Trail of Lights at Zilker Park

What gorgeous lights... unfortunately one of the colder nights here in Austin but the walk was soooooo worth it. At Zilker Park (the same park they hold the ACL concerts), various companies come down and take ownership of trees/areas and they decorate it to represent themselves. You can walk down the path of this park and see the wonderful lights and decorations that various companies/groups have put together. We decided this was the night we should make sure and take a good picture we can use for our xmas card this year. We had to stand around alot, waiting for people that we can ask to stop and take pictures of us and to wait for a second where the crowd died-down enough that we were able to even take the picture. We had a great time. It was the perfect experience to get the christmas spirit going!

Holiday Party at James & Kimiko's

James and Kimiko moved into their new house this month so they decided to have a holiday party to show it off and the friends together. It's a gorgeous house with a huge piece of land where you can easily play a regular game of football... We decided that we'll be putting together a "Jamesapalooza" with lots of vendors and live music... right in their yard. That's going to be so much fun!!! :0)

We're very happy for James and Kimiko for such a beautiful home. The garage will become a music studio where they'll hopefully work on recording some music, etc. so of-course Rob was excited about talking to them about their equipment and how they'll be setting up the studio, etc. He'll be able to help them alot. It'll also be great for Rob to have a place where he can hang out and play with music for fun and not have to work the hours like he used to.

Keep Austin Bizarre at Parmer Events Center

Keep Austin Bizarre was held at the Parmer Events Center. This is a huge event full of vendors, local as well as various locations, cities and states coming together to set up shop to sell their unique, handmade, artistic items/products. It's held for 2 weeks prior to Christmas to help the public with their christmas shopping. Rob and I went to check it out. We wanted to shop the market, see what types of items they had for sale and just to appreciate the art whether in paintings, jewelry, apparel, etc.

Jonathan & Kevin's Bday Bash

We got invited to Jonathan & Kevin's Birthday Party at Jonathan's house. It was a night of tons of food and RockBand!!! Jonathan is half Korean so his mom made some yummy Korean food for the party so you know I was excited... so was Rob! :) We had fun hanging out with Robin, Alex, Jonathan & Jessica, Kevin, amongst tons of other friends of theirs to celebrate the birthday boys! We had the most delicious carrot cake ever as their bday cake a friend of theirs make. She makes it so yummy that she gets requested to make it for all parties. I don't even like carrot cake and I scarfed it down with pleasure! Wow, yummmy! Oh and the best part... they made the boys feed each other cake, like at a wedding... haha! Jonathan's wife, Jessica, was very supportive and laughed!!!

Emily's Fall/Winter Concert

My oldest niece, Emily, had another concert with her band/orchestra from school. She played her euphonium as she did in the last concert. We wanted to make sure and go to this since we don't live at the house anymore so we don't see the girls as much as we used to. And also, Emily's proud of the concert so we wanted to be there to support her. We got a chance to run some errands in their area and also to pick up our bikes from the house. We want to ride the bikes in Townlake, Downtown area. We'll just have to pick the right day since some days get real cold nowadays. Emily's concert was great and fun seeing Marina and the girls. Justin was out of town for work so it was just us. After the concert, we decided not to go by the house since it would be past the girls' bedtime by the time they got home and we didn't want to keep them up on a school night. We stopped by Gallery Lombardi on the way home but it wasn't open. Strange, their website said they'd be open starting tonight. We wanted to check it out since they're having a special holiday event and we've heard that this Gallery has cool art. I guess another time then...

Blue Genie

One of the many holiday shopping events is Blue Genie, a collaboration of local artists whether they are paintings, purses, scarves, glassware, jewelry, etc. We went to check it out. Of-course there were some really cool jewelry, artwork, bags/purses, etc. This hat pictured is by CHIA and is soft, fuzzy and warm! So fun! And the doll... I want this doll but it's a bit expensive, being an original work of art, etc. She's sooooooooooooo cute!!!

A walk in Townlake, downtown Austin!

Rob and I went for a long-awaited walk in Townlake, Downtown Austin. We've been meaning to do this but waited until our apartment is somewhat organized and unpacked... and also waited until my cold was virtually gone so that it wouldn't get worse by the cold air in this brisk walk. It was absolutely gorgeous!!! So crazy that all this beautifulness is so close to downtown, the hub-bub city with its towers, etc. and so close to our apartment!!! :)

Happy Birthday Tina!!!

Today is my dear friend, Tina's birthday!!! She's my oldest friend as we became friends in 4th grade and have been friends ever since! What a special girl she is and a wonderful friend, actually more like a sister! Love you sis!!! Happy Birthday!!!

New Plates!!!

Yeh!!! We found some plates! We went to several different Targets with no success but we finally found a set of the correct color at a Target near by. Of-course they have had every other color than the one we needed but finally found a store that had one set of four left! We quickly grabbed it before someone else did! We now have some plates to match the rest of our set! No more paper plates! Yeh!!!

Happy Birthday Haley!!!

My sweet Haley (Justin & Marina's second child) turned 9 years old today! Such a big girl now! She's sensative, thoughtful and very sweet! Happy Birthday sweetie!!!

Travis Heights Art Trail...

We went to the Travis Heights Art Walk with our friend Karen and her friend Dan. Travis Heights is very close to our apartment and is a beautiful, woodsy, quaint, older area near downtown. It's like Silverlake, CA. Smaller streets winding in and out like a maze, older trees, cute houses that look different than the next (no cookie cutter homes here) with little parks. We saw some absolutely beautiful houses and some really cool houses where it was obvious that the owner designed the architecture themselves. Great streets to go for a walk too! And saw some interesting & awesome art! Such talent in this town!!!

Eat Local Week Kickoff...

Our friends at Zhi Tea hosted the kick-off event to the Eat Local Week at their store front on Dec. 6th. Other local tea vendors and businesses were set up with tastings on hand and even some yummy food items using various teas as ingredients. This is a picture of Jesse who has a catering business at the Zhi Tea booth. He made delicious zucchini bread with cream topping using Zhi tea's yummy Sweet Desert Delight tea. He also made some other items using Zhi tea ingredients, all for the tastings! What a great day for me to be tasting all of this wonderful teas, just getting over a cold so these teas were great for my sore throat! :)

Relaxing Night...

After a full week of sorting, unpacking, washing all of the dishes, pots, pans and kitchen utensils... adding shelf liners in the kitchen and bathroom... and just trying to move all of the remaining little things (our last trip) from Justin & Marina's house, we went over to Justin & Marina's to spend some time with the girls and with them... We watched "Hancock" with Justin & Emily while Marina and the little ones had a girlscout meeting. It was nice to relax and sit... and watch a movie! We also gave Haley part of her birthday gift early so she may use it for her slumber party tomorrow night.

Plate Dilemma...

So Rob and I've been busy sorting our boxes from storage, looking for the necessary items such as the microwave, ricecooker, pots & pans, dishes & cups, cooking utensils, winter clothes, couches, bedroom furniture, TV's, DVD players, etc. to move to the new apartment. Since it's only a two month sublet, we only wanted to take the absolute necessary items and leave the rest in storage to lessen the load to be moved. But there were those few luxury items we needed to look for as well such as the boxes of DVD's since we don't plan on paying/connecting cable at the apartment, we'll need access to DVD's to watch movies since we won't have too many channels to watch on TV. We were able to find majority of these things, thank goodness... but there are still those few items that we haven't yet located. We'll see if we find them or not. We did, however, had some unfortunate losses such as all of our large plates. These were from our 'everyday use' wedding registered plates from Target. We had gotten the set of four plates with its matching salad plates, bowls and small bowls. We loved them so much and needed the additional set of four to make it eight plates so we bought the additional set of four plates shortly before we left California. This one box had our two random plates left over from previous sets, some of my cups and our waterford type cups/glasses we received from our wedding. Of-course the two random plates survived and only lost of of the waterford type cup but every one of the eight plates broke. Every single one of the eight... I lost my favorite cup that my friend, Julie, gave me years ago and some other cups that had stories behind. We'll need to try to replace these plates since we have rest of the set of salad plates, bowls, etc. If we lost all of them, we would have started completely over but now it'll be harder since these plates are not in ALL Targets as they switch out their styles everyone couple of years and it's been a bit over 2 years since our wedding. A Challenge!!! We'll see if we meet this challenge! I think we will.