10.02.06
Posted in Uncategorized at 11:19 pm by Melissa
Jason and I have always had a fun and busy life together. We always make an effort to do something on the weekends with family as often as we can.
We went with the Cains to Aggieland to watch our alma mater play against Texas Tech. Very hot day and third largest crowd in the stadium’s history.
We met at Laurie’s townhouse and had a wonderful lunch courtesy of Jason’s family. Jason’s Mom even made her famous brownies! It was great to see Laurie and Jordan as well. Jordan has just started medical school in Houston so it was nice to see how things were going. Laurie has a wonderfully decorated townhouse, and I really enjoyed hanging out.
My parents, brother David, his wife Edi and my nephew Zachary also joined us for lunch. It was so much fun and great seeing family again. Zachary is such a sweet boy. I’m glad we’re closer so that I can actually attend some of his school events. It’s still a drive, but at least it’s not a flight away.
It’s amazing how much he’s grown. I remember him going to his first few Aggie games as a young baby. He’s so smart.
I won’t mention much about the game since we got outscored, but it was fun being in Aggieland again. You really start to feel your age when you visit your university. My brother is a Class Agent (meaning representing his class) for the Class of ‘88, and his class was being honored at the game. David was on the field, so it was special and wonderful to be there to share that with him. We were sitting on the side of the stadium where he was facing us. We could see Zachary on the sidelines enjoying the fans that are used to cool off the football players.
After the game, we ordered pizzas, and then we headed back to Austin. My parents drove up and visited on Sunday. It was fun showing them around Austin.
Now, it’s back to househunting. I know I will love living in this part of Austin. It is starting to feel like home.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 11:08 pm by Melissa
Okay, so my brother pointed out that Jason has us home on his blog, and my blog still has us packing. I guess since I think Jason’g blog is so much more interesting than mine, I get lazy. I do have posts in my drafts folder, but being one that likes to write, I have to learn to edit posts down. :^)
So, here is an update. Our last weekend in Germany was everything we wanted it to be. We spent time with our friends, Carrie and Asuka, ate at some of our favorite hotspots, visited a nearby town (Koenigstein) that was by far one of my favorite places in Germany, and, of course, traveled on no sleep.
We’re just one of those couples who wants to enjoy as much as possible and save the travel preparation for when everyone else has gone to bed. Not the best way to travel, but the movers already packed and moved our bulky things, so how hard could it be to finish up? I had packed my suitcase on Thursday, but I saved the cleaning for last. Then, there was the issue of luggage weight. I felt so badly for Jason have to carry all our luggage down the stairs.
We were both exhausted after only 2 hours of sleep. I immediately got up and started vacuuming and mopping the floor. I don’t know how we got it all done. The funny thing is we made a 2:30 a.m. run to the recycling center. Since recycling is a big thing in Germany, we waited until the last minute to do our run because there is always that last water bottle or food wrapper to recycle, and we didn’t want to leave any garbage for our landlord.
We had some issues at the airport (had to get out of line to pay a change fee that the travel agent forgot to charge to Jason’s work, had to go back and pay for the heavy luggage, security undoing my whole backpack — and this was just Dresden). Then we get to Frankfurt — pretty smooth.
Washington Dulles airport was the craziest part of our journey. There were 3 international flights that landed around the same time, and customs agents were randomly selecting people so the lines were outrageous — only two agents for 3 flights! We had to drag our luggage, re-check them, go through security again and still get boarding passes (Lufthansa was our carrier first/then United). Our outbound flight was at 5:35 p.m., and we were going through security around 5:20! Originally we had a little under 2 hours between flights.
To top it off, tensions were high for people because everyone was in the same situation. I think almost everyone missed their flights.
Jason and I ran like crazy to our gate (with a few travelers rooting for us) only to find out that our seats were given away. There were 4 people ahead of us flying in from Switzerland. There were only two seats left, so we were the lucky ones. So, we made it home to Austin, had our Tex-Mex fix and went to bed.
The week was in full swing on Tuesday as we started our home search. It’s been fun but exhausting.
We are glad to be home in Texas. There’s no place like it, and we are very happy to be closer to family.
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