Lately

OK, we will post something, or that is what we tell ourselves every time we do something we ethink is interesting. We'll run a 5K, get the Christmas tree, put stairs in (all stuff we've done) and be too tired to even do a picture only post. Instead, we take some pics with the phone and put them up on Facebook. Freaking Facebook!!
Well, I am going to risk not living up to this, but I will post more. There will be posts at regular intervals that will contain actual content. Not just links or pictures without context, but actually accounts of stuff we have done. They may be short and made up, but they will be right here; waiting.
This herculean task will be less imposing with the help of our new camera. We retired our old bruised and battered Nikon recently. Gave him a gold watch and scooted him out the door to make room at the table for the new guy. Sara, who is vegetarian mind you, prepared the brisket for the party and it was excellent.
What have we been up to? Well, lets start with the Christmas Party at The Usual. Last Sunday Fairmount took over the newest bar on the block with potluck and blackjack. It was a great time and a fun kick off to the Christmas season.
Sara and I also watched the Parade of Lights downtown on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Downtown is a little winter wonderland right now.

Picture Highlights

Here are our favorite pictures from our very busy fall. There are weddings, cooking demonstrations, Tyler's bday and all sorts of funniness.

What's happening?!?

It's been a busy, fun filled couple of weeks at our house. I can't believe that it's already November! In October, we got to be a part of Sam and Robert's beautiful wedding - what a great event and we are so happy for the wonderful couple!


This weekend I got to go to Austin to celebrate at our neighbor's baby shower. It was so cute - a nautical theme, and I can't wait for Luke to make his debut! We are hoping to get some baby-sitting in! Veg Foodie and her hubby (our neighbors) made the road trip with me...it was a blast...two stops at Starbucks, one at the outlet mall, and we made it home in one piece. It was a lot of fun.

While in Austin, I got to see one of my best friends, Laura! She bought a new house this year, so she gave me the grand tour - it was awesome! I completely forgot to take pics, but trust me, it's really nice! For breakfast this morning, Laura, her husband, Adam, Christen, Tyler and I met at Juan in a Million - the fabulous breakfast spot that Sean and I went to a few weeks ago. Just as fun this time.



While I was off playing in Austin, Sean was busy at home - he's working on a flagstone walkways with stone stairs up to our front porch. It's going to be so nice. We were both so excited that we were able to have Jose and his great crew come out to cut down two of our trees (trash-trees). They were not doing so well and covered with Mistletoe, so we were excited for them to come down in a safe manner and not in a storm!



Here's how open the side of our house looks now! So excited about all of the home improvement projects that this opens up :) Busy...busy!



I know this post has been all over the place, but we're trying to catch up from being so lax in posting lately. We will try to post more frequently! Sean and I just signed up for the NYC Marathon lottery with our neighborhood running pals. Hopefully we all get in! Cousin M has been a good inspiration for us :)

Also - it's been over a week since we got to celebrate my bday - my parents treated us to a wonderful dinner at Paco & John's (one of my fave, new restaurants!) I had a great time with my family and I'm looking forward to what the next year has in store! I can't find a picture of all of us at dinner, I think they're on my Dad's phone - so I'll end this post with a sweet picture of Atticus.

Happy November everyone!!!

Austin's Best Handshake

Two weeks ago, Sara and I drove down to Austin for Samantha and Robert's wedding. We survived the rain and the traffic on 35 made into Austin on Friday afternoon just in time for Sara to get a pedy with the girls and for me to find our hotel and check in. The Holiday Inn was full of UT fans in town for the game and just about everywhere we went we swam through seas of burnt orange. But, we did get the chance to check out two very Austin restaurants.
First off, Casino El Camino did not make the best first impression. Sara and I had to slip past a drunk hipster who the bartender wouldn't let in. The hipster was too drunk to stand straight or speak full sentences, but he knew he wanted in. Casino El Camino is decorated like Halloween. Its all gargoyles, black lights and rockabilly. But, at the end of this dark hole is a bright white light, coming straight from the kitchen. Its the cleanest, most well lit kitchen I've ever seen. I think they keep it that way to make sure we know our food isn't coming from some dark dank alley behind the bar.
The food was good. I loved my burger and the fries were some of the best I've ever had. Sara was excited about her veggie burger, but disappointed by the stale bun. She did have the best Bloody Mary she's every had. it came stuffed with celery, pickled okra, asparagus, and olives. It looked like a flower arrangement.
Our next stop was the next morning at Juan in a Million. We had just enough time to stop in for a bite before the craziness of the wedding. Sara and were suppose to take a run, but I forgot to bring shorts and instead we did a four mile walk/run. I wore jeans and tried not to look at silly. Juan's would fit right in around Fort Worth. Packed to the rafters with UT fans filling up before tailgating, Juan's was hopping. The Don Juan is their signature dish. Sara got that while I ordered the Migas. I am kicking myself still for not getting the Don Juan.
The owner, Juan, was voted the best handshake in Austin. He rares back and clamps on to you like a pitbull. Sure enough, when we got up to pay, Juan put the squeeze on me.
While our stops at Austin's local hot spots were great they were not our only reason for being in Austin. We had a wedding to get to.
The wedding was great. The weather held out and the night was lovely. Everyone could tell how happy the bride and groom were which made the whole night all the more fun. It was a busy weekend that sped by. Can't wait to get back down to Austin.

""Vegetarian""

In the last 3 weeks, the meat consumption has drastically decreased in the Lynch household. With our marathon (not until 2010) and half marathon training (in 2009) - I decided that I wanted to try to get really healthy and had been toying with the idea of becoming a vegetarian for quite a while. I was inspired by the book "Skinny Bi&@H"

I made the jump and have now been a vegetarian for 3 weeks. A friend has said that once I've been vegetarian for 6 months, I'll be official and she'll take the quotations off of it....

Tonight was a true test, b/c I went to a work dinner at Grace - a great steakhouse in Fort Worth. With the nickname "Cowtown," Fort Worth can sometimes be challenging for a new vegetarian, but tonight at dinner I had a great salad and homemade ravioli with mushrooms. Yum!

What foods do you think I will miss most as a vegetarian???

Since I didn't have a fitting pic to put up, I thought I'd add a cute one of Dami eating birthday cake.

Running update: Sean, Zach (our neighbor), Zach and I are progressing on our training. We have an 8 mile run on Saturday and we are now trying to improve our time. Tempo running - here we come!

Uncle Vince's Pics

This is a lazy post. No text, or context for the pics. Just Pics.

Preview!!!!

So - I now we've been really behind in our posts, but this weekend we are going to get on the ball and post about Atticus' birthday party, our neighborhood Board of Director elections, our marathon training, etc!

It's all to come this weekend!

Sooner Longhorn Construction

I thought I'd take a break from my day job breaking bricks to give ya'll a little report on our latest addition.
Do you ever look at DIY network or watch HGTV and think to yourself, "that looks easy." We did. We decided that our code defying pergola wasn't enough. We needed flagstone. Somewhere to sit so we don't muss up the beautiful turfalo.
There were only four steps. Four small steps to our very own flagstone patio. It seemed easy enough. First, clear out the area you want to set the flagstone in of all grass and other materials to create a clean work area. Dig four inches into the ground to insure a solid base. Four inches doesn't seem like much, but we ended up taking out a yard of dirt.



The next step is filling the area with sand and decompose granite. This provides the base in which the stones will set. It also makes your truck look like this


So, we took all that dirt out, wheel barrel load by wheel barrel load and then fill it in again




Zach and I left the truly important job to Sara. She created the pattern and placed each stone right in the perfect spot.







The final step is watering the entire area down to allow the granite to adhere to itself and keep everything in place. Easy enough, but it took a whole day and much sweat. Zach was awesome enough to work for tacos and beer too.