Our boys love the 400 acre dog park near our house and as soon as we enter the park, they bolt ahead of us and run to a pond about 100 yards ahead. They usually swim for a few minutes while Bob and I catch up to them. A few weeks ago as we approached the pond, there were several people standing around the edge of it laughing.

“Are those your dogs?”

our jaws drop

It has been so dry here, the pond had mostly dried up into a big puddle of mud. Of course our boys were the ones that laid down in it!

They were very happy with the amount of damage they did in a matter of moments.

Wellesley looks like a chocolate-dipped dog. Or one of the animals in the oil spill episode of Saved By The Bell that Jessie Spano tried to help. Half golden retriever, half chocolate lab.

The boys got a good hillbilly bath in the yard after we walked home. Used an entire bottle of dog shampoo.

Hope you have a relaxing, lazy weekend!

I spent my first night in Austin hanging out at Pete’s Dueling Piano bar with 2 friends from work. I adore pianos and this wasn’t your typical swanky piano lounge. It was dark, full of drunk people, and loads of fun. The musicians were incredible and could play any song requested of them.

After we closed the piano bar down at 1am on a Tuesday, we went next door to a college bar. I don’t know what was going on, but things got weird. One fella was dressed as a Fred Flintstone pimp, another as Despicable Me, another as a woman (possibly Britney Spears), and an 80′s jogger in a wind breaker. Rush night for a frat party in April? Who knows.

Besides those people, there was a girl standing by herself practicing golf swings and putts with an imaginary golf club. I was intrigued and slightly embarassed for her, so I walked up to her to see if she could help me with my swing. Do you know what she said to me? “Get out of my way. I’m going to hit you with my swing!”.

I am waaaaay too old for college bars and those shennanigans. By 2am we headed back to our hotel where I had an incredible view.

The conference organizers arranged to rent out Austin City Limits studio and I was excited to see the venue.

A local band played all sorts of standard rock favourites, like Lynard Skynrd, Bon Jovi, & Journey.

Darla and I wandered around the city for a couple of hours one afternoon. I really loved this city and want to go back with Bob sometime.

We walked along 6th Street, the main music drag and city hot spot. The buildings were charming.

I missed my chance to meet Willie Nelson by a few hours. On 4/20 at 4:20 pm, a statue was dedicated to Willie outside of Austin City Limits studio. Willie was there, accompanied by his white beard and cowboy hat.

After 3 days of conferences and mingling with some clients, I had reached my Austin City Limit of margaritas and I was happy to be back on the road again to see the hubster.

I had to travel to Austin, TX for work last week and I was able to see my Aunt Susan, Uncle Tom, cousin Peter and Andrea while I was there. They took me out to dinner at a restaurant called The Oasis, located on a hillside overlooking Lake Travis.

Auntie and Uncle were excellent tour guides, pointing out worthwhile things to see and providing me with facts. For example, Lake Travis is a man-made lake and it is made out of limestone. That is why the banks are so lovely. Lovely banks? Yes, the rock is lovely.

Some day when I have a pillion dollars, I’ll buy a home in each state. My Texas home will likely be the one with the turret below.

Back to The Oasis. The restaurant was huge and had patios and decks all around the cliffside.

We got to see a beautiful sunset, and when the sun has mostly sunk into the water and only a sliver remains, the restaurant staff ring a bell to notify the patrons to watch the last bit of sunlight disappear.

When I ran a 5K last year I was sure I would never run again. Somehow, at the beginning of this year, I registered for a race. I’m pretty sure it was the dozens of Christmas cookies that made me do it. The sugar got to my head and before I knew it, I was committed to running another 5K and buying new running shoes and an engraved toe tag in case I died.

After I signed up for the race and got new running shoes, I quit going to the gym at the rec center that I usually went to. I didn’t train for this race. At all. Instead, I found a Groupon for a 10 week kickboxing class so I started going to that at least 5 nights a week. I haven’t run over 1/4 mile in MONTHS. My new plan was to throw jabs and hooks at anybody that got in my way on the running course.

Team Turtle grew by one this year! Megan joined Darla and I as we embarked on our long, slow journey.

All 160 racers were lined up at the start line, seconds away from the start gun firing, when a fire truck with flashing lights drove through our course and forced us to delay the start for a minute. I wasn’t pleased because I just wanted the race to start so I could be done as soon as possible.

Team Turtle was off to the races!

While Team Turtle moseyed through 3.1 miles of the course, Bob and my mom met some new friends and Bob got a little extra friendly with a complete stranger.

The kickboxing must have helped my endurance anyways because I finished in less time than last year, when I actually trained quite hard for the race. My official 2012 time was 44:33 according to the race web site, a whopping 44 seconds quicker than last year. If I keep this up, in the year 2027 I can upgrade the team name to “Team Sloth”!

I was very excited to finish at a faster pace so I gave Bob a big hug. But it was hot out and I was sweaty and stinky so he didn’t enjoy my hug.

I wouldn’t run 3.1 miles without a reward, so mom took us out to Glacier ice cream where I enjoyed some…what else… turtle ice cream!

Aunt Cathy has nice, long hair so I put a sock bun in her hair. You actually roll hair up in a sock to make a bun. The bun was a little plain so mom and I decorated it for easter and turned Aunt Cathy into a bird brain. Since Aunt Cathy doesn’t have eyes in the back of her head, she didn’t know what we were doing to her hair. She just heard a lot of giggling. So festive!

The Easter Bunny still hides baskets in my house and mom’s was hidden inside a case of beer at the bottom of the pantry so she had to work hard to find it. Actually, she didn’t want to work too hard. I believe she said “just tell me if it is in here because I don’t want to get on the floor to look for it if it isn’t even there”.

My sister can never find her easter basket and despite being almost 30 years old, she has an annual tradition of crying out of frustration. Then our family points and laughs at her and takes photos and she cries more. She was back in NY this past easter, so Bob gave me his best Amanda impression when he couldn’t find his basket. ( He eventually found his basket hidden in the bag of dog food.)

My brother-in-law, Luke, was responsible for letting us know if Amanda cried again this year. I was pleased to get a text from him on Easter morning: “Crying from searching: mission accomplished”. And so the tradition continues!

Bob and I wore our easter bonnets. Exhibit #1 for why I’ve never been called “cool”.

I also made Paco join the fun. Exhibit #2 for why I’ve never been called “cool”.

Paco, tell me how you really feel about the bonnet.