Category: Friends

Posted on by John

This past Sunday morning, I got up before the butt crack of dawn (around 5:05 am) and got in my car and drove out to Lakeway. I met Raymond, Evan and Reese Lockett at the Lakeway Marina.

We had a date to go fishing.

We met our Lake Travis Fishing guide, Mr. Allen Christenson, at the dock at 6:00 a.m, shook his hand, got in the boat and went fishing.

We tried a little top water and plastic worm fishing from 6:30 or so until around 8:00 before moving on to live bait fishing around 8:15.

The lake was hot. The sun was bright. The breeze was non-existant.

Raymond caught the first fish pretty early, and overall we caught 13 fish, 5 of which were keepers. We caught a bass or two, some catfish, a drum, and maybe another type…

It was fun to just spend time with the boys, and to get rewarded with eggs, bacon and sausage afterwards.

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 189 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

On July 3rd, Erin and Toni threw a house warming party that Christine, Jack and I attended. It was loads of fun to visit with Erin and Toni and all of their friends in their new back yard while enjoying some barbeque and beer.

Jay brought some Earl Campbell sausage, and I had two sausages in tortillas for dinner … ummmm, good!

Everyone had fun, and we got to see a New Yorker transplant playing washers with the boys from Texas.

More photos here.

Average Rating: 5 out of 5 based on 271 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

On Friday, July 1st, I started finishing out the little building I had Affordable Portable build in my back yard, as that little building is going to become my office. Yep, that’s right… I got kicked out of my own house! Actually, I was pretty adamant with Christine that “We are moving (or something) so I can get some work done around here!” After many trials and tribulations, we decided to stay in our house and to build me an annex in the backyard.

While my original plans were to have a finished building on July 5th, I soon realized (along with a little help) that that goal was a little overzealous, to say the least. And while we didn’t meet my original goal, we sure did do a damn good job getting the building done (for the most part) on the 10th.

So I’ll try to tell the story of how we (Frank “Grandad” Kamp, Christine, Jack, Josh Janicek, Marc Swendner and myself) finished out my new office over the past week in 100+ degree weather.

On Thursday, June 30th, I hung the electric boxes and dug 90 percent of the trench that the electrical, cable, and phone conduits were going to go be buried in, from the corner of the house to the clubhouse. That sucked. It was hot and the ground was hard. Not quite as hard as Josh’s backyard, but I hit rock about 8 inches down.

On Friday, Frank got to Austin around noon, and I knocked off work around 1:00 or so. The first thing Frank and I did (ok, wait, I think we went to Home Depot first) was install the air conditioner (and Frank did most of the work). It was hotternhell outside, and we were going to be working inside the building for the most part, so I followed Frank’s lead, and we got the A/C running off an extension cord immediately.

Next, we started cutting holes in 2×4 studs and pulling electrical wire, phone and cable wiring through the walls. Once the wiring was in, we started installing the fiberglass installation in the walls.

On Saturday, Marc showed up early, and helped us put the insulation in the ceiling. Josh showed up later and helped too. Then the three of us put the conduit in the ground, pulling wires through as we went.

Oh, to heck with telling you what happened each day… the days all run together at this point.

By Monday, with Frank, Josh and Marc’s help, we’d installed all of the wiring, the power subpanel, insulation, conduit under the house to the main power panel and the phone and cable box. We’d hung most of the sheetrock on the walls, and had a nice cool building to work in.

On Monday Frank and I finished the ceiling insulation and hanging the sheetrock on the ceiling (that took a little while), then we started floating and taping (actually, Marc started that over the weekend, and we finished up).

After the sheetrock was up, we started sanding. And patching and sanding. And patching and sanding. After about the third day of sanding (it felt like it took that long even if it didn’t) we decided to build a custom desk in the clubhouse, to help line up the sheetrock where the rock was meeting between studs and wasn’t actually meeting.

So, Frank installed 2×2’s on the walls, where the desk and custom shelves would fit later. That helped the floating and taping go faster. We sanded one last time and started painting. And painting. And painting.

We put three coats (Christine pitched in on the third coat) of Ralph Lauren textured paint (Garden Wall with a River Rock finish) on the walls and ceiling, and it looks great… though I’d tell anyone that asked not to paint with a textured paint. It sucks, and is really hard to do right. We still have one or two spots that don’t look perfect.

After painting, we started installing the desk and shelving, which looks fantastic if I say so myself. We used thick and sturdy 3/4 inch Birch plywood for the desk surfaces, stained with Minwax Honey Pine polyurethane (2-3 coats, depending on whether I forgot if there were 2 coats on a piece already). Oh, and Frank installed a really nice oak parquet floor late into the night.

Frank put in all of the trim around the doors, windows, the A/C unit (inside and out) and the floor. I finished up the desk tonight, and am exhausted.

The building really came together yesterday (the 9th day of the building process) with some minor finish work happening today (I just needed to finish installing some shelf supports and staining the desk tonight)

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out how much help my buddies and Frank were in accomplishing this project. I could have never done this in 10 days myself. Hell, I don’t think I could have done it in 30 days. Josh and Marc really helped with the heaving lifting. Marc let Frank and I borrow his big power miter saw and his orbital sander. Without that miter saw, I think Frank or myself would still be hand cutting miters for the trim. The orbital sander also made short work of all of the sanding we had to do. Thanks Marc!

Frank really outdid himself though, and is the shining star of this project. He took my vision, improved it in some places, and worked tirelessly for 10 days straight. His expertise on the tasks required to do this job came in extremely handy too… from wiring the outlets, to tying in the 220 volts that power the building, to connecting the phone line and cable, to how to properly measure and cut sheet rock, to how to drive a copper ground rod eight feet deep into the ground… and how to properly cut a piece of plywood with a jigsaw… and on and on… It’s amazing how many little jobs there are when finishing out a building. I think Frank probably worked 10 hours a day minimum for 10 days straight, which let me work some during the day over the past week, while he progressed on the building.

Thank you so much Frank. I don’t think I can thank you enough for this project.

The finished project really looks great and will be the perfect work environment I think.

I picked up a really nice DeWalt 18v cordless drill, skillsaw, flashlight, and sawzall during the project somehow (funny how using Marc’s good cordless drill sold me on the idea that I wanted on, and then Dewalt’s rebate/freebie offer talked me into buying the 4-piece set).

I used every carpentry skill I knew on this project and learned a lot more new skills and really had fun building this building… though I’m really tired of going to Home Depot now, and I have a lot of crap in my garage that it’ll take a few weeks to get rid of (left over sheetrock anyone? The City of Austin won’t haul away “remodeling materials” so I’ll have to hide a little bit in the bottom of each trash load below a few bags of trash so they don’t notice it in the bin).

I’m tired, so I’ll point you to the photos of the process. I’ll post a few more later next week after I’ve totally moved in.

Next weekend: Landscaping around the building… ugh… oh, and Dub‘s getting married.

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

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Posted on by John

This past weekend was awesome. It was the best weekend it could be, especially for a first Father’s Day.

Evan and Ella came to visit us in Austin while Shadel visited some friends in Galveston for a bachelorette party.

Evan and Ella arrived around 11:30 on Saturday morning, and we all loaded up and drove out to the lake house. Greg and Cheri’s family were still visiting, and they’d invited us out to swim with them. We figured why the hell not? What else do you do with two babies all weekend, right? It’s not like you can take them a movie or a museum to keep them busy, can you? That, and spending time with Cheri and Greg and the kids and in-laws and grandparents is always fun… the pool was a bonus.

Cheri had lots of fixin’s for lunch ready for us when we got there, so we ate lunch and the jumped in the pool. I got sunburned (stupid me forgot to put on sunscreen again). Ella and Jack loved the pool. Just loved it. Matthew, Paige and Patrick loved having Jack and Ella around to play with, and I’m sure the feeling was mutual.

Jack did a little kick-boarding with a little help from Daddy. Ella danced on the pool patio to the tunes of Pat Green. Patrick showed us how good he was at pushing off of me to swim across the pool. Cool dude Mathew watered his mommy with a watering pail. Paige and Patrick learned a new trick with the floats (they’d jump off the side of the pool onto one of the floats to skim across the pool). All in all, we had a great time at the pool, hanging out with family.

When we got home from swimming, we fed Jack and Ella at the table, then gave them a bath in the big tub together… too much fun!

Evan and I headed up to Home Depot (with Ella) and bought some supplies for the little building going in out back. (Ugh… didn’t realize wires were that expensive). Christine headed to Babies-R-Us with Jack and bought a high-chair and a big baby gate for the entrance to the dining room, and some outlet covers (before, after).

Saturday evening, I cooked T-bone steaks for Evan. They were pretty good steaks, though I cooked them just a tad too long, or rather over a tad too hot fire… “But, John, charred edges on a steak are the only way to eat them!” you’re saying? I hear ya, but I couldn’t done a little better job. Ella told us that the peas and carrots were good (she ate half of both of the peas and carrots off our plates).

We watched Last of the Mohicans on Saturday night, then started to watch Troy, but Evan couldn’t hang, so we went to bed.

Sunday, we unpacked the stuff from Home Depot after playing with the kids for a little while… then Evan and Ella left to get home for Father’s Day activities with Shadel.

Jack and I hung out together (after a much needed nap) and talked Father/Son stuff. I gave Jack some advice about life, which he took pretty well. Christine went to HEB to buy some stuff to make dinner with.

When Christine got home, we opened presents. Jack got me two cool shirts that I’ll wear a lot this summer I’m sure. Christine bought me a good DVD. Then I put Jack to sleep (he fell asleep in my arms he was so tired after reading his book for the night which was too cool … he hasn’t fallen asleep in my arms in a good 4-5 months).

Then Christine made us dinner. She made Crawfish Etoufee from a recipe, and it was goood! Ummm!

Best Father’s Day Weekend I’ve ever had. Glad I got to spend it with my brother and niece too.

Lots more photos here.

Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 278 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Mauricio Zuazua is one of our closest friends from Christine’s days at Freese and Nichols in Fort Worth. I don’t know why, but the man just amazes me.

Maybe it’s the way he always wears the right clothes for the occasion, or perhaps it’s how he always knows the perfect thing to say at the perfect time for the perfect reasons. Maybe it’s because he’s so skilled with the ladies. Maybe it’s because he possesses the class of the old world while still being a modern man.

I can’t pin it down exactly, but I always feel priviledged to talk to Mr. Zuazua, and am downright awed when in his presence.

So, it was a very happy coincidence that he was in Fort Worth the weekend that we were in Dallas for Angela’s wedding. We met up with Mauricio and his girlfriend of a few years now at Mi Cocina for brunch on Sunday the 5th, to try to catch up with each other.

We had a lot of fun, and I could tell Jack was just as impressed with being in Mauricio’s presence as I am… that, or the little guy had some serious gas…

It was really good to see Mauricio again. He’s done with graduate school now, and is looking to travel to Brazil for a few weeks on a consulting gig before moving back to the D.C. area to get a real job again. Hopefully we’ll get to visit him in D.C. someday when he gets settled.

Photos here.

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 211 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

There was a saying in the Army that went something like “It ain’t that bad boys, we could be breaking big rocks into little rocks” that helped us get through some of the more menial repetitive tasks we had to accomplish from time to time.

I now know how shitty it can be to break big rocks into little rocks all day. That’s what I did on Saturday and Sunday this past weekend. Broke big rocks into little rocks. (Ok, I wasn’t doing all the work by any means, I was just one member of a team of hard laborers.)

Why was I breaking big rocks into little rocks you might ask?

Because I was helping Josh build his deck, of course. You see, the soil in Central Texas consist of about 3 inches of dirt, then 6-8 inches of rocks, and then clay.

Josh’s Dad was teaching us the ways of building a deck, and he said that the posts that were on the edge of the deck needed to be put two feet into the ground. Us young pups know when to listen to an old dog, so we set about digging holes two feet into the earth on Saturday morning times 10, and after about 45 minutes we had one hole dug, and one hole partially dug. Josh and I promptly headed to Home Depot to rent a jack-hammer. Whilst there, we also picked up an auger, to maybe make our lives a little easier.

By the time I left on Saturday around 1:00 p.m. (I had a wedding to attend that afternoon, remember) we’d dug maybe 6 of the 10 two foot deep holes we had to dig. I felt horrible for leaving early on one hand, and glad I’d made previous plans on the other… My shoulders and hands were killing me, and I was already sunburnt.

You see, the process for digging a two foot hole with a jack hammer, auger, post hole diggers and a shovel goes like this:

1. Use the auger to dig a rough indention into the first two inches of soil.
2. Use the jack-hammer to break big rocks into little rocks.
2.a. (optional) Rest for 15 minutes before trying to dig the jack-hammer out of the dirt.
3. Use the post-hole digger, or your hands whichever is most productive, to remove said smaller rocks.
4. Use the auger to remove the little rocks, and see if you’ve made it through all of the rocks.
5. Use the jack-hammer again to break big rocks into little rocks.
6. Repeat steps 2-4 until you hit the clay.
7. Use the jack-hammer to break up the clay a little, or the auger, if it’ll move the clay.
8. Remove the remaining clay and rocks from your hole, and pray that you’ve gotten two feet deep.
9. Rest 30 minutes because its 100° outside and there’s no clouds or breeze.
10. Repeat for next hole.

Digging post holes in Central Texas sucks. Especially when you’re almost 30 and way out of shape. Thank goodness for peach-tea to keep you going.

Anyways, I returned to Josh’s house on Sunday and Josh, Keith and David were already hard at work in the backyard. They’d finished up all of the deep holes, and were starting to lay out the joists that would support the deck, so I pitched in, and by 5:30 p.m. or so, we had built what looked like a deck. Oh, it wasn’t 100 percent complete, but by golly, we were done. Exhausted. Finito. Done.

Christine and I drove home, where I promptly took a cold shower. I was pretty good and sunburnt, and smelled like rotten dirt. Ever smelled like rotten dirt? Yeah, that was me. My body hurts now in more places than I can remember, and my arms and neck are pink and puffy.

That’s the last time I ever build a deck in Texas in June… and for that matter I won’t build one in May, July, August or September either… February? I’ll think about it.

All in all, it was fun working with Josh, his dad and his brother, and it was really nice to see Elise out there helping out where she could… though I can imagine it was frustrating working with three tired, sweaty and grumpy guys… Janice pitched in keeping us hydrated and wearing hats and sunblock… it was a team effort.

Average Rating: 4.5 out of 5 based on 215 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

In the past 3 weekends, Christine and I have attended three weddings. The spring really is wedding season I guess. We still have 2 more on our dance card in the coming couple of months.

I wrote a little about the wedding we attended in Guanajuato and posted the photos from it here. The Hill-Hernandez wedding was a lot of fun, and for us was a mini-vacation to a place tht we’d long wanted to visit.

On the weekend of June 4th, Christine, Jack and I flew up to Dallas to attend Angela Pierce’s wedding to David Waters (Angela was Christine’s roommate in college). Christine was one of the bride’s maids in the wedding. Jack wore his little white wedding outfit (that just barely fits him anymore) and was super cute. He did well at the wedding, but since it was a full Catholic Mass, we had to take a break about half way through to walk around a bit out in the foyer of the church, and to change diapers. Grandmother Mary was with us too, so she took care of Jack a little at the wedding and then at the reception. The reception was too much fun. Angela and David hired a mariachi band (2nd wedding in two weeks with a mariachi band, woohoo!) and after they left, the DJ was pretty good. Jack left the reception with Mary when he had had enough of the loud noise and strange people… not that anyone there was strange, just strange to him – 😉

Christine and I stayed until the wee hours of the morning… ok, maybe we stayed until 10:30 or so, but we closed the party down. And man were we partying. Christine was dancing. I was dancing. We danced with each other, and with other people… it was a lot of fun and it was great to stay out all night with friends.

Photos from the Pierce-Waters Wedding here.

Then, this past weekend (June 11th) we went to Eagle Lake to attend Stefan Schuster’s wedding to his fiance Periwinkle Ferguson. They were married at 5:30 p.m. on a glorious Saturday evening outside (which in Texas means it was 105°F). But that didn’t slow anybody down, least of all Jack. It was a really nice small heartfelt wedding ceremony in the bride’s proverbial backyard (he father owns the house that the wedding was held at), mixing traditional wedding elements with folk elements, and lots of love. They wrote their own vows, and you could tell they were very special and from the heart. Jack wore his little white wedding outfit again (and I think this’ll be the last time). Jack played in the grass at my feet during the ceremony, and because it was so hot outside, we were allowed to drink beer during the wedding (rock on! Actually, I don’t know if we were allowed, but TJ’s husband Jeff graciously brought me a Shiner Bock, so I had to drink it!)

Photos from the wedding are here. Sorry that they’re pretty much all of Jack…

We stayed at the Schuster wedding until about 8:30 p.m. before making the trek back to Austin (about an hour and a half drive at 90 miles per hour). Did you know that bugs make a really loud smack on the front windshield of a Volvo late at night? I swear we must have hit every damn bug between Eagle Lake and Austin Saturday night. It sounded like I was sitting inside of a snare drum as we rolled down the highway, and when I went to look at the car Sunday morning, it looked as if the car was used as a prop in the movie Starship Troopers. ICK!

So, three weddings in three weekends (and we actually had to miss Jill and David Aronson’s (former co-worker) wedding on June 4th) and we’re beat. We’re taking the next weekend off (Stephanie Stein’s (old Bellville family friends) wedding is this coming weekend, and I just dont think we have the energy to make it to it, and to do all of the stuff around the house that we’ve been meaning to do but have been putting off).

Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 196 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Christine hasn’t worked for the past 6 months or so, but we stay in touch with all of her friends from work quite a bit, so when Erin Taylor asked if they could borrow our video camera to make a movie at the office, I couldn’t say no.

Little did I know that Freese and Nichols won an award for one of the best offices to work at in Central Texas. They were asked to make a video showing how much spirit they had. Erin brought the raw footage over tonight, and we edited it, and here’s the result:


Click the image to watch the movie.

Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 194 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

or …

“Beneath the Sky of Mexico” …

That’s where your humble narrator found himself last Friday night through Monday morning. We spent our Memorial day weekend in Mexico. Not in some crummy border town where the rest of you that can claim to have been to Mexico have been, but rather deep in Central Mexico, up in the mountains, in a picturesque little town that’s barely been touched by the tourism industry.

Christine and I found ourselves surrounded by friends and family this past weekend and it was truly an amazing weekend. We left little Jack at home with his Godparents on Friday morning, and headed south (after a short trip north to Dallas of course).

We flew into Guanajuato, Mexico (by way of the airport in Leon) with Mary (Christine’s mom), Marc and Cyndi (our good friends from Austin), and Larry and Terry (Cyndi’s mom and dad), as well as a host of other friends that were all heading down to Jennifer Hill’s (friends of the Kamps) wedding to Daniel Hernandez. At the airport in Leon, I ordered a taxi for seven, and paid $40 for a van without airconditioning to take us to Guanajuato. Nothing like paying $40 to drive through smoke from fires in the fields and exhaust from a third world country’s lack of emission standards in 90 degree weather…

On the drive into Guanajuato, the air got moderately cleaner, and the scenery got much better. The town is built in the mountains, and is an old Spanish colonial mining town. The main road into town turns into a tunnel that we exited right next to our hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Luna near the Temple of San Diego in the “touristy” part of town.

As soon as we arrived at the hotel, we ran into lots of old friends. After we stored our bags in our rooms, we started enjoying cervezas. I was partial to Indio, a local brew in central Mexico, while Marc stuck to Victoria. The girls stuck to Sol and Pacifica (which is another of my favorites).

We spent four glorious days in Mexico, mainly walking from shop to shop, or restaurant to restaurant, or visiting one of the local sights.

We went to the Museo Mummificado while in Guanajuato, which is a museum of mummies that were created naturally in the dry crpyts that were built into the side of the moutains. It was freaky. I’ve seen enough dead naked people now to never need to see a mummy again.

We visited the church at the top of the mountain near the Vallencia mines. It’s amazing how beautfiful the churches in Guanajuato are, combined with the fact that the populace that actually visits them is so extremely poor. The altars in this particular church, or rather the three walls at the top chancel and to the sides of the transept were covered in gold. The entire wall on all three sides. Covered in gold. Surrounded by extreme poverty.

Also interesting about the churches in Guanajuato: Jesus is depicted in a much more brutal fashion than we’re accustomed to here in the states. He’s very bloody and looks like He’s in more pain than I’ve seen Him in in most popular depictions. We sort of hypothesized that the reason for this is that there is so much more suffering in Mexico, that this is done so the local populace sees how much suffering He went through, whereas in America, if you can’t eat dinner at a good restaurant you think your life is in shambles, so all you need to see is that Jesus ate at McDonald’s too, so your life isn’t that bad. In Mexico He’s all cut up and bloody, and very dehydrated looking, so the fact that you have little money isn’t a bid deal.

We walked through the Mercado Hidalgo, which is in an old train station that was supposedly designed by Eifel (yes, the one and only). It was a working market, not like the ones you might visit in a border town that’s set up for tourists… nope. While this market had touristy crap in it, it also had lots of raw meat and vegetables, and smelled pretty strongly.

We rode the tram up to Papila… a statue of the idian that guarded the town (or something like that… I honestly don’t remember). The view of the city from up there was gorgeous… We got some great photos up there.

We attended the rehersal dinner for the wedding we were there to attend on Friday night at a woderful restaurant in the San Javier part of town. The conversations were lots of fun, and the food was great.

The wedding was held in a small chapel at the Hacienda Guanajuato (a state park now), which as I understand it the groom’s brother got permission from the Governor of Guanajuato to allow the wedding to take place there. The bride was gorgeous. The groom was handsome. All of the guests were in good moods. We witnessed the wedding ceremony, which was special, as the officiant was the groom’s brother. He threw in plenty of personal stories and wished the bride and groom well, while he spoke in spanish and english for the benefits of both families and the many friends in attendance.

The reception was a lot of fun, held in an open garden at the top of a hill, just up from the wedding chapel. The mariachi band was amazing as they played their way into the reception leading the bride and groom. We ate a fine meal and drank good beer and wine while meeting new friends and conversing with friends of old. We danced a little (some people danced a lot) and even got Mary out on the dance floor with us (after a few shots of Tequila I hear … Mr. Hill, the bride’s father, claims to have seen Mary putting back the Tequila, though I can neither confirm nor deny his claim).

Christine and I closed down the wedding, then stayed up late into the night talking with friends and enjoying the cool moutain air (we did that many nights, usually sleeping until 10am or later each morning).

All of our photos from the trip are here, and photos from the wedding specifically are here.

Stay tuned for more… I bought a website and we’ll be putting more Guanajuato information and pictures up there soon, I’m sure.

update: The title of this entry comes from a movie made in 1937. I picked this title because Mark used the title I was wanting to use: Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and since it was a movie title, I figured I’d find another movie title for this entry.

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 251 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

I pointed out in my previous post that Josh had to change his first diaper this past weekend…

Read this if you want a quick chuckle. It’s too funny to read about Josh’s first diaper changing experience.

Josh: Christine and I and especially Jack appreciate your hard work bud.

Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 173 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Over the past few weeks, Christine, Jack and I have been busy.

Christine has been focusing a lot of her time on working with Angela Pierce’s pre-wedding events (Angela is Christine’s college roommate, and has been our friend for a long time. She’s getting married to David this summer in Dallas).

This past weekend, we were in Dallas, visiting clients, spending time with the Grandparents and Uncles, while also attending a couple’s shower for David and Angela, and then celebrating Christine’s first Mother’s Day.

On Friday, I spent the day driving around Dallas, visiting clients. Both meetings were fun. I met a fellow Aggie at one client (which always help open barriers to conversation).

The shower on Saturday night was a blast. All of David and Angela’s friends are fun to be around… We floated a keg of beer at the party by 10:00 pm, and someone had 4 cases of beer that they filled the fridge with… Then… they broke out the bottles of various liquors and started toasting. I don’t quite remember what they were toasting, but it was fun. I also talked to Angela about private vs. public school, which was educational (heh… get it…?). Angela attended private schools as a kid, and now she’s works in the public school system, so I thought her opinion would help us, as we think about where Jack would best be served in the future.

Christine and I left the party early (around 10:30) and went home to get some shuteye. We’ll get some photos of the evening up soon.

On Sunday, the family gathered for Mother’s Day lunch at the Kamp house. We enjoyed a ham dinner, with home made potato salad and other fixins. Grandmother and mother opened their cards, and we all said thank you to them. Mother’s really don’t get enough credit usually, so it’s nice to set aside a day just for them.

Average Rating: 4.5 out of 5 based on 179 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

I’ve been traveling pretty much all month, thus we haven’t updated the website with new photos. We had two 512MB CF cards full of photos last night when I downloaded them from the camera. Here are some of the better ones:

  • On the couch – Photos of Jack and Wesley on the couch together, from yesterday.
  • Frank turns 60! – Some random photos from our recent trip to Dallas and Frank’s 60th birthday weekend extravaganza.
  • Payton and Peggie – We took some great photos of Peggy and Payton from their last visit.
  • The Arboreteum – We went to the Arboreteum for a picnic one Saturday with Jack. Jack enjoyed the open air and the trees, and especially the big pertified cows.
  • Jack’s First Real Food – Carrots. Blech! Mommy made Jack eat veggies for his first real food. Carrots must be the messiest food on the planet too!
  • Trip to the Park – Christine and I took Jack to the park at the begining of April. It was fun, and we got to meet some of the local kids from the surrounding neighborhoods.

I’ll try to post my ruminations on my recent trip to Denver sometime this weekend or next week. Sneak peak: It was snowing really hard there on Thursday, and I had to drive an hour north to the technology and agricultural mecca of Loveland.

Average Rating: 4.8 out of 5 based on 224 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Christine, Jack and I piled in the station wagon yesterday around noon, and drove as quickly as we could to Hostyn, Texas for a wedding. Rob Lockett invited us to his wedding to Ashley. Rob and I grew up together and were the best of friends. Our families have stayed pretty close over the years… and so, we were delighted to be invited to the wedding.

Hostyn is about an hour from Austin, just south of La Grange. We got to the chapel with about 30 seconds to spare (we still haven’t adjusted to having a baby and getting places on time — not that we were all that good at being on time before the baby, but now it’s a lot tougher).

The ceremony was very nice. A simple short Catholic ceremony in a beautiful country chapel. The bride was gorgeous, and there whole town was in attendance (I really think the whole town of Hostyn was there).

After the wedding ceremony, Jack got to meet the Lockett family, and the Fox family (Rob’s Grandparents and Aunt and cousins). Mrs. Housley (my 7th grade social studies teacher) was there too. We headed to the reception after saying hi to a lot of people…

Kari Burt, Rob’s cousin, is doing well at A&M. She’s a freshman, and the last time we saw her was when she ran hurdles in the state track meet in Austin last year. She’s still growing up, and still getting prettier every day. Amy was doing very well, and seems to be pretty much fully recovered since her accident 2 1/2 year ago.

Lori (Rob’s sister) and Jason are doing well… Lori seems as happy as I’ve ever seen her.

Halley’s middle child (Halley is Rob’s youngest sister) is just too cute… a little ball of energy with blonde curley hair.

Reese (Rob’s younger brother and one of Evan’s best friends) and Karen are well. Their two little ones are cute. Kade (the oldest and the boy) was the ring bearer in the wedding and cried all the way down the aisle, until he saw his mommy, then made a bee line for her with the flower girl in tow. Gabby, the little girl, still has the most beautiful dark brown eyes I’ve ever seen, with those long eyelashes.

Nanny and Bussy are still Nanny and Bussy… we just love seeing them. Bussy introduced me to one of his neighbors (I didn’t ask how many miles away this neighbor lived, but I’m sure it’s at least a couple of miles) and we talked about choices… Bussy’s always teaching me something, and I love him for that.

We also ran into Bronson Pilcik and his wife Becky. Bronson and I went to school together when we were young. Bronson’s doing well now. They have 2 kids, a two year old girl and a six year old boy. The boy is just starting to play tee-ball. We laughed about old times, caught up on old friends and where they are now, and then talked about family. Bronson’ll probably take over parts of his family’s business in Industry in a few years, and is doing great.

We left the reception before they served dinner, as it was time for us to head back to Austin for “Learning to Sleep – part two”. We did stop at Dairy Queen on the way home though, and both of us had a “Dude Sandwich” … love those things! Funny thing about “the Dude” is that I think they only sell them in Texas… you should have seen the look on the face of the counter clerk in Kentucky when I asked her for a “Dude”. Heh… I’ll have to tell that story sometime.

Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 296 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

This was Jack’s first Easter. Christine and I had hoped to spend the afternoon at the church sponsored picnic and Easter Egg hunt on the lawn of the State Capital building, but, the weather proved difficult on Saturday afternoon. We went to the picnic, after picking up a couple of sandwiches at Jimmy John’s Sandwich shop (we found that place while we were at the hospital back in November).

When we arrived at the Capital, we ventured out onto the lawn with all of the other families gathered, sat down, and ate our lunch. We discovered Jack likes to people watch while Christine and I were eating. One of the preachers came and visited with us, and then we decided it was just too cold and wet to stay out too long… so we waited for the Easter Bunny to show up, took a picture with him, then headed back to the house. We stayed home Saturday night and watched Troy on DVD. (Nothing like watching a film about Greek mythology on Easter weekend right?)

On Sunday morning, we got up and went to church. Kim, Brad and Kim’s mom saved us some seats in the balcony (church was packed today with all of those Easter Methodists) and we sat through the whole ceremony without a trip to the “cry room”. I guess Christine got the feeding/nap schedule down this morning, because Jack was really good in church. He didn’t make any crying sounds, though he did start talking to me at one point during the service. We got a lot of compliments on how cute Jack was after the service, which tells me he wasn’t a bother to anyone around us.

After church, we drove out to the lake to have Easter lunch/dinner with Debbie, Raymond, Peggy, Payton and Shirley. Payton was wearing his school ring, which he’s earned as a Junior in High School… He sure is growing up to be a fine young man.

It was a gorgeous day today in Central Texas.

Right before we ate, we drove down to the Hamilton Greenbelt there in Lakeway, and took some photos. The best ones came from a setting on the creek, near a little set of rapids. Jack got a little cranky, because he was tired, so Christine and I headed back to the car early. Jack fell asleep in Christine’s arms as we walked back to the car. He was snoring in her arms. That was cute.

After a late lunch/early dinner, we watched Finding Neverland on DVD. Good movie. A bit slow at first, but a great ending.

Then Jack played “Who’s gonna eat that hand” with Raymond. Here’s a little movie from their playtime. Jack was laughing so hard. I wish I’d have grabbed the camera sooner to capture more of it on film:

We headed home shortly after 9:30, and Jack is sleeping in his car seat now (never wake a sleeping baby, right?)

Hope you all had a happy Easter. You can see all of our photos from this weekend in this gallery.

Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 241 user reviews.

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Posted on by John

Last night, Christine’s friends and I conspired to throw her a surprise birthday party at Kim and Brad’s house.

I don’t know how we pulled it off. I was horribly unorganized about planning it, and totally wishy-washy about the date and who to invite. Kim stayed on my ass about it though, and on Monday this week, we had a plan. Between Kim, Cyndi Erin and Elise, we threw a pretty decent party, I think.

El Arroyo catered, and arranged for a margaritta machine. Cyndi made the cake. Kim decorated and Brad bought the beer and liquor. I arranged for a baby-sitter for Jack (our first night to use a stranger to baby-sit for us).

Around 7:30, Christine and I left the house to “pick up Brad and Kim to go to dinner with them”. Christine opened their door to say “let’s go” and was greeted with a “Surprise!”

Lots of people showed up, and we had a good time at the party. (We really don’t need much of a reason to get together and have a good time). The hail storm that blew through midway through the party was interesting.

Thanks to everyone that helped us pull off the party, and to those of you that stopped by to join in the festivities.

Christine and I got home around midnight and were both exhausted after a great night.

Pictures from the night are here.

Happy Birthday Christine!

Average Rating: 4.4 out of 5 based on 213 user reviews.

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