It’s been a while since I’ve even thought about the old blog. But there’s plenty to catch up on over the past few months.

Weather
Here in Austin, we endured one of the two worst summers in history, right up there with 2011 by most any measure. There weren’t as many 100º days, but there were a record number of 105º+ days. September was brutal and unkind, and October has shown only slight signs of improvement. It got down into the 40s overnight last night, but we’ll be right back up to upper 90s again this weekend.

House
All the big house projects are well behind us, but we are trying our hand at recouping some of the lost funds with our home remodel gone wrong. The remodelers cut off contact with us after our last in-person meeting in May of 2022! We paid them thousands and have nothing but a roll of paper of loose concepts to show for. We hired a legal team to go after them, beginning with a demand letter. We’ll find out sometime soon if they’re ready to play ball. We only want money back at this point. We have no interest in moving forward with the project with their team.

Dog
This beagle, man. He is pretty far gone. I wouldn’t say he was ever a normal dog, but now he’s senile on top of his other faults. The poor thing fell down the steps quite a few times. He can’t get onto a bed or couch. He pees and poops indoors. He eats only one kind of canned paste-like dog food now. Yet he’s only 12… I’ve known beagles to make it to 17. I can’t imagine what he’d be like five years from now!

Edie
Edie celebrated her fifth birthday last week on Friday the 13th. Her final year of daycare/pre-K at Four Seasons is going well. Her friends are mostly all boys and she’d super into Spiderman. Not the girliest of gals! She’s playing teeball, coached by good friend Chris Plumpe and assisted by Lauren, and is a dangerous little hitter, always finding the outfield grass. She’s still an awful sleeper. But overall she’s doing great… not remotely shy, full of witty one-liners, and usually the ringleader of her group. Just don’t laugh at anything she says or she’ll cry and run away, even if being funny was her intent!

John
Fourth grade has gone well so far, and John got to retain his third grade teacher who moved up with the students. John turned 9 in late August and got a keyboard (the piano kind) as a random gift from us, and he just started lessons, somewhat against his will. He’s back for another season of baseball, this time one of the older Minors kid-pitch players on the Cardinals, where I of course manage the team. He’s been pitching a lot, showing good control and high baseball IQ, always highly aware of any situation. His hitting has shown flashes, crushing a double that nearly cleared the fence early on. He’s certainly matured a lot and is putting up straight A’s!

Work
Work has been great, in my opinion. We were out floating the Comal River for Chris’s 42nd birthday a few Fridays ago. I had my phone tucked away for the day, vowing not to check it for anything. But, I wanted some pictures, so I dug it out of a bag, only to see I had missed several calls from work. Work has literally never once called me on the phone, so I knew this must be important. Thankfully it was a call telling me I was promoted to Director of Lifecycle Marketing!

Fun
After Canada, we vowed to keep things low-key for a while, but I guess there have been a handful of interesting moments, mostly revolving around sporting events. We went to an NHL preseason game here in town and sat in the first row behind the Dallas Stars bench. There was the aforementioned river float trip, which was a blast and I can’t believe we’d never done here. I went out to an Austin FC MLS game with a work vendor with an open bar tab. The Twins won their first playoff game—and then series—in 19 years. I figured I’d celebrate by catching them play an ALDS game in Houston on a whim. And Lauren and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary with a casual family night out at the local Tex-Mex spot.

Holidays
Nothing whatsoever for plans yet. Mom and Dad are rumored to be visiting us in November and catch each kid play a baseball game. There were talks of a Thanksgiving visit to Minnesota, but we’ll see if we can make it work. Some friends discussed a possible trip to see the Vikings play in Vegas, but that appears to be fizzling out due to outrageous prices for everything. Christmas will probably be spent down here again. With the kids off for two weeks, maybe another New Mexico visit or something will be on the agenda.

Exciting stuff, huh?!