Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from the cutest little pumpkin and wakeboarder.

They really weren't interested in wearing their costumes...

...or in taking any pictures...

...so these pictures are the best we could get -- even while bribing them with treats!

Miles was equally as difficult to get a picture of, but he was the cutest little train conductor.

Isn't he precious?!

We sat outside on the driveway and passed out candy, and after Miles did a little bit of trick-or-treating and had taken his bath, he came back outside to join us.  He had so much fun telling everybody, "Happy Hallowheeeeen".

And apparently this is what happens when you drink milk and say "cheese" at the exact same time -- haha.

It's so exciting to think that next year that we will have our own little trick-or-treater.  He won't be ready for the candy quite yet, but don't worry -- I'll help him out in that department.  Happy Halloween, everybody!  I hope your evening was as fun as ours. :)

24 weeks down, 16 weeks to go!

As of yesterday, I am now 24 weeks pregnant.

According to BabyCenter, our baby now weighs just over a pound and is almost a foot long -- the size of an ear of corn.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to take pictures on weeks 22 or 23, but as you can see, I have definitely grown in the past couple of weeks.  Some of it might have something to do with all of the good eating that I did while I was in Dallas, but this baby is definitely growing.  His kicks and punches are so much stronger now, and a lot of times I can actually see my stomach move.  His punches and kicks are also a lot more frequent these days, and even though it can be quite distracting {especially when I'm trying to carry on a conversation at work}, I love it.  One thing I don't love so much though is the amount of pressure that he's able to put in one tiny little area.  I'm not sure if it's his head or his rear end, but either way, a couple times a day, he moves in a certain way that makes that particular part of my stomach hard as a rock, which is actually pretty uncomfortable.  Aside from that though, I really don't have anything to complain about.  Things are still going great, and I still really like being pregnant.  At some point this week, I plan to go to my first prenatal yoga class, which I'm really looking forward to, and on Wednesday, I go to the doctor to have my glucose screening test.  Please say a prayer that I pass and that I don't have gestational diabetes.  This baby and I have quite the sweet tooth, and we'd really rather not stop eating desserts -- especially with the holidays right around the corner.  Because, if you're like me, you know that the desserts are a huge part of what the holiday season is all about! ;)

A Couple Weeks in Dallas

The past couple of weeks, I've been working in the Dallas office and living out of a hotel.  Overall, it's been okay, but I'm ready to be back home with my family {and I'm pretty sure they're ready for me to be back, too}.  Aside from working, I've spent the past couple of weeks watching a bunch of mindless TV in my hotel room {while feeling AND watching the baby move}, running on the treadmill downstairs, and trying all sorts of different restaurants.  I've had thai food from The Mint {a Yelp recommendation}... grilled chicken from Dunston's Prime Steakhouse {a Yelp recommendation and a TOTAL bust}... a burger from Village Burger Bar {my college roommate Katie's recommendation}... turkey from eatZi's Market & Bakery {another one of Katie's recommendations}... fajitas from Mia Tex Mex {a Texas Monthly Magazine recommendation}... pizza from Sal's {an office recommendation}... and lasagna from Carpone's {another Texas Monthly recommendation}.  Now you know why I had to spend so much time on the treadmill -- haha.  The highlight of my Dallas trip was definitely getting to see Katie and John though.

This week, I went over to their house for a delicious home-cooked meal, and last week, we went to dinner at Tillman's Roadhouse in the Bishop Arts District.

The food at Tillman's was awesome!  The chicken fried steak was the best that I've ever had, and for dessert, we had smores with maple, strawberry, and orange marshmallows.  Ah-mazing.

Thankfully, I was able to go home this past weekend, but we had so much going on that it just flew by.  On Saturday, Cheryl and I had a garage sale.  My mom came over to help, and I made a couple hundred dollars by selling a bunch of junk.  Pretty good if you ask me.  That evening, our neighborhood had a picnic in the park, which turned out to be a lot of fun.  I had no idea that many kids even lived in our neighborhood till I saw all of them together.  Crazy!  I definitely am going to need to stock up on Halloween candy this year.  Our HOA had hired a clown to make balloon animals for the kids and a caricaturist, too.  Pretty cute, huh?

I didn't realize until a couple of days ago that Saturday actually marked four years that we've lived in our house.  Pretty nice of our HOA to throw a party in honor of that, huh? ;)  On Sunday, I spent the day doing things for Holly's bachelorette party {which is this coming weekend} and did laundry/packed for another week in Dallas.  Thankfully, I go home for good tomorrow afternoon -- especially since a cold front blew through today, and I don't have any warm clothes.  It also rained at some point {although I wouldn't know when since I never left the office}, and apparently, I have a leak in my bathroom ceiling because now there's a huge puddle on the floor.  Unfortunately, I didn't see it, so I slipped and almost fell, but thankfully, I was able to catch myself.  I thought about calling the front desk to let them know about the leak, but I really don't want have to switch rooms my last night here.  Call me lazy, but I'll just let them know when I check out tomorrow morning.  Until then, I'm going to watch some more mindless TV and get some shuteye.  Sweet dreams. :)

"Babymoon" Part 4: A Couple More Days in Austin

The last couple of days of our "babymoon", we spent hanging out in Austin -- doing things that we usually don't have time to do.  On Friday, we went to brunch at Kerbey Lane Cafe {the pumpkin pancakes were amazing!} and then went hiking at McKinney Falls State Park.

I hadn't been to McKinney Falls since I was little, and I'm pretty sure Ben had never been, so it was a perfect place to get outside and get some good exercise at the same time.

Our first stop was to see the Lower McKinney Falls and then hike the Homestead Hike & Bike Trail.

Just a short walk across all of this rock...

...were the Lower McKinney Falls.

The water was beautiful...

...and the way that the water had eroded the rock was really awesome, too.

The McKinney Homestead was located at the beginning of the hiking trail...

...but there's not a whole lot of it left standing today.

 

The hiking trail was about 3 miles total, and it was a lot of fun.  Ben led the way {so that he could be the one that ran into any spider webs}, and I followed closely behind.   

All of the flowers were really pretty, and Ben made sure to point out all of the frogs, beetles, squirrels, red tail hawks, dove, and HUGE  grasshoppers that he saw.

When we made it back to the Lower McKinney Falls and then to the truck, we were both still feeling pretty good, so we decided to hike the other 3-mile trail, too.

We drove over to the Upper McKinney Falls and the Onion Creek Hike & Bike Trail, but this time, we decided to do the hiking before "rewarding" ourselves by going over to the falls.  This hike was also a lot of fun, but it was definitely different from the other one.  While the other trail was nothing but dirt and rock and fairly narrow in areas, this trail was paved the entire way and a lot wider.

This trail also didn't have any mile markers, so we weren't really sure where we were on the trail until we could hear the falls and knew that we were almost done.

The Upper McKinney Falls were really pretty, and there were quite a few people swimming, too.

After hiking 6 miles, we were so thankful to be done...

...and on our way home, we decided to treat ourselves to a cold snack -- a snow cone for me and a Dairy Queen blizzard for Ben.

On Saturday, we went to ACL for the very first time.

The Wheeler Brothers were playing, so we definitely weren't going to miss that, and I'm so glad that we were there because their show was GREAT...

...and their audience was HUGE!

Since the Wheeler Brothers came on a little after 1:00, we got there early, and at the point, there really weren't a whole lot of people there.

That quickly changed though because it wasn't before too long that there were people EVERYWHERE.

Baby Boy and I did a little bit of marketing while we were there in our Wheeler Brothers' t-shirt, and that day was the first time that a complete stranger commented on the fact that I am pregnant.  I was standing in line at the porta potty when the guy standing next to me asked how far along I was.  It totally caught me off guard, but apparently his sister had given birth the night before, and he was obviously a very proud uncle.

We spent a lot of time at the Honda stage, and over the course of the day, we heard Big Crit, Roots, Metric, Big Gigantic, and Bass Nectar {most of which I had never even heard of until that day}.

There were so many people...

...and so many flags.

While we were listening to Big Gigantic, it started to get really dark, and suddenly, it started to pour.

Thankfully, Kyle had given us a couple of ponchos when she left, but we still got pretty wet.

Most of the time that we were there, we hung out with Ben's cousins Jack and Sam and a few of their friends, and at one point, we actually ended up running into Chris and Grace, so we hung out with them for awhile, too.  The city skyline was so pretty in the distance, but unfortunately, I couldn't get a very good picture.

By the time we left that night, we had been there for over 10 hours, and I was exhausted.  Crawling into bed never felt so good, and my feet were still a little sore even the next day.  On Sunday, we spent the day hanging out at home and preparing to go back to work the next day.  Unfortunately, our "babymoon" had come to a close, but I am so thankful that we were able to take some time off and hang out just the two of us for 10 days straight.

"Babymoon" Part 3: A Trip to College Station

On Wednesday morning, we headed to College Station {the place where Ben and I first met} and stopped at two places for breakfast along the way.  One of us was hungry for donuts and the other one was hungry for breakfast tacos, so we stopped for both -- because you can do things like that when you're on vacation.  When we got into College Station, we made a loop around campus and then parked near the engineering/architecture buildings so that we could walk around a little bit.  Walking up to campus with Ben was such deja vu and brought back so many wonderful memories.

Me {& my baby bump} in front of the civil engineering building

We even found the pictures of my graduating class...

...and quickly remembered how much I hated the way that they looked.  The lady that took them held the camera about a foot from our faces, which distorted the picture like crazy and made all of us look like goldfish in a bowl.

After stopping by to say "hi" to both Dr. Burris {my advisor in grad school} and Shawn Turner {the researcher that I worked for in grad school}, we decided to walk around campus.  Amazingly enough, Ross Street is no longer under construction and is so pretty now with the star-shaped paver design.

We went by the Annex {where we studied on the 5th floor on a daily/nightly basis} and then walked through the Commons {where Ben and I both lived in the dorms our freshmen year}.  We then walked across campus to see the new MSC building.  Unfortunately, I was wearing jeans and had forgotten how hot and humid it is in College Station, so by the time we got there, I was so glad to get back into the AC.  The new MSC is beautiful, but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures.  I did take one of the Academic Building....

and one of the Century Tree.

I absolutely love this campus...

...but I definitely don't miss spending my afternoons in survey lab.

After spending a couple of hours walking around campus, we had really built up an appetite, so we decided go and get some lunch.

If I had a dollar for every time we've ever made this {beautiful} drive out of campus, I'd already be retired.

We ended up going to Layne's for lunch.  Their chicken fingers and fries were just as delicious as ever, and I had forgotten how much I love their crushed ice and toast.

After we ate, we decided to drive by the places that we had lived the first couple of years that we were married.  This was our first place -- Briarwood {a.k.a. BriarHOOD}, Apartment #115.  They look pretty different on the outside with the painted brick and new color scheme, but I have a feeling the inside hasn't changed a bit.  When we moved away, we left a grill locked to the column {mostly because we didn't have anywhere to put it at our next place}, and we're fairly certain that's the exact same one.

We then drove down the street to our first "home" -- Cripple Creek Condos, Unit #70.  It didn't look much different from when we lived there, but we definitely didn't have that much junk on the balcony.  We did notice that they're still enjoying our beautifully tinted window and sliding glass door though, and I really hope that they appreciate all of the effort Ben went to to install that and all of the bad words that I had to listen to in the process. ;)

After the home tour, we went over to TTI to see our friend Fan.  I met Fan when I was in grad school and when she was getting her PhD, but now she works at TTI as a researcher.  It was so good to see her {and her awesome office}, and we had a great time catching up.

After such a busy day, we decided to go check into the hotel and relax a little bit before going out that night. Earlier that day, we had bought tickets for the Aaron Watson concert, so I figured that it would be good to rest my feet for a bit before we danced the night away.

That night, we got dressed up and asked the guy at the front desk to take a picture before we headed out.

We ended up going to Blue Baker for dinner, and although it wasn't at the original location that we used to go to, the food was still really good.

After dinner, we headed over to Hurricane Harry's.  We got there pretty early, and thankfully, the dance floor never really filled up, so we got to dance a lot.  I realized a few days before the trip that our very first dance {at the Texas Hall Fame and to "Texas Angel" by Honeybrowne} had been on October 10th, 2002 -- exactly 10 years prior to the day.  How crazy and special is that?

Ben kept pointing out the fact that we were one of the oldest couples there and that I was the only girl that was pregnant {because he's a sweetheart like that}, but even still, we were some of the last to leave.  We finally left at about 1:30 in the morning, and after a quick trip through the Taco Bell drive-thru, we went back to the hotel and crashed.

On Thursday morning, we slept in, and after I did a few things on the computer for Special Olympics, we headed over to Rosa's for lunch...

...and after saying goodbye to campus, we made our way back home.

The drive back to Austin ended up being pretty exciting since it was during that drive that I felt the baby kick {or punch} for the very first time.  It was so strong that it kinda took me by surprise, and I told Ben that I was pretty sure that you could have felt it from the outside, too.  It only happened just that one time, but I'm pretty sure that he was letting us know that was enjoying the "babymoon", too, and that he loved our trip to College Station just as much as we did.