That Time of the Year (when living in Austin really rocks!)

We've been enjoying the Austin fall over the past couple of weeks.

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we went to Laguna Gloria for the first time. The sculptures are really neat, but it's just a beautiful place to visit, even if the campus didn't have a bunch of art work.

But, yeah, the sculptures are pretty phenomenal. This is all roasting pans!

Then after we were totally ready for Thanksgiving, Wednesday night we went to Mozart Coffee Roasters for their annual holiday light show.

Mal was having fun. He just likes to look pained or shocked in pictures. We don't know where he gets his weirdness.

Thanksgiving (with my parents and sister's family, which was great) was drizzly and cool, but even that couple of days produced some nice outdoor time.

I took those pictures on "Black Friday" and the following picture the very next day, the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

I'd planned to take Mal to the Christmas parade downtown Austin on Saturday morning, but he didn't wake up until 10:40, and the parade (a good 35 minutes away, plus parking and getting to the street) started at 11. I have my "Never wake the baby" rule still in full affect... which means we also didn't make it to church Sunday.

We managed to have a pretty nice day, though. Mal wanted to put up the Christmas tree, so we did that. And then we went to Jump Street (we have so many coupons and points from booking Mal's party, we haven't paid for him to jump since he turned 5); then we ran by Sprouts to get some food for a newly practically-vegetarian D.

Headphones and knee braces. Because that's how he rolls. Err, jumps.

Monday was absolutely gorgeous. My parents drove down, and we went into Austin for one of the things I'd planned to do Saturday: the Four Seasons gingerbread village! We did that, visited Voodoo Donut, then went to the Capitol (no trees in the chambers as of December 1), and visited my sister at her office... without paying for parking! Lucky day!

In the afternoon, Mal took advantage of the gorgeous day to play with his water gun outside.

Then today, it was warm enough to open the windows and let some fresh air (and music from the adjacent home construction sites) into the house. After some down time this morning, we went over to Lago Vista to order my new multi-focal (yay, being old!) glasses, check the pet supply store, and grab a few groceries I didn't realize we needed on Sunday night. Then Mal met his friend at the park after Alexei got out of school. We got to watch the fire department/EMTs doing some training on the rescue boat.

Yes, this is Day 2 on the Star Wars sweat shirt.

You really have to remember stretches of beauty like these when it's August 20 and you're not quite mid-way through the three-digit temperatures with 80+% humidity (and, yes, I realize that Houston and Florida are WAY worse).

Now it's almost midnight and I'm trying to convince Mal that, instead of bringing him a blanket here at the kitchen table, we should just go on to bed. Oh! It worked!