Grandma Jean

I forgot to mention that my mom was in town last weekend. It’s so nice that it’s only been a few weeks since Savannah (and I) have seen her. The look on Savannah’s face when she saw my mom for the first time is the EXACT reason we moved back to Texas (well that and the Tex-Mex food). She was so excited to see her Grandma.

Here they are goofing off on our porch.

Walk -er and -ing

Here is Savannah’s new super cool walker. Notice that both pictures are blurry as she was hauling around on this thing. She is basically walking. She can take about 15 steps across the room, she’s just not sure how to get started.
Although today, while I had my back turned to her picking up some Chex off the floor, all of a sudden she was standing beside me, so I think it’s a matter of hours before she is a full blown walker.

christine - congrats Savannah! Conor and Shannon…she’ll be driving before you know it :)

Austin Random-ness

Five Random Things Seen Around Austin:

1. Conor, Savannah and I were at the grocery store one evening after dinner. It was about 55 degrees outside. As we were leaving, we spotted a man with perfectly styled silver hair wearing a full length fur coat. Awesome. (or D’Awesome for you Office fans out there)

2. One morning, we were looking out the front window into the big tree in our front yard. (Savannah likes to look at the birds and squirrels.) Conor says “Are those parrots?” Sure enough, about 12 parrots (the BIG kind, not little parakeets) were at the top of our tree. We later found out that years ago, someone let out two parrots and they have since multiplied and hang out at the UT Inter mural fields (which is right by our house). We have seen them several times. It’s weird to see tropical birds in your tree. It’s warm here, but not that warm.

3. Our neighbor on the corner had up these crazy Christmas decorations during the season that included a 4 foot diameter peace sign hoisted about 20 feet in the air. (Texas may be a red state, but Austin is a little pocket of bright blue!) Me, being the new neighbor, thought that the peace sign was part of the seasonal decor. Oh no, no, no. It’s still there and I kind of love it.

4. NORM! On my daily stalking of the This Old House (which I think I will now start abbreviating as TOH) house, I saw Norm Abrams, the master carpenter himself. He was hanging out chatting with some of the workers.

5. Have you ever seen a 15 foot tall Godzilla being moved down a street? I now have and I think I’m a better person for it.

christine - Norm!! Please take a picture :) Lucky you living in a pocket of blue…even though IL is a blue state, we are so red here Denny Hastert is our congressman.

House Hunting

We aren’t yet looking for a permanent house, but the update from our agent in Seattle is positive. Lots of people are looking at our house and we hope it will sell in the next few months. This has got me thinking about what we want and need in a new house.

I am not a fan of the McMansion monsters of my childhood home in Plano. However, I would like to have enough space for our family (and a walk-in closet). The search is also complicated by the fact that I work from home and Conor sometimes does too. Our rental house isn’t tiny, but we do not fit in the space. It will be interesting to see how we reconcile the charm vs. space issue.

Also on the House front, you should check out the link to the This Old House home in Austin. It’s an interesting read. They are building a totally ‘green’ house.

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/tvprograms/houseproject/overview/0,16542,1546552,00.html

T w e e t !
F r i e n d s   o f   T h e   S J B
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