Catching up...

So, time for a little catching up.  As I previously posted, I was in Maine about a month ago in order to drive back to Texas with Laura.  So, the first night I was in Maine, I was actually alone in my parents house...and the cats were missing their people....

Here Sam is licking me to death...

and here Oliver is cuddling....

All this while hurricane Irene bore down on NYC....my siblings...a little stir crazy in Alex's apartment.  Here we are Facetiming with them on mom's iPad.

Laura and I got on the road first thing that Monday morning, and stopped at her school where she got to hang a painting she'd worked on during the summer in her favorite Prof's studio!

While at Laura's school we got to visit with our friend Laura Doherty who is still a student there...and in her room I found this lovely picture of her and my sister.  In her "fat days" as she calls it.  LOL.  I texted her this pic to make sure she was aware of its whereabouts (on Laura Doherty's wall....) and she was.  Just checking....

On the road...trying not to have a sugar crash.  Apple juice is good.  Very good....

Then, days upon arriving back in Texas...the fires started.  I know that if you don't live around here you heard about them.  Well, I took these 2 pics, with my phone, from the golf course in our subdivision.  As you can see the fires were a ways off, but close enough that we could see them!

And from the same location in the daylight.

And then these I took from a friends house.  You are looking at what SHOULD be the Pedernales River.  But as you can see, there is no water in it.  Which is why this was so scary....everything is SO SO SO dry.

And this I took from another friends house.  It's not as close as it looks...but it looked awfully close.

The fires never directly affected us.  We never had to evacuate.  But we were prepared to do so.  Thankfully it never came to that.  Our church ended up acting as a command central for the local firemen and policemen.  A place for them to rest, eat and regroup.  For a few days we had food and all sorts of things going on up there.  It was pretty wild.  Also, part of the major highway that runs through here was shut down.  Also wild.  We do know a few people who lost their homes.  We don't know them well, but know of them.

Since then a few flare ups have happened here and there, but nothing major.  It has rained a few times but again, nothing major.  We need a few real good rain storms to fill the river and the lakes back up.  The lake is something like 55' below it's normal level.  Crazy.

And here is Laura, resting in Tres' office on one of the days we were up at the church helping out.  Or should I say "helping out".  Yeahh......

On September 10, my brother in law married Annie.  Whom we love very much.  They got married in Vegas, by Elvis.  Sadly, Tres and I could not attend.  Tres' sister, Natalie and her husband Joe attended though.  And we got the see the video afterwards.  It was hysterical.  Even though it isn't a traditional wedding we are so very happy for them.  (and it was the perfect ceremony for them)  So glad to officially have Annie as a sister!

And....we've been working on getting Dolly knocked up.  We took her to a local ranch to meet up with her future mate.  Long story short, we left her there for 10 days, and now we just wait and see if she ends up with puppies.  Maybe we're crazy...many have told us we are...but I figure better now than later.  ha!  (Dolly is on the left in this photo)  We'll know in less than 60 days if it worked or not!

We've also been to Oklahoma for Tres' cousins' wedding!  And Tres officiated.  I was so proud to watch him do that!  It's the first wedding I've seen him do since we've been married.  

Here is Kelli and her dad.

Kelli and Larron

Newly married!

Yes, we're smooching too.  :)

On the note of the wedding, my Father in Law has started a blog too.  You should check it out if you haven't already.  He's a very good blogger!!  http://howdidigetonthisrollercoaster.blogspot.com/

And this past weekend Grampi came to visit!  One of the places we took him was to a local Botanical Garden.  We'd never been before.  It was very cool.  It had all sorts of different areas and types of gardens to see.  

Also, a great view of the city.

And we visited the State Capital.  This is looking up into the dome.

typical....

Waiting for the bats to come out.  Every evening in the summertime, on the Congress Street Bridge, you can go and watch the bats emerge for their nightly feedings.  Millions of them come out, and Grampi wanted to see them while he was in town.  This is the third time I've seen them and I have yet to get tired of it.  It's so cool to see so many flying out at once.

And....while we were at dinner last night, we found this wall hanging.  Very typical Texas attitude.  haha.