Spending a Fall Weekend in Boulder

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I'm still smiling from a weekend with the girlfriends that I fondly refer to as the XHHH group.  Kelly, Liza, Virginia, Liz, Missy and I recently decided to spend a weekend in Boulder. Kelly had it all planned out for us---flights, transportation, restaurants, even sending out weather information the day before we left.

Thursday night four of us arrived in Boulder and went to dinner at Pasta J's. It was so delicious that we ended up going again on our last night so it was the perfect start to our trip. Each morning Kelly had coffee brewing for us. We drank it huddled by the gas log fireplace or on the porch. We would finally get out when we got hungry, usually before we were even dressed & showered, which made us fit right in in Boulder.

We spent the afternoons shopping on Pearl Street, perusing the Farmer's Market, driving through the mountains or sitting around drinking cocktails at the place we lovingly called the cabin. There was lots of talking about our feelings, talking about each other's feelings, and then there was talking about what other people think about the feelings that we think they are thinking. At least that's what Kelly picked up in her oh-so-astute observations!! We had several living room dance parties---I insisted we roll up the living room rug for proper dancing.  There was even a sexy bumblebee that made an appearance.

It started to snow on the last day and even though it was not cold enough to stick on the ground it was the perfect ending to a relaxing and fun weekend.

I had such a great time---thanks to all of my girlfriends for adding so much to my life!

Austin City Limits 2009

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You know, treated sewage is not that bad. I don't even mind the word "sewage." It's just "wage," which is good, with a "se" in front of it. Se-wage. When you consider the other choices, sewage is actually pretty refreshing.

And so it was for the 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival. For three days, Zilker Park became the ideal place to determine which bands you like, which bands you love, and which bands you would trudge through ankle-deep poo to experience.

Brandi and I arrived at the park at about 6:00 on Friday, thanks to our friends Courtney and Thad, who were nice enough to let us park near their house and then dropped us off by the park. Upon entering the park, we immediately noticed that the money they've spent on a new lawn had really paid off.  It was a perfect shade of green and felt great to walk through, a huge contrast from the brittle, brown grass of years past.

The first act we saw was John Legend, the conspicuously-named son of George and Rita Legend. He started out among the audience doing a very good cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" before gradually making his way up to the stage. He also covered Michael Jackson's "Remember the Time" and the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" in addition to doing his own songs. After grabbing a burger for dinner, we went to see Kings of Leon. The Beastie Boys unfortunately had to cancel, so we were left with the Kings of Leon and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Neither one of them is a favorite for either of us, but I was definitely more excited to see Kings of Leon, so we started there. They were okay, but I'm still placing them in the category of Bands That I'm Really Supposed to Like But I Just Don't. So we watched them for a little over half an hour before checking out the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs should really consider changing their name to the Huh Huh Huhs. I don't get it. I won't say too much about the music and the enormous response it gets out of a lot of people because I don't want to be like one of those old people who goes to an art museum and says, "My kid could draw that." But it was really cool seeing the singer perform a song with a blanket over her head. (Possibly another Michael Jackson tribute---not too sure either way.)

On Saturday we arrived at the park in mid-afternoon, just about half an hour after a light rain was starting to fall.  We caught the end of Flogging Molly, an Irish punk-folk band that was extremely entertaining.  They were a great example about what makes ACL so amazing: you see a band name that you recognize and think might be interesting, and then you wander over the stage only to get blown away.  Well done.

The grounds were still pretty good, though they were getting wet, and some mud was starting to pop up in heavily-trafficked places.  For instance, the food court, where we went next, was pretty nasty, but the most popular vendors still had lines 40 yards long.  After eating, Brandi went to Mos Def, where she ran into a group of friends, and I went to see Levon Helm Band.  Mr. Helm was on doctor-ordered vocal rest, so I didn't get to hear any of the Band classics that I was hoping to hear.  But it was a very good folk band with a lot of moving parts.

The next band, The Decemberists, was the biggest one for me.  I waited to meet up with Brandi in between the Beatles: Rock Band tent and a tent showing the A&M/Arkansas game.  Being at a music festival and within view of Aggie football and The Beatles: Rock Band is about as ideal a situation as you can get, but it wasn't to be for very long as Brandi found me and we headed to watch The Decemberists.  In terms of viewing the concert, this one was pretty tough.  The rain was still coming down, and there were a lot of umbrellas blocking our view of both the video screen and the stage.  The frustrating part for me was seeing people who were wearing hooded jackets and were still determined to keep their umbrellas up, blocking the views of the group of people behind them.  The Decemberists ended up playing their entire Hazards of Love album, which was very theatrical and interesting.  This was my first time seeing them, so I missed out on seeing a lot of songs that I would have liked them to play, but seeing their latest album performed in toto gave me a much greater appreciation of an album that, up to this point, wasn't my favorite.

The final act of the night was Dave Matthews Band.  We trudged through a lot of mud to find a reasonable seat, and the crowd for this one was pretty ridiculous.  This was my first time seeing Dave Matthews perform---I was definitely a pretty big fan in the 90's, but the set list was definitely skewed toward more recent songs.  That was cool, but I could have done okay with one or two (or ten) fewer 10-minute jam sessions to close each song.

On Sunday we arrived in time to see the B-52s, and the new-look Zilker park.  The mud was a decent amount worse than it was the night before, plus it was much more visible.  And the smell.  We found out that the dirt that was an inch or two deep all across the park was Dillo Dirt, a City of Austin creation made of composted yard clippings and treated sewage.  Which raises an interesting dilemma for the green set that make up the ACL attendance: you push for a carbon-neutral world, but how do you feel when the consequences of that world get dumped on your music festival?  A lot of people were repulsed by the mud, but as soon as I found out where it came from, I actually thought it was pretty cool.

Anyway, the B-52s had a decidedly party feel, as if their lone purpose was to get people to dance around and have fun.  They consist of three vocalists plus a backing band who exude campiness, almost to the point of it being an affectation.  The crowd, for their part, appears to enjoy their brand of happiness and good times packaged in a thinly veiled musical veneer.  In fact, one tune in particular, the one bearing the moniker "Love Shack," appeared to be the exemplar of the band/fan cabal of sunshine.  The band used their mantra of "Love Shack," often appended with a superfluous but nonetheless welcomed "Baby!" to remind the audience of a simpler time, the 1980s, a time when, in fact, the same B-52s band were even then trying to remind their audience of another, though possibly less simple time, the 1960s; the audience gladly stepped into this double time machine for the five minutes plus that it took to get from an oversized Chrysler to a tin roof that, from the sounds of it, seems to be in some state of disrepair.  The party people, as it were, their desire for nostalgia quenched, then dispersed, though methinks many of them would have been delighted to hear the tale of a misapprehended lobster, with which the band regaled a much smaller subset of the human population.*

Next, we grabbed some popcorn and tried to see Brett Dennen.  Unfortunately, Mr. Dennen decided to play his set in a rather muddy section of the park.  I don't want to say he played to the La Brea Tar Pits, but there were a couple wooly mammoths that crawled up to request "Ain't No Reason."  So we watched from a distance.  And then we left the park to have lunch at Chuy's, which was a great idea.  We really enjoyed the good food and clean bathrooms.  Then we headed back to the park to catch Ben Harper.  Ben Harper is an ACL regular who this time around showed up with the Relentless 7, and he was very good.  He definitely knows how to talk up the city we call home.  After Ben Harper, we turned 45 degrees to the right to enjoy Girl Talk.

Despite the video screen entreatments to the contrary, Girl Talk is a DJ.  He does mashups of some very popular songs from the last 40 years, and Brandi was very excited to see him.  She enjoyed dancing all over the place, despite moving gingerly all day to avoid getting muddy feet.  I asked a question that I felt needed to be asked: If these are all pre-mixed songs that are playing on tape, did he even need to show up?  My question was sort of answered when random messages started getting typed on the video screen.  So that made me think that maybe he was actually doing something live.  Then I thought, the only really good way to prove that you are typing it right now is to type up all of today's NFL scores.  Then I thought, I really wish he would type up all of today's NFL scores.

Pearl Jam was the big act of the weekend, and we were very tired at the end of the day, but we wanted to be able to say that we've been to a Pearl Jam concert.  Which we now can.  If you call staying for one song and being half a mile away from the stage being at a Pearl Jam concert.

The 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival taught us many things, not the least of which was that the B-52s have still got it...if by "it" you mean a very flamboyant leading man who speaks kind of like a three year old telling a story to a nearly-deaf grandparent.  Also, be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.  Especially if what you ask for is a lush, green lawn and beautiful weather, followed by a two-day slog through a caca/compost combo.

*We've thought that it would be best to put a disclaimer on this paragraph.  Since the B-52s are pretty universally known, I decided to dispense with the trite descriptions and describe them as a truly foreign observer (like someone from a different era or possibly an alien from Mars) would.

I Heard It Through the Great Wine

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lauve/CaliforniaSeptember2009For our second anniversary, we talked briefly about going out to Mandola winery or maybe for a day trip, and somehow that turned into Napa Valley.  Good thing it did, too.

We found some good tickets from Southwest that took us into Sacramento on Friday the 25th and back from San Jose on Tuesday the 29th.  On Friday, our flight to Phoenix was uneventful, but the flight to Sacramento was delayed by almost two hours.  We slept late on Saturday morning before starting the hour-long drive to Napa.  We didn't have any plans for the day, which we started to realize could be an issue as we surveyed the number of wineries that require some kind of appointment.  Thankfully, Del Dotto winery, which received some really good reviews, had some space for us.

Del Dotto has the second oldest wine cave in Napa (built by Chinese immigrants in the late 19th century)---it's several hundred feet long, with a couple turns, lit with candles, and is lined with barrels of wine.  After talking about the barrels they use and letting us sniff an oak barrel, our guide took us through the cave, letting us sample wine straight from the barrels along the way.  The wines were between $60 and $125 a bottle, and they were about the best wines I've ever had.  The first one was a sangiovese that tasted incredibly smooth and was really good (sorry, that's all you're getting from me, still not really a wine critic).  We sampled about eight wines in all---probably the most interesting was a pair of wines that were the same wine (same grapes, same vineyard) from two different barrels.  One was French Oak and one was American Oak, and we all preferred the French Oak.

Our second winery was Luna, which was a vineyard-lined country highway mile from Del Dotto.  We had a tasting of their wines and took photos near the vineyard before heading up the road to Reynolds Family, a great little winery on beautiful grounds.  We had a tasting there but were really keen on getting a tour, since Del Dotto was a great experience but didn't get much into the winemaking process.  An intern was nice enough to take us around, showing us some grapes fermenting, letting us taste some grapes off the vine, and giving us some wine out of a barrel.

Our last stop was at St. Supery, which Brandi immediately recognized.  They were having a party for their wine club members that included an 80's cover band.  The wine club is something that I was previously unaware of.  Very few of the wineries you visit distribute their wines through lots of retail and food service outlets.  They count on selling to the people who come in for tastings, and then they have a wine club that regularly purchases their product.  St. Supery is a bit of an exception, as they can be found in the grocery store, but it's still pretty apparent that they do a lot of business through their club.

For dinner we headed to Sonoma and ate at El Dorado, a restaurant on the city square with a beautiful courtyard.  The food was very good, especially the ice cream sandwiches we had for dessert.  Then we took a nighttime drive into San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge---that thing is massive!  (And it's six bucks to cross, so best to take it all in in one shot.)  Highway 1 quickly turns into Lombard Avenue, so we decided to go down the crookedest block in the world.  The only problem was that in getting to the crooked hill we took ourselves further away from the hotel, and getting back took our poor rental PT Cruiser (the same type of rental car we had in Banff and on our wedding day, by the way) up a lot of tough hills that it really wasn't prepared for.

We stayed at Parc 55, right on Union Square.  The hotel was very nice, we remarked to each other, as we got off the elevator, walked to our room, opened the door, and AAAAAAH!  A high-pitched man squeal, along with said man frightenedly saying, "Someone's in here!" is how we learned that our room was occupied.  We got a new room, thankfully.

On Sunday morning we went for a long run that included Chinatown, the piers, and the hills near Coit Tower.  Then we went to church, which was (surprise!) a Latin Mass (our first).  I enjoyed reliving my misspent year in high school learning impossible conjugations and arcane legal phrases, and Brandi enjoyed having no idea what was going on.  Oh yeah, and we got to bring up the gifts, so that was pretty cool.

[Brandi here...]  For lunch we decided to try Yank Sing, a Chinese restaurant that my doctor recommended. Dr. Schmidt is from the Bay area and he really knows Deem Sum! It was quite an experience; the waitstaff comes by with all menu items displayed on carts such as dumplings of all kinds, meat-stuffed buns, peking duck, various vegetable stir fry, and traditional desserts. We tasted as much as we could but I couldn't quite make it to dessert because I was so full. Daniel thought it was one of the best Chinese meals he'd ever had.

We then decided to go to Fisherman's Wharf and walked through the Ferry Building and then we took a street car the rest of the way there. My favorite thing at the Wharf was watching the sea lions. There were several hundred of them lounging and playing very close to the pier! After walking around Fisherman's Wharf we ended our evening in San Francisco with a nice dinner at the Waterfront Cafe.

We then drove a little under an hour to Half Moon Bay to the Old Thyme Inn, the Bed and Breakfast we were staying at until Tuesday. We got up Monday morning and ran down to the bay. While it was a foggy morning, it was still beautiful and calming. We made it back in time to get ready for the delicious breakfast of Dutch apple pancakes and chicken apple sausage. The pancake was more like eating a sumptuous cake than breakfast. There was also rosemary corn cake (made with fresh rosemary from their garden), fresh fruit and strong delicious coffee. We also had stimulating conversation with the other guests staying at the inn and I was very intrigued by the many different types of visitors.

Once we had our fill, we decided to head south to explore more wineries and enjoy the scenery. The drive was beautiful and calming, except for the first half hour because while I was busy looking at the map I got motion sickness, ugh. The first vineyard we came to was Savannah Chanelle. It was up the side of a mountain and had breathtaking views and a beautiful old house to enjoy our tasting. We kept driving south and visited the Cinnabar tasting room in Saratoga and then to Los Gatos to visit Testarossa---a winery that used to be an old monastery. The used to make church wine there! It was a beautiful old building. We then decided to head to Santa Cruz for a late lunch and possibly make it one last tasting room, Bonny Doon, but we caught them as they were to trying close up so we headed back up Highway 1 to Half Moon Bay. That evening we walked together downtown to our last meal in California at a quaint  Italian restaurant that was downtown. It was perfectly warm and relaxing. We toasted to our lovely wine tour of Northern California!

The Beatles: Rock Band Festivities

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I wouldn't say that buying The Beatles: Rock Band is like buying friends.  Because we already have friends.  I swear.  But it is pretty eerie how all of our friends want to come over at once all of a sudden.

And why shouldn't they?  The video game, in addition to featuring the best music ever made, is incredibly fun to play, especially with a group of people.

On Friday, September 11, we had about a dozen people over to play the game.  I was a little concerned about getting people to play (especially sing), but Kevin, Stacey, Chris, and Kim, four of the first to arrive, picked up instruments and microphones right away.  We went through a lot of the early songs together, and then after the first group left, we had a second band that included Jenny's friend Michael on lead guitar, Keith on drums, and Kelly and Jenny singing back-up. The new group finished out the night with a mix of later songs like Here Comes the Sun and Come Together.  All in all, it was a great evening with some great friends.

Then, a week later, my family came into town for a Beatles: Rock Band weekend.   I had been building this game up for quite a while, but I had no idea how they would actually receive it.  My parents got in on Friday night and my dad and I spent some time listening to a couple of the remastered CDs he had picked up, Rubber Soul and The White Album.  He thought Rubber Soul sounded great but wasn't sold on The White Album (he has always said that it was not a great album fidelity-wise, especially compared to Abbey Road).  I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he's used to listening to the LPs and not the pretty poor original CDs.

On Saturday morning the seven of us (Brandi, my parents, Alicia, Cristina, Cristina's boyfriend Daniel, and I) went to have a South Austin breakfast at Polvo's, my favorite place for breakfast.  Then we got home and got comfortable with the Story Mode of the game.  We switched around on instruments a little bit, but people pretty much got comfortable with a particular instrument pretty quickly.  My dad liked the bass, Daniel played a lot of guitar, Alicia sat at the drums, and Cristina mostly sang with a little drums.  My mom had declared her intentions to play drums, but she quickly found it to be difficult.

We made it through all of the early live venues as well as most of the Abbey Road studios songs before we stopped for dinner.  I grilled chipotle pork tenderloin on the grill along with corn on the cob and asparagus, and Brandi made a peach salsa, macaroni and cheese, and a great apple caramel cake.  After dinner we tackled a few remaining songs before finishing with the Rooftop Concert.  It ended up being about an eight hour Beatles Rock Band marathon that was a whole, whole lot of fun.

After the family left, I took a little break from The Beatles: Rock Band, to volunteer at church for an evening (with Brandi) and to celebrate a wonderful 2nd anniversary dinner with Brandi at Truluck's.  Before getting out the Hofner bass this evening to play a few songs, I had endured a three-day respite from The Most Important Video Game Ever.  That was my second longest Beatles Rock Band drought ever.  The longest?  June 13, 1978 through September 8, 2009.  Boy, that was a rough one.

Enter Sandmen

 

 

Here are a few pictures to show off the start of our latest home project, our kitchen renovations. First, we had new countertops installed. The pictures make it difficult to see the true colors but it is a really nice swirl of deep brown, cream and bits of black. We also got a new faucet and deeper sink! We knew we wanted to do something with the cabinets but as soon as the countertop installation was completed, they started to look more orange and outdated.  We decided to sand and stain the cabinets darker (rosewood) to better compliment our new countertops. When we were halfway through I decided to take a few pictures to show the contrast between the old and new cabinet color.

 

It was the weekend of Father’s Day when we decided to start the kitchen and we put my dad to work! Mom couldn’t make it this time, so my dad came up to help us get started on this big project. My brother, Dad, Daniel and I started sanding at 3pm on Saturday and decided to take a break over hamburgers and beer late that evening. Steven, Jerome and Laura came over to visit that night and we were exhausted. It was so hot and we all wondered aloud why we didn’t tackle this project in the winter. Do not try this at home (especially in June/July) unless you are prepared to have your kitchen a mess for a few weeks, like to sweat, and enjoy eating sawdust!! I’ll admit it is more work than we thought.

 

 

 

With all of our weekend travel I am not sure how long it will take us to finish the top half. Once the staining is completed we will be learning how to install a tiled backsplash. Any tips you have, Internet, on making our next and last project as painless as possible we would appreciate. We just have to learn to be patient with the mess as we are living with our kitchen contents on the dining room table for now. I would say end of July would be our goal. Stay turned to see completed pictures of our kitchen, and once we are finished with that, we’ll be moving on to the master bath for our last big project on this house before we invite our realtor over!  

 

Six Flags, Four Hooves, and the Arlington Nine

For my birthday we met my family in Dallas for a weekend of theme parks, ballgames, and horse racing.  We got a great deal on the Arlington Hilton and made it up there on Thursday night, where Brandi and I promptly went swimming.  It lasted all of about ten minutes as the water was very cold and the hot tub, which we quickly switched to, displayed a penchant for throwing water all over the place.

Our first stop on Friday morning was Fuel City, which Texas Monthly has given the distinction of the best taco in Texas (the picadillo).  We all had breakfast tacos at the giant gas station that looks up at Interstates 3o and 35 while sitting in our cars since strangely enough there wasn't any seating, and a couple of us had the picadillo, which was nice and spicy.   Four of us, my dad, Alicia, Brandi, and I, then went to Six Flags.

Six Flags is suffering from a serious case of theme confusion.  Originally, Six Flags was organized according to the six flags over Texas---there was a section for France, Spain, Mexico, the Old South, Texas, and the United States.  Now we have all six of the original sections plus Gotham City, which I think doesn't exist in the same sense as those other places.  Also, there's an affiliation with Looney Tunes, so there's always a chance you'll see Wonder Woman walking past Porky Pig.

We started out with the Runaway Mine Train, which is kind of the classic roller coaster for me.  Then we did a lame river ride where you have to capture a paint-chipped old timey animatronic Yosemite Sam, the Titan, with its giant drops and intense speeds, and the Texas Giant, which is like a cross between ridinig a giant wooden roller coaster and running the gauntlet.  We left that one feeling bruised and battered; I kind of thought it was fun, but I was pretty much alone.  After lunch, Brandi and I rode the Batman ride, which leaves your feet dangling as you go upside down, and I tried the three-point shooting contest.  You get four shots from each of three different spots, which, with a money ball on each rack, gives you a possible total of 15 points.  I got six only after sinking my final three shots and won a UT basketball.

We met my dad's sister and much of her family at the Rangers game that evening.  My aunt and uncle, Martha and Ralph, showed up with my cousin Monica and her husband, my cousin David and his wife, my cousin Maria and her husband, my cousin Jon and his girlfriend, my cousin Anne, about 8 or so little kids, and about a billion hot dogs. They even have four more kids that weren't able to be at the game. It was great to be with them as they were one of the reasons we decided to do a trip to Dallas.

The game was a 6-0 shutout with a Beach Boys-themed fireworks display after.  And the wind was crazy!  There was more trash blowing around on the field than I've ever seen.

Saturday for my birthday lunch we went to Sonny Bryan's, a great, tiny, old smokehouse in Dallas that is in my top 5 of all time BBQ joints.  We had their great brisket sandwiches and onion rings in their little desks and then made our way to the race track.  I made everybody place at least $10 in bets, and the person who netted the greatest amount on their first $10 in bets would receive a prize pack, concocted earlier that morning during Brandi's and my morning jog and conveniently put together at the 7-11 half a mile from our hotel.  Cristina, who was going with her heart and picking the best horse names, hit on an 11 to 1 underdog for the win, so she won easily at $23.40 on a $2 bet.  My parents and Alicia got back between $3 and $7, and Brandi and I lost all of ours.  Let's just say that a $2 trifecta box is a colossally stupid idea.

We found a nice Mexican restaurant called Avila's for dinner---we thought we were going to a place I had discovered online, but I forgot the name and brought us to a restaurant contained in a smallish house, but still good.  We went back to the hotel and played some crazy word-making card game of Alicia's to finish off the night.

On Sunday after church we had lunch at i Fratelli, where my cousin David is the manager, and headed on our separate ways, Brandi and I to Austin and my parents and sisters to Houston. My birthday was a fun, family-filled weekend that included not only Six Flags but included a tribute to the Beatles with gifts of the Cirque du Soliel performance of Love and funds towards my anxiously-awaited purchase of The Beatles: Rock Band.

Exploring Cajun Culture

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So I’ve been meaning to write a post about our trip on the last weekend of April, but the last several weeks have been busily filled with old friends and renovations. I celebrated Cinco De Mayo at Z Tejas with Andrea, Anna, and Laura—we worked together at Keller Williams became close in a short time. I also went to Cover 3 for a XHHH (which refers to a happy hour with my girls I remain friends with even after all of us have since left Holt, Rinehart and Winston—hence the X). We even have more to share about our fun Memorial Day weekend in our next post. And lastly, we are knee deep in home renovations this spring. Our early May project was for Daniel to hang dry wall to finish out the garage and hang shelves and hooks for all of gardening and yard tools. The most recent is staining the bathroom cabinet to complete the half bath renovation we started earlier in the spring.

So the last Thursday in April I called my parents on the way home from the Hilton after the end of the close of Masterminds (one of my events I manage for KW) to see if they were on board with going to Louisiana for the weekend. When Daniel and I went to Jasper during Easter weekend we talked about crawfish season. Since we decided to split up our Easter weekend with both families it meant I wasn’t going to get to go to the crawfish boil at Memaw’s so we mentioned how it would be great to get back to Louisiana again. Both of my parents have family in Louisiana, and Dwight Breaux, my Mom’s cousin, owns a restaurant known for delicious crawfish, Cajun dishes and barbeque on Sundays. Somehow we ended up with a tentative plan four weeks ago, and the planner in me had been anxiously awaiting the confirmation that the trip was a go. I had talked to my mom  several times and by Thursday night my parents were finally ready to commit—Whew! I only had one day to unpack from staying downtown for a week, wash clothes, book the hotel and research some museums in the Lafayette area. Much to my parents enjoyment I was a little wound up! Since my Mom and Dad can kind of roll with ideas and remain fairly spontaneous they think my planner tendencies are curious and funny!

Friday night when Daniel got home from work I had us packed and ready to leave for Jasper. We spent the night in Jasper and then drove to Vidor to pick up my mother’s sister and my Dad’s stepmother; our entire family lovingly refers to her as Memaw. We had great car rides all around with good stories about farming from my Memaw and my parents chiming in on how different life was 40 years ago. And soon, we arrived in Lafayette. We had seen a couple of Acadian Museums online and decided to go to St. Martinville. It is the 6th oldest city in Louisiana and is where many deported families first arrived from Acadia. Acadia is in Nova Scotia and is where many of the French decided to sail to so that they could start a better life for their families. The museum had a great narrative of people of color in Louisiana (slaves and Creoles) as well as the history and culture of the Acadians---I never knew that the term “Cajun” is taken from “Acadian”!  On Saturday afternoon we went to Iris and JC’s house to visit, as that is where my mom’s uncle Dallas lives now. We had a good time and he is looking remarkably good for his 101 years of age!

Then we went to our hotel.  Daniel picked out the hotel, and he made it painfully obvious why he should always leave the travel arrangements to me.  The Lafayette Crown Plaza was undergoing some renovations, and they’re obviously still getting their stuff together.  The woman at the counter tried to claim my dad’s credit card didn’t work, and when we got to our rooms they had not been cleaned and looked like a rock band had stayed the night there---they were absolutely trashed!  The second set of rooms had no televisions, but the third set of rooms were just right!

Dwight’s restaurant is one of Lafayette’s hot spots for crawfish, and he treated us to a great meal.  I really loved the charbroiled oysters, which were served topped with cheese and in cooked on the grill in their shells.  The crawfish were great---Dwight’s even has holes in the middle of the tables with buckets underneath to easily discard your carcasses.  We caught up on family stories and met with the whole family, including Maverick and Mary, and Suzie and Dwight’s daughters Brandi and Chelsea.  After dinner Dwight showed us around his kitchen.  He has some great innovations for transporting, sorting, and cooking his crawfish and other foods.  He even has one woman whose only job is to shell all the smaller crawfish for etouffee and other dishes.

On Sunday, we went to early Mass and then headed out to the Acadian village.  They had numerous houses that showed how people of the late 18th and early 19th century lived, as well as some of their belongings.  We think that my great grandmother’s spinning wheel is among the donated items that are featured in the village, but unfortunately we couldn’t figure out which one it was.

We had lunch at Dwight’s---his Sunday barbeque is a buffet line that you can either take out or eat in the restaurant.  I had some really good etouffee, and I also had some of Daniel’s ribs and sausage, which he thought were really tasty. He’s kind of BBQ connoisseur.

Our trip to Lafayette was a great mix of food, family, and history.  We hope to have more trips like it very soon!

The Minnesota Maxes

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Texans should be forgiven for harboring a little resentment toward the Land of 10,000 Lakes.  After all, when Adam and Jenny Max left Austin for Minneapolis in the summer of 2005, it broke up the one-hit wonder known as Ausbats.  I had a homeschool conference in St. Paul last weekend, so it gave Brandi and me an opportunity to go pay them a visit.

Brandi and I got to their house late Saturday afternoon and got immediately acquainted with their two children Owen and Audrey.  Now, saying these kids are cute is kind of like saying that Ben Sheets is a dubious guy to take in the 15th round of your fantasy baseball draft.  (Quick aside...Adam and I had our fantasy draft Thursday night for Adam's "B" league, and it was poorly attended.  There were two humans and eight automatons, but with the errors Adam and I made using the draft software, it might actually have been better to be on autodraft.)   Owen is really into throwing things, so he and I got along swimmingly, even if he was a bit bashful to begin with.  And Audrey crawls all over the place!  It's hard to believe that the last time I was in Minnesota, Jenny was about five months pregnant with Owen and I had, just the week before, had a really bad second date with a girl I'd met earlier in the year.

On Saturday evening we had some pizza and played Taboo down in the basement.   We also played some Wii Sports.  Brandi and I brought our Miis all the way from Austin, which ended up being a lot of fun.  I set a new record in Home Run Derby and stormed out of the dugout like George Brett when Adam declared my home run swing to be illegal.  And the Lauves got plastered by the Maxes in the first four-person game of video tennis any of us had played.

On Sunday we started off at Edina Grill, which has some of the best French toast I've ever had.  Then we went sledding--remarkably, a few inches of snow fell overnight, and even though it started melting before noon, it gave us a nice window to take a couple sleds down the hill.  Brandi had never been sledding before, so I really enjoyed seeing her take it all in.  Later, Adam and I had a rousing game of Wii Game Party while the ladies went shopping.

Then we all met up at General Mills headquarters.  We got to see all the different mascots, the Betty Crocker Mixer show that Jenny is working on, and the experimental cereals that are about to hit store shelves.  I won't ruin the surprise, but suffice it to say that gummy bears and peanut butter make an excellent combination!

Every chance we got to play with the kids was a blast.  Owen's a rambunctious kid who enjoyed intentionally tripping while running around the house, and Audrey is very talented at putting everything in the house inside her mouth.  Adam, Jenny, and Brandi think she may be teething.  Owen and I remain on the sidelines of the teething debate, awaiting more evidence.

For dinner Jenny and Brandi made chicken breasts with a tomatillo sauce, along with rice and vegetables.  It was so great getting to catch up with a couple people who were such a huge part of the two years I spent in business school.  Our lives have all changed in huge ways, but it was great to know that we still have so much in common.

On Monday morning we said goodbye to the Maxes, got checked in for our flight, and headed off to the Mall of America.  We rode the SpongeBob Rock Bottom Plunge, and Brandi visited lots of...get this...clothing stores!  If you took the roller coasters out of the Mall of America, what you'd have is basically a collection of stores under one roof connected by escalators and featuring a food court.

Full House

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lauve/DownstairsBathroom

This past weekend we finished the first of several projects on the house. We started the renovation of the half bath before my parents arrived this weekend, and their visit was timely as we ran into a snag with the installing of the new light fixture. My dad, who I always think knows everything about houses though he begs to differ, really pulled us through the rough spot! Daniel did a super job of patching the hole left by the 80’s boxed-in fluorescent light, which was our first tape and float project. Can you tell I’m really proud? Together we did a great job of priming, texturing, and painting the small room. I must say I never expected to hug one of my toilets sober, but how else do you paint behind them? Not to point fingers, but it certainly isn’t going to be the one of us who is over six foot tall.


We had a fun weekend otherwise with Mom, Dad and Brent (who is still living at the house), but I’m afraid I have no pictures to share, so a picture of a margarita will have to do.  We consumed lots of Mexican martinis and margaritas, which is my Dad’s favorite. We played several games on the Wii, which included a rather one-sided round of me playing the new American Idol game that Daniel bought me. (My family claims that they don’t know where my performance bug came from, although I remember going to family reunions when I was little and my Dad’s mother’s side of the family would play instruments and sing songs all afternoon.) I am not the one of us who has sung karaoke most recently, so Daniel did sing at least one song Friday night. Everyone else joined in on bowling, boxing, and Scattergories.

We did our usual run together on Saturday, and for some reason my Dad had to coax Daniel and me into finishing three miles. Daniel and Dad shared the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, and all of the guys enjoyed a Sunday afternoon of football together while Mom and I snuck out for some shopping and talking. The parents left Monday, and we enjoyed the end of our three-day weekend by finishing the half-bathroom! Next on the house updates list is the upstairs guest bath and the kitchen…

Family Time

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lauve/SanAntonioJanuary2009

On January 3rd this year Daniel and I drove to San Antonio for the day to meet with his mom’s uncle, Evaristo. He lives in Mexico City and just bought a house in San Antonio, so we may get to see him more often. We ate lunch with Daniel’s parents, Evaristo, his daughter’s family, and Evaristo’s sister---Daniel’s grandmother, Sara. At one point during the meal Saralicia, Evaristo’s daughter, made the comment that her dad was one of her favorite people! That definitely hit home with me. They were so kind and warm (lots of hugs and kisses), and I think we were invited to visit them more than once. I hope one day soon we will go to Mexico for a visit. I had a wonderful time getting to know them and enjoyed meeting Daniel’s extended family. Click on the picture above to see more from our visit!

Christmas 2008

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lauve/Christmas2008

This year we left for our Christmas travels on Monday night, December 20th and arrived at Teresa and Roger's house to stay the night with them to break up our trip and get to share a little love with the Salinas family. Although the visit was brief, it is always good to see my cuz and her family!

Our first Christmas of 2008 began with another exciting round of Reindeer Rally.  After last year's scavenger hunt through Katy Mills Mall, we knew we were going to have different teams, and we weren't sure what the format was going to be.  It ended up being another scavenger hunt, this time through the main outdoor shopping section of Sugar Land.  This time around, Brandi was with Diana and I [Daniel] was with my mom.  I was looking forward to getting to be on a team with my mom because she had had a very stressful few days with school ending up, Christmas shopping and wrapping, and with ongoing new house issues.  Also, her last place finish in 2007 meant that she was primed for a huge bounce back.

And what a bounce back it was.  We were out of the gates quickly along with many other teams, and having fewer tasks to complete meant that speed in getting from place to place could mean the difference between first and second.  My mom and I were consistently getting to the stores after Alicia and Cecilia, so for one of the final tasks, going to the cigar store and having your picture taken pretending to smoke a cigar, I decided to cut a little corner.  With Alicia and Cecilia inside the store, I stopped outside the front door, stuck a pen in my mouth and took a picture, retaking a slim lead that we did not relinquish.  Multiple teams complained that I had to leave my mom too far behind (the rules explicitly say that teams need to stay together) to accomplish this, and they may be right.  I did tell my mom that we needed to stay together when she kept telling me to run ahead, but there were times when I did get a little bit past her.  The judges awarded us first, but I guess history will be the ultimate judge.  After Reindeer Rally, we went back to my grandmother's house to open presents to and from the Neelys.

This is Brandi and I won't go into all the things that Daniel did to "help" his mom win because it will make me sound like a sore loser. :-) Anyway, we had a lot of fun just like last time and it really is a great way to spend time with family members you may not always get enough one on one time with. Again we owe all of the creativity and planning to Diana--she did a great job!

Some of my favorite parts of Christmas Eve were our run in the rain that morning, the little child singing at Children's Mass who sang "Happy Bir-day Jesus, I'm so glad it's Cwris-mas" that was almost too cute to bear, visiting Daniel's Grandad and being hit on by Rachel, a woman in her late 70's that is also a patient at the Silverado Home, seeing the beautiful new house Linden and Lisa will living in soon and having dinner with the Lauves as a family.

You might be wondering about Rachel but most importantly she is harmless. I learned my lesson that I must wear pants to visit his grandad, unless I want my "smooth and silky" legs to be felt up again.

Christmas morning we got up and found our presents from Santa!! Daniel got a Wii, which I think he was pretty excited about (he's playing Wii golf as I write this) and I got a scrapbook supplies carousel organizer which I've been wanting for awhile plus lots of stuffers in our stocking. We had a great time visiting with and dressing like the girls in Christmas PJs Lisa bought us all, singing to Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is You", playing Reindeer Rally, and talking about "White Christmas" the movie and the White Christmases the Lauves have had. We also were treated to Daniel doing his annual telling of Twas the Cheesy Animatronic Baby Elephant at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

We left the Lauves house mid morning and headed to my Memaw's for lunch. There were lots of people and it turned out to be a great time to visit with all my extended family. I usually see them all about 4 or 5 times a year. This year we made calendars on Shutterfly for our families as Christmas presents. I think Daniel's side of the family turned out the best--with over 70 important dates on my families it left a lot of room for error. Everyone liked it and I can't wait to do another one for my Memaw next year!

For the remainder of our Christmas we opened presents my parents and brother that night, Daniel got sick with a fever, Dad and I got some good runs in, we enjoyed Mom's good cooking, and we had fun playing games and watching movies. We got some great gifts too, like a Chi iron for me and laptop cooler for Daniel.

To round out our Christmas travels, we ended with a visit to the Comeaux's in Port Neches on Sunday night. We opened presents with Kaylin and Madison, and Amber and Jed cooked for us. Amber's parents, Rodney and Shirley, came over and visited with us too. Their family has always been a part of my Christmas season, and I appreciated Daniel putting up with my travel tour of southeast Texas.

After all of our Christmases, I have to say though one of my very favorite gifts I found in my stocking at Daniel's grandmother's house. You may read the sonnet he wrote me that describes each month in our first 12 months together as husband and wife:

From last September's joyful promise said
A fortnight's bookends: Islands, Broadway plays
The turkey's end to pigskin triumph led
A Reindeer Rally hunt through Katy's maze

A hoop, a cap, a Nunez yule five strong
We raced and raced to close the seventh book
The monuments and blossoms flew along
A guest foretold the hit our pantry took

A mic, guitar and drums kept us awake
The sweetest cake I've had, though peaches lacked
Great lake's and gulf's shores gave us family breaks
The hilly Human Race we both attacked

To ancient boot, the hub of Western life
I long to see more places with my wife.

We hope you had a wonderful holiday season in 2008 and are praying that all of you in internet land have a blessed year in 2009! We look forward to our paths crossing soon in the year to come.

Italy Pictures!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/daniel.lauve/ItalySeptember2008

You may notice, faithful reader, that the appearance of the pictures is a little different. My photo gallery upload tool has quit working, so I'm switching to Picasa for the time being. I will switch to something else if I get enough complaints.

Our trip to Italy was incredible! The pictures (and the travel journal that will follow over the next few days) can't possibly do it justice, but we've done our best to capture the best (and worst) of our week in Rome and Florence.  Enjoy!

The Human Race

http://pictures.thelauves.com/humanrace0808.html

Getting into better shape has its advantages, and for Brandi and me, our increased running schedule allowed us to participate in the world's largest product placement exposition, the Nike Human Race 10K. We first found out about it at Niketown in Chicago---Chicago was one of 25 host cities around the world to hold a 10K on August 31, and Austin was another one. In the following weeks we trained on treadmills, at Town Lake, and in the neighborhood, eventually working our way up to a little over 5 miles.

On the day of the race, our friends Amber and Jed Comeaux and their daughters Kaylin and Madison arrived in their flight from hurricane Gustav. The race was at 6:30 p.m., and we ended up going to Macaroni Grill at about 2:00 for lunch. Pasta is full of carbohydrates, right? (Well, yeah, but apparently Daniel and Brandi can't be trusted to go to an Italian restaurant without loading up on oils and spicy sauces and having a few bites of a few different desserts.)

The Comeauxs dropped us off near 6th and Congress before heading off to Zilker Park. Brandi and I took our places among the 15,000 racers stretched along five city blocks.

Brandi's Race
Daniel and I headed to the start line, and I immediately had the thought that that Nike was genius for creating our shirts as our bibs---Congress was red all over! I also think the race shirt was the best I've ever gotten. It is dry fit material and will be more useful to me than the oversized tees they usually give away.

The race began and for the first couple of minutes we waited to walk to the front of the start line and I could feel the itch to run coming on. Daniel stayed with me to start the race but I wanted him to get going and have a chance at his own personal best. We quickly kissed bye and I had the thought as he sped away "don't go too fast in the beginning baby!" but I resisted the urge and began focusing on the race ahead of me.

Earlier in the afternoon Daniel had helped me create my race mix on my iPod and I have to say it was exactly what I needed. I'll never forget the warm up speed of "Lebanese Blonde" mixed with the hot and steamy Sunday afternoon start. After turning the corner onto Red River I picked up speed to the cheesey 1980s rock song "Hit Me with Your Best Shot". But once I was about two miles in (all uphill by the way) I hit a little bit of an opposition to what began as an otherwise usual run--my lunch. With the Human Race starting at 6:30PM we weren't sure what to eat. Most people have heard of carb-loading before a race. Let's just say that I figured out the reason why runners do that the night before and races start at 7AM.

I was on Dean Keaton with the stadium behind me and crossing Wichita when I realized I could probably walk up the hill faster than I was able to run. With the overcrowded water stations contributing to my dehydration and my lunch weighing me down I walked just long enough to get accross Wichita to reach the water station and waited as the poor volunteers tried to keep up with pouring hundreds of cups as easily packs of 300 runners tried to grab a cup and go.

By the time I got to Guadaloupe I started to feel a little better and the trail started to get a little easier with the turn downhill. I even remember a distinct breeze as Eminem's "Loose Yourself" caused me to pick up the pace a little.

But just before the 6 mile mark I started bargaining with myself to quit. I was so exhausted that I felt emotional and I almost convinced myself that it wouldn't be that terrible if I just walked the rest of the way. As usual I must have been wearing my heart on my sleeve as this guy looked back and saw me struggling. Within a moment he was ready to rally the troops. "No way!" he said, "You are not quiting now, you've gone this far, you can do this! Come on!" as he waved me in. I felt as if he was talking to me, but several people were around all benefited from it. I was able to sprint to the end, moaning in pain the last 528 feet of the race. He gave me a High-5 and I turned around to find Daniel behind me and before I could turn around again to introduce them he was gone.

Daniel's Race
I decided to start the race with Brandi (starting in the 11-minute mile zone), even though I planned on running a little faster during the race (my five-mile training runs were a little under nine minutes per mile). So once things got going, I zigged and zagged through the crowd to get ahead, though I quickly discovered that running past a lot of people doesn't get you in the clear; I was in a crowd for pretty much the entire race.

I started feeling a need for water pretty early, like in the second mile. So at the end of mile three, after the second of two big hills, I decided to get as much water as I could. The volunteers at all water stops, and especially at mile three, couldn't serve water and Gatorade as fast as runners were coming by, and at the third water stop they had simply left jugs of water on the grass alongside Red River. I grabbed a jug from someone who had just finished, drank from it for 10 or so seconds, then got a cup of Gatorade, then had another big drink from another jug. At that point, I knew that mile four was not going to be a terribly fast one.

The fourth mile was where things got pretty painful. I started re-tasting my lunch, and I encountered another decent hill after thinking the rest of the race would be downhill. After about four and a half miles, I was really slowing and looking for water. I walked along Guadalupe for about 50 yards, frustrated that I couldn't see the fifth mile marker yet. At that point, I recognized that my goal of 58 minutes was basically out of reach, and I set a new goal of finishing the race without walking. The last mile and a half were super grueling, as the chart of my race can attest. Compared to everyone else, who sped up through the last quarter of the race, I crawled to the finish. At 1:02:55, I found myself a bit disappointed with the result and regretful about the preparation, but I was elated about the experience.

A minor perk associated with having the Comeauxs in town was that it facilitated a Pickleheads reunion. The Pickleheads were the Rock Band persona that we created the last time we visited Nederland, and this time we shook off the rust, learned some new tunes, and rocked out on Sunday and Monday. Brandi mastered singing Blondie's "Call Me," I got 99% on vocals for Radiohead's "Creep," Jed did double duty on Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple Man," and Brent learned the ropes on numerous songs, most notably "Baba O'Riley."

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great time with the Comeaux family enjoying Austin, shopping, cooking, and having them join us after we finished the race. Luckily Hurricane Gustav kind of fizzled out and headed north, but it was a great excuse to see our friends again over the Labor Day Weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beach and Birthday Fun

http://pictures.thelauves.com/crystalbeach0807.html

The summer was fast approaching when I realized that my parents' 60th birthday was a big deal. Not that I didn't know it was a milestone, but when Dad and I were talking about it one day it dawned on me that it was kind of a lot for him to swallow, too. Never had a birthday really given my Dad pause---he's always been the kind of guy to believe that age is just a number, and he's been active at every age. He didn't even want to talk about it! Well, I started thinking that maybe the best way to address the big day would be to invite family and friends to help us celebrate during my parents' yearly vacation in Crystal Beach. I figured an invasion of birthdayness would force Mom and Dad to celebrate their lives with those who love them. And that's just what we did.

We all had a great weekend of relaxation and sun in Crystal Beach, Texas, with a very different atmosphere but the same strong family fellowship as our Lauve family weekend in Chicago, Illinois. In fact, the Lauves made it to the surprise birthday party for Mom and Dad, along with my mom's sisters, many of the Domecs, a few Breauxs, and the Heberts. All in all, there were 55 people in attendance to help Mom and Dad celebrate!

Chicago

http://pictures.thelauves.com/chicago0807.html



After trips to the Big Apple and our nation's capital, the City of the Big Shoulders seemed like a logical choice. The impetus for this trip came from the fact that Wicked, which my sisters have been anticipating since hearing a sample on our wedding CD, is playing there. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the city also hosts Wrigley Field, Millennium Park, and a number of other really cool attractions. We arrived late on the night of Wednesday, July 9th, and checked into Hotel Monaco, a great hotel right by the river.

On Thursday morning we got on the train and headed for Wrigley Field. I was very excited for Brandi to see a game in a really big baseball town, even if that town doesn't happen to be St. Louis. Wrigley was everything I could have hoped for---we took pictures at the Harry Caray statue and the big red Wrigley Field sign, and during batting practice we got to take a really good look at the stadium. The ivy looks especially nice in person.



The Cubs fell to an all-time record of 0-4 in games I have attended, falling to the Reds by a count of 12-7. It was so much fun seeing a lot of offense at Wrigley---the Reds had seven homers, including one by Ken Griffey, Jr. (his swing, like the ivy, looks even better in person) and a Sheffield Avenue shot by Adam Dunn. The seats were a little further under the overhang than I had expected, but it ended up perfect as a light rain fell throughout the final five innings.

After the game we ate at Gino's East, Chicago's original deep dish pizza place, where we feasted on a giant sausage pizza and a really good spinach and mushroom pizza.

On Friday morning Brandi and I went out for a run through Chicago's beautiful Millennium Park, and later the whole family went on an architectural boat tour on the Chicago River. I had never realized all the differing architectural styles Chicago is home to, nor did I realize that it is such a leader in architecture. From the Tribune building to the new Trump tower to the Marina City Buildings (which I recognized from Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album), we saw numerous amazing buildings and were treated to some great weather.



Friday night was our Wicked excursion. For the uninformed, Wicked is a retelling of the Wizard of Oz, presenting the origin stories of both the Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the, uh, Far West. The songs are very catchy and well performed, and the story is interesting in the way it makes you rethink about the Wizard of Oz. I, for one, thought they went a little too far in making every plot element dovetail with the events of the original, but I was emphatically outvoted.

Saturday brought with it a trip to the Museum of Science and Industry. The museum contains all sorts of interesting exhibits like glass blowing, baby chicks, and old-timey vehicles, but its most impressive feature is an honest-to-goodness U-Boat from World War II. The exhibit followed the rise of the German naval fleet, the effort to disable and capture U-Boats, and the return of this particular U-Boat back to the States.

For dinner we ate at McCormick & Schmick's after deciding not to endure a 90-minute wait at Harry Caray's. The food was great, and the waiter was extremely entertaining.

On Sunday, Brandi and I ran out to the Navy Pier, another fantastic destination that figures prominently in the city's bid for the 2016 Olympics. We all attended Mass at St. Peter's in the Loop, were treated to a refreshing but challenging sermon, and had lunch at an Italian restaurant that claims to be Chicago's oldest. I thought that the atmosphere was good but the food was pretty poor---the only underwhelming meal of the trip.

The Chicago trip was like a breath of fresh air. We weren't overscheduled, so we got to spend much of our time just enjoying a beautiful city. Next up is Italy!!!