use the thing for a week and take it back, I figure it’s a great price to test it out for a full week.

If I like it alot, I’ll turn to Amazon.com to buy a bunch of 512MB SD Cards for ?$75 each, and I’ll start looking for an extra battery for backup use.

Here’s what’s funny about the whole purchasing process. While at the Apple Store, I was able to go to Fisher’s website, Apple’s website, Amazon.com (and any other shopping site I wanted to) to research the product and the price at different retailers for the CameraCorder and the SD cards that it uses. I found the CameraCorder at Amazon.com for $40 less than Apple was selling it (and $140 less than Fisher was selling it directly). The 512MB SD Cards for $75 at Amazon, while the Apple Store was selling 256MB SD Cards for $99, so I waited on buying that at the Apple Store, while buying the CameraCorder for a slight premium, because it’s easier to return something to Apple than it is to Amazon.

It’s interesting to me that Apple allowed me to price-shop and compare other retailers while at their store, knowing that I’d still choose to buy things there if the benefits of doing so were worth it to me. Granted they lost a SD card sale, but they didn’t even have the 512MB card I wanted, so they’d already lost that sale.

Anyways, the new CameraCorder is charging now, and we’ll test it out this weekend to see how we like it.

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 204 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

One of my best buddies from the Army visited us in early May.

Bob and Jen were our best friends in the Army.

You might remember some pictures we posted of Bob’s beautiful daughter Sophie Kate from back in 2001 (gosh that seems like so long ago).

We missed Bob for the last year while he was in Korea, so when we heard that he was coming to visit we were super excited, and then we found out that he was leaving for Iraq in less than a week. Man, that sucks… Bob was home for 3 weeks or so before he shipped off to Iraq.

While it sucks that Bob’s in Iraq right now, I’m also very proud to call him my friend, and one of my dearest friends at that. We had a good time visiting a few hot spots in Austin, and seeing the sights with him.

We want Bob to come home soon, and thank him for his service to his country.

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 288 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Christine and I went to Fayetteville the weekend of May 21st, to attend the Fayetteville Crawfish Boil with Evan and Shadel, and a few friends.

Boy did we have a wild time! There must have been 800 people there, and 4, 000 pounds of crawfish at least.

Amber, one of Shadel’s closest friends from high-school, brought her fiancee, Jason, from Phoenix in for the weekend and we all introduced him to crawfish with big warm Texas-sized crawfish boil. Jason didn’t have a single problem slopping down the mudbugs with the rest of us, and even learned how to suck the heads.

suck the head

Ryan was there with his friend Jack.

Ella was just a tad fussy once, but was a model child most of the night, especially when Kelly held her.

All in all, I think the girls had a good time, but didn’t eat as many crawdads as the big boys, or drink as much beer (evidenced by the fact that Jason was caught relieving himself in the parking lot before the ride home)

We retired to Evan and Shadel’s house in Sealy and kept the party going into the wee hours of the morning, out on the front porch.

We had a great time and hope to do it again sometime soon.

Average Rating: 5 out of 5 based on 206 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

This weekend Evan and Shadel brought Ella to Austin. It was their first trip to Austin since we moved into the new house, and Ella’s first trip ever (there are going to be a lot of those ‘firsts’ aren’t there?)

We had a great, relaxing and fun weekend.

On Friday night, we stayed home and watched a movie, then Christine and I took turns watching the baby during the night.

On Saturday, Christine and Shadel treated themselves to a visit to the salon. Evan and I spent the day visiting Home Depot, killing wasps nests, mowing the yard, replacing a few sprinkler heads, playing PS2 and Nintendo, and watching the baby. We all then went to Hula Hut for dinner before calling it a night at 8:30 or 9:00.

Sunday brought french toast and Lil’ Smokies for breakfast courtesy of Christine, and then Evan and I took a trip to Home Depot again before getting the garage somwhat into shape with the addition of 3 nice shelves and a little organization.

Then we had a late lunch at Freebirds World Burrito before the three of them headed back to Bellville.

Ella’s all of three weeks old now, and is a wonderful baby.

Josh and Elise came over for Sunday night dinner and Suprano’s. Josh made a mean queso for all of us, and we enjoyed the show while catching up on each other’s varied happenings.

Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 229 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Christine and I have spent the last two weekends getting the house in a livable condition.

Our first task was to paint the second bedroom. We only changed our minds on the color scheme once (okay, maybe twice)… After two (or is it three now?) weekends, the room is painted, and we’ve moved the furniture into it.

I finally got around to installing the water filter on the line running to the ice-maker on the refrigerator. But, after installing it, I realized that the brass pipe running to the fridge was a) connected to the hot-water (bad according to the filter paper-work) and b) was crimped, meaning the pressure through that line was too low. So, after two or three trips to Home Depot, I finally got all of the pieces that I needed to tap a new line into the cold-water, and run a new line to the fridge filter… Good news: we have filtered water and ice again.

As spring rolls around, I’m looking to get a ton of top-soil or so delivered, so I can spread it across the yard… The yard is generally in great shape, but there are a few bare spots in the back under the trees, and I figure a good coat of new top-soil will help the grass grow in better this summer.

The house is finally taking shape, and feels like a home (instead of a small old house filled with boxes). We still haven’t found our silver-ware, and so, we’re eating with plastic forks and knives, but they work, and they’re pretty easy to clean up.

One last thing we’ll have to do soon is buy some dainty ‘grandmother’ type furniture for the front living room… the house just seems to want an antique couch or chair in the room.

Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 217 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Christine and I moved into our new house this weekend…

We’re both pretty tired, even though we hired movers… we both had really busy weeks with work last week, and then we stayed up until 2:00 am on Friday night packing for the movers (they showed up at 8:00 am on Saturday morning).

We were about 98% moved in on Saturday and got the rest of our stuff thanks to Josh and Elise (and her use of El Arroyo’s CMV). We now have a house that was built in 1949 and is full of boxes… We’ll get around to unpacking everything that we need over the next couple of weeks (I hope).We’ll have a house-warming party in the near future I’m sure…

Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 240 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

We celebrated the new year this year pretty simply. On New Year’s Eve, we had Josh and Elise over, and Christine’s little brother Steven, and his girlfriend Jennie, came down from Dallas for the night.

We enjoyed a safe evening in the house and backyard, and rang in the New Year with our closest friends (the best way to do it).

On New Year’s morning, Steven, Jennie, Christine and I got up and drove to New Orleans to spend the weekend with Michael, Christine’s older brother. (Long drive boys and girls – 510 miles one way).

We stopped in Houston on the way and grabbed a little refueling (snacks) at Debbie and Raymond’s and hung out with them and Roland and Barbara for about an hour before resuming our trip. We left Austin around noon, and arrived in New Orleans around 9:30/10:00ish with about an hour break in Houston.

On Thursday night, we walked around the French Quarter a bit, finally enjoying some Bignets (cajun doughnuts) and coffee late that evening. On Friday night we hit the town hard… hit a bunch of bars on Bourbon street before ending up at Absinthe (because it wasn’t all that crowded or smoky).

We ended up sleeping pretty late on Saturday morning, before doing a little driving around the Garden district and then heading home… the return trip only took about 8 hours (instead of 10) and I only got pulled over once for speeding (right outside of Austin too dangit!)

Had a blast, and we’re all looking forward to 2004… We hope you are too!

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 193 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Today (May 23rd) is our 4th wedding anniversary. Congratulations can be sent here, or you can paypal us, if you forgot to send a gift. 😉

For our anniversary, I gave Christine an aquamarine pendant and matching earing set that she’s been looking at. She told me “I found what I wanted in Zales, and the guy behind the counter was really nice.” That’s all I had to go on, so after work today, I stopped in to Zales to find out what she really wanted. The first tip that I was going to enjoy this little endeavor was that the particular Zales I was at only employed one male, and he was the jeweler, you know, the guy in the back that doesn’t ever see customers. So, I sort of guessed to myself that Christine had no idea what store she was really in when she found what she wanted, so I walked down to Gordon’s. I know Christine’s taste and there wasn’t much in Zales that she’d like.

So, in Gordon’s I asked the people if they’d see my wife yesterday… I was encouraged that there was at least one guy behind the counter, but no one remembered Christine looking at Aquamarine pendants. So, we walked over to the counter, and I looked at what they had. One piece was really pretty, and right up Christine’s alley. It was in the price range she’d told me about, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

I bought the necklace and earings, and asked them to wrap it up for me, which they were happy to do.

I came home and put the package next to Patton’s cat food. When Christine came home, I asked her to “feed your cat”. She obliged, and came out of the utility room bag in hand. Big smile in place.

So, she went into the kitchen, and I followed. She opened the bag, and said “oh my gosh, you got exactly what I wanted!” She was pretty excited (her hands were shaking) You see, Christine saw the Gordon’s bag and was sure that I’d bought the wrong thing… remember, she thought she found what she wanted at Zales, so the fact that it was the exact right thing just floored her.

So, mission accomplished… I was on top of the world, and so was Christine.

After that little episode, Christine and I went to CompUSA and bought an iBook and Airport Base Station, and I’m now typing this from the bed, about to go to sleep (been a long day). I love that girl.

Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 238 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Like I said below, today was Yardwork day.

At 4:00 I found out that my one neighbor with a truck that I wouldn’t feel akward asking for help wasn’t going to be able to lend me his truck… so I called Joe again and asked him if he wouldn’t mind going to the Plant Shed with me in the Jetta to buy a tree or two. Joe said “okay, but we’ll look stupid, ” but he was willing to look stupid with me… that’s all that mattered.

So at 5 or so, we left for the nursery, I was fully intent on buying two trees (remember that Christine still doesn’t know about this), one for the front, and one for the back.

You see, last weekend, when Josh and Elise were up, Josh said to me late Saturday night as we say on the back porch (really its just a concrete pad) “Man, you really need some trees.” That hit me sort of funny, because he’s right and we’ve been putting it off for no real reason. So, this weekend I decided it was tree time.

Back to today:

So, we went to the nursery, and I bought a Chinkapin Oak for the front yard and a Bald Cypress for the back yard. They were having a sale (25% off) so I bought 10 gallon trees for $50 each instead of 5 gallon trees. I also bought some composting material and some more pine bark mulch. Joe picked up some periwinkle ground cover to hold the soil in place along the side of his house.

When we got home, I decided we needed some beer, so I made a quick run.

I pulled up to see Joe getting out his shovel (he was planning on helping me, which was cool). So we unloaded the trees from the trunk of the Jetta (yes they looked dumb, but what do you do without a truck) and got to work deciding where to put the first tree in. We moved it around a few times, finally deciding on the location and digging out the sod.

After two beers (a man can tell time by how many beers he’s had) we were done planting the Chinkapin and Joe’s wife was ready to go to dinner, so I moved the second tree and the materials for it around to the back of the house, put everything up and watered in the Chinkapin.

It looks really good, and when Christine gets home (if I’m not too drunk) I’m going to get her to help me figure out where I’m going to put the Bald Cypress tomorrow. She’s got a really good eye, and the backyard is totally bare, so I figure I’ll need her help. We were planning on making a large landscape plan before we bought trees, but Josh touched a nerve in me. I’ve got to have at least a start on one tree in the back. Thanks Josh.

It’s now 8 pm and I’m going to sit on the couch, drink another beer or two and play some PS2 while I wait on my lovely wife to return from her all day scrapbooking marathon. I love that girl.

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 288 user reviews.

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