Boomer Sooner Homecoming!

Way back in the spring, it was looking like we weren't going to be in Texas past Summer of 2013. Not knowing where we might land, I figured 2012 was really my last chance to go to an OU football game from within driving distance. (Turns out I was right!) So I told Mike I would be planning an OU football weekend. If he wanted to plan a trip to see the LSU Tigers play, I'd be on board completely, but I wanted to see the Sooners play on Owen Field this year!

Shortly after making this declaration, a friend mentioned on Facebook that he was selling two tickets to EVERY HOME GAME this season. I was ecstatic. I went to the OU Football schedule and strategically chose the OU/KU game on October 20th. It was Homecoming, 3 days after my birthday and since I'm from Kansas I have a special place in my heart for KU (even when OU is crushing them!). It was the obvious choice. So I mailed a check and a few days later, these bad boys were in our mailbox!

Hello, Beautiful!

We got in on the Friday night before the game on Saturday. Mike and I love a little pasta shop on Campus Corner called Victoria's. They have homemade pasta and their food is amazing. It's exactly what you'd expect from a small pasta shop in a college town: limited seating on a Friday night, grungy hipster servers, and amazing food!

We sat above the kitchen so we could watch them prepare our meals!

I decided there should be a birthday celebration at The Mont, a local establishment specializing in Swirls (frozen mix of margarita and sangria) and awarding drunk co-eds with t-shirts on their birthday! My t-shirts were a little worse for the wear (one survived the Warrior Dash and the other had holes in it) so I figured it was time for a new one. I was so happy to see so many friends including folks from my sorority, my meteorology class and work!

This year's shirts were kind of cute!

On Saturday, Mike and I got up and did a circuit workout at the hotel. We stayed at the National Center for Employee Development (NCED) where they train postal workers. It's really nice and has a lot of amenities since federal employees go there for weeks at a time for training. Mike and I also took in some ping pong and a game of horse in the gym!

LSU was playing Texas A&M that day so Mike and I caught the last part of the game at Louie's. It was an exciting game that ended up in a creative last effort by the Aggies, but the Tigers won in the end so Mike was happy.

Mike was really into the game!

Just as we were leaving Louie's to meet up with a friend for some tailgating, we came across the homecoming parade! We got to see the Sooner Schooner, the cheerleaders and the Pride of Oklahoma!

From there we met up with my friend, Chris, with whom I used to work at Weathernews. He and his friends shared with us some of their fajitas, beer and cookies! We were very grateful! We even met a nice couple from Kansas. He was a grad student at OU so he wore an OU shirt. She wore a KU shirt! Soon, it was time to go to our seats and get ready for the pre-game entertainment!

Chris and I

Our seats were in the south end zone. It was a gorgeous day for football in Oklahoma!!

IIIIIIIT'S FOOTBALL TIME in OKLAHOMA!!!

What a good LSU guy to wear an OU shirt for his wifey!

During halftime, I was able to meet up with my college roommate and her husband. They just had twins this year, so it was great to catch up and see what's going on in their lives. They live in Tulsa and we hadn't seen them since our wedding! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture. :(

The game was a bit of a blowout, as expected. The final score was 52-7, OU, but Mike and I left at the beginning of the 4th quarter to walk back to the car.

On our way back to Texas on Sunday, we made arrangements to meet Mike's Aunt Marcia, Uncle Earl and grandmother in Gainesville, TX for lunch. We had a great time catching up with them and were very glad we could stop and see them. Even though we live in the same state, we're still almost 6 hours away!

We had such a great weekend! Mike even asked if we could go to all the games! Ha! 15 hours of driving round trip probably isn't something either of us is up to, but I'd like to make this an annual thing for sure, perhaps switching between LSU and OU games so the Tigers get some Holtz Love, too!

I think I'll go to Boston...

So life changing things have happened over the past few months. I haven't written about it for several reasons, none of which include "I was busy" because I just wasn't.

Over the summer, Mike found out he will be deployed for six months starting in early 2013. We've done this once before, five years ago when we were living in Oklahoma and had been dating less than a year. It was hard, but ultimately showed each of us that we were ready to commit to one another. We know the routine: I can get a pass to see him off at the gate at the airport (as well as greet him at the gate when he returns), large flat rate boxes from the post office are $2 less for APO/FPO addresses, and he's got a code for free 15 min phone calls.

Another interesting bit of information we got over the summer was that the pool of funds to pay for my employment have dried up and, to make a long, complicated story short, my contract will be ending shortly after Mike deploys.


Many of you know that we'll be moving to Boston next year. Mike was offered a job at Hascom AFB. This is a really great opportunity for him so he accepted and his "Report No Later Than" date is next October. So obviously that is very far away, but Mike and I are planners who thrive on change so we immediately started researching neighborhoods, walk scores, grocery stores, public transportation, etc.

So with all this new information, we've been strategizing the best way to move to Boston. I've been looking at jobs, but it's just too early to start applying. The Air Force won't move us to Boston without orders which will come in June of 2013 at the earliest. We'd like to get the house on the market soon while Mike's here to fix odds and ends and just in case it sits unsold for months. However, we put in an offer for this house before a sign went up in the yard, so I'm thinking it'll go pretty quickly!

Last week we took a quick trip to Boston to visit friends and check out the city as neither of us had been there.

Mike's friend Jen and her hubby, Mike, were our hosts for the weekend. We attended their wedding in Albuquerque last April. They live in a cute little apartment in the Fenway area and yes, it's right next to Fenway where the Red Sox play!

On Saturday, Jen drove us around a few different neighborhoods to get a feel for each one. I knew there were a lot of universities in Boston, but the sheer number of students is mind boggling. It's like living in one huge, urban college town!

On Sunday, we took a Duck Tour around the city. We had a funny driver named "Airtime" (he was a motorcycle stuntman, too, I guess). It was a great way to see the city and learn a bit of history.

Jen, Mike and Mike waiting to board the Duck!

These folks were dressed up as Revolutionary War soldiers and
I believe they would tell people about Boston history

I got to drive the Duck on the water!

On Monday, Mike and I had planned to go on a long run, but we opted to walk around some of the neighborhoods near Jen and Mike's place. We learned an awful lot about the area just be wandering around for three hours!

It was a quick trip, but now we can at least say we've been there and explored the city a bit! I do feel more confident when looking for a place to live, now!

Texas Summer Vacay!

Mike and I have frequently talked about how we'd like to take his nephew and niece, Landyn (8) and CJ (5 then, now 6 at the time of this writing), for a week or so over their summer vacation. Since we're in San Antonio, there are SO many things to do with them! Earlier this summer, Mike mentioned that he had a "free" 5-day weekend for the 4th of July if he stayed in town. I suggested that this would be a perfect time to have the kids come visit and he agreed! We quickly made arrangements with his sister to meet them halfway and bring the kids home with us.

We met Courtney and the kids in Beaumont, TX so no one had to make the full 8-hour trip!

We brought the kids home on the 4th of July and boy did we hit the ground running. Only Mike and Veronica Holtz would drive halfway across Texas in the morning and host a 4th of July party that evening for 20 guests complete with sprinkler-playing, s'mores with homemade marshmallows, and fireworks! There were some other kids at the party so we broke two sprinklers and the cat and chickens were thoroughly terrorized.

Sprinklers

Sparklers

I got the four of us matching Old Navy flag shirts and made them all wear them to the party. I'm so my mother's daughter! :) (Hey, at least I don't know how to sew everyone flag shorts...)

There's a whole series of shots like this as we were egged on by the kids and onlookers.

In the days that followed we took the kids...

...to the San Antonio Children's Museum

...to at least 5 or 6 different playgrounds (a few more than once!)

...on a drive-through Wildlife Safari!

....to a petting zoo at the Wildlife Safari

...spelunking. (Note: children are sometimes scared in caves....also sometimes claustrophobic aunts, too.)

...to Sea World

...on a Riverboat tour

...to the Alamo

...on bike rides

...to the Witte Museum (they're on-air meteorologists with floating heads!)

Swimming was a VERY popular activity while the kids were here. Mike and I belong to a gym with a crazy splash pool and ginormous water slide. We really don't use this amenity much (there was that one time we went down the slide in our tri gear, goggles and all), but we were so grateful to have it for them. We may or may not have gone overboard with pool gear at Target. :)

Snozzles and Googles! (Snorkels and Goggles)

Landyn must have gone on the slide about a billion times

Another popular activity was ice cream eating. Aunt Veronica was quite the enabler...

The kids ended up staying with us for two and a half weeks. We put them in day camp at Lackland AFB while we were at work. They got to do things like go skating and swimming. We checked out a bunch of books at the library and we would read a couple books every night before bed. We even got Landyn to read a couple to us. :)

The second weekend the kids were here, we decided to take them to the beach in Corpus Christi. CJ had long wanted to go to the beach and it was on my summer bucket list, so why not? We stocked up on beach toys at Target (everything was on clearance!), loaded up the 4Runner, rented a canopy when we got there and had a blast!

On our way out of town, we stopped at Rudy's for some BBQ.

And then we stopped for some ice cream on the drive home. :)

Mike's Mom and Step-Dad, Mr. Bo, came to pick them up when it was time for the kids to go home. Mr. Bo has had some health issues recently so we were very happy they made the trip out to see our home and enjoy San Antonio.

Mike, Mr. Bo and Landyn hanging out at the Pearl Brewery during the  Farmer's Market.

2nd Anniversary Trip: San Francisco!

So, I made a commitment to myself (and Mike) that we would go on a trip every Memorial Day weekend to celebrate our anniversary. Last year we went to New York City. When we were returning from our trip last year, we talked about some possibilities for this year's trip. Neither of us had been to San Fancisco, but we were both interested in going. Well, that was easy!

On Friday, we left early in the morning on a direct flight (and tiny plane)! We got into SFO at about 9:30am and took a taxi to our hotel. We couldn't check in for another 5 hours, so we had the hotel store our luggage and we hit the road.

First stop was Union Square...

Then Chinatown...

After some yummy Thai food for lunch, we headed up to Fisherman's Wharf to see the sea lions at Pier 39...

We visited Ghiradelli Square and each got a free piece of chocolate!

Then we started the long walk back to the hotel. Oh the hills...

On the way back, we did stop at the "crookedest road in the word" aka Lombard St...

By the time we got back to the hotel, we'd seen most of the sights in San Francisco! After a quick nap, we went to dinner at a nearby restaurant and then walked around some more, but stayed closer to home!

On Saturday morning, we rented a couple bikes and hit the road. We had tickets to an Alcatraz tour at 2:50pm so the plan was to ride our bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge and around a couple little towns on the other side and then catch a ferry back to San Francisco in time to get some lunch and go on our tour.

We started with breakfast at the Famer's Market at the Ferry Building.

Then we were off on our cycling adventure!

On our way to cross the bridge

We're halfway across!

We stopped at Sycamore Park in Mill Valley to check out the tallest redwoods (in the world?)

On the way to meet our 12:45 ferry, we realized we were cutting it pretty close. The further we biked, the more we realized we weren't going to make it. We still kept up the pace, just in case the ferry left a bit late. 

Well, it did leave a bit late, but not late enough! We missed the boat and we would be missing our Alcatraz tour, as well. At least we had a good story and logged 26 miles on our bikes!! We had lunch (with ice cream!) and caught the 3pm ferry back to San Francisco. That night we had Chinese food and caught a movie: Men in Black III!

On Sunday, we didn't really have any specific plans, but we made our way to the Fisherman's Wharf area since the Golden Gate Bridge would be celebrating it's 75th anniversary that night and there were plenty of goings on in that area. Mike contacted his friend, Hicham, with whom he was in ROTC at LSU. We had lunch with him at a great seafood restaurant. After lunch, Mike's other friend, Leo, and his wife met up with us. We all made plans to meet up later for the fireworks that night.

From there, Mike and I set off to see Alamo Square (no joke!) and the Golden Gate Park. Alamo Square is a nice park where you can see the Painted Ladies, a group of Victorian style row houses. If you've ever seen the intro to Full House, you're familiar with them.

After literally miles of walking through Golden Gate Park, we made our way to the Cliff House restaurant for dinner. It was quite busy, but we took a table in the bar area and enjoyed a burger and drinks. We got there at sunset and got some gorgeous views!

That night we met back up with Hicham and Leo to watch the fireworks.

On Monday, our last full day in the area, we went on a Winery Tour in Napa. They picked us up at the Ferry Building and we drove about an hour and a half to Napa where we visited 4 wineries. We got to taste several wines at each. 

It was a beautiful day, and much warmer there than in San Francisco. The way home was very quiet...

That night, we met up with Mike's friend Jesus and his wife, Kate, at the Stinking Rose. They moved to Oakland last year and hadn't had a chance to visit the Stinking Rose yet. 

It was great to catch up with them. The food was delicious, even the garlic ice cream!

Our flight didn't leave until the afternoon on Tuesday, so we decided to catch the cable car. Long lines and pricey tickets led us to just take a picture and check out the Urban Outfitters store nearby!

We had an uneventful flight home. It was another direct flight. We even got home in time to go grocery shopping, do laundry and cook dinner! What a wonderful anniversary vacation! Now we need to figure out where to go next year!