It is only fitting that now while we’re in midst of the Austin summer heat wave we should be reminded of the ice storm back in January.

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After months of constant rain (and flooding) the odd weather has given way to typical Texas heat [thank God the humidity has taken a vacation]. Louise’s father Geoff thought my recounting of the January ice storm was not complete without this picture of the massive ice storm that shut down Austin, taking its toll on our young plants (surprisingly this plant survives). That was just the beginning of the weird weather we’ve faced since moving here. After the ice storm abated, we had a short mild winter, and then the deluge began, which dumped a year of rain fall before May was up. And then it just kept coming, so I would assume at this point we have reached the annual average for Seattle.

Since we got here, the weather has been a constant impediment to our plans, whatever they were. Cancelled boat trips, Daniel’s field trips, BBQs and parties, simple days in the park, not to mention a constant flow of mud tracked in throughout the house by the dogs and even the cat (they obviously don’t care about the weather, mud, ice or scorching heat) Every weekend, we wanted to take the boat out (during the spring and then the summer), but the rain just wouldn’t stop. In fact, a recent visit in July by my parents was practically rained out–well at least all our plans were. The weather here didn’t turn back to normal (that is, blistering summer heat) until about two weeks ago (the day after my parents left). Finally we have been able to take the boat out and enjoy the lake and sunshine (which here, you do during the semi cool evening. Days are reserved for refuge in the shade or more likely inside the air conditioned interiors.)

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It’s interesting to note that before we got here, Austin had been experiencingSie können dann den Geldwert, mit dem Sie http://www.ideal-casino.de möchten, wählen 0 komma 25 Euro , 1 , 2 , oder 5 Euro aus. a year-plus drought. Which were the same weather circumstances, when I arrived in California at 10 years old. On that occasion, my first week (in June) was noted for constant rain that ruined baseball camp–and it never rains in California in the summer. So maybe, it’s just me.

So, in memory of our first frost-bitten winter in Austin, here’s Geoff’s Ice Storm bush. And now we are getting close to fall, which is normally the most pleasant time of the year. But that was before we moved here.

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OK, I’m not really adding a Part 6 to this expose on the mundane aspects of moving. I am totally done now. Instead, I’ll just start keeping this page updated. Promise, really. If you’re just starting, you might want to start at the beginning, where I sort of throw out some excuses for 2006 and tell you about our new home here. Can’t believe I spent over 5 chapters on this update. Can your Christmas Letter do this?



So to wrap this up, since spring began we’ve made lots of new friends in our neighborhood (now that others have moved in–we arrived to an almost empty street), and it’s been a surprising 180° turn from quiet Auburn, CA, because we’re constantly busy almost non stop.  If there’s not something going on, something usually emerges, frequently at our house (which we learned is quite expensive). We just got our boat sea-worthy again and are looking forward to getting out on the river-lake soon (we keep getting rained out). Which reminds me, the weather here is quite wonky. Not dependable at all. At least in CA you can depend on the forecast. Sunny days inevitably end up being rainy days and vice versa. In fact, some of the most exciting things around here next to the music are the wild thunder and lightning storms, which recently took out a favorite restaurant down the road overlooking Lake Travis, the Oasis (not related to that other Oasis). BTW, put that one on your itinerary as well.

So, the Girls‘ parents, Juan and Ruthie have had a boat (much like ours), and they recently took us down the river, errrhhh, Lake Austin. That was a good time, especially for Daniel and the Girls, who were making the moves on each other. Cruising down the river (ahhh, Lake Austin) we were in total awe of the homes along the shore, because it is lined with bazillion dollar spreads (remember, this is not CA)… Italian villas, modern marvels complete with chairlifts from hilltop houses down the cliffs to the water, and then one amazing place that looks like a sports training camp. It’s complete with a four-boat dock, floating bar, tennis courts, basket ball courts, a huge pool, oh and don’t forget that giant glass house, and, get this… a full size football field (American football that is), complete with regulation NFL goal posts. You can buy some too, here. Anyway, that trip got us motivated to ready our boat, because there’s lots to do on the lakes, as well as some nice restaurants (including BBQ of course) and bars as you get closer to downtown Austin (you can take the river/lake, almost all the way into downtown Austin, and dock at some restaurants and bars). So put that on your itenerary for your visit to the Roberts (which is soon, right?).

So now we’re well into June, and the heat is setting in. Everyone is telling us the worse is yet to come (heat + humidity) and that we may spend most of July and August in A/C refuge. Ally, who had knee surgery in April, had to have the surgery redone last week (after being cooped up in a crate for six weeks), and now has to spend another six weeks in that crate. For such a psycho bouncing dog, she is taking it well. (Lucy fans will be glad to know that she is still howling up a storm in her new home, where she has no petitions filed against her yet.) Also this month, Daniel finally had a train ride (not quite a real train ride), which he loved being the Thomas addict he is. That’s it for my version of our first months in Austin. My mission is to keep this updated and get Louise to at least share a few words here. Now it’s your turn. Please stay in touch, and let us know what you’re up to:-) As a side note, we have all new phone numbers, including our cell phones.

So, enough for the moment on mundane chronological history of our whopping first 5 months in Austin, because I know everyone want to know what Louise and especially Daniel James have been up to as they immerse themselves into their new socialite life here. Louise has finally taken on the coveted role as stay-at-home mom, and I though looking after Daniel day in and day out is certainly not a cake walk,  the trials and tribulations of bringing up Sweet Baby James is her new found calling in life, and I think I can safely say she is loving it. Louise quickly jumped into the happening mum scene here, complete with the Paris Hilton social calendar (i had to buy a red carpet). This demanding social calendar includes daily play dates with various mom’s (or mum’s groups; in fact this summer they’ve got a rock star field trip tour, complete with roadies and t-shirts exploring new sites each week– from San Antonio to Waco. Yes, Waco, Texas. (Did I explain we’re surrounded by Texas, like in a little Oasis). Austin is extremely kid friendly, and there’s a  safari park on the tour, blackberry picking outings, the San Antonio Zoo, Sea World, and I think maybe even the Stevie Ray Vaughn or the infamous Austin Bats are on the schedule, but near town lake.

But it’s my suspicion that the play groups are just a cover up for bigger and wilder adventures. There is a clandestine operation going on here called mom’s nights out, and its the core purpose behind this secret society. The girls (OK, mom’s if you want) spend just as much time on “Mom’s nights out”when the husbands get to fend for themselves. Wine tasting, books clubs, dinner events–I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some male strippers appearing in this part of the tour, given some of what I’ve heard…any excuse to get out of the house and stick it to the husbands for leaving them with the crazy little ones all day long. (Well, to be honest, Daniel and I have a good time on these nights. Louise always seems a bit surprised to come home and not find the house burnt down or Daniel screaming in a wet diaper.) I suppose this is good thing, because as adorable as Daniel is, he is TWO, and I have personably witnessed Louise pulling her hair out. So, she’s having a great time, but meanwhile, the husbands in the groups are secretly meeting to devise the guy’s night out, and yes, I think I heard something about strippers, poker games, and streaking through Town Lake Park. But in all honesty, Louise has made a ton of friends, and supposedly they’re going to include the husbands one of these days ( (Not sure when that’s going to happen.)  I’m not sure if all of these woman are such a good influence though. (We’ve also made many other friends, but I’ll get to that in a while…you are still reading aren’t you?)

Every time we go out now for a stroll or bike ride through the neighborhood, Louise is waving wildly “HIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!” to seemingly random people at every corner. Apparently, she’s become best buddies with half the mums in Austin, and I haven’t a clue who most of these people are, though  Louise always reminds me “Oh yes you have, I told you about Roxanne, she’s the one with 15 kids….”. But above and beyond her new socialite “mum’s night out” lifestyle, she’s also found some people she really clicks with, and digging her new roots in America. She also has been finding all the Brits and other Europeans, and apparently one who makes some wickedly awesome curry. Looking forward to that.

When Louise is not out with the mums, she’s usually at either the vet, out and about with Daniel, or maybe at the park–we’ve got lots of them in the neighborhood, big ones and small ones, with courts, pools and everything else. We’ve even got a little one down the street from us, which is one of Daniel’s favorite destinations (he’s getting rather smashing with the soccer (and smashing is probably the right work in more ways than one), or football for our English audience), when he’s not watching or playing Thomas the Tank Engine (more on that later).  He’s also now got a scooter, which he’s now zooming around the cul de sac, though when it comes to the tricycle, it’s more like pushing a lawn mower (especially since he likes to drive it over the neighbors’ gardens). OK, I wasn’t going to talk about the vet, but when it rains it pours, and we spend

a lot of time with the vet. For some reason, almost all our pets have needed some special high-tech exorbitant medical treatment recently, even the immortal Lucy (just an ear infection though). Ally actually had to have her second major surgery (first there was the hip job) in her four years, this time a knee operation. So she’s been cooped up in a cage for six weeks now, and if that wasn’t enough, just this week they had to redo that surgery–and it’s another six weeks in the crate. So anyway, Louise and Daniel and our check book have all become regulars at the Lakeway Vet Hospital.

Daniel turned two back at the beginning of this update, on January 26, which means he’s now almost 2.5, and he is simultaneously a little genius, and psycho ward escapee,  depending on the day. Late last year he finally grew out of his Charlie Brown hair cut and now sports a curly blonde mop top, which is just getting blonder as the summer heats up. He adores having mum’s attention 24 hours a day (except of course on Mom’s night(s) out), when he must settle for me. By all measures, he is loving his new home, and his many girlfriends (wish he was around back in the day to give me some advice). There are the twins, or “the girls” has he calls them collectively (I am not sure he knows their individual names, Bella and Alyssa… in fact I am not sure he can tell them apart), and then a cute little blonde next door, Savannah. He goes gaga every time he sees the girls, his eyes light up, and he screams: “THE GIRLS!” (And then, the response comes back in unison: DANIEL!“) In fact, he was practically making out with ”the girls“ a few weeks back on a boat outing. Wow, they really are growing up faster. But, that is Daniel. He hugs everyone, and is everyone on the street’s friend. It is not uncommon for his to scream out our neighbor friends’ names when he sees them and sprint across the street for a big hello, like the Tasmanian Devil allowing nothing to survive his path.

But his love for ”the Girls“ does not match his affection for red lights and Thomas the Tank Engine. Well maybe affection is not the word when it comes to Thomas, it’s more like an addiction. He even sleeps in a Thomas the Tank Engine bed now. In fact, everything is Thomas (pronounced in the proper English manner, the way he pronounces tomotos). His shoes, his pajamas, his books, his toys, and his videos. His videos. Those videos. They never stop. We don’t let him watch any TV really, but he moved up from Baby Einstein last fall to Thomas and it’s been a downhill spiral into Thomas addiction ever since. I’m not sure when or if this will stop.

His other obsessions are red stop signs, green lights, red lights and ”flashing orange.“ Those would be traffic signs and stop lights. I’m not sure where this fascination came from, but it is relentless. He drives the other children (and sometimes us) bananas in the car, because he won’t let anyone speak when he reciting the current traffic light status. Worse, if there are no stop lights or red stop signs, he moans in despair, ”red stop signs?“ He’s actually gotten over this a little bit. At least he doesn’t come home from each trip now, and recount every red stop sign sighted, every green light, and ”flashing orange.“ OK, I’ll admit, this is all very cute. There are indications he might be moving away from this obsession to his next: Garage doors. Specifically, opening and losing our garage door.

Next to these obsessions, Daniel is also beginning to do some ”regular“ things. He’s not quite swimming yet, but… well actually he’s not anywhere near swimming yet…but he does love going to the pool and almost swimming, or at least walking around in one foot of water. We’re working on that. He also has a scooter now, and a tricycle. The scooter is going better than the tricycle. As far as tricycling goes, Daniel prefers to push it around like a lawn mower or a baby stroller, preferably either into neighbors gardens or other people. We’re working on that too. On the scooter, he’s doing a bit better, and he’s just getting to the point where he can scoot around a little bit.

The next big thing for Daniel will be pre-school, which of course has been a bit traumatic for us, trying to pick THE right one. We’re still not sure if we’ve picked the right one, but he’s on the waiting list to be enrolled at the neighborhood preschool in the fall, and then depending on how that goes, we’ll see where he goes the following year when he’s at a more ”official“ age (being born in January puts one in a strange middle grey area when it comes to starting school). We’re also thinking about a Montessori school for next, year, but the first step will be the local pre-school two or three days a week.

Is anyone bored yet? OK… let’s move on.

So March got here and we had visitors from the California side of the family, my sister Beth, her kids Isabel and 5-month old Guy, and my mother. Damned courageous of Beth to travel with two kids in tow. They didn’t come to build and cook like our previous visitors, and were only here for about 4 days, but were able to see a few new sights, like our neighborhood for example. Yeah, you would think we would have seen the golf course and more of the neighborhood after three months in Austin. In fact, my mother chastened me in disbelief that we hadn’t “been out more.” Well, welcome to the world of the two-year old (terribly too sweet).  (Note to Mom: You know that bed you slept in? Well it wasn’t there until about a week before you got here!) It’s actually quite a big neighborhood, and we still haven’t seen it all.It was remarkable they even got airline tickets, because they came the week of South by Southwest, which is a strange concoction of a conference/event/festival — film, music and new media/web, all wrapped up into a one, three-part big event–which is probably the busiest week of the year in Austin–not sure what all the politicians do during this time, probably go into hiding. I think it’s become the biggest music event in Austin, and it’s certainly a big draw with the web techie crowd for the “interactive” conference, and oh yeah, there’s a healthy little independent film industry growing too. So they mashed it altogether and today we have South by Southwest (aka SXSW). This meant the city was hopping and  the airport was full of lots of interesting if not strange people; mostly musicians, web programmers and designers and low budget film makers who apparently hadn’t taken showers in a few months before coming to Austin. There’s usually a crowd of these types at the airport, but the place was swarming with ‘em when they arrived. Made for some good first impressions, but then we did come from California, so it couldn’t have been a shock. So anyway, with this festival thing going on, downtown was hopping the one night we got down there. By then, everyone had moved from the airport to the streets of Austin, where in the warehouse district a few streets were closed off to corral all these people into a manageable area. So they got a good firsthand look at the creative community, and fortunately for us, since the crazies were all in town, the politicians were all on holiday.We also were able to get out for some down home serious BBQ, which is another thing Austin is known for (well it might be a Texas thing, the BBQ, but we’re not really in Texas if you haven’t got that point yet). We went to THE BBQ place, which is a joint called the Salt Lick, outside of Austin in the Hill Country in a small town called Driftwood (so small we passed it the first time without realizing we were there), and it is in an area where you might actually still see some hillbillies. We didn’t catch any though. They were probably  hiding out with the politicians, because that town was also over run by the SXSW crowd. So take note of that (the Salt Lick) for your visit (soon, right?). So this place is strictly BYOB. I think it’s actually in a dry county or something–Yep, Hays County, is dry. Guess the folks in Hays County were asleep (or passed out at their bootlegging still)  in 1933 when prohibition ended. Doesn’t make much sense, because patrons are encouraged to just bring their own…anything…beer, wine, moonshine. Seemed to be a little bit of everything, in little brown bags, and big open bottles.So their visit here was short, but everyone promised to come back soon. In fact, my mother and father are due here this summer, and Beth and Isabel also promised to come back soon, possibly without baby in tow. For some reason Isabel in particular was keen on coming back. Check out the pictures here.So the California entourage left after a few days, and it was only then that it actually felt like I had really moved out of California, because I realized I probably wouldn’t see them for awhile. I actually ended up going back to CA for my dad’s birthday in April, but this story is about something else. No, I’m not sure anymore what that is, but I’ll get on with the update now….on to Daniel and Louise!!

No surprise we beat our furniture to Austin, and had to camp out on the floor the first days (the moving van obviously took the slammer tour along the Mexico border or maybe the driver stopped for some of this). Immediately after our arrival Louise’s parents Christine and Geoff flew in from the UK to help us move in (on January 9–Happy 23rd Birthday Paul! Yeah, right). In addition to no where to sit or sleep we also still had no heat, and were facing a paralyzing freeze unlike anything they’d seen here in like 40 years. This was a far cry from the sub-tropic climate in the brochure:-) But lucky us, after a couple days we had most of our furniture (don’t ask)  and the heat was actually turned on, sort of. It didn’t work very well, and then the cold weather mutated into a menacing ice storm, and finally all of Austin shut down. Couldn’t even get the pizza man. And of course, the builders weren’t around to fix our heat–they all headed to Mexico apparently (and after the ice finally retreated, it took them all a week to hitch hike back to Austin). We did however solve the great heat caper though. As we suspected, the heat was working– the builders just forgot a teensy weensy little detail. Like, the attic insulation. Silly builders. As a side benefit to all of Austin, we single handedly broke the ice

storm by emitting a massive heat cloud into the Austin atmosphere through our roof. Even after the storm we continued to stiffen into corpses inside our new house, because the builders were still all en route back to Austin from Mexico, and hitching can take a long time, especially when you’ve got to evade the U.S. Border Patrol. We almost fled to a hotel. But there was much to do, and the cold didn’t stop Geoff from getting to work straight away. Sadly for Geoff and Christine, we had advised them to pack light for the mild, warm and sunny climate.

Despite this pathetic weather advice, they were a huge help moving in, and we would probably still be fishing through boxes, sleeping on the floor and hanging pictures if not for them. In fact the frigid cold didn’t deter Geoff, who quickly dug out every tool he could find in our mass of boxes and bought those he couldn’t find. Like this wild gorilla ladder that morphs into a million different configurations (as seen on TV!!!).  Among other things, he put blinds throughout the whole house, hung a huge rug that would only fit on the wall in our two story family room (using his handy gorilla ladder of course), and put fans in seven rooms. So why do you need fans in an ice storm you ask? To answer that question, just hop on a plane right now and come for a visit (or hop from UK). The fans actually kicked in right after the ice melted.

Geoff and Christine were with us for six weeks, but we didn’t even put a tiny dent into exploring Austin. It was rather difficult because Geoff was most interested in either moving something in, upgrading the house (many more I haven’t mentioned), fixing things the builders got wrong, building a list for the builders to fix other things they got wrong, and also trying to figure out why our house didn’t have gutters. Yes, it’s true. Gutters are not standard equipment in Texas believe it or not–this was hard to fathom since CA has much less rain, but every house has gutters. In the end, I pulled some strings and got free gutters. Geoff was threatening to pay for them himself unless I got the builders to do it, so I eventually “encourage” them to do it in a rather sly, underhanded way. It’s called the J.D. Powers Builder Survey, and those builders are quite concerned about how you fill those surveys out. Two particular questions in this survey seemed to give our builder insomnia. One in which they ask would you recommend their homes to someone else and would you buy another one. (My answers, if you haven’t guessed, were “yes” and “yes” if you, Mr Carlos Builder,  bless my home with gutters). But their visit wasn’t all work, we did dip our toes into icy Austin, got out to see a little bit of the area (actually ventured out of Austin, into the flatlands of Texas), found the first of many good Austin restaurants (check out Aquarelle when you come:-), and of course, spent most of the time entertaining Sweet Daniel James.

In late February, Christine and Geoff had to head back to the UK. Daniel was a bit teary eyed about this when he said bye bye as

he thought they had moved in permanently. For me, it was a relief because I thought I would have to start paying Geoff to rebuild the house as well as put Chef Christine on the payroll. It was sad to see them go, but we have since discovered video conferencing, which is astonishingly real  these days, and we have already done quite a few video chats. Daniel enjoys flitting by the camera at warp factor 10, “Hi Granny and Papa” as he swooshes across the camera view.

He’s not exactly at the sit still age.

In December things got a bit crazy as Louise finished her job at the hospital in Sacramento, and Daniel “graduated” from day care, where he had been going daily since he was 5 months old–so that was a big change for little Daniel. December is already a bit nuts with the holidays and such, so packing a house and getting ready to move made it doubly crazy. Our house was scheduled to close (take note of that) on December 29, so I literally left Napa Christmas night with Lucy, one of our vehicles and the boat in tow.

Originally I thought this would be the road trip(like “Travels with Charley”)I had always wanted to make, but since I only had three days to get to Austin (somewhere between 1800 and 1900 miles), with LA in there too (so add another 1000 miles to the time calculation)), I had to jam. There was no time for stopping and chatting with the locals or seeing the real America, On the Road like, where ever that may be. It’s not between CA and Austin. In fact, there is not much between southern CA and Austin, at least not by the route I went. I don’t recommend this route. Actually, I don’t recommend driving. If I do it again, I will go a different way. Since this route takes you along the southern US border, you have the opportunity to tour many high-security “rehabilitation centers,” also known as penententries, or more appropriately, the slammer. Helpful little signs along the way would advise me “Don’t pick up hitchikers”. Good advice.

So I made it to Austin in time for the closing though the house wasn’t actually finished. I got a call about half way through my trip, from the builder saying the house wasn’t quite ready. In retrospect that was an understatement, and since to this day it’s still not done, well enough on that. Some minor details like water, heat, and many other things, unfinished. They promised to get most of it done before I got there, except for possibly, the heat? Yes, well that didn’t get done for a while, and though Austin is warm most of the year, this winter was unusually cold. More on that later. We ended up closing on December 29 as scheduled, but then I had to go back to CA to get Louise, Daniel, Ally the dog and the cats. Call me next time you consider traveling with a two-year old, a big whiny bouncing dog and two cats, and I promise to set you straight.We all got here and formally moved on January 8.

so, where are we anyway?

Austin is in south central TX, in what’s called the Hill Country, probably because it’s quite hilly. No, there are no hillbillies here, that’s not where the name came from. For the uninitiated, Austin is the capitol of Texas, but is better known as “The Live Music Capital of the World.”That is immediately clear after a trip down to the Warehouse District (or really almost anywhere downtown) on any given night. There’s even a cool statue of Stevie Ray Vaughn downtown (much better than a George Bush statue, don’t you think?) We haven’t seen enough live music though yet, because you know, we have a two-year old. Austin is also the technology hub of Austin Texas, particularly for semi-conductor companies, software and lately web start ups and gaming. We live in the northwest section of Austin, in the hills as I said, but also between a big lake (Lake Travis) and another lake that is actually the Colorado River, but they call it Lake Austin for some reason. That’s where the big spreads are. And no, it’s not THE Colorado River (as in Grand Canyon), though that had me confused for a while. Really, there should only be one name allowed per river per country. We moved into a relatively new area called Steiner Ranch, which is also home to the University of Texas Golf Club and some top ranking schools (which is a big reason we moved to this specific area, though the lakes (river) and hills were a big scenic draw. So the University is a big draw to the area, in addition to the political guys and the musicians.

BTW, the musicians and the politicians keep each other in check I think. In fact, they may have brought in the musicians just for that reason. It keeps Austin on the liberal side, despite former residents like the George Bushes (don’t forget Ann Richards though). It also keeps Austin a bit weird, and therefore theofficial slogan, which can be seen on many a t-shirt and bumper stickers is “Keep Austin Weird.” This probably helps make me feel a little bit at home, sort of like California. In fact, the Hill Country and the area we live in specifically looks a lot like the San Diego Coastal Hill area. We’re quite a bit further south than San Diego, which now explains our sub-tropical climate. We’re closer to the same latitude as Ensanada, Mexico (so certain people prone to jails in that latitude should use caution when entering the area). You know who you are.

OK, so it’s been about 18 months since we updated our web site, but we’ve been a little busy and we’re sorry about that. Besides this update, you can also find a photo album from our first 5 months in Austin, and 2006 Abbreviated. Had some technical difficulties last year, so we’re missing a few photos. But there you go. Now that we’re far away from both sides of the family and friends in the UK and CA, we’re BOTH going to try and share more news.

so, where were we in 2006?
Well, in 2006 we were a bit preoccupied getting to 2007, for our move to Austin. We literally spent most of the year — April - December — getting ready to move. For most people that shouldn’t consume your whole life and prevent you from communicating with everyone you know, but that’s what happened. For those who don’t know, we had been looking for alternative places to live (not hippie communes, just different places) and finally by March of last year we decided upon Austin (yes, I know that’s in Texas). We put our house on the market in April, just in time for the fast track real estate (not quite) crash, in which we battled to sell the house. Because of our barkaholic dogs, we couldn’t leave the house for any considerable distance or time, in case potential buyers wanted to look at the house, hence our no show M.O. for most of the year; it was not until November that we finally sold our house. The new house was supposed to be ready in July, but it was a bit late getting finished, actually about six months late. Wait, I take that back. It’s actually still not finished. The builders still make regular calls here every week or so to fix and finish things they didn’t get right the first time. So, at any rate, the point of this was that we didn’t go very far during most of 2006, because we literally couldn’t leave the house, for we had to make sure when that rare buyer came by we were not there, but neither were the dogs.

This made for a very boring, uneventful year, and you can see from the pictures that there is not much to report, except of course, the move. So, sorry if you’re still waiting for that Christmas card, you will have to settle for this. We do have a short, “2006 Abbreviated” photo album to prove that we were conscious. Check it out. In the following entries, I’ll tell you about the exciting move, and our first 5+ months in Austin.

One of Louise’s new friends has a cool blog, called Lucky Mom. Check it out here. Looks like she’s got a following, and she’s a funny, amusing writer. I went to check it out, and got consumed even though I’m not really into Mom stuff.  Particularly amusing
was the latest entry I just saw about “Texas Time” and more specifically some of the things you can expect when dealing with the various multitude of people you come to expect when dealing with a new home and all the people that have to come and fix things, continuously, on their time. Most funny, was this:

As EVERYONE in their right mind (with the exception of entomologists maybe …freaks) would prefer to live bug/scorpion/wasp/spider free, if you live in Texas you hire a pest-control company and have them treat your home VERY OFTEN. “Fortunately” , it’s a compeitive business and hence, they all offer, “same-day service” if you have any problems. ie. bugs, tarantulas, scorps etc.

I’m not one to be frightened of bugs, but for some reason we’re swamped with bug invasions, particularly fire ants and the aforementioned scorpions, like the one that recently visited our laundry room, and necessitated another visit by our pest control company (yes, I had to capitulate, everyone here must have their own regular pest inspector). Note also that the scorpion was found by the electrician, who was in Texas fashion, a day late.

So I’m trying to brush up on my photography skills and catch the next big shot. Of course, Daniel is the focus of  most pictures

these days, but i’ve been trying to branch out a little bit and not be just another obsessed father shooting endless Daniel pics, though that’s rather difficult when you’re little hero is the cutest thing since Lucy:-).

So the other day, we were hanging out over at our friend and neighbors Juan and Ruthie (and the “Girls,” Daniel’s girlfriends), and they had an interesting little beast hanging out on their house, this grasshopper, who is called Juan the Grasshopper. He’s a little bit creepy looking, as he creeps down the brick side of Juan and Ruthie’s house, but he is a whole lot cuter than the scorpian we found under our dryer. What do you think?

If there are any doubts that we have left California, please see this picture. Louise even has a (OMG!!) Texas drivers license. I’m

told that Austin doesn’t issue its own drivers licenses and that I will have to get one from the State of Texas. However, the guy assured me that my address will clearly say Austin so that I can prove I am not from some low lying desolate no man’s nowhere land. So I cling on to my CA license just to be safe.

Speaking of Texas, a friend at work who is from Dallas told me last year that Texas is the only state in the US that has it hard coded into their state constitution that they can secede from the United States.

Well today I saw a Texas bumper sticker that said, “How am I drinking?”

That seems to be true to Texas mentality. It’s not unlike the CA mentality of “why would  you want to live anywhere else?”

So one more thing, while I’m talking about being on the road in Texas. I saw something really weird yesterday. I know I was hallucinating, but then I didn’t remember taking, eating or drinking anything that would cause hallucinations. You know those stickers–usually on the back of trucks (lorries) that say something like “How am I driving? Call 800-867-5309″.

Well today I saw one that said, “How am I drinking?”