A Sweaty Halloween! - October 2012

We are very fortunate that we ended up in the same city as some great friends from law school. We met Sophie and Jose at Thanksgiving our first year in Boston. Sophie and I saw each other pretty regularly at our Harvard Widows nights (where all of us semi-abandoned wives would get together to watch movies or just hang out), and when her daughter Mirabel was born we had playgroups together too. (By the way, Sophie is an AMAZING gluten-free baker and keeps up two beautiful blogs - one about her lovely family and one about her lovely baking.) We discovered that they are fellow foodies and shared some pretty awesome food. After a few years getting beat up in the job search, Mario asked Jose what the market looked like here in Austin. Jose did such a great job selling us on the area that Mario thought he’d give it one more shot. And that’s part of why we ended up here! Anyway, they invited us to go visit a pumpkin patch the day after ACL. Thankfully, Josh and Mirabel are just opposite enough that they have a ball together.
 

Josh's lion, followed by a hippo, a giraffe, and a zebra.

We carved pumpkins, as always. Josh told Mario what animals he wanted on his pumpkin; I think Mario did an amazing job. 

Josh actually got two pumpkins this year - I did this Iron Man one for him trying to get him excited about his costume.

 

Scout's pumpkin - with her two lonely little teeth.

Here’s Scout’s pumpkin. And mine.
 










 
The weekend before Halloween we visited a sort-of-nearby “State Natural Area” (what does that even mean?) called Enchanted Rock. It was beautiful and we can’t wait to go back and actually get to hike the dome. Scout wouldn’t stop crying in the front pack and Josh refused to walk more than ten yards at a time, so we gave up and found some water for Josh to throw rocks in while we tried to keep Scout from eating said rocks. 










 


Halloween was fun, but I’m excited for Josh to get enough better with his talking that we can actually one day have a real conversation, like, say, about what he would like to be for Halloween. That way I won’t have to guess, then buy, then have second thoughts, then rent three movies to try to get him excited about what it is I think he said he wanted to be for a holiday I’m pretty sure he doesn’t understand. He was thrilled to get to wear it to school and walk in the costume parade, though, and then thrilled again to get to use it to get lots of candy. I actually tried to get him an animal costume, namely a lion or an elephant which were his current favorites, but I got totally hosed. Mario amped up Josh’s costume when we went out trick-or-treating, though. He put one of our camping headlamps around Josh’s chest so it would shine through the chest piece on his Iron Man costume. Pretty awesome if you ask me!

We were going for a theme here, can you tell? That’s just about the cutest hulk I’ve ever seen (sorry, Mark Ruffalo).
 
Mia was still pretty sick, so she and I stayed home to finish making dessert and snuggle while Josh and Mario did more trick-or-treating with the Ancers. And he didn’t take one single photo, dang it, so you’ll just have to imagine!

My mom does so many things well, and one of those things is make bread. She made all of the bread we ate for the lean years of our childhood. In fact, we used to request “bread that folds,” meaning plain, white, store-bought bread, because we ate homemade bread so much and that, of course, does not fold (as in making-a-half-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich fold). Anyway, I’ve never found a better cinnamon roll than my mom’s, fresh out of the oven with cream cheese frosting. And one of my most favorite bread traditions in my family was Halloween donut parties. In honor of my amazing mother and her out-of-this-world homemade donuts, I gave it a shot. I’ve attempted donuts before, but this time instead of trying to work my mom’s magic with my mom’s dough (which I apparently am just not talented enough to do), I tried Alton Brown’s yeast doughnut recipe (note: I used unsalted butter instead of shortening). It was phenomenal. As my mom has taught me, the mark of a really good donut is that little white ring around the middle - it means you didn’t overwork your risen dough, you developed your gluten sufficiently, you didn’t kill your yeast, and you fried them at the right temperature so the dough could continue rising even during frying. And lookie what I got here!! I took a picture of it then and there and sent it to my mom. 

I made some super-dark chocolate glaze and (a la Flying Pig from Gourdough’s) a sweet maple glaze topped with crispy bacon. Heaven.

 


It was odd to worry about the kids overheating in their Halloween costumes. Last Halloween, Josh had just gotten his leg cast off and it was 7 degrees outside. This year I think it was in the high 80s, maybe low 90s. Good times.

Home Sweet Austin . . . Again! - October

We spent our first week in Austin in a vacation rental while we looked for a house to rent. Mario had been keeping tabs on the rental market since about February, so it only took us a day to find the place we wanted. We’re in a neighborhood fairly close to where we lived last summer, just about two miles from Mario’s office. We love our house and are quite settled now. 



We’re really enjoying being back in Austin. The mosquitoes here are at least as bad as they were in Alaska, which was a bit of a shock since I don’t remember there being many at all last summer. Josh got all these bites in ONE EVENING. One of the reasons we picked this house is it has a huge (relatively for this

Fun with boxes!

neighborhood, anyway) backyard, but we can’t really use it because there are fire ant mounds every few feet and the mosquitos are so bad you can’t be outside for more than a few seconds without them finding you. It has gotten a lot better since the weather cooled down, but man it was bad for a few weeks there!

Mario and I both love concerts and have been to a fair amount by ourselves, but we’d never been to one together. When MCA of the Beastie Boys died earlier this year, I realized the bands who I listened to during my high school years are getting old. And seeing Weezer, who is perhaps my favorite band of all time, was bumped to the top of my bucket list. It just so happened Weezer was going to be at Austin City Limits this year. So of course we simply had to go. 

Austin City Limits is a yearly music event similar to Lallapalooza where there are multiple stages set up in a huge city park, so you can see a dozen bands play in a day. We had all-day passes, so we brought the kids down during the day. Josh had fun in the drum circle. Then we visited the Kiddie Punk Rockers tent. We had some wonderful food and listened to some really great music (the Wombats KILLED IT, just in case you were wondering) and then took the little ones home for naps. 

We left them with a sitter and went back to ACL for the evening. It’s not every day you get to check something off your bucket list. Weezer was perhaps the most satisfying performance I have ever seen, and the list of concerts I’ve been to includes Blink 182, Rage Against the Machine, MC Hammer (yes, you read that right), Mary J. Blige, Boyz II Men, Smashing Pumpkins (on 4 separate occasions), and others I can’t recall at the moment. They were all pretty amazing, but Weezer was the best. Period. Maybe it’s because I love their music so much. 

 







We had some more awesome food (crispy artichoke hearts with spicy aioli, watermelon with goat cheese and pop rocks, and kimchee beef burritos to name a few) and then saw the beginning of the headliners for the evening, the Black Keys. We left after about 10 minutes because they SUCKED. I mean, I enjoy their music on the radio and stuff, but live they sounded really, really horrible so we left. But it was still a huge success. And we already have tickets for next year’s ACL! 

Road trip! - September part 4

Sourdough waffles!

Our first stop on the way to Texas was San Francisco. We had a pretty long day in the car and ended up in a hotel right on the waterfront. Our typical day of sightseeing someplace we’re interested in usually consists of bookin’ it from one place to another so we’re sure we do everything we want to do. This time was a totally different experience. We just wandered all day long. We started with sourdough waffles at Boudin’s on the pier and slowly made our way through the city to Chinatown. 
 
Ah, Chinatown, how your buckets of strange dried things and random weird smells took us back to our dear sweet China! We found some really wonderful things that made us smile, like some essential Chinese cooking utensils, our favorite sunflower seeds that we never traveled without, and the BEST instant noodle soup on the planet. We picked up some wicked awesome steamed bbq pork buns on our way out  and then indulged in a dark chocolate Ghirardelli ice cream sundae before we loaded up for another long day in the car to Las Vegas.

Tired girl - that Ghirardelli sundae did her in! Gotta hang on to that spoon in case there's more ice cream to eat when she wakes up!

Aunt Wendy is always so much fun!

Scout enjoying some tickles and TV.

 In Vegas we got to stay with my aunt Wendy and her family. We got tickets to see La Reve, which was awesome, and then got tapas at Wendy and Phil’s favorite place -

Josh and Macaiah.

Firefly. Bacon-wrapped figs stuffed with almonds and drizzled with a red wine reduction and blue cheese crumbles? Yes, please! Yowza. We visited a Greek festival for some lovely baklava and other assorted delights, and enjoyed some of Phil’s famous carne asada. 
 
 

Mario's gramdparents.

From Vegas we made the short hop to Mesa, Arizona to visit Mario’s grandparents. We had a great visit with Lois and Bob, and had the chance to visit some other friends from law school nearby, the Lloyds.

The Lloyds!

We had almost weekly playdates with the Lloyds in Boston, and had a great time catching up.

Santa Fe

Waiting for bbq in Santa Fe.

From Mesa we traveled to Albuquerque to stay with Scott and Anita, my brother and sister-in-law. We planned on staying one night and ended up staying three. We also made a short day trip to nearby Santa Fe. 


They are amazing cooks and made us some delicious Korean bbq.

 




And then we were back to Texas, which was almost just as hot and humid as when we left last August. Home sweet home!

Friends, friends, and more friends - September part 4

From Foutz Week we threw Heather a little baby shower and went to Hillsboro to spend a few days with Mario’s family while waiting for Heather and Jake's baby to arrive.

Mario’s parents divorced when he was very young, and he has an extensive step family from his mom’s remarriage. They are some pretty amazing people, and they have blessed Mario’s life (and mine by extension as well as directly) in ways that simply cannot be measured. He has said that if it wasn’t for the influence of Rich and Mike Vial he may not have decided to go to college after high school. Nic and Hailey Vial gave me a job our first married year. Rich and Mike are both attorneys and had a significant influence on Mario’s education and career decisions. These people are part of why we are where we are today, and we wanted to say a very small thank you. So we offered to cook them a Chinese dinner. It turned out to be a meal for about 30 people, and if you have ever cooked Chinese food you know that is A LOT of chopping and frying. Mario and I prepped the night before for about three hours, then got up that morning and cooked all day (except for about 2 hours of church), and we still weren’t close to ready when dinner time rolled around at 5pm. Luckily everyone pitched in to help us finish up (including multiple people passing our kids around so we could both help get dinner on the table) and it was awesome. I was too busy cooking to get out my camera, but you can see a bit of our evening at Mario’s step-brother’s blog here. Josh was in heaven yet again with tons of cousins and assorted furry creatures to chase around.

We took a day just to visit with a few wonderful people. We had lunch with Mike and Christine & Co and then went to visit Corvallis, the home of our alma mater Oregon State University. We visited with one of my best friends from our OSU days, Brittney Fry, and her lovely family. We also got to catch up with Mario’s adviser from his engineering program, Dr. Deb Pence. Deb had a profound influence on helping Mario make the decision to use his engineering degrees for something besides sitting in a cubicle for the rest of his life and has been a true friend as well as a mentor.

After our afternoon in Corvallis we went to Lebanon to have dinner with an old friend of mine from high school, Kevin Mitchell, and his wonderful family. 

It was a pretty awesome day filled with really awesome people. Unfortunately we were so busy visiting with all these wonderful people that we didn’t take a single picture. We love you all even though we don’t have any shots of you to post!

The next day we headed to the hospital to meet the newest member of the Foutz family - baby Zachary was a darling and let us take some pictures of him. We brought his Tonka truck intending to take some pictures of him sleeping in the truck bed, but he was too big and I was worried he was going to roll out of it, so we placed it strategically in the background.

I forgot to mention that we also got to visit for a few milliseconds with my awesome and newly-married cousin Tiffany while we were passing through Portland for Foutz Week. Thanks for stopping by, Tippety!

On our way from Portland back to Grants Pass we got to visit some of our best friends from law school, Josh and Whitney, who happened to end up in a PhD program at University of Oregon. It was so awesome to catch up and made us miss our law school days like crazy. I don’t think we’ll ever make more friends like the ones we found in Boston. Love you guys! 

We spent the night in Grants Pass, said goodbye to all the grandparents, and started our journey toward Texas.