Friday, October 28, 2011

Road Trippin'




















I love road trips. Chicken fried steak (with eggs!) for breakfast at Braums after driving all night, visiting places that have seasons and clouds, stopping at funky trading posts that carry politically incorrect dolls and have wedding dresses in the lavatory. God Bless America! Beef jerky and pralines! Polished rocks and moccasins! I'm so thankful we finally have a reliable car, let the adventures continue...











Kith 'n' Kin

Kissing cousins? Yes please. Please enjoy these cockle warming snaps of sugary family snugs.











Childhood house


Evan has the rare privilege of returning home for the holidays to the very same house he grew up in. Sure, the decor is updated, the basement is redone, and his old bedroom is peppered with antique stuffed bunnies and cute wicker baskets instead of action figures and sport pennants. But! We sat beneath the now majestic trees that he planted as a boy scout, (the whole street is adorned with the handiwork of troop 325) we exhausted scenarios with the Sesame St. clubhouse and Potato Heads, and pawed through mounds of the same Legos the two brothers built ships and bloody battles with in 1984. I delighted in the pictures of my baby husband tucked in corners and the beautiful claw foot bathtub upstairs and eating from his childhood dishes.

Since my own family doesn't even live in the same state in which I was raised, it was extra satisfying to feast my imagination on images of my beloved growing into the man I married within these walls, with these people, and I soaked up the new memories of my own children frolicking with cousins, blissfully unaware of my sappy musings.









Thursday, October 27, 2011

St. Louie Missouie


We have just returned from an epic road trip to visit Evan's clan in good ole' St. Louie. Why is it that Austin is so bulldozer happy that we don't have any historical buildings?? Downtown St. Louis is absolutely crammed with lovely old structures dripping with vines, elaborate moldings and character. The fixer-upper in me thrilled and tried to wrest free of reality at the sight of so many sad houses begging to be transformed.





Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Family Hike


Surprise! Texas, moonlighting as a sweltering desert full of poisonous snakes, malodorous cowboys and verbally challenged world leaders is actually quite beautiful. Ya'll.