Yee-ha, Tejas!

Okay! We've been away .....in Austin, Texas that is .....Last week we made a trip down for Marsh's college fraternity reunion at Texas A&M in College Station (great campus and fortunately not too freaky conservative ....believe me, I was worried :) ...We also had a goal to find a place to live in Austin as we've decided to wait to buy until next spring and hopefully have the opportunity to continue to watch prices fall (and then jump on our ideal place!) ....I am happy to say we had success finding a fabulous place to lease for a year!! (see happy picture I took myself of our sweaty faces below afterwards in the hotel room) .....

The community we've decided to lease in is centrally located, so we can have a nice sustainable existence without a horrible commute (yyaaaaayyyy!!!) ....It is a mixed-use development with great restaurant options and unique retail stores. But most importantly, there is a doggie park for Chance and I'm hoping he will make lots of new friends --he's just going to have to be a little more accepting and slightly less neurotic and mouthy ...I'm sure he'll adjust as we all will! Here's some photos of the new neighborhood:

Courtyards across from some of the retail space

one of the buildings with lofts in the development....love modern architecture

the doggie park.....I can hear Chance's piercing, wonderful bark already!

We had a great week and after the reunion at A&M (will be adding these photos in a slide show soon to be posted), we stayed with a colleague of Marsh's, Suresh, and his wife Brigitte. They were gracious enough to host us for a few nights and we had the chance to enjoy Brigitte's wonderful cooking. Also, we all were able to get together for dinner with another colleague of Marsh's and friends of ours, Van and Julie ....lots of laughs and excellent political topics of conversation .....there is never a lull in the conversation when Julie and I are both present :)

Me, Julie, Van, Brigitte, Suresh, and Marsh

Julie making us all laugh :)

......And I was so happy to see my old and true friend Kacia (we go waaaay back ....our fathers even went to high school together) and finally meet her little Lila (the sweetest, most easy going little gal I have ever met!) ....I am soooooooooooo happy she and her very talented musician husband Ed (part of the Heathens) are in Austin, I can't even tell you!!!

Kacia and sweet lil' Lila!
...I'll be adding a slide show of the whole trip, including pictures from the A&M reunion, soon........since this is my last week at work with OZ Architecture (I will be taking pictures for nostalgic purposes, of course) and it is a hectic one, I'll be updating sometime over the weekend when I can take a breath again ......We are, however, getting very excited and anxious about our upcoming Austin move!! It will be hot!! No, it really will .....really, really, really #$*$%* HOT!!!!
Nothing a cool body of water, real OR man-made, can't solve .....at least the summer season's temporary, right? :)