Babymoon!?!

We hadn't even heard the term "Babymoon" before we started plotting our 7th Anniversary festivities.  We decided to take a weekend break for ourselves before the little guy arrived.  We wanted a nearby locale within a few hours drive.  We settled on Austin, TX, and then started looking for things to do there.  I stumbled onto the mother-load, The Dinner Detective!  More on that in a minute.

We arrived in Austin on Friday afternoon.  The first objective, checking into our Holiday Inn Express.  Check.  The second objective, to see the state capitol building.  Check.  The third objective, food!  While driving around, Lady spotted an Indian restaurant and we pulled in.  I had never tried Indian food before, and it was awesome!  Check.  The last objective for the evening, witnessing the Congress Avenue Bridge bat colony heading out for dinner at twilight.  The bat colony is the largest urban colony in the country...or something like that.  We didn't get to see the mass exodus that you hear about, but got to see a handful zipping around and plenty of guano.  Sorry Earl, didn't collect any for you.

Saturday was a whole new experience.  The usual fantastic Holiday Inn Express breakfast followed by a day of reading, napping, and swimming!  To top off the relaxing, we headed to the Mariott for the Dinner Detective.  It is a murder mystery dinner theater that occurs over a 4 course meal.  We started with creating our aliases for the evening, Lady was Anya and I was Fenix.  (Bonus points if you know where those names come from!)  The evening started with appetizers and chit-chat with the other attendees in an area that was separated from the dinner tables by caution tape!  Then, we sat down at our seats and a man burst into the room yelling and had a knife sticking out of him, eeek.  After that, we got to meet our detectives.  The tone was set early, and the laughs didn't stop all evening.  We got our salads, then some more clues, then our entrees, then some more clues, and then our dessert and our last clues.  We then had 7 minutes to fill out our answer sheets to tell who did it and why.  As we get the answer sheets, they set the cheesecake out in front of us, those devious folks!  The closest answer would win a prize.  Ta-Da, Lady, I mean Anya, was victorious!!!

If you are ever in Austin, or any other location where the Dinner Detective is, we highly recommend it!

Whew!  That was an awesome weekend :-)

Congress Ave Bridge, up top viewing.

The bats' home underneath in all those cracks.

Chillin' under the bridge.

Timed pictures that you aren't ready for...Priceless!

Ah, nailed it that time :-)

Lady and her prize pack with our alias nametags.

The coveted prizes!  We were quite pleased with our detective work.

The Whole Family!

We finally got out and took some family pictures!  We had a blast wandering around our apartment grounds and setting up shots.  Hope you enjoy them!

Our favorite picture was reserved for going out on our postcard update.  Are you on our mailing list?

4th of July Festivities

Were able to enjoy some fireworks over the harbor with good friends!

Then zipped on over to Boston, MA to catch their finale...
yeah ok, we turned on the TV at home, but still felt like we were there with the fireworks exploding on a 117" screen :-)

Summertime Blooms

Daisy out keeping watch on the flora.

Beautiful.

Pet Hotel Carries On!

The "Doggy 500" has been reduced to the "Doggy Drag Race".  The relaxing factor was not affected though :-)

Living Room Rev 2

The 2nd version of the living room.  The projector is up on it's own behind the couch!

The First Visitor

Not even a proper good morning from him...

...just "Booga-booga-booga!"

The Original Wood Project

Here it is!  Patient Zero of my woodworking creativeness spell.  Lady and I had discussed a possible art center for her many, many, many, ok you get the picture, times.  Once I had Google SketchUp rolling, I could finally properly prepare for the big project.  The other projects were all me practicing the skills for this finishing this one.

It is 4 separate pieces with 4 drawers and adjustable shelving in the hutch!

Our New Home - The Move In

The new apartment with patio and storage closet.

1 day B.T.S...Before The Stuff

Our first visit down to the harbor.

A quite appropriate gecko greeting!

Bring out yer stuff...bring out yer stuff.

Fill 'er up!

The new kitchen, with extra high bar.

Just enough space to take a break.

Our savior...the Loft.  It's been with us 8yrs!

Chillin'!

Farewell 321 Old Course Dr

26' U-haul + A lot of vehicle trips!

We have a fantastic crew of friends!

Shrek was the last man out.

Yeah...we took the piano for a walk!

I'm sure passing folks thought it couldn't get any weirder...

...clearly they hadn't met us! :-)

Piano beats toe every time...ouch!

The piano in its new home!

Somebody worked way too hard that day, so Yahtzee had to supervise her timeout.

Tree Frog Squadron

The tree frogs saying farewell, and thanks for all the pvc homes!

Our Disappearance

Didn't realize it had been quite that long since our last post.  Our life took a few drastic turns over that past few months, and blogging never quite made it to the top of the priority list.  So, let me take you back for a quick trip through our lives since the last post in April...

During the flurry of woodworking at the beginning of April, I got a call from Lockheed Martin for a job interview.  Over the course of April, I received an offer for the position.  I then began work on May 9th.  My title is Mechanical Engineer and I am working with the Cargo Mission Contract 2 dealing with ISS hardware.  I am doing some work with 3D CAD modeling, some work with hardware processing, and a little of this and a little of that.

Our mortgage company was unwilling to work with us to stay in the house after we got the job offer, and so we have subsequently relocated.  We are now in a fantastic 1 bedroom apartment in League City where we don't have to do any of the upkeep and the blue is always blue!  Woot-woot!  We started the move on April 29th and threw in the towel May 4th.  We went from a 4-2-2 house to a 1-1-1 apartment and detached garage.  We have even managed to make everything fit!...mostly.

Finally, over the weekend of our anniversary, we made ourselves take a freakin' break.  We headed to Austin, TX for a weekend "Babymoon" for some R&R before the little guy gets here.  We had an amazing time, and I'll throw some pictures up and more details in a later post.

And, here we are.  Counting down the days until we get to meet our son!