My Twenties Birthdays

As I enter my final year of my 20's, I wanted to look back and remember all the things I've done and where I've come in nearly a decade. It's been an incredible 9 years behind me and one more ahead of me. I wonder if I'll look back as my 20's being the best years of my life. I'll start with chronicling my last 9 birthdays. The above photo is my 2nd birthday with my mom.

20

April of 2000 found me in my last month of my 2 years as Wesleyan College in Georgia. I met my then-boyfriend, a Marine station in North Carolina, in Atlanta for a weekend of tourist attractions & Stone Mountain.

21

For my 22nd birthday, I went with my (new) then-boyfriend from Austin for a little weekend on the Riverwalk in San Antonio.

22

I have no photos from my actual birthday this year, but this was one of the closest I could find. Zoe had been with me for about a month in mid-April, and I have distinct memories of coming home to some flowers & a card on my apartment door, and a very stinky, dirty puppy who had poo-ed in her kennel.

23

Dad & Brenda have a pretty good tradition of taking me out to a nice restaurant for my birthday. Before I was old enough to date, I'd been to some swanky places around Houston. Turning 23, I'd been working full-time, in the real world for just a few months & I have some vague memories of partying with a few friends for my birthday.

24

This was the first birthday I officially celebrated with H, but we'd only been dating for 2 months. He wasn't invited to the official celebration with the parents that year...

25

H was in Miami attending law school, so I celebrated another birthday without him. My small-group at church was going sky-diving, so I took the plunge! It was a great experience, I'm glad I did it, but I have no desire to do it again :)

26

For 26, we had a little get-together at mom's house on my birthday & then we went to an Astros game with H's friends on his birthday.

27

I turned 27 two months after our wedding and I celebrated our my first married birthday by hitting up the Melting Pot with some of our friends & H's mom . We went to H's favorite place for his birthday dinner- hot dogs at James Coney Island.

28

Number 28 was probably one of my least favorite birthdays because I had to spend it away from H. I was in Detroit last year & presented the paper I had published at a trade show. We spent the weekend together being tourist, but I spent my birthday with my boss. However, we did celebrate our joint-birthdays that weekend with a crawfish boil with many friends.

29

This year, we celebrated for a whole weekend- starting on my birthday Thursday & ending on H's birthday on Sunday. Saturday night, we did the traditional dinner out with Dad & Brenda. Obviously, Dad is still a bit fooled by the red-eye camera flashes ;)


There ya have it folks! What should I do for my 30th birthday next year? I'd love to be over-seas and traveling to some exotic place, but I might be presenting another paper in Detroit!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: H is off to Tennessee tonight for a very important meeting.

Hubby's Birthday

It was a birthday weekend all around. Friday was H's mom's boyfriend's birthday (can you follow that???). She threw him a surprise 50th party at their local bar. This is her with a few of her girlfriends.



Saturday, despite the 5"+ of rain that poured on the Houston area, we meet some of our friends at a wine bar. It was a casual & perfect way to spend a very stormy Saturday.



Sunday was H's actual birthday, so we went down to the museum after church to watch IMAX Sharks 3D. The weather was SOOO beautiful, and we wandered around Hermann Park for a while. I promise you will see us back there again soon on a little wine picnic....
(see my new sunglasses??)



Then we headed over to mom's house, where she made us a very yummy beef tenderloin & we hung out with them for a while.



Zoe was getting lots of attention, but she seemed to be feeling much, much better than on Saturday. I've got a Zoe & photography surprise coming up in a few weeks ;)

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: We got tickets to see U2 when they come to town in October!!

Best Birthday Ever!

Usually my birthday is pretty ho-hum and not a giant event. Well, this year I had an awesome birthday from beginning to end! We celebrated a bit early with our weekend getaway to Austin, including getting this great shot in the bluebonnets near Brenham.

Thursday, H woke up early with me, and he gave me my gift- a new watch! He's been dying for me to replace my old shabby one with a nice new one. I've been resisting as long as I could, but I'm really excited about having a new "nice" watch.


We were both having a slow day at work, so he picked me up for lunch. I managed to work another hour & then went to the salon to get an aromatherapy massage (I'd planned on getting my hair all done, but my stylist was sick! )

I met H downtown for a yummy sushi dinner & then we went to the off-Broadway play called Mauritius. I heard about it on the radio a few weeks ago, and knew we had to go before setting off on our big trip next month. It really has very little to do with the actual island, other than the collectible stamp is from the island. Since a play was on our 101 List, I figured this would make the perfect birthday date night show.

I also received this sweet new lens. Considering most zoom lenses are mega-$$$, this is a great affordable one that is a 300mm and will be awesome for our trip to Africa and the safari part!

We decided that our schedule this year was a little too out of control and we'd have to skip the Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Although we are going to Fiesta in San Antonio with all of our friends that weekend instead (this coming weekend), I was bummed about missing Dave Matthews. So for my birthday H gave me some really good seats for their concert here in Houston. We had a blast last time we saw them here & I'm very stoked to see them again on May 1.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Zoe was sick this weekend (infection), but she seems to be doing much better now.

Dad's Best Friends

This photo is from about 2 years ago when there was some event at Dad's house. I'm thinking it was a funeral unfortunately, but I wanted to get a great photo of my dad's best friends. It's neat because these have been his best friends (and their lovely wives) for decades. I have many fond memories of these people being at my birthday parties growing up, or coming over for card night. His one best friend lives in the neighborhood, his other best friend is my god-father (and god parents to my siblings), and he works with the other. The one friend of his not in this picture lives in Alabama most of the year and is a reader of this blog ( ::waves!:: ) . I think it's so neat and amazing that my dad has had some great friends his entire life, and I think these types of relationships are so lost in my generation.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: We're hanging out with one of H's oldest friends today! Either the iFest if it's not raining or the museum and a wine bar if the weather is bad.

Bad Bad Zoe

The pup is doing well! She's been eating meat (venison) for 3 weeks now & doing pretty good. I even sneak her a rawhide every now and then. We go back to the vet next week to do some blood work for a nutritional analysis & we'll keep moving on from there.

She's totally been a little punk lately though! She stole a sweet potato off the counter last week. She ate a whole package of my new tortillas that I'd forgot to put into the pantry. She grabbed some beef jerky out of my briefcase when I went out to run an errand. Luckily, I haven't seen any major reactions. I've been putting her outside (where she hates to be alone) as punishment. You won't ever see her out back alone unless she's in trouble, and I never see the Princess lay down on the concrete, even when we're to there (she'll try to weasel a way into our lap!).

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: It's Friday & we're celebrating our birthdays ALL weekend long :)

LBJ Library

One of the motivators behind our trip to Austin was that H wanted to check out the LBJ Presidential Library at the University of Texas campus. The building is almost 40 years old, and it was undergoing some renovations on the roof (to the basement) when we visited.



Going into the museum, I had a fairly negative view of LBJ, but I learned quite a few interesting things about him. One of his biggest accomplishments was the passage of dozens (if not hundreds) if laws that composed the Great Society Program, which included many of the domestic social safety nets we now have in place, like Medicare, Medicaid, the War on Poverty, federal funding for arts and education and many more.



One of the other defining things of LBJ's presidency was the Vietnam War. Along with increasing racial tensions at home, the War was a source for much sorrow and anguish throughout the country. It's interesting that I feel there are many parallels to the current Obama administration- tackling 2 unpopular wars around the globe and attempting to implement some sweeping changes in our social programs at home.



The library is HUGE, and it was incredibly impressive to see floors of archives. I think there was also a huge storage area in the basement for other historical documents and items.



I'm accustomed to old presidents hanging around for a while- as I grew up with Carter, Reagan, Bush I and Clinton all being alive and well. I didn't realize that LBJ passed away just a few years after leaving office. He returned to Texas and lived on his ranch outside Austin (which I've also visited before). His wife, Lady Bird, has spent the last 30+ years on numerous beautification projects around Texas, including and especially planting wildflowers and bluebonnets on the Texas highways.



The museum housed a collection of gifts that LBJ had received from various people, including this old 1910 Model T. He received quite an assortment of native and tribal gifts from foreign dignitaries that were on display.



I'm not sure if every President gets their own presidential limo, but LBJ got to keep his (at least in his museum).



I enjoyed the collection of paintings of all the former Presidents and former First Ladies. It was neat to see the general dress & hair styles change over the years.



Although it's hard to tell, the official Presidential emblem was about 4 stories tall and etched into the granite (limestone?) wall on one side.



There was a special "visiting" exhibit in the museum on the history of space flight. It was obviously a priority for JFK as part of the space race to beat Russia into space. He put LBJ in charge of the space program, and we landed on the moon when he was President.



I have such mixed feelings now on the space program and our current direction NASA is heading. I value the scientific and technological research that is funded through NASA, but I'm not sure that I think we need to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to put a man on Mars.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: It's my birthday! Last year of my 20's :)

Austin Overnight

Last weekend, we headed up to Austin to enjoy a quick overnight trip in my former home-away-from-home. I was excited to take H around my former stomping grounds and show him all the wonderful things of our nearby, neighbor city.



We started off with lunch at the Austin institution, Stubbs BBQ. They are in downtown Austin & are famous for their live music, as is the Austin tradition. They have a stage indoors, and a giant concert area outside. There were already people waiting to get into that evening's concert, but we just enjoyed the yummy BBQ.



Our next stop was actually at the LBJ Library, but that will get it's own post. After spending a few hours indoors & after the car ride, I was ready for some fresh air. I took H to one of my favorite tourist stops, Mt. Bonnell. It's right in town & offers great views all around town.



I've been up to this area several times and seen some weddings. Although this tourist look-out is fenced, most of the area is accessible cliff that makes a perfect spot for a picnic.



You can see downtown, although much better when wildfires in the area don't cover the entire hill-country with a thick haze. I was AMAZED at all the new condos and buildings going up downtown. I was in Austin during the dot-com bust, when many buildings and luxury projects had been abandoned.



Mt. Bonnell over looks Lake Austin, the middle of the 3 lakes in the area that are formed by the Colorado River. Town Lake, recently rename Lake Lady Bird, is the most central downtown with great jogging trails and no motor boats. Lake Travis is the largest lake with lots of weekend boaters and fancy homes.



We found a quiet spot to sit and enjoy the view, although H was very worried about me climbing in a skirt and flip-flops. Being very clumsy, I make him very nervous around cliffs!



There are some amazing houses both on the waterfront and in the hills high above the lake. It's easy to kill a few hours sitting there enjoying the weather and daydreaming.



All that "hiking" made us thirsty and we had to stop into another Austin establishment, Baby A's!



They are famous for their purple (everclear) margaritas, and there is a 2 drink *limit*! I had one, but H was sorry that he went for 2! :)



I really wanted to go on a sunset cruise on Town Lake and show H the bats, but they were all sold out. Instead, we grabbed dinner at a neat restaurant in the warehouse district and then headed out on the town for some fun.



We watched a live band for a while at the landmark Cedar Street which had a live band in their courtyard, and then headed over to a cool little club called Speakeasy. It was popular when I was there 7 years ago, but it had changed some since then. The rooftop terrace was still a great place to enjoy a DJ and a great view of downtown Austin at night.


GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Ordered a canvas from our Cozumel trip to go over our bed!