Sadie's award

On December 10th Sadie recieved an award at her school for excellence in vocabulary and reading. The kids in her class are supposed to have 16 vocabulary words memorized and passed off by January - Sadie has passed off 40! She seems to soak things up like a sponge. She is also reading on a first grade level and she is doing advanced math. She actually likes doing homework (let's see how long we can keep that up...maybe until college?). We are so proud of her! For more pictures visit our gallery.

Thanksgiving '08

Thanksgiving weekend began with a feast and performance in Sadie's kindergarten class. All of the kids brought something from home (crackers, cheese, etc.) and had a cooporative feast. Then the kids sang a native american song for the parents and showed off their headbands and necklaces that they had made. Later that evening we ventured up the canyon to the cabin that we were staying in for the weekend with friends. Sadie quickly called dibs on the little loft that had a twin bed in it. I really didn't think that she would stay up there all by herself but she did and she loved having her own little space. The weekend was spent eating, playing games, and taking a walk around the frozen lake. There was snow but not enough to go skiing or sledding. We did drive down the canyon on Thursday to have Thanksgiving with my family at Cindy's house. We picked up Ginger on the way and she had a good time with Einstein, Dante, & Kansas (other family dogs). On Saturday we got to visit with Jim & Sandy Moy who came up to visit and show off their little boy Peter. It was a fun, relaxing weekend. For pictures visit our gallery.

We made it to Austin!

You may remember my blog about Frontier Airlines ruining our trip to Austin. Well, we finally got to take that trip. Luckily Frontier Airlines did wave the re-booking fee (I'm still very anti-Frontier) and we were able to re-book everything. We got into Austin on a Thursday and after checking into Marriott Springhill Suites we went to dinner at Magnolia Cafe. It was a very good 24 hour diner - the grilled vegtables are wonderful. After dinner we walked down South Congress Avenue, or SoCo as the locals call it, and checked out the fun, zany shops that they have there. On Friday we spent most of the day driving around neighborhoods (for those who don't know, we are re-locating to Austin this summer). We found a neighborhood that both Jim and I fell in love with. A nice, walkable community with lots of trees and beautiful houses and only 15 minutes from downtown. After lunch at a cafe we drove up to Travis lake and took a little walk. We finished the day with dinner at El Sol and La Luna mexican restaurant, which was very good. Saturday found us driving around neighborhoods again for most of the morning, eating good BBQ at Stubs, and walking around Zilker Botanical Gardens for most of the afternoon. It was so nice to be walking around a beautiful garden in short sleeves and shorts in November. We finished the night with dinner at Brick Oven pizza. Sunday we flew home. We didn't take many pictures because we did more driving around than anything but visit our gallery for the ones we did take. All in all we have a very favorable view of Austin and look forward to getting to know the city better.

Halloween '08

Sadie was Belle for Halloween this year. It was nice that I could convince her to be Belle so we could use her ballet costume again and not have to come up with something new. Sadie didn't have school on Halloween so she had her school parade on Thursday. On Friday she went to school with me (I was dressed as Snow White) and we had a good time visiting classes. We then went downtown and took Jim out to lunch. That night Kate, Bruce, and Ian (as Mr. Incredible) came over and went trick or treating with us. We had a good time. For pictures visit our gallery.