Texas - May 2024

After visiting Shawna's mom in Louisiana, we drove to Austin and stayed for 10 nights to watch Ryan, Jeff (Fuqua alum) and Nina's 16 year old while they went on a Mediterranean cruise for their 25th anniversary.  When we called them a year prior to tell them we were retiring, they mentioned this trip and that they may not go b/c they couldn't find anyone to watch Ryan the whole time.  Since we had nothing but time, we offered to watch him for part of the time (while Jeff's mom did the first week).  

We arrived late afternoon and did the handoff with Jeff's mom and step dad !! All in all, everything went well, leveraging our many years of child raising experience - ha!!

Carly

Each day we worked out and did some admin stuff in between dropping off and picking up Ryan from school.  Shawna also spoiled Carly, their dog, to the point that Carly followed her everywhere.  We did also manage to have some social life:

• Jean, Dick and Lily came over for dinner.  Jean and Dick were in town for a map convention - we didn't even know this was a thing! We grilled steaks and had roasted potatoes and asparagus.  We also had some cheese and crackers and Shawna's gin drink to start - of course!!

Jean, Dick and Lily over for dinner

• Patrick (friend of Keith's from childhood) came over for dinner.  Lauren had to stay with the kids as they were sick.  We started with cheese and crackers and then had pasta with caprese salad.  Patrick brought stuff to make old fashions and he also brought wine.

• Jen (Fuqua alumn) came over with her wife, Holly, and two kids.  We hung out and had beer and chips while the kids played xbox with Ryan and then we ordered in some pizzas from Gino's.  

Jen and family over for dinner

• Nancy, Hall, Tracy and Dave (all Fuqua alumni) came over for dinner.  We made leg of lamb with couscous and a salad and Keith made steamed pudding for dessert.  We hung out for a couple of hours before having dinner.  

Butler / Zavelsons over for dinner

• We went to Ryan's Spring Concert - His band played for the first 15 minutes but we stayed to watch the whole concert.  Jacob (Ryan's brother) was also there and sat with us.  The music was surprisingly good!

Jeff and Nina arrived late on Thursday evening and we left early Friday morning for Dallas to spend 48 hours there before our overseas trip.  While in Dallas, we ran some errands and packed for our trip.  But also managed to have a bit of fun too:

• Jean and Dick cooked dinner for us on Friday night (pork tenderloin with apricot sauce, cheesy potatoes and roasted asparagus).  We also opened up our birthday pressies early since we would not be in the country for our actual birthdays!

• We took Jean out for an early Mother's Day dinner along with Dick and Margaret.  We went to The Mexican, a fancy Mexican restaurant in Dallas.  The restaurant itself is quite cool and the food was delicious.  We shared the ceviche and lobster corn for appetizers and then we split the enchilada trio for our entree.  For dessert, we got a couple of quatro leches for dessert as we as an ice cream cake.

Dinner at The Mexican

All packed up with way more stuff than we wanted to take, we left early Sunday morning to being our four months overseas trip to Cambodia, Australia and Europe!

Ready to go!!