Happy Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Barlows. We bought a smoked turkey from Rudy's (which was pretty darn good), and split up the rest of the preparations between us.


We made James carve the turkey because he is the man of the house (plus, he has a beard, and Mike looks like a kid now that he's smooth shaven. The waitress at the restaurant even asked for his ID when he tried to order a coke the other day (true story).)


Megan had a great time playing with Gwen, although we're not sure Gwen enjoyed it as much. Whenever we weren't looking Meg would pull out her binky and make a crying noise like she was playing with her baby doll, and then unsuccesfully try to put it in her mouth again.


Kim made the famous Frost cranberry slush, which was excellent, as well as homemade rolls, two pies, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and cranberry sauce. She did a great job, but we were left wondering how in the world we could make all that if we were also busy baking a turkey.


Lonna made garlic mashed potatoes, an awesome apple pie, stuffing, gravy and heated the turkey up. She also told us that she hadn't done her hair and makeup, and that if she showed up on our blog she would kill us.


We had a great Thanksgiving, and are glad to have friends to celebrate with. We hope your Thanksgiving went as well.

Megan's Window to the World

This is the entrance to Megan's imagination.


We're not really sure how, but she snapped off the ends of these two blinds from her crib so that she can look out the window.


Every day when we get her up from bed she says, "Cat! Meow! Dog! Ruff! Squirrel! Acorn!" We always look out the window, and there is nothing there, but she is sure that somewhere out there are some animals to play with.

Corpus Christi

We went to Corpus Christi this week with Kim's parents and grandparents.


The condo we stayed in was really nice, it was right on the water.



Since it is still in the 70s here, we headed straight for the beach.



We didn't wear our suits the first time because we weren't sure how warm the water would be. As you can see, that didn't deter Megan at all.


The next time we went ready to swim.


And we had to pull Megan from the water kicking and screaming when it was time to go (she's always been a water baby).


We also got to go to the aquarium, which Megan loved.



She was amazed by this talking macaw.


And, as usual, she wanted to touch everything.


And, again, as usual, she pushed her own stroller around.


She endeared herself to everyone, and we had a great time. Thanks Grandparents McFadden!

The Oberg's Visit

Crystal and Taylor came to visit us this week, and we had a great time. We took them to U.T. to show them the school and Mike's office (and what Taylor has to look forward to for years to come.)


We went up Mt. Bonnell to enjoy the view of Lake Austin (like we do with everyone.)


Then we went back out to Enchanted Rock so that Mike could do the cave he didn't get to do when we went a few weeks ago.



Kim was a little nervous to do the cave, and someone needed to stay behind with Meg, so she played while Mike, Crystal and Taylor went spelunking.


We took them to all our favorite places to eat. Here we are at Cooper's, one of the best barbecue spots in Texas. Mike loves their vinegary barbecue sauce, and the peach and blackberry cobblers were excellent.


It just so happened that Ben Folds was in town playing at Stubbs. Taylor has been trying to see Ben Folds live for years, so we made sure that Crystal and Taylor went. They said it was great, and they even got to take their picture with Ben.


As you can see, Megan loved playing with her aunt and uncle; she is still asking "where's Taylor?".



We are very glad they came to visit, even if they did get stuck in Houston on their way home (those are the hazards of flying stand-by.) Anybody else who wants to come visit is guaranteed to make just as good of memories (and to get their own spot on our blog), so come on down.

Happy Halloween

On Halloween night the Andersons (our friends from the ward) invited us to go trick or treating with them in their neighborhood. Megan loved trick or treating. She would walk right up to the houses with the other kids and hold out her little pumpkin. She especially loved the houses with "Fire" in the pumpkins. She wanted to walk right with the kids, but by the end of the night she was slowing down. She had to stop every couple of minutes to switch her pumpkin to her other hand because it was getting to heavy for her, and she wouldn't let us carry it. When we got home we emptied her pumpkin and she was so excited with her treats. She threw the candy in the air, put the candy in and out of the pumpkin. But I don't think she really knew what she had because she never tried to eat any of the candy, but she knew it was something neat.