Happy Halloween

Yay, Halloween! I am loving the idea of parties the weekend before. After a Halloween costume party AND a pumpkin carving party last weekend, I already feel like we've celebrated Halloween and we're not even there yet!

Greek Goddess and Brando as... himself.

I tried to convince him to write in silver sharpie on his shirt, "I am coming as myself."

Oh, yes, we danced. And danced. And danced.

Brando did borrow my friend's boyfriend's costume from last year. He only wore the ostrich rider for about twenty minutes, though, because the machine on his rear end keeping the costume full of air was a little hard to sit on.

The end of the night, and the Burger King. He was awesome.

And on to... the pumpkin carving party! We went to Sweet Berry Farm first for our pumpkins, and did a giant maze where the field is in the shape of Texas (you can see the field ready to be seeded here).

Afterwards, we went to a friend's house and everybody carved all their pumpkins! Shawners and I had the weekend to ourselves as Brando and Justinb had gone camping. So we cuddled upstairs and watched a movie on the half a theatre movie size screen until the crowd (with their crazy huge knives they used for their pumpkin carving tools!!) cleared and then we carved ours with one other girl that was still doing an intricate design on her large pumpkin.

Shawner's pumpkin!

My pumpkin that was extremely difficult. It took all of five minutes!

Hamilton Pool

I FINALLY made it to Hamilton Pool this last Wednesday. They have a 100 car limit and I had heard if you don't get there when they open there's always a wait. I finally threw in the towel and said decided to go later any way even if there was a wait because there was no way getting there at 9am was going to happen. Li and my sis joined Shawners and I and off we went. Thank goodness we did because we didn't get there until 12:30pm and there was still no wait!

On the way we stopped by HEB for tubes, beer, water, and chips. When we got there we paid our $8 parking fee, slathered on sunscreen, and made the hike down to the pool. I wasn't sure what to expect of the hike. I had heard parts of it were steep. Turns out the steepest parts had stairs built in so it wasn't bad at all.

On top of that, the walk was gorgeous with tall, beautiful cypress trees on one side

and huge textured rocks on the other.

They say it's a quarter mile, but knowing the pool is at the end combined with the feeling of being in another state entirely, it went by quickly.

We had blown up our tubes on the way and got in to float as soon as we got there. We were instantly awed by the beauty of the cave hanging overhead,

and the water falling down. Trickling is the best way to describe it, but there were about 200 trickles, so it definitely was a waterfall.

I can't wait to see it when it's really flowing! From the few pictures I had found before we went the cave really didn't look all that deep. In reality it was a lot deeper than I had thought. About half the pool is covered with the overhang of the cave and half is not.

Plus you can walk around the back of the cave with a mostly man made walkway. It's an absolutely gorgeous walk. The wetness inside the cave provides the perfect atmosphere for the lushest greenery. It looks like something one would find in Hawaii, not Texas.

There's even a little actual cave feeling part to walk through.

The view from the cave itself is the opposite view of the pool as you do when you first hike down, and is absolutely gorgeous.

One of my favorite parts is the rocky beach. There aren't many beach like areas in Austin. It's also the first thing you see when you arrive.

I had been warned of the sharp rocks, so I brought more than one towel to lay on top of each other for padding. It worked perfectly.

While we were there Univision's Leslie Montoya was filming a special on Hamilton Pool.

She asked for volunteers to be in the background and excitedly say Hamilton Pool! I was super nervous, but really who can pass up a fun experience like that? I convinced Li to join me and we laughed at ourselves while we did about six takes.

Later, , we enjoyed the picnic of strawberries, watermelon, turkey sandwiches, chips, and iced tea that I had brought.

We were having such a good girly conversation that the girl sitting on her beach towel in front of us had to turn around and comment on what a fun group we were.

A few minutes later Leslie walked over and asked if she could join our picnic and if they could film it for part of their segment to be able to show how fun it is to picnic there. Of course we said yes. We handed her a strawberry, talked and laughed some more, and they wrapped it up. I was a total dork and insisted on taking a picture with her. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that great! Also unfortunately, both Li and I missed the spot when it was on TV so I really have no idea what all even ended up on TV. I emailed Leslie and she's hoping to be able to get us a copy. Either way it was a totally fun experience!

Hamilton Pool is amazing. I'm so glad I finally went, and I can't wait to go back!

Killer Weekend

We had such a blast this weekend! By 3pm on Saturday we had all already had a completely full weekend, and now we have just been relaxing.

Yesterday morning, my girfriend, KT, and I took Shawners and road-tripped to College Station for the annual A&M Veterinary Open House.

College Station

We listened to a lecture by an exotic animal veterinarian called, "A Day in the Life of an Exotic Animal Veterinarian". We learned they do surgery on fish, wallabies, tigers, cockatoos, bald eagles, and mice. And that's all in only one day!

The exotic animal veterinarian lecture at A&M

Some of the animals they work on.

After the lecture we stood in line to take a picture with Reveille VIII BUT before you get all excited if you're an Aggie, we realized after 20 minutes that is NOT what we came there for. When we realized it would be another twenty minutes (and we were going to have to deal with super awful lady behind us, telling her daughter she was going to knock her out) to wait for the picture and our legs were already hurting we moved on! Then we walked through the large animal clinic and learned all about how they do surgery on horses and cows, and how they move them about when they are anesthized with padded rooms, and three ton lifts.

After the large animal clinic, Shawners wanted to check out the agility dogs, so we did.

Shawners resting his feet on KT. Not sure why this picture is so small!

Our next to last stop was the hallway of dogs. There were at least ten different breeds of dogs, and at least thirty dogs in all. Shawners pet every single one.

Shawners was this way with every dog there.

After that we were going to stop by the exotic animal area, but when we realized the only exotic pets they had there were the ones that we go cuddle and hold at our local exotic pet store (ferrets, snakes, turtles, iguanas, etc.) we decided the thirty-five minute wait in a line wasn't worth it. KT suggested McAllister's for lunch and off we went. Man, was I almost as thrilled about lunch as I was about the vet open house, when I realized they have .99 kids meals with a full meal, side (chips, fruit, mac n cheese, or a billion other things), and graham crackers!! Dang! The best news is we have one in Austin, and I didn't even realize it!! So excited!

Being goofy with Mommy! Not sure on the size of this one either...

.99 Killer Deal!!

On the way home we honked at the cows and waved at them like we did on the way there (something KT's Dad always does, so we carried on the tradition), and while we were a little too tired to enjoy the view again, I did snap some pictures before I zoned out to music while driving home.

The pretty drive. Sorry these are so small!

While KT, Shawners, and I were road trippin' it, Brando took JT kayaking, to his art class, and to his flag football game. Unfortunately no pictures to show for it, but they had an awesome day taking two single kayaks out (JT is getting SO big!), kayaking with a three inch draft (how far the boat goes in the water) in a four inch depth. Brando took a nap while JT was at art class. Then, took him to his flag football game where he played a KILLER game and made two awesome catches and one amazing touchdown catch!

They got home at the exact same time KT, Shawners, and I got home at 3pm! I couldn't believe we got back so early with a two hour each way road trip! After San Antonio and this one, KT and I totally rock the road trips! We went our separate ways, showered all the gunk off of us and promptly relaxed the rest of the day (especially for me after staying out til' 2am the night before with my girl Genie at an art gallery showing of Peter Max's famous work at Russell's Art Collection downtown with complimentary Lemon Drops and Cosmopolitans, catered by NoRTH - Allison you would've SOO loved it!, then hitting 7th street for live music). Whew!

Gentlemen, Heels, and Games

At Starbucks on a cold day you can observe life happening.

A gentleman and his lady, older though they may be, getting up from their conversation, he holds her jacket for her as she puts in her arms. She walks a little slower, he opens the door for her and holds it open before he takes her arm in his as they walk to their car.

A lady, quite tall, with her loafer heels and fuzzy fleece lined jacket, her dark jeans, and her perfect hair and makeup pulls off the warm and cozy look quite spectacular and stylishly. The heels and her height make all the difference, as that outfit on a shorter person would look "comfy" in not such a good way. There was quite a few stylish people walking in and out, but all of them ruin the style factor with flat boots. It's amazing how heeled boots can kick a cold day in the ass.

Each little boy, every single one that came in (which was a lot of them, I'm thinking their mothers' needed a warm wake-up call to be able to keep up with them), longingly stared at the Dora dominoes game Shawners and I were playing on our date, while each little girl talked her Mommy or Daddy's ear off and never even noticed we were playing a game. Except for one little girl, who had Rock Star on the back of her jacket.

At Starbucks, life happens, and I love enjoying my own and watching those who are enjoying theirs go by me.

And you thought this was going to be a dirty post didn't you?