Junction, TX

Kyle's family has a hunting lease in Junction, so we spent a few days there the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was a great opportunity to relax, unwind, and spend time with Kyle's dad and brother. Acie and Abbie had an especially fun time exploring the area, riding around in the truck, chasing deer and seeing other wildlife.
The dogs are intrigued by the herd of cows in the background.

Trick or Treat

Since we live in a neighborhood filled with young children, we weren't surprised to see homes lit up with orange lights at night and decorated with spiders, giant webs, bats, tombstones, and everything else Halloween. As the day approached, we were advised by several neighbors to stock up on candy because the kids are "bused" in from other neighborhoods. Although no one could estimate the number of kids, the impression we got was that no matter how much candy we bought we would run out. So we went to Sam's and bought what we thought was enough candy for about 100 trick-or-treaters. We looked forward to sitting out on our rockers that evening and watching all the activity, but unfortunately Kyle was called in to work and missed out on almost the entire evening. The activity on our street was amazing - kids were everwhere, many of the parents were pulling wagons down the sidewalks, and there was even a hayride that went by at the end of the night. For a solid hour the stream of kids coming to get candy was continuous, so I had to be less generous and more careful with my candy supply. The average group size was 4-6, but often there would be 14-16 at a time. I knew Kyle would ask me when he got home how many kids I thought came to the house, so I kept a tally. I stopped counting at 275, so the final number reached 300 if not more. I took a couple of pictures for Kyle to see when he got home.

Of course I knew Kyle would love this costume.

Waxahachie Weekend

We made a short trip to Waxahachie this weekend to spend time with Kyle's parents, grandparents, Aunt Beverly and Uncle Larry. We all met there for the Texas Country Reporter Festival. We had lunch at Catfish Plantation to celebrate Grandma's birthday.

Grandma with Sweet Pea.

Elaine with her brother Larry and his wife Beverly.

The festival was around the historic downtown square.
We enjoyed sitting in our lawn chairs to watch the Bellamy Brothers in concert that evening.

Kyle's Birthday!

Kyle turned 31 last week, so we had a casual dinner celebration with friends. Richard Throop and his girlfriend, Kassy, were there, along with Josh and Tyler, a couple we met through them.

Trip to Miami

We went to Miami to see the Aggies play the Hurricanes at the Orange Bowl stadium. The game was definitely a disappointment, but we still enjoyed the rest of the long weekend in South Beach with our friends, Rusty and Jennifer.We had a beautiful view of the beach from our hotel room.

Kyle's New Ride

The '97 Honda Accord (with 187,000 miles) has finally been retired and replaced with a brand new 2007 Chevy Z-71. Kyle has looked forward to having a new truck for a very long time, so when the old car began acting up more than usual we decided to speed up the process. It was an exciting day.

Here is the old car with the truck in the background.

Dinner Celebration

Tonight was the first time in a while that Kyle wasn't on call, so we took the opportunity to celebrate his test results. We tried Iguana Grill on Lake Travis for the first time, where we enjoyed the gorgeous view, live music and good mexican food.