La Familia

KT's school asked if we could bring in a family picture for a "Family Tree" board they have on the door. We don't have any recent snaps of the family so we set up shop in the backyard and fired away. Of course there were too many outtakes, but here's the good-ish ones:

But this is how it really went down. Not flattering for me at all, but Sonny was not being cooperative and KT was laughing SO HARD at him, Jeff was struggling. It was HILARIOUS.



Early Anniversary Present

Jeff and I celebrate 6 years of marriage on October 1st. I told him it feels like longer - but in a good way! We've been dating since 1998 - so 13 years later, here we are.

To celebrate, Jeff attempted to surprise me. He knows he can't ever get one past me, but he was oh so close. The only thing that he did wrong was leave a receipt on the printer that said "YOUR TICKETS" in 72 point bold black font at the top. Can I help it that it caught my eye? Of course not. 

The "surprise" happened to be tickets to see one of our favorite comedians, Jim Gaffigan. You may recall his Hot Pocket skit? No? He's second, or maybe now equal now, to my other favorite comedian, Eddie Izzard. I was so excited. But I had about 4 months to wait. So there they sat, pinned to our refrigerator until last Friday.

I took an entire day off work. For FUN! Not to clean my house or run errands. But for F-U-N!! And it was fun, the whole day. We started it off with a run, because we both wanted to indulge a little while in the ATX. After we cleaned up, we headed to Austin. 

I put out an SOS out on Facebook for some good eats off of South Congress. In all honesty, I put the SOS out while we were already IN the area, so I was looking for fast responses. And I got a few. The food trailers seemed the easiest, and trendiest, and most interesting of the suggestions, so we decided on that route.

The Mighty Cone it was! And what a fine choice - de-freakin-licious! (Thanks, Lisa!)

Jeff and I both ordered the Deluxe Cones - aka: Fried Chicken with Fried Avacado - heaven.

Jeff got a banana snow cone (gag!) from one of the trucks....

And I enjoyed a cupcake from Hey Cupcake!

 

We even enjoyed live music, at 1:45 in the afternoon. This guy was awesome.

Afterward, we decided to go walk off some of our guilty conscious and headed down to Town Lake. (Or Ladybird Lake, I'm not sure what they call it anymore).  I took this opportunity to take some photos. It was nice, just relaxing on the park bench.

We spent awhile just watching the kayakers and paddle boarders sunbathe. The weather was perfect. And it was nice not to worry about anything.


Afterward, we headed to IKEA to kill some time before the show and to grab KT a chalk easel, which she absolutely loves (worth all $15 we spent on it). Then we headed back to the UT campus and where STILL early. We took a mini tour of the campus, walked around the stadium then sat on one of the walls and watched all the students and reflected on our time in college. It was really nice.

Gaffigan packed the house, no surprise. His performance was completely fresh, new material and worth the price of the ticket and then some. He had us rolling. It's sure nice to laugh hard every now and then. His encore was his Hot Pocket skit, which is still hilarious even though I've heard it over 100 times.

Afterward, we headed back to San Antonio because we had to head to Houston early the next day for our niece's 2nd birthday party. Mom and Dad watched KT for us during the day and night and brought her back early a.m. Saturday. She had fun going to the zoo with them! In fact, I'm pretty sure she wore them out.

Happy Early Anniversary to the most awesome husband ever. Thank you for the wonderful day trip. It was awesome. Let's do it again soon, m'kay?

Another trip to Sea World

The benefits of living so close to Sea World (and holding season passes) is that we can schedule impromptu visits throughout the season. This allows us the freedom of going for only a few hours at a time, about as long as KT will last, to see various parts of the park. We decided to hit up Sea World on the afternoon of Sunday, September 4th. We got there around 5:00pm, just in time to catch KT's first Shamu show. She loved it! My favorite part was watching her squeal when she spotted him!

We attempted a family shot

Cheese face wtih Daddy

 Shamu jumping

Intent on watching Shamu

 

  Mama & KT at the dolphin tank

gorgeous sunset on the way home

Infant III Class

Here's a quick pic of KT's Infant III class from the past year.
Back Row (L to R): Miss Olivia, Matthew, KT, Miss Lauren
Front Row (L to R): Brielle, Sarah, Sierra, Isaiah, Ella

Eighty-Four

Rebecca Jo Vahalik Schwencke

My Grandmother turned 84 today. We celebrated in our usual fashion. We visited her nursing home, rented out the little party room, had some pie and tried to talk over each other. My Grandmother just sat there, barely saying anything. She doesn't say much these days when we are in a large gathering. And, sadly, that's the setting I end up seeing her most in.

She has dementia, among other things. Something my Papa (her husband) suffered from as well. Over the years I have watched her go from retelling memories and recognition to having to introduce myself each time we walk in to a room now. It's not as if she doesn't know who I am, I think. I'm in there, in a memory, from even a few years ago, I'm sure of it. But this Colleen. The present Colleen. She doesn't know me. And she doesn't know KT either. And that part makes me sad.

Getting old is a bitch. And I mean that in the most sincere way. It's hard to take care of someone with dementia, and I sympathize for my Mother who has to deal with her caretakers on what seems like a weekly basis. It's hard to deal with someone who is here, but not. The nursing home is a good place for her to be, supervised, with assisted care, but it's depressing to visit those places. I can admit as much. It makes me sad to think that one day we all may be in a similar place, though I pray my mind holds out so I can avoid it.

I hold images of my Grandparents in my mind that I will forever look back on. And they are happy ones. Of camping. Of Easters and Christmases. Of sick days, when Grandma would put me on the couch and let me watch The Neverending Story. Tootie, their poodle. Canyon Lake. Birds and squirrels. And Grandma, so patiently letting me do her hair.

I want to remember them that way. But I don't want to forget that they need to be surrounded by their family now. And that's the hardest balance to find it seems.

Stole this from Mom's blog. My Grandmother around age 15, maybe?