big c's version of the holidays

I will start way back before Christmas. Pre-Christmas was kinda hectic. Although we did put up lots of House lights and a tree, it still didn't feel like much of a Christmas season. Claire and I were to busy running around trying to prepare gifts, travel plans, dog arrangements, work, and just keep our day to day lives in one piece. On my end it was mostly work and be discouraged that my computer was on the fritz and about to die. Beyond work, I did a lot of cooking.

But since Claire did most of Christmas I will briefly touch on my week alone in Austin and then update you on Amarillo.

While Claire worked, socialized, and visited family in Tyler. I was stuck in Austin pretty much just working. I did celebrate New Years Eve with our good friends Charlie and Emily. Thanks guys for inviting me! Mostly I just played Civilization IV which Claire got me for Christmas. Deep down I am still a nerd. Oh well, I enjoyed my time alone but was very ready for a vacation. Once Friday the 2nd hit I was off to Tyler with Freddie and Brewster in tow.

We were finally off to Amarillo for Vacation after that! I hadn't really had a chance to visit with family for over a year. So the plan was to make it as laid back and relaxing as possible, and it was. We did Christmas with my parents when we got there.

I got a sweet magnetic picker upper thingy and Claire got a little baggy to hold stuff in her purse among other great gifts.

That night we headed over to visit my great friends John and Lacey. Although their dog Darla stole the show after her bath.

The next day we finally went to Malcom's. Claire had been begging me to take her there and so Mom joined us


and we had lunch and sundays. Ours was butterscotch. It ended up being a little to butterscothy?! Good non-the-less.


We met up again at the Eslers that night to play some board games (munchkin) and catch up.


During the days Claire worked at Roasters and enjoyed some good coffee, while I caught up on my reading. On the 6th Claire and I celebrated our anniversary...family style.

We had a big meal out with my parents, John and Lacey, and Will and Anna. Off course, if you know us, you know we had to have Mexican food. So we went to Leals. It was delicious, of course. It was also a great way to celebrate two years of Marriage. We topped the night off with more board games at the Eslers. You may start to see a pattern here.


The next day we shopped out at the mall, made friends with a stray,

worked crossword puzzles, bummed around and ended up playing more Board Games.

All the days kind of blend together when you are recalling memories. At some point we went and saw Seven Pounds. I thought it was incredibly slow and boring. Claire was intreguied. We made our way over to the Water Still for some great flavored Ice Teas. We also played around with Scott's fancy lens for his Canon. We pretended we were models. Which Claire could be.


And I could not.


Mostly we ate a lot of food. Hung out every night at/with John and Lacey. Played games, had great conversation and even made some new friends! It was great to see Nick, Will, Anna, John, and Lacey all again and even got to hang out with some of their Amarillo friends, Thomas and Colleen.
On Friday we got up and drove back to Tyler to retrieve our dogs from Luci's care. Which of course while we were away Freddie thought it would be a good idea to eat a Tennis Ball, puke all over the room he was sleeping in and be a general nuisance for Luci. Thanks for keeping the pups though! Before leaving on Saturday to come back to Austin we played a little WII with Elbert. I also discovered not to mess with Claire because she was knocking people out in like 10 seconds flat on WII boxing. The pups enjoyed a smooth ride home

and we finally are home for a while. I bought a new computer on Saturday when we got back from Dell. Merry Christmas to me!

As for 2009, I expect a good year. Yes, Yes..the economy is bad, bad news, bad news, bad news. Thats all I hear. But after two years of marriage God hasn't failed us yet. In fact he has only blessed us so I expect good things in the future. Some things I know are coming and some goals I have set for myself and Claire:

Welcome in a bunch of Babies (Esler's, Rajeh's, Gooch's, and the Carroll's).
Get some new CD's from some of our favorite bands
Have a good time at SXSW
Plan the next set of Holidays way in Advance
Read a lot of books
Accomplish more of our summer goals
Blog a lot more
Practice my photography more
Clean out the Garage
Take a vacation (Most likely to San Francisco)
Redo our Back Yard
Possibly start a Garden
Put in Lights for the House
Write a lot more restaurant Reviews

And continue to bless and be blessed by others whether through prayer, conversation, online chats, blogs, phone calls, texts, emails, or just by word of mouth. I hope that everyone has something great to look forward to this year because I know Claire and I do. When I stop to look back on it I can truly see how blessed we are.

good times in tyler (aka: holiday blog #2)

Let's pick up where we left off, shall we?

Here's where my memory probably won't function like it should - which really frustrates me. Oh well - it's better for you guys - it'll mean a shorter blog to read (yes, short by MY terms, or shorter than it COULD have been).

The thing I remember MOST about the day after Christmas is the yoga. That's right...Luci talked me into doing yoga with her at her gym (instead of spending the morning working, like I fully intended). I've NEVER done yoga before - and only thought about it once or twice - promptly changing my mind when I remembered how clumsy I am and how badly I'd probably hurt myself. Somehow, the day after Christmas I decided it'd be a good thing to do - mainly because I was feeling like a tubbo from the mounds of food the day before. Anyway...I went....and according to my sister, Tonya - the instructor - went easy on us. Whatever. The class was small, thankfully; it was my sister, myself, Tonya, and two other people. According to Tonya I did fairly well - she gave me a few suggestions to correct my lines or whatever you call them...but I've NEVER seen my muscles twitch like that. I don't think I've ever done anything so strenuous in my life. Toward the end of the class Tonya said something about doing headstands, and I assumed she was joking and nearly started laughing. She wasn't joking. Everyone else aroumd me got on their heads like it was old hat. HA! I'm still on the fence about the possibility of starting to go in for yoga classes at Gold's ....or never doing yoga again, ever. Ha. It was amazingly hard - I was sore for days afterward, but I was proud of myself for doing it.

I don't have any photos from the 26th at all, so I'm going from memory here. I know the 26th started my latte kick - I had coffee with dad in the morning, and then again that evening with Zach Matson (a friend I hadn't seen in YEARS!). I was able to go to lunch at Carretas with Daniel Elbert (one of my absolute best, and longest friends) and hit up Target for some after-Christmas sale goodies (what a great friend, he was carrying crap around Target for me). I also had the pleasure of hanging out with the Becker family and eating some of Charlie's good cooking for dinner (yay for hanging out with Charlie and Em *and Maan and Sarah* in Tyler!)...but I had to turn down several plans for lack of better time-slot-planning (sorry Mark and Amanda). It was a pretty busy day, now that I think about it.

...and since my memory is apparently returning, you can all probably forget about this being a short blog...at this point, I'm writing for the sake of preserving what memories I do have...lol...

The 27th was 'Logan's Christmas'. It's the first year for Logan (my nephew) to have separate Christmases, but he celebrated with my family on the 27th - since we didn't get to see him on Christmas day. It was a pretty big celebration - we had pizza for lunch at his request...and watched him open a zillion presents (and opened our presents from he and Luci). Chance and I got him some webkinz - which I was pumped about playing with...but we never DID get around to it. He got some awesome stuff though...a new bike, a bike ramp, an iPod shuffle.


Man, he's spoiled. But we did have fun playing with his toys! My mom, Luci and I went shoe shopping briefly after that...and then I met up with Elbert for another latte and some wandering around Tyler (checking out some apartments and going to furniture stores and Bed Bath and Beyond). That night I was supposed to go to Megan Carr's wedding...but it also happened to be Tiffany Taff's b-day celebration day...so I opted to hang out with miss Tiffany and the gang instead...and Elbert opted out of the fun, so we went our separate ways. I headed to El Charro (one of the old childhood haunts) to have dinner with some fun folks (including, but not limited to: Trevor, Jonathan, Jennifer, Nathan, and Laura) to celebrate miss Taff being a quarter of a century old. We laughed a lot - then proceeded to her dad's house to play wii. That night - I moved my stuff from my sister's to my mom's so I could stay with her for a couple of days. That's right - not only is my Christmas a mobile one, but every time I stay in Tyler I generally move from place to place so I get to spend a little time with everyone. It'd be so much easier if my whole family just lived in one big house. On second thought, not really.

The 28th...Sunday...I went to Elbert's church which was pretty cool - the service was over 2 hours, which I'm not used to, but the worship was cool and the preaching was great too. Afterwards, I met up with mom, Luci and Logan for lunch at Chili's, then we headed over to my dad's house for Logan's Christmas with him. It was fun to hang out there for a little while...til I had to go work. Working in Tyler was interesting - I didn't get ALL my hours in, but it was fun to venture out to the various coffee shops. That day, I opted to go to Java Jams - the coffee shop in the grocery store (which, at that point, was the only one I knew had free wifi). There were quite a few interesting characters there - like the hobo who was sleeping across from me. My friend (and 'co-worker') Trevor showed up for a little bit with his brother Sam...and talked to me. When I finished working, I headed back up to Elbert's church (where he was setting up computers for them)...and we met his brother Scott for dinner at Little Italy (Lililly - for those of you who knew me in high school). I had probably the most fattening thing on the menu - eggplant parmesan with alfredo sauce. GOSH it was GOOD. I haven't eaten Italian food at a restaurant in at least a year (Chance doesn't believe in it)...so it was kinda nice. Afterwards, we pulled a typical Tyler move and went to walk around WalMart. Yup. That's what you do at night in Tyler. The boys got tired, and...I went home - intending to work - but passed out as soon as I hit the bed.

The 29th was my day of 'adventure' - Claire style. As I'd mentioned briefly before, Elbert was apartment shopping (he's been living with the 'rents and is ready to move the heck out)...but he couldn't do a whole lot while he was at work. I volunteered to check a few places out for him (get pamphlets, prices, info, etc) - so that's what I spent most of Monday doing. I went by 7 or so apartments before picking up some Chick-Fil-A for myself and Golly and taking it to her house to eat and spend some time with her. After lunch, I headed to these AWESOME new lofts downtown (the Moore Grocery Lofts)...and then worked a little at my dad's. Elbert met up with me around 4 at this really awesome 4-plex I'd found to check out on Craigslist - then we went to another amazing house that had 7 or so different units in it. These places were AWESOME...old...ahh...I can't describe them. The loft + those last two places were seriously amazing. If I HAD to move back to Tyler, I'd probably opt to rent out one of them. Loved them. I think I had soup for dinner at dad's that night - not that you care - lol...and then went to Elbert's to hang out. We played the Office game (one of his Christmas presents) - which he kicked butt at - me, not so much.


Although - I ALMOST won - I kept getting the easy questions. But he beat me. I let him. Not really.

The 30th was another adventure-filled day. I worked that morning at Cafe Tazza (best frozen Chai EVER). Then I went to lunch with Golly (who had been nice enough to loan me her caddy for the duration of my trip - so I was picking her up from her hair appt), mom, Luci and Logan at McAlister's. After lunch, I ran an errand or two, which included moving my stuff to dad's house (where I'd stay the rest of my time in Tyler). Then Luci, Logan and I went out to my aunt Julia's place. She and Jan (her friend who she lives with) have a TON of animals - so we thought it'd be fun to put on our grubbies and go play. There were so many precious pups (this one's Denim),


a cage full of beautiful doves, plenty of roosters...you name it.


There was a male goose that was in love with a male Great Pyrenees (and very protective of him),


some really funny goats,


and a PRECIOUS horse who followed us around and constantly put her face right in mine the whole time we were there.


Logan even got to ride a horse for his first time.


Afterwards we grabbed some gas station snacks, went shopping for dad's bday present...and then I went home to work a little more. We had leftover soup for dinner (if my memory serves me correctly)...and then I went to Elbert's again to close out the night. This time, we went to Dairy Queen donning free sundae coupons (courtesy of a client of Elbert's), I showed him photos of my day at the farm, he discovered Google Maps Street View for the first time ever and was overwhelmed,


and we watched Peanut (his sweet cat) be mischevious.


I'm a little foggy on the goings-on of New Year's Eve. I know I worked for a while that morning and I'm pretty sure I had lunch at some point, but I have no clue what or with whom. That afternoon I went over to my cousin Allison's house to visit with her and Nana (my dad's mom). It was nice to spend some time with them (even though Allison's bird Tweety was on my head half the time - haha)!


Late that afternoon I drove to the line to purchase some alcohol for NYE beverages. Ohhh - the line. Tyler is in a dry county, so you've gotta drive out to lake Palestine (or Kilgore) to buy any alcohol. Let me tell you - I have NEVER seen liquor stores look like this. It was like black friday all over again. Insane - I tell you.


Elbert came over that evening to celebrate with me. We began the festivities by watching a dvd he'd brought of all the Pixar shorts. It was a good start to the night - watching Jack Jack float around...and the snowman in his snowglobe...and those fat little birds on a wire. We then proceeded in our attempt to make mudslides (one of the only drinks Elbert will drink which is why I bought the alcohol)...only to find out that the blender was leaking. I guess that happens when you've got a blender from the 1970s. Hahah. I was determined to make them though since I'd driven 30 minutes to buy the mixins. Lol. I put some ice in a ziplock and Elbert pounded it with a potato masher while I hand mixed the alcohol with ice cream...then added in ice. We eventually put it back in the blender - just long enough to give it a good stir...then voila! Mudslides! They weren't actually too bad for my first time - especially considering the circumstances.


Somehow, Bert's was quite a bit stronger than mine, lol - oops. Oh well. I'll give the mudslide the credit for getting him to play Perfect Match with me (one of my favorite games when I was a little girl). It was hilarious. I'll give you a peek:


Oh man. I can't even begin to tell you. We kept trying to find Dick Clark on TV but it wasn't on until the very end for some reason - we pretty much ignored the whole New Year's thing happening. I mean - we argued about whether the ball would drop at 11 or midnight - and we said Happy New Year...but that was about it. We were too involved in our game of scrabble (which we both kinda suck at - so we made up ridiculous rules) to care.


Man - it was a relaxing, fun evening though - I love spending time with Bert. Missed Chance of course - and the fun he was having back in Austin...but I had a good time for sure.


New Year's Day I worked some, then met up with Elbert for lunch at Chick-Fil-A. He was pretty worn out from the night before - it seems his parents woke him up earrrrrly...but he still wanted to hang out. So...we chowed down and then headed to the mall and wandered around there for an hour or so. He bought some pretty nice things on sale (this guy's got more style than I'll ever have)...but I think the walking around the mall did him in. He headed hom to take a nap while I went over to Philip Newman's house for his family's annual New Year's Day get together. I was just in time for some dang good food - a LOAD of various potluck appetizer-type things...man...it was good. I got to play Settlers of Catan, Flux, and some other funny game with shapes with he and Michelle (love her) - and they gave Chance and I Killer Bunnies for Christmas - AWESOME! Without knowing that I'd ever wanted the game, Philip and Michelle prevailed and got it for us. Sweet action.


After getting KILLED in both games (I don't think I'll ever beat those two at anything) ...I went over to Elbert's where we played with Peanut, TRIED to play Killer Bunnies (but failed), and watched True Romance - which was a pretty good, *although pretty rough* movie.

On to the 2nd...my daddy's 60th birthday, and my last day in Tyler...Chance got in town around noon and we once again unloaded the dogs at my sister's house. We headed to petsmart to pick up some food for the boys and some things for Golly, then we met Elbert at Ken's Pizza. Mmmm...pizza buffet. Lol. Greasy, but good - and still one of the best salad bars! Hahaha. Ohman. After Ken's, we went with Elbert to the Mansions, an apartment complex out by the country club Elbert's parents are members at...just to check it out! And...THAT's where Elbert ended up signing a lease. Yaaaay - he found a place he really likes. I'm happy for him. It might not have been MY first pick, but it has most of the things he was looking for in an apartment! So...that's exciting! I'm happy for him. After that, Chance and I went and hung out with Golly - we did three crosswords with her (can I just say I LOVE doing crosswords with Golly?!?!)! Then, we headed to dad's house to meet he and Karen so we could head to Villa Montez (my favorite Tyler restaurant) for his 60th birthday dinner. The meal was delicious and the company was fun. I had a cucumber mojito (excellent) and a pomegranite mojito (not so great) while Chance sampled some imported beer from Argentina (?) and Puerto Rico (?) Lol.


We had family-style appetizers (mmmm, Chino Latino rolls!), followed by sea bass (for me),


surf and turf (for him),


and a massive plate full of dessert (also served family-style). It was a great night and a fun celebration for dad (I think!). It was pretty entertaining for Chance and I...Luci and Logan were there for the first part of it, and toward the end we were entertained by the 55-60 year olds all pulling out their iPhones and showing each other youtube videos. Man. THAT's entertainment. (: Hahaha. They're higher-tech than we are!


Well - that's pretty much the end of our time in Tyler. We hit the road the next day - I'll let Chance cover our time in Amarillo - since that was HIS official vacation.

I'm pretty sure no one will actually read this whole thing, and if you did, I'm sure you were bored to tears. I'm sorry. Lol. I just wanted to have memories recorded for when my memory fails (which seems like it could be any day now)!!!

...the end...(for me, at least).

so many blogs, so little time.

'Vacation' (in quotes due to the fact that I didn't really GET one) has been quite enjoyable, but now that we're back to Austin (in my case, after 3 weeks of being gone)...things seem a bit more frantic. Don't get me wrong - since our return on Saturday afternoon we've gotten quite a lot done and had plenty of fun (playing with Charlie, Emily and my beloved Brooker). That doesn't change the fact that the to-do list for tomorrow and the rest of the week is gigantic. But oh well. I guess I'll focus on that when the time comes. In the next day or two, you'll probably be reading a few blogs from us, hopefully with 'vacation' photos and the like. As we've warned you before, they might be long, but hopefully they'll be an enjoyable recap of our adventures.

For the time being, I thought I'd satiate your thirst with a project I started and completed today...one that may influence my future. (:

Emily (who you should all know by now) and I agreed to go 'fabric shopping' today for her nursery. Although we never really got around to it, we found some great materials on the interwebs...along with some accessories - and she came up with an idea for a 'theme' for her nursery. It all unfolded in less than an hours' time. Pretty impressive really. However, she was having a little trouble explaining it all to her mom, so I decided I'd put together an inspiration board (design board, mood board, whatever you want to call it) for little "Chigger's" (as I so lovingly call him) future nursery.

I've never put together one of these before, and I can't take 100% credit for this one (I DID find the background premade here). Despite my 'cheating', I'm pretty happy with it for my first time. And I'm thrilled that we found so many cool things for Em's baby's room. She seemed to like it too.

Here it is in all it's glory (click on the image to see it larger):


In the 3-4 hours it took me to pull this together (I'll admit, it's been so long since I've used photoshop that I'm kinda slow)...I realized that maybe THIS really IS what I want to do: design. Interior design. Decorating. Something along those lines. Now, the decision lies in whether I want/need to go back to school and whether I want to be licensed. Well, there are quite a few decisions that need to be made, but...you get the picture. Maybe that's what I'm supposed to do! I CLEARLY need to get a better handle on photoshop again, and need to be educated somehow...but...

We shall see.

Oh. Also, Chance just found our future home. Not really, but this house is absolutely freaking amazing and I want it badly. Okay. So it's about 50sqft smaller than ours, and one less bedroom...but still, it's beautiful!!!

hope it's happy

Well, happy new year, readers! Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas - or whatever you might celebrate - and a very entertaining end of 2008. Our Christmas was BUSY, but pretty dang great. But, well fill you in more later (maybe after I upload some photos).

Chance and I have been apart since Christmas evening, but he's coming back to Tyler tomorrow to celebrate my dad's 60th and pick me up to take me to Amarillo for his vacation! That should be fun.

In the meantime...I'm still working and visiting friends. Still have a few left to see (and I'm SO SORRY if I didn't get to hang out with you and you live in Tyler - boo)!

So, we'll be back mid-January, unless we decide to start blogging before our vacay ends which is entirely possible. I mean we really should. I've already forgotten what I've done all week. Thank goodness for digital cameras.

Look for a slew of posts coming up, like I said...sooner or later.

And have a happy happy 2009 while you're waiting to hear from us again. (:

30 min. there, 22hrs back

Sometimes even four days off can make the world to your sensibilities. Since I was in desperate need of any sort of vacation, our four day trip to Arizona was just the ticket. Although it wasn't all a trip about fun, it was time away from work and a chance to get out of town. Since it only takes 30 minutes by plane, flying there is great (technically it's 2 and half hours, but you gain two hours). Anyways we got there around 8:30 am and in traditional Patrick style, we made our first stop Dunkin' Donuts. Really who can resist having breakfast at 6am in Austin and again at 9 am in Phoenix.

Claire and I got there early Friday so we could start sorting through Dad's stuff. We made fast progress of it. We found some really funny stuff, some sentimental stuff, and just some downright odd things. But we made better time than Maren expected us to and so we had time to enjoy some Mexican food for lunch and got to go out for a treat for dinner. Some great sushi from Sushi Creek. I will have more on Sushi Creek, later, in my other blog.


Russell and Joni got in late around 10 and since they drove 17 hours they were exhausted. As were Claire, Maren, and I. So we hit the sack as we had a long day of packing and sorting on Saturday. We got up early enough to finish dividing up things between the siblings and then took off to watch the newest additions to the Patrick clan: Edward play football, and Sydney entertain in general.


We all enjoyed the amazing 70 degree weather and the chance to hang out together outside.

Claire even got to re-unite with her best friend Sydney. They played Hide-and-Go seek as well as held hands and ran down hills. HA! I think they both have become fond of each other. It does make me smile though to see my family get to be close even when we all live so far away.
After the game, in which Ed's team had a great fourth quarter comeback to win, we headed to Paradise Cafe to grab lunch. Apparently they claim to be famous for their cookies. Well being skeptical like I am I doubted the "amazingness" of these cookies. I will man up, and say I was wrong. They are probably the third best cookies in the world. Of course, Mom's will always be first, then Blue Baker, then probably the chocolate chip from Paradise Cafe. I digress. We finished up lunch and started loading 2 couches, 2 mattresses, 10 or so totes of stuff, 10-15 large pieces of art, a dresser, a recliner, a LARGE chair, 2 end tables, 2 lamps, a bicycle, and a grandfather clock into a u-haul trailer and Russell's pickup. It was probably the most amazing packing job ever seen. Thanks to Claire who could climb around that u-haul trailer like a monkey.

For dinner we go to enjoy San Tan Flats Steakhouse. This was one of the first places I went with Dad when I visited him over the summer. For that reason it holds a lot of sentimental value, being one of my last memories with him. So I really wanted Claire to get to go to this place and to share it with Maren, the kids, and Russell and Joni.

It really fits my Dad. The open fires for roasting marshmallows, dancing, great steaks, and country design just really seem like something Dad enjoyed. So it was a bittersweet experience to be there without him. Of course the weekend wasn't without those bittersweet moments anyways.

Getting to talk with Maren about her memories of Dad is something I will always Cherish. Sharing in tears, may be hard, but the sharing part is what means so much. I always have room for more in my family and I can proudly say that I have a great family in Maren, Sydney and Ed out in Arizona. It was good re-hashing memories about Dad, and remembering them while looking through his belongings. Plus the Grandfather clock he left me looks amazing in our house and stands tall and proud like Dad.

Sunday we woke at 5:30 Texas time and hit the road for what turned out to be a 22 hr drive home. We took shifts with person asleep in the back and three riding up front. The eastern half of Arizona is beautiful, as is the western half of New Mexico. Plus in the middle of nowhere in western N.M. is Pie Town. Yes, that's right, a real place called Pie Town. You guessed it, they have pie shops.

We sampled some amazing peanut butter pie here before returning to the drive. We stopped south of Albuquerque to meet up with Dillon and give him his stuff. That was close to the last of the beautiful scenery.


We drove out of the scenery and into the west Texas flatland. Dropped some stuff off with Nashee' and Danielle in Lubbock and continued on to Fort Worth. We arrived at 3 am, exhausted, sore, and grumpy. It was well worth it to spend time with siblings and family. Monday morning we drove our Enterprise rented Mini-van full of stuff back to Austin.

This weekend we head back out on a quick trip to Tyler to visit Claire's family. So more to come on our weekend getaway adventures.