Rocky Mountain High

Last weekend we made a quick trip to Breckenridge, Colorado to celebrate the engagement of our dear friends Mac and Louriann. It was really tough to choose just a few pics to share, but if I posted them all it would take forever!


Family photo outside the party venue (French Creek Clubhouse). Right after this was taken it started raining/snowing.


Amery with Mac and Louriann. We can't wait to celebrate with them at their wedding in Charlston, SC next year.


Amery and his future girlfriend, Avah. He's actually really stoked about the idea. He was just getting impatient waiting for his birthday pancakes.


Amery with his godparents Carrie and Drew.

The Valdoro crew: Godfather Drew, Carrie, me, Amery, Jon, Nate, Ann, Avah, and Chris.

Amery shredding it up in downtown Breckenridge. On Sunday we strolled around downtown with Nate and his dog, Shay.

We went out to dinner on Sunday night at the Blue River Bistro. Awesome food and awesome company. Amery took a liking to this wine cork and would not let it go until he finally went to bed.

He didn't want to leave Colorado on Monday morning.

On our way down the mountain we stopped to catch up with Cristy. I hadn't seen her in a couple of years(!) which is just wrong. We only had a few minutes, but it was great to see her.

If you want to see the rest of the pictures from the trip, you can check them out here.

A Very Austin-y Weekend

The thing to do on the weekends when you live in the Austin area is to take your boat out on "the lake" along with a bunch of friends, a bunch of beer, and 10+ gallons of sunscreen. Most often, "the lake" refers to Lake Travis.

Funny story about this terminology. When Jon and I were engaged in 2004, I took a trip to Minnesota without him over the 4th of July holiday to scope out wedding reception sites with my mom and sister. During one phone conversation with him, I told him I was bummed out and bored because all of my friends were up at the lake for the holiday. He said, well, why don't you just go to the lake and find them? I started laughing so Jon says, what's so funny? I told him, in Minnesota, the term "up at the lake" refers to any of 15,000 individual lakes, not just one lake like where he grew up in Austin. I would have been driving for weeks trying to find all my friends at their respective lake cabins.

Jon's parents were kind enough to let us take their boat out last weekend and we had a great time.


Captain Jon.


Sean and Tyler with some delicious Lone Star beer given to them by fellow boaters after the guys drank all the beer on our boat.


In Texas, you are never more than a stone's throw from the nearest BBQ joint. Brisket y'all?


Please refrain from asking if there are whales in Lake Travis. That's just pregnant me and Jon hanging out in the boat while Sean took the helm for a bit.


This picture gives you a small sense for how popular this lake is. We parked for a while in an area called Devil's Cove (might be the same thing as Devil's Hollow on the map link above). This is basically a long and narrow inlet where everyone parks their boats and ties off to the boat next to them. Then it's just one big party until the food and drink run out. This is just one row of about 50 rows of boats that were packed into this little area. Crazy.


I swore I wasn't going to subject our readers to yet another nursery post, but I can't help it. On Friday I received a package from mom containing the long-awaited window seat cover. I am in love with it and can't wait to hang out in the window seat and read stories with our little guy:

Chris and Ann's Wedding

This is going to be a short post, but I wanted to get some pictures up of the fun times we had at Chris and Ann's Wedding in Colorado on Saturday. If you would like to see the full set of pictures, click here.


Jon and Shannon


"Godfather" Drew and Shannon


Ann and Jon


The Couple's First Dance


Jon and Cojimar


Drew, Shannon, Jon, Nathan, and Lopey


Mac, Louriann, Jon, and Shannon
(I'm sporting a 23-week baby belly folks, cut me some slack on the arm pudge).


The lovely bride at the end of the night.


I couldn't resist including this picture of the couple's adorable niece.

Ann's Bridal Shower

Sorry I haven't been updating much, everyone. How about a non-baby post for once? I promise to those who have been hounding me that I will take a "belly picture" this weekend and post it soon.

Last weekend I travelled to Denver for Ann's bridal shower. The theme was Chocolate, Wine, and Cheese, ironically suggested by yours truly before I got pregnant. By the time the party was over, I think the theme really was, Wine, Wine, and Wine, but you'll have to ask Ann about that. Oh yeah, ask her about the cake fight too. Lucky for her, we have no photographic evidence of that!


Corkscrew favors


Close up of favor tags


Tuxedo strawberries handmade by Stacy


The chocolate fountain


Cucumber water (aka what Shannon could drink) and wine


All the bridesmaids with the bride


Ally and Laura


Ann getting a little teary over the gift from her bridesmaids - a gorgeous collector bottle of Marilyn Monroe wine

The cake says it all

Slow on the Draw ~ Happy New Year!

I kept checking our blog to see if there was a new post, but it never changed. Since we are all sick of the Christmas pictures, here's a little update for everyone on what's been happening in the new year:

Jon & Royce fried a turkey for Christmas dinner:





We celebrated New Year's Eve at Gene & Susan's house:






Sadly, this is the best photo of me from New Year's Eve.

I got some new curtains for my birthday:





I took my niece & nephew to the Austin Children's Museum:





That's all we got...for now.