Taste of Louisiana

I finally got to visit Lake Charles, where Jarrod grew up, for a Fais Do Do which I learned a while back is basically a Cajun dance with zydeco music & lots of good cajun food & fun! This particular one was to raise money for Mitochondrial research. Many of you know our good friend's child named Jude has this disease. You can find out more on his website at http://www.judesmitojourney.com/. The fundraiser brought in about $25k toward Jude's fund for research for his disease. This year he will present a check at the symposium to researchers who will begin researching cures for his specific type of Mitochondrial disease.

I finally got to see Jarrod's stomping grounds. We toured around town and saw all his old hang out spots, where he went to middle school & high school, where he lived and of course ate at all the favorite spots which proved to be as good as he had described them. Friday night we went out to eat with his college buddies at Pat's of Henderson to celebrate Bryan Manley's birthday, Saturday we at breakfast at Delicious Donuts & lunch at Leonards. And of course that night we had some amazing cajun cookin' at the Fai Do Do!

Pictures of our Cajun weekend

Austin Hailstorm

Check out all the hail!! It lasted for about 15 minutes & Jarrod was still about 5 minutes from home so his truck got pounded. Of course, the minute he pulled in the garage, it stopped! There were for sure golf ball size and I know some that I heard hit the roof had to be baseball size!! I thought our windows were going to bust out. Kinda scary! I was going to take pics of our pretty flowerbed that we worked so hard on last weekend, but all the flowers we planted are pancakes now & all the pruning we did, well, let's just say our bushes got a little more pruning with the hailstorm so they're kind of naked now. One little interesting tidbit is that the 3 most expensive/severe hailstorms that Austin has ever had have been on March 25. We'll definitely be ready next March 25!

yes, there is a yard out there under all that hail!

Our driveway was covered in limbs & leaves from our tree -- it was almost solid green.

A pile almost a foot high of hail from the roof.A golf ball of hail

So since I'm not going to post pics of our sad looking flower bed, here is a rose that Jarrod saved me from our rose bush that I worked so hard at pruning. I didn't want to clip any limbs that had a bud, but this one had to go and I was so sad so Jarrod kept it for me and put it in water.

Birthday Celebrations

We began the celebration at noon on Thursday when Jarrod came home for lunch to watch March Madness games. We had cupcakes & he opened his gifts. That night we went out to dinner at Eddie V's which we both gave a 5-star rating! Everything was excellent including the amazing Bananas Foster dessert! Then Friday night we went out to dinner at Kona Grill in the Domain with our Realife Group from Church since Aaron shared the same bday as Jarrod. After dinner, we hung out at this little Chocolate Coffee bar place in the Domain.

Happy Birthday Jarrod!

Celebration of the Younger Years...

He had a lot of hair when he was 35 years younger! And looks like he could jump a lot higher too!

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

I think you are just as cute now as you were back then!! :)

HS Bball State Playoffs

This past weekend, Stacey and Josh came in town and stayed with us because the boy's basketball team in Stacey's hometown of Plains, Tx were playing in the 1A state playoffs here in Austin at UT's Frank Erwin Center. We went & watched their 1A playoff game and the 3A state playoff game on Saturday morning bright and early. After the games, we went with Stacey & her family to Serrano's downtown for lunch. It was fun getting to be in the "high school" scene again and getting to catch up with Stace & Josh.

Gaither Garden Gnomes

A gnome is a mythical creature characterized by its extremely small size and subterranean lifestyle.

Our Aunt Anne recently sent us 2 Garden Gnomes for our birthdays, but not just any Garden Gnomes, an A&M Aggie & LSU Tiger Gnome! We thought they were cute and got some giggles out of it. I told Jarrod "mine had less wrinkles and was younger and more vibrant looking" and his response was, "well mine has more national championships". LOL

So I've seen Gnomes before in random places & obviously on Travelocity ads on TV, but I have never really understood what they were for or why the Gnome is Travelocity's symbol. So I did some research on Wikopedia & found that the "gnome" is similar to what we speak of as "fairies". They are thought to guard wildlife, but became an ornamental figure which people like to place in gardens. The garden gnome originated in Germany in the mid-1800s as decorations based on local myths as a way for people to enjoy the stories of the gnomes' willingness to help in the garden at night. Stealing gnomes to "take back to the wild" ("gnoming") also became popular so it is said that they "travel the world"....hence the reason Travelocity uses it as a symbol -- "The Roaming Gnome". For more detail (I didn't know there was so much history!), go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome

We haven't decided on a home for them just yet, but I'm thinking that instead of guarding the wildlife outdoors, we may need them to guard wild outbursts by human creatures in the TV room during the NCAA tournament this next week...especially if the Aggies come up against the LSU Tigers! Not that we have a history in this or anything...lol...we watched them play against each other in the tourney almost exactly 3 years ago in my old Sunnybrook house (awww...memories...gotta give a shout out to Laura ;) while celebrating Jarrod's bday. Let's just say, it wasn't the best way to celebrate as there was lots of tension in the room. It would be some miracle for the 2 to come up against each other this year though considering they are in different brackets & different sides of the draw so I think it's a good bet that we will be safe this year! I doubt that anyone predicts an A&M vs LSU championship game! ;)

Experiences in Rock Climbing

So after we had our first yard work day of the season & were completely exhausted, we decided to try our hand at Rock Climbing b/c our arms weren't sore enough just yet. Some friends of ours from Church invited us out to climb a beginner's rock up near Georgetown. I must need a pre-beginners rock b/c I didn't make it that far, but Jarrod did pretty good. We learned the rock climbing lingo, "Belay On" & "Climb" or something like that.

Our Biking Trail Adventures

We purchased some mountain bikes about a month ago and have been enjoying taking them out on the trails here in Austin and just around our neighborhood. We've both always enjoyed riding bikes and have rented bikes on some of our vacations. After Jarrod's sister and brother-in-law led the way with their bike purchases & our move to Austin where there are some great places to ride and where you are just not an "Austinite" if you don't have a bike, we decided to take the plunge. I'm not that coordinated to ride with my camera in hand to snap shots so here is a pic of our bikes on our new bike rack in the garage.

Jarrod's is the olive green Ironhorse on top & mine is the silver GT

We've made it out to Brushy Creek trail a few times & down to the massive trail around Town Lake downtown one time. The rest has just been meandering around the neighborhood, but if you have been to our house, you know that meandering around our neighborhood on bikes is not a breeze, it's a workout! We have quite a few good hills that can really make your legs burn! We've loved having a different activity that allows us to be outdoors! However, we also recently were forced to enjoy the outdoors in a different way -- for our first yard work day of the Spring! We had lots of work on our hands with lots of trimming to be done & weeds to pull. Needless to say we were both very sore the next day. Yard work is definitely a work out! The joys of home ownership as Jarrod says.