the house was quiet...

while Coan slept, dreaming of remote control Supermen and Speed McQueen cars. Julia was out with Mommy and Antamanna. The Christmas season came to a calm period. I gave the new treadmill a run and have been enjoying the silence with a glass of wine.

Shhhhh! I hear something! Nevermind, it's just my fingers typing away. I must stop now. More to come...

Santa checked his list.

We are leaving in the morning to go to my parents house (the house I grew up in) for Christmas. Coan is at the age where he understands what Santa Claus is and wrote (dictated) him a letter in detail about the things he wants. He wants a "Superman toy with a remote control that makes him fly", and a "Speed McQueen movie", and a "Diego Toy". No problem. Santa gave us the inside scoop (internet) on finding the Superman toy.

Julia is too young to understand about Santa and just goes with the flow. She smiles at everything that is said to her. You could say, "That's a really big green booger in your nose!" and she would smile...until you break out a tissue to wrangle it off of her face. She could care less what Santa brings her as long as she can smile at everybody without having to fight of the Kleenex Patrol.

My niece (who shares the same birthday as Julia) will be there and will be so excited that Julia is now walking. And talking. And be the cutest, sweetest thing since...well, nothing really. She's in a class of her own.

It will be a fun gathering of family with aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great grandparents, mommies and daddies, sons and daughters, and a sweet pup named Lucy.

When we come home on Christmas Day, we will be greeted by more grandparents and Antamanna to enjoy more time with family. The kids should be good and worn out by the time New Year's Day rolls around!

Thank God for family.

we went to the Trail of Lights...

at Zilker Park. Nothing says Merry Christmas more than a 30 minute one mile traffic jam. We even got squeezed out of our spot in line by a jackass in a huge suburban. We were being nice and let a truck cut in and the guy behind him decided it was his turn, too. Everyone knows it's one car at a time. Ho Ho Ho, you Scrooge! I hope the Grinch steals all of your presents. The funny thing is he was 4 inches away from an insurance claim on our front fender so he could be one car ahead of us. It's coal in your stocking, buddy.

Well, enough of the holiday gripes, how about some holiday cheer! The Trail of Lights is an Austin tradition since 1965. Most of the displays are the same every year. You have the usual suspects like the Peanuts gang, Mickey Mouse, the Grinch, Santa and the reindeer, etc., etc., etc. The header of this blog was created with photos I took several years ago at the TOL. There are way over a million lights and I'm sure the City of Austin electric company employees are smiling all the way to the bank with their Christmas bonus checks. So here are a few photos of the magical wonderland...



This is the huge lighted tree that is attached to a moonlight tower. The tradition here is to spin around under the tree looking up. It looks like the following sequence of photos...






Coan finally got into after seeing his friend Aidan spin around. We loaded up with giant bags of kettle corn and headed over to the...







And that's pretty much it. There are about 20 more scenes of characters but you get the idea. Now you can skip the traffic and the bah humbuggers in line to get in.

another semester was over...

for Stephanie! Her last class for grad school this year was tonight. She had to turn in a paper and was free to go! We all went with her to see the Christmas lights on the St. Edward's campus. This is the entrance to the main building...




Here is a close up of that beautiful door...





The front lawn of the main building is all lit up with thousands of lights...




At full zoom from that front lawn (about 3 miles), is the view of downtown Austin. Coan refers to it as "that place with the big buildings".

we decorated for Christmas.

We got all of the stuff from the garage last week to transform the house into a winter wonderland. Out came all of the lights, Santas, stockings, Advent calendar, garland, wreath, coffee mugs, dishes, Santa cheese spreader knives, nativity scene, more lights, candles, bows, the winter village, snowmen, ornaments, and the tree. We made eggnog and cooked pizza. Julia crashed out and didn't make it for the hanging of the ornaments but Coan stayed up until ten helping.



After a while the eggnog kicked in and the tree started to look like this...




Not really, I'm just kidding you. It looked more like this...




It took a few days but we finally got all of the decorations up. For one day Stephanie was nice enough to let me have a Dallas Cowboys Christmas tree...




All of the Christmas specials have been coming on television recently and it's the first year that Coan has enjoyed watching them (over and over and over again). He asked Santa Claus for a remote control Superman that flies around. We were stunned when we actually found one. I think he was making it up but they really do exist.

my well ran dry...

of articles about at-home dad stuff. Quirkee decided to let me write about sports along with my other column. This is good because sometimes life around here seems like the movie Groundhog Day. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll have something else to write about real soon.

The new sports category is under the commentary section and is titled Sports Junkie. Some of you may have read this on the new blog. The Quirkee world has yet to discover it so I thought I'd share. Sharing is caring...

my posts...

were absent for a while. I have been working on a new blog and we have been getting our house ready for Christmas. I have also been working on the header for this blog. Want a great way to kill some time? Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop should do it. Brew a fresh pot of coffee, though.

Coan had a great time putting ornaments on the tree tonight. Julia follows him around everywhere! She's walking now. I'll post some photos later. Off to bed.......