Los Lobos and other things

Last week Sara, John, Brenda and I trekked out to Bass Hall and saw one of the greatest bands around, Los Lobos. They are from east LA and have been a favorite of ours forever. I think you can find some of their songs on the music player below. The concert was so awesome and we were so busy singing along with every song that I only snapped a couple of pictures. I finally thought to take a picture after I completely lost the beat and decided to stop clapping.
Our other big event is the giant hole we put in our wall. We are at the beginning of a project that grows everyday. What started as a way to hide cables from our TV turned into quite a project as you can see from the pictures. We had a wheel barrel in the house, that is how you know this was a serious job. As of right now we are still in the demo phase, but will have more to show very shortly. Trust me, its a big hole, and will be hard to hide. I will get those pics up tomorrow. I do not want to overload anyone. Its only been over a month since our last post.

Swearing In

About a month ago, I was sworn into the brethern of attorneys by Judge Steve Owens in the family law center downtown. This was the last step towards being a full fledged attorney. The attorneys from the Texas Attorney's Office, Child Support Central Office join us. I spent the summer volunteering with them. My mom took some great pictures and I wanted to share them with everyone. Here you go.

Our side Stairs

A couple of months ago, I looked in our backyard and saw the beginnings of a rock garden.
We had stones left over from our retaining wall and the pergola. Well it was high time those stones got put to use and we decided to add some stairs.
We haven't many projects around our house as of late. But, building these stairs is our first step towards a new season of things to do.

Christmas Tamales

First off, this posting more promise is hard!!I am going to start posting email forwards soon just to up the post count. Its going to be all people of Walmart here before you know it.
We had a great Christmas. While Sara and I missed the big Pereda Christmas eve, due to ice and snow in Texas (crazy weather!!) it was just as fun keeping it low key. In preparation for Christmas, we did two rounds of tamale making. The first tamale making session was more of a tutorial for our tamale novices. John and Brenda hosted WLIT and it turn into a Italian/Mexican cooking class as Luciano finished a lasagna that he had started at home. While we ate Sara and Brenda led the ladies in the process of tamale making. The fellas kept to the kitchen and only took over spreading the masa when the it was brought over to us to do.
The next tamale making session took place at Ray and Kim's the Wednesday before Christmas. Watching the family make tamales reminds me of a nascar race. Its fast, everyone has a job that that have to do, and there is always the danger of being hit by a tire.

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!!!