Simon on the streets of New Orleans

Simon @ Bayou Segnette State Park, New Orleans

Simon @ village creek state park

Simon @ the skatepark in Houston 12-17-2010

Simon sends off his application for a new sibling

There was a gecko on the wall in the bathroom...

My first thought was to kill it.
My second thought was to catch it without hurting it and put it out of the house.
My third thought was to reflect on the way that 'uninvited guests' (insects, geckos, etc.) increase the speed with which man made objects (like houses) decay.
My fourth thought was about the impermanance of all things and the silliness of being worried about how fast one thinks one's house might be decaying.
My fifth thought was that when my first reaction to seeing a gecko on the wall in the bathroom is to feel grateful and joyful that such a beautiful little creature is sharing my home... then, I will be where I want to be.

I wonder what the gecko thought?

(oops, i posted this on the wrong blog. eric)

Boys in a box

Skater Simon

Simon & dad on the ramp

Simon in the big shoes

First back yard camping overnight adventure

Simon and Dad Reading

memorial camping trip in Kerrvile

simon falls in love with the ukulele. jon plays and simon asks for more.

a great weekend with christy, jon, cindy & amara at the guadalupe
river. eric delivered a sermon at the uu church of the hill country.

simon and noli watch the air spade at work

it was loud, it was messy, it was great...

simon 'cooks'

simon masters the culinary arts

simon at 15 months

yay, sticks.

simon with great aunt barb and great-great aunt joan

simon enjoys his first splash pad adventure

champion of the water works. mick and indi got splashy with us.

dad & son swang

simon plays with his new bath toys

the blue star lights up and turns as water fountains from the middle and the green frog holds the ball with the yellow star - you can use it to scoop up water. bath time fun. thanks olivia and caroline! love, simon

in search of the perfect austin t-shirt

we spent the morning looking for t-shirts and the afternoon at the alamo drafthouse south. it was a slowish day in comparison to the rest of the week. last day of the austin tour...so sad. simon loved seeing his cousins first in the morning.

hill country tour-destination fredricksburg, enchanted rock and cooper's with pit stops at whittington's jerky, wildseeds farm and luckenbach

the judds and bluebonnets - a texas hill country tradition

photos at mueller are the only documentation for that day, so my brain that is actually creating this blog entry on june 20th has forgotten what else we did that day. one of the best reasons to update the blog regularly...
and then I remembered months later (it's october) - we went to georgetown because rick read that it is one of the best cities to live in in the US. we went to sonic; the kids' favorite and the georgetown museum.

ut, trailer tour and ut again

thanks to caroline we have many visual memories of the judd family visit - here are just a few pictures from our first full day of adventures. we started with a trip to ut austin (harry ransom museum, photos of the tower and surrounding area, a tour of the school of architecture) then we went straight to south congress. that is where we had our first 'trailer cafe' experience: the mighty cone (a trailer of hudson's-on-the-bend). most of us indulged in fried, greasy goodness. rick went for the vegan tamales a few trailers down and shocked us all. a stroll in the congress shops and a quick caffeine break at jo's got us ready for the most exciting stop of the day: gourdough's gourmet donuts. the donuts were delicious and ridiculous at the same time - sweet, so sweet and big and gooey and overwhelming. we got 8 different types and passed them around. each person seemed to have his or her favorite. after that we had to go home and rest from all the eating, but not for too long because we had tickets for a ut baseball game. we stayed until the 5th inning then ran to our final destination - man bites dog on manor. the day ended with buffalo hottie, my big fat greek dog and frito weenie pie. by this time simon called quits for the day and got us all to stop our nonsense and go home.

ut austin - caroline has perfected the self portrait

simon cheers for ut