My Easter/Birthday Break

I finally got around to getting some of my pictures online today. Here are the pictures I took while I was in Houston for Easter and my birthday.

The user conference ended Friday night, and I got out of the convention center around 6:30pm or so. Joe, Cortis, William and I all walked down to Huts (on 6th) for burgers. We sat around and BSed for an hour or so, and then my weekend really began.

I got back to the apartment, packed a few things together, made sure the cat was going to be OK for the weekend, and headed out with Elissa and Rachel to go down to Houston (which is where they're both from).

The drive down wasn't bad. Lis got pretty PO'ed at Rachel's and my "Your Mom" jokes, but damnit, some of them were funny. :-P We dropped Rachel off at her mom's place about 11:30 or so, and got into Lis' place around midnight. It was a long day! But that's fine -- I ended up sleeping 12 hours. :-P

Woke up Saturday at the bright and early time of noon. I woke up and her dad and brother were up and about. So I groggily BSed with them for a while before opening the gift that Lis got me. She got me an awesome toolbelt for when I work on the house! It's really cool, I'm stoked to use it. :-D

I got to wander around for a while, checking out the animals (goats, cats and dog) before we went out for lunch at Nimfa's (I'm probably misspelling that, but oh well) -- it was really tasty Mexican food! Mmmm....

We got home and did a bit of work around the yard. I helped fix up the goat shed (the goats kicked a few panels off it, so I replaced one of them). Lis trimmed goat hooves while I held onto them, but sadly she cut a little too deep on Baby's (the white goat). So we went into the feed store just outside of town to get some pine tar to stop the bleeding. Lis felt bad, but it really wasn't that large of a deal. It looked uncomfy, but Baby didn't even flinch -- he still loves her. :-)

While at the feed store, I ended up with an impulse buy (that took a bit of encouragement from Lis and her dad) -- I bought a cowboy hat. It's a nice black felt one -- I'll have to get a picture of it for everyone. Lis says it looks good, I just think I look goofy in it. :-P

After patching Baby up the fun really began. Saturday was my birthday, and Lis asked me what I wanted to do for it. Well, that answer was simple -- we ordered pizza, got some beer and made a campfire in her back yard. Made s'mores and I roasted cocktail weenies as well. It was an awesome birthday evening -- I haven't had a campfire since I moved down to Texas!

Sunday was a pretty lazy morning -- we sat around and BSed along with Lis' dad until about 2 or so. Then we went over to Elissa's grandma's house (also in Houston) to visit for a little while. Her grandma's such a sweetie! After hanging out there for a while, we picked Rachel up and headed back to Austin. Needless to say, Bastrop traffic was a royal bitch. It took us an hour to get thru that town. I said it last year, and I'll say it again -- wipe the town off the map, it's worthless (but take Emily and her family out of it first, they're cool).

I ended up back in Austin around 8pm or so, and boy was Pixel happy to see me. She wouldn't leave me alone -- she must have woke me up 7 or 8 times Sunday night. It's tough to be mad at a creature who's only crime is that she's happy to see you though.

Overall -- it was an awesome Easter and birthday break!