Truckee

We're on our annual 'get out of Texas in August' vacation. As I've previously reported, this summer has been rough in terms of temperature. As I've left it's finally started to rain on and off, and the temperature is predicted to be only in the upper 90s. But with the rain, it's humid, etc....

So I'm up at altitude, which is lovely.

However, let me send out a general comment that watching 'live' events on the west coast sort of sucks. I speak in general, because that "previously recorded" note on top of the "LIVE" that ends up in the corner of your television feels just mean.

And more specifically, because you've had to take the already depressingly tape delayed Olympics, and delay it further. Here, where to actually watch quite a few of the events live would be entirely reasonable to do. No no, you get to see things a full 24 hours later as well as 3 hours after the east coast. My biggest current irritation was the 3 hour delay of the men's marathon that took place Sunday morning in Beijing - you know, because watching something live that started at 3:30 pm on a Saturday afternoon is such a difficult thing to do....

But I digress.

Highlights of the trip thus far:
* Got a genuinely cheap rental car - yay for off-airport car rental locations!
* $25 hotwire rate for a room on the club level at the Atlantis. It was a really swanky room.
* Already 1 trip to Sierra Trading Post - and their Labor Day Sale time of year
* Walking, hiking, skating, running, and maybe some boating are all in the plans.

Trip to San Francisco, part 1

Ok, so it's not all that novel - a trip to San Francisco. I mean, Tom is there all the time. But this is the first trip I've made up there in quite a while. As always, Tom was working, but I wandered about a bit and found some nice fun things.

Here's the Ferry Building the day I visited. I had to wear a coat on occasion. It was fabulous. While it was a beautiful blue sky in this direction, if you looked across the bay, it was foggy and crappy, so I elected not to bore you with a picture of that.


I visited the Timbuk2 store. Timbuk2 bags are available in many places, including my favorite Sierra Trading Post. However, they are based in San Francisco, and there are some fabrics and styles of bags that are only available there. I got this nifty new custom bag.


I did run across a janitors strike near Union Square. I walked along with them for a bit.


More to come.

We've finally learned

Never again will we do any serious work on our sprinkler system. The guys who came last week to fix the problems we'd created can fix the problem completely in less time that it would take Tom and I to describe the problem. Money well spent.

Ridiculous veg

Doesn't this carrot scream 'Rockettes'?

Material Girls Bee Quilt

My quilting bee made a group quilt for the silent auction for our bi-annual guild quilt show, and I thought I'd show y'all what it looks like. We're feeling terribly proud of ourselves these days due to all of our organization to do single block in a fairly timely manner, and then get all of those blocks to one place to get them assembled. I know that some quilting bees do all sorts of group projects - in some cases, a bee might exist to solely work on group projects. That's just not us. No quilted garments, and organization is optional is really more of what we are about.

Family Reunion

Tom and I met with some of the Behrens' side of the family at the Cumberland Mountain State Park at the beginning of June. We gathered here 22 years ago, and now there are 2 more cousins, and everyone's grown up.

We visited the family cemetery - mostly to visit Grandma Lottie, but also it was nice to show Tom the names of so many of my family members. We learned of a few more folks that have passed more recently. And Dad reminded me of who a lot of folks were, and how the family tree looks - it's a big family, and understandably hard to keep straight.

Burgess Family Cemetery

We also spent time at the state park. A lot of the family time was spent playing a game that is (unfortunately) called cornhole. It is good fun. I'm quite awful. Uncle Jeff is the best trash-talker I've ever been around. It's like he's a trash-talking prodigy.

Cumberland Mountain State Park

See Rock City

We traveled to Tennessee after our trip to Ohio. While we were there, we started our week with a trip to Chattanooga to See Rock City. I was last there in 1986. It's a fun natural amusement park. This time, Tom and I also went to Ruby Falls - a beautiful underground waterfall inside a cave under Lookout Mountain, GA.

It was a hazy day, so I don't think we could actually see all seven states. But we'll just pretend.

Our photos from this trip remind me a lot of the photos from 22 years ago.

See Rock City

Sarah and Caleb's wedding

In early June we traveled up to Ohio for Sarah and Caleb's wedding. It was a lovely weekend all around. Here are some various photos from the events we attended (click on the photo to open each album):

Rehearsal and Rehearsal dinner

Sarah and Caleb Rehersal

Getting ready with Sarah, her mom and the bridesmaids

Sarah Wedding Prep

Wedding events

Sarah and Caleb Wedding Day

Reception

Sarah and Caleb Reception

Galapagos Baby

This Thanksgiving, we're off to visit the Galapagos Islands. Yay for us since we wanted to make travel arrangements, and then actually went ahead and did so

Here's the company we're going with for the tour around the islands.

Box of Veg

Today we are getting:

• Beets
• Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Dill
• Yellow Onions
• Sunburst Squash
• Yellow Squash
• White Icycle Radishes
• Tomatoes

If you've got recipe suggestions - stick them in the comments

Oh the heat

Hello family and friends,

I love Austin. It's a great town with so many fabulous attributes. I almost can't believe that I've lived here for almost 10 years now. I remember going to back to Ohio pretty early on when I lived here, and I visited my high school. I was talking to Mr. Scott, my senior year English teacher, and he was asking where I lived - when I told him Texas, his response was "....why?" I didn't have a particularly good response, but at this point I also can't really imagine living anywhere else....except for now.

I know that we were spoiled a bit last summer. Then, sadly for our family in Florida and California, and from what I understand, there were high pressure weather systems sitting over both the southeastern and southwestern United States which was pulling rain from the gulf and raining over Texas just about every day. While at the time, I thought we were going to just about wash away since it was really soggy, I knew that our relatively low temperatures were a gift from mother nature.

Now, we are paying for all that lovely reservoir filling rain and cool temperatures. This year, that same weather pattern seems to have reversed itself.

I know very well that August in Texas is very much like February was in Ohio. By that time you're fed up with the weather that has been going on forever and feels like its going to continue forever. I fear that this year will not be even that generous.

For about 2 weeks now, we've had the consistent weather forecast of "high of 97, low of 75". In reality I think this has been playing out with a high of something closer to 102, and a low....well that never seems to get all that low. And the little pictures that go along with the predictions for the next week are all bright suns, untarnished by clouds, and of course with no significant variation in temperatures.

I'm fed up.

I want to go to the mountains or possibly the southern hemisphere. I assume that why I've started buying guidebooks again. The weather makes me not want to do anything - a common affliction I believe during the summer in the south. But I want to want to exercise, be about town, and have even the tiniest bit of motivation.

I feel a bit bad for being jealous that Tom gets to travel to places where the temperatures don't head anywhere near the triple digits.

Group quilt

My quilting friend Allison had a little boy recently. In our second act of organization within my small quilting group, we managed to get our act together and get a quilt made before Alexander arrived. Here is the finished quilt with the little guy (5 days old) enjoying it - well, ok, he was really just asleep and couldn't be bothered to wake up when we put him on the quilt....but can you blame him?

Miami Beach

I was in Miami Beach this past weekend for Sarah's bachelorette party. Her sister Megan organized a super swank weekend at the Delano with plenty of good food and fun places.

Here is the bride-to-be in her bachelorette party attire


We were staying in the penthouse suite, and here was the view from our window. Not too shabby.

Good writing, close to our hearts

Tom found this article. It's genius. 2 pages long, but totally worth it.

Veg this week

Here's what we got this week:

• Asparagus
• Beets
• Broccoli sprouts
• Garlic
• Green Onions
• White Icycle Radishes
• Swiss Chard
• Squash
• Strawberries
  

If anyone has fun ideas for recipes for any of these things, put them in the comments :-)