Tensai no Monogatari

A few days ago, actually on Saturday 7/19, in order to generate a slightly more lively kick and giggles, Erin and I decided to go hit a few open houses around town. According the the Austin Statesmen (our local newspaper) there are about 30 open houses in Austin and the surrounding cities on any given weekend. Do you know how many of those are on Saturday rather than Sunday? Somewhere between two and five. Unless you happen to want to live in Cedar Park, in which case, there are actually 122 open houses on Saturday and 374 on Sunday. None of these are advertised in news papers, you just have to watch for brightly colored signs along the sides of roads while you drive. Unfortunately for us, Cedar Park is just a bit too far away, so we only had a few to choose from.

Turns out a few is all you need, because at each one you'll find an eager Realtor waiting for your email address and phone number, anxious to send you information about every other house within a short half-day's drive. After talking to several agents we realized the first agent we met, Lisa, was by far the easiest to work with. She set up a web page that automatically updates a list of houses that meet our criteria. We can pick and choose houses to narrow the search until we find one we really like. We tried telling her that we're not really too serious about buying just yet, but I think realty agents are under a bit of pressure to find buyers right now, even if those buyers are still a few months away from becoming home owners. So there you have it, our home search is finally beginning.

Or maybe we'll downgrade to a cardboard box. True it lacks indoor plumbing, solid walls, water proof-ness, and everything else a house has to offer, but the price is right... right?

The internet is huge. Like mind-blowingly, awesomely, gigungously frinormous. Those terms all indicate orders of magnitude higher than I can count during the time it takes me to write this message. But despite the vastness of the interwebs, and the amount of useless information floating around in the pipes, you occasionally find something great.

Behold! Dr. Horrible!

No, seriously. Click on it. Before July 20th!

Wow, I haven't posted since July 3? Seems like it should have been more recent than that. The 4th was great fun. A family in our ward held a BBQ at their place and had about 15 or 16 people over for the night. It turns out that their neighborhood buys and sets off their own fireworks, so we were literally about 2 blocks away from the show. It was definitely one of the best fireworks shows I've seen in a long time, but I suppose its not hard to beat out Laramie's grand displays. Another positive point was the fact that we didn't need to wear coats and bring blankets to watch. I guess the 100+ degree days do have some sort of advantage.

The week after that passed by with relatively few exciting events... by which I mean none, until this last weekend. On Saturday our stake had a Pioneers & Patriots festival. It was basically some games and activities for families in the afternoon, and then a big dinner that night. Erin and I spent a great deal of time cutting watermelon to keep people hydrated. Unfortunately the stake over-guesstimated the number of people who thoroughly enjoy watermelon and about about 30 too many. Fortunately there were about 30 families willing to take spares home. All is well that ends well.

I was asked via email on Friday if I'd teach the Elder's quorum lesson on Sunday. That went well, glad its over. And... that's about it.

Erin and I are currently planning an anniversary get-a-way to Corpus Christi next month. The only beach we've been to together was in Alabama in late March and it wasn't especially warm. This should be a lot of fun. We're hoping to get some para-sailing in while we're there. So... we might need to enlist everyone's help in crossing fingers so that we don't die. Either way we're looking forward to it though, so don't try to talk us out of it!

Work continues to go well, its nice to have a project to work on. I like keeping my mind busy, rather than just watching the clock tic... tic... tic... big improvement!

So that's it. Hope all is going well everyone out there in real-world-land. As opposed to Austin, TX.

Lot's-o-laughs...

Oh yeah, no one is voting?

I have been proven wrong. Apparently people do still read this blog. With that in mind I'll try to post more frequently.

Its been a pretty decent few days since my last post. Our temple trip was loads of fun. Erin did take quite a few pictures of the temple at night. I haven't looked at them much yet but I know she downloaded them off of the camera. If we all concentrate real hard, maybe she'll post a few of them on her web page.

Elder Bednar has come and gone. Turns out that this was the 3rd fireside they've had here with Elder Bednar in the past 2 years or so. Now that his son has moved on the greener (or at least higher paying) pastures, I'm sure that the visits will come a little less frequently from here on out, but he did say that he and his family would be back. We really lucked out by having him attend our ward on the 5th Sunday. We were able to have a combined Priesthood/Relief Society meeting with him. He pointed out that it may be the last or one of the last times most of us ever meet with a member of the Quorum of the Twelve in that small of a group. That was actually the second time I've been in a meeting like that and it kind of makes me sad that he's probably right. It amazes me how clearly they see and understand the world around them. I wish I had that kind of wisdom and knowledge. Its also remarkable how you can feel the love they have for our Savior and Heavenly Father, the love they have for all of us. It was definitely a special weekend.

I'm very much looking forward to this 4th of July weekend. As of right now we're planning on attending a ward breakfast in the morning and a barbecue with some friends later that night. The weather says there is about a 30% chance of rain so ideally, it will rain in early afternoon to cool things down, and then clear up for the fireworks later that night... We can at least that's how it will happen right?

PS - Note the poll that I setup on the sidebar to the right. Feel free to vote. I may use this from time to time.