This post is written specifically for my lovely cousin, Katelyn, who requested a blog update and reminded me that although I've posted house photos on facebook, I haven't yet posted anything about the house on this site.That means you better be reading this Katelyn, or else...

So here I sit in our very own kitchen (well, maybe it's Bank of America's kitchen) which just this morning we fixed up a bit. See? Before and after:

Perhaps it's due to having to retrofit so many florescent light fixtures back in the day at Redwood Chapel, but Paul abhorred the kitchen fixture that came with this house and it was numero uno on his list of things to fix (Actually, I think it was more like numero seis, but that's not a trite little American phrase now, is it?). These photos also showcase our beautiful "popcorn" textured ceilings. So pretty and easy to clean and they don't collect cobwebs at all. Just lying. I hate them. Luckily, we found out that the texture is not at all difficult to remove and already took it off our guest bathroom ceiling. The proof:

And here is evidence pointing to the reason why we haven't yet tackled the ceiling in the kitchen or any of the other rooms yet:

Just a wee bit messy. I may have ceiling texture in my hair for the rest of my life. We haven't yet gotten to patching and painting, but it is such a good feeling to have that gross stuff gone and to know that it can easily be accomplished. (And luckily our house was built post 1980, so no risk of asbestos.)


That's about all I've got, Katelyn. Plus I'm super hungry.

Fun fact! I just seriously almost threw up in my cereal bowl when I saw a photo of a little girl proudly cradling her freshly extracted tooth in the palm of her hand. I looked away fast but not before I saw the bloody little roots. Can we say major tooth phobia?

Presenting the modest little house that we hope will soon be our new home. Pictures don't do her (yes, I've decided it's a she and am currently trying to name her) justice, but she's a bit practical and plain, cute in her own way, and extremely clean. I can't wait to get our little red dinette set in that kitchen and make the first meal. And, hey, we'll have a backyard and our little grill so Paul can make the first meal! We have some designs to paint her exterior a different shade and the mirror covered in fake ivy that's over the sink is obviously coming down, but other than that she is move-in ready! And did I mention that she comes with all of the appliances including the washer and dryer?! A nice first place. I think Millie (Eloise?) will treat us well.

Correct me it I am wrong but, I think that I have posted only once on this blog and (seeing as how my name is in the title) I may as well at least post twice. So, in no particular order here are my ten favorite things about Texas. (actually I lied they are in order)

10. scorpions. (not the band)
Although I have yet to see one, I am still hoping.


9. rocks.
It is true, the Alamo is made of stone as is literally everything else in and around San Antonio. It is truly majestic.


8. The Grackle.
This little dastard is as loud as all get out. They are ubiquitous as well.


7. rivers.
Being land locked never looked so good.


6. B.B.Q.
True it may take some getting used but you'll have many chances (any social gathering you attend) to become accustomed.


5. Austin.
Aside from reminding me slightly of Oakland, many cool bands play there. It was also the birthplace of Mineral, and numerous crazy music festivals.


4. Beer.
Flying Saucer is THE best place ever. I think that I shall be buried there someday.


3. Geneva.
Really it is what makes all of this possible, at least for me.


2. Hank Hill.
Although this is a fictional character on, sadly, a canceled cartoon program, there really are quite a few people in Texas that actually remind me of him, as well as the many other unforgettable characters on "King of the Hill."


1. Erica.
I know, I know "spare me the cheese." Even if I sound like a cornball, I have to admit that she makes everything better. I am positively certain that Texas would not be as good (no offense Texas, I am not messing with you) without her around.


...Now you know, and knowing is half the battle...

Once again there's been quite a lapse in blogging activity and I have several good excuses this time. I had the flu for two solid weeks in November, I got lazy due to a social-networking website (which shall remain nameless), and our Little-Engine-That-Could-iMac crashed. Again. And to top it all off, for a couple of months life seemed to be paused. That is, until Christmas vacation.

This Christmas we decided to drive back to California during Paul's two-week break. I will spare all of the gory details of the drive except to say that on the way back to Texas we left Hayward, CA at 9:30pm and drove straight through to Fort Stockton, TX. Insanity. I thought riding a horse was bad, but try sitting in a Chevy Aveo for twenty hours. I swear the meager shower head with water that barely drizzled out at the Motel 6 in Fort Stockton that night felt like a spa at a five-star resort. We slept like logs in those scratchy sheets too (Paul even had a conversation with me and took my socks off and I had no recollection of it).

One of the bonuses of a road trip too (aside from making the not-so-luxurious seem luxurious) is that it practically forces you to take the time to think and plan out your life and have deeper than normal discussions. Taking long walks seems to have a similar effect. It's fun to talk about what career you want to have next, where you want to live, what kind of house you want to live in, etc. (Paul - University Librarian, Erica - Preschool Teacher, Seattle, Arts and Crafts style Bungalow) Who knows if any of those aspirations will ever come to fruition, but it's nice to imagine the possibilities. Kind of like playing M.A.S.H. married grown-up style.

I will have to post more on Christmas later. We are still on California time it seems and have been getting less than six hours of sleep every night since school re-commenced because we haven't been going to bed until midnight or later. I didn't realize that it was already 9:30 and the computer has a caffeine-like effect on my brain. So, hasta manana.

A couple of weeks ago we had a most unique dining experience. We went to the Dodging Duck which is probably our favorite place to eat in Boerne - it's kind of a pub with a big front porch and it's across the street from the river that's full of ducks (hence the name). Anyhow, as we were waiting for our food two ladies walked up to the porch leading horses and proceeded to hitch the horses and some feed bags to the porch posts. We met the horses, one's name was Charlie I remember, and the ladies encouraged us to take pictures and such. It was pretty neat, and seemingly uniquely "Texas" to dine with horses.

It got more unique a few minutes later though. You may be guessing what happened, but the waitress brought out my food, Paul says he saw the horse's eyes get really big, and, well, all of a sudden there was Charlie with his great big head between me and my plate, his nostrils quivering. I, trying desperately not to look like a Californian, tried to nonchalantly push my plate out of his reach, but Charlie just kept straining toward the plate with his bashful eyes looking at me as if to say, "please?" He never did eat any food (do horses eat cow anyway?), and his owner came over and flicked him on the nose and said "no" in a firm voice (and instructed me to do the same!) and got him to back off. Charlie went back to his feedbag and Paul and I started to laugh so hard at the absurdity of it all. It was a very memorable evening. Oh, and this is going to sound like the punch line to a really dumb joke probably, but in all seriousness - guess where Paul had said he wanted to go for dinner before we chose The Dodging Duck? Are you ready? This is no joke. THE HUNGRY HORSE! Seriously. I'm really not joking.

I think we moved to Hazzard County.

We went to a parade downtown on Saturday. It was two hours long and mostly consisted of hundreds of Shriner's club men (A cult? They have a prophet and a priest? So weird.) and tons of beauty pageant queens, princesses, and little misses. Above is a girl doing gymnastics on the bed of a moving pick-up truck.

Oh, and here come Charlie and his friend!

We then went from the parade to the county fair. There wasn't anything there to see except some goats. It really was an unimpressive fair. I was hoping for the Hall of Flowers but we're just not in Sonoma County any more. =) There was even only one cow on the grounds and she was just there for a milking demonstration. I'm sure there must be better fairs in Texas, but this one was just lame.

The highlight of the fair was this cute little girl trying to get her floppy-eared goat to stand in the correct position.


They did have horses at the fair, but they seemed destined for the glue factory. Most of them came right up to the gate as we approached them, seemingly desperate for attention. Except apparently one horse couldn't be bothered. (I don't know why but that picture just makes me laugh, it looks so snoody.) They were all very old, very tired looking creatures, but the one whose tongue just hung out of the side of its mouth was the worst. It was both funny and sort of gross and sad.


Our ticket to the fair did include admission to the rodeo later that night which was much, much better than the fair itself. Coming from California we could hardly believe this, but they actually prayed (in the name of Jesus) before the events started! I'm wondering when that kind of stuff will fail to shock me. Anyway, just as the rodeo was starting it began to pour and then as the sun set we saw lots of lightning. The rain continued to come down forcefully for at least half an hour and it made the rodeo so fun and exciting! I tried to take a picture of how huge the puddles were but our camera doesn't capture things well at night. The first time I took a picture the only thing I accidentally left the flash on so the only thing I got was the cowboy hat of the man sitting in front of us, but I thought that was appropriate.

Parking lots at fair grounds typically aren't paved and this one was no exception. And due to the rain this parking lot was a huge vat of muddiness. With each step I took my shoe would get sucked into the mud and be completely submerged and then only my foot would resurface and I'd have to dig around with my toes for the missing flip flop. After a few slow steps (slow both because of the mud and because we were laughing so hard), Paul took a cue from a young cowboy and hitched me onto his back for a ride to the car. Yep, our little Honda Civic with the Apple sticker on the back, looking as out of place amongst the F-350's crowded around it as we probably did amongst the cowboy boot-clad Texans.

These pictures were actually taken a few weeks back. I can't believe how cloudy it looks in these photos because it seems like nearly every day we wake up to the sun blazing brightly at 7AM, its rays already heating us up to 80 degrees. (According to our computer it's a balmy 84 degrees right now and it's nearly midnight. Is that crazy or what?) The day we took those pictures though was a very hot and sweaty day, in spite of the clouds. Which is weird coming from California. If I see clouds or rain I automatically think - bake cookies, curl up on the couch and watch an old movie, read under the covers. But here it tricks me. My brain still associates those things with rain but then I step outside and it's not 60 degrees, but 100 degrees. Not the best kind of day to bake.

As long as I'm already on a little rant about Texas weather peculiarities, it's funny too how our bodies have acclimated to the heat. Take for example the other day - we walked out to the car to head to the grocery store and said to each other, "Wow, it doesn't feel very warm today." Then as we were driving we passed by a bank thermometer that said 93 degrees. Normally it says 98 or 100 so we were right in thinking that it was cooler, but how demented have we become to think 93 degrees is not very warm?? Did I mention that we have no air conditioning in our car?

These pictures were taken in the King William Historic District in downtown San Antonio. The photos pretty much speak for themselves, so I don't really feel that I have anything to add except to point out that in the one vertical picture of Paul he's standing on what we believed to be some sort of step for getting out of your carriage. Neither of us had ever seen that in person before. Also pictured is the checkerboard sidewalk - I don't know if it's original or not (it didn't really look like it) but a few houses had patterned walkways instead of boring pavement between the street and their gate. Pretty nifty.

Oh, and the cat. A random cat came up to us and then proceeded to follow for quite a distance. Remember the cat we saw at Becker Vineyards? Cat karma. Which reminds me that we have been watching a lot of My Name is Earl lately. Carson Daly.

Oh, how we have longed to be back at St. John's Anglican Church! We miss the beautiful historic building (which is no longer theirs now anyway), we miss our friends, we miss Rev. Miller, and we miss having a place where we feel at home on Sunday mornings. St. John's was the first and only church we ever attended in Petaluma, no "church-hopping" required. It was too easy.

It has not been so easy to find a church here in Texas, even if we do now live in the so-called Bible Belt. Prior to today we visited three churches in Boerne: St. Helena's Episcopal Church (too liberal), St. John's Anglican Church (no one under the age of 60), and St. Mark's Presbyterian Church (just not right).

The Sunday that we attended St. Mark's Presbyterian church Paul and I were discouraged - to the point of wondering aloud if we weren't really supposed to move to Texas. It seemed like everything fell into place so naturally when we had moved to Petaluma. Though we realized three weeks of visiting churches is nothing compared to how long some people search, we were eager to become a part of a new church family in the same way that we had been at St. John's in Petaluma.

So that Sunday afternoon we sat down in a cafe and wrote out on the back of an old receipt a list of the things that we were really looking for in a church in order of importance. I'm pretty sure it went something like this:

1. Liturgy - Basically any church where we would actively take part in the service by reading Scripture and praying corporately.

2. Communion - This is really #1 for us, but we didn't think we could place it in the top spot because so few churches in Texas celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday. At St. John's I loved/hated saying the first line of the confession every week that reads, "we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone." For me at least, that means a lot of repenting if it includes my thoughts, words, and deeds, and then, if that weren't enough sins to confess, it goes on to include not only the things that I have done, but the things that I have not done?! I never once got callous toward saying that every week, it always stung a little. But then you feel a great relief from confessing and receive the assurance that your sins are forgiven through Christ's death, and you get to celebrate the feast! It is a great way to start a new week! Perhaps for selfish reasons alone, I don't want to go to a church that relegates this to once a month.
Here's the full confession in context, by the way:

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.

This confession alone seriously almost makes me want to become an Episcopalian, no matter what else they may get wrong.

3. Fellowship - Preferably we would like to find a church with some younger couples/single people/families to befriend, but also older, wiser people too. We're finding in Boerne that it's difficult, and maybe even impossible, to find a church that meets all of the first 3 criteria.

4. Proximity - We used to be able to walk to St. John's and I think the majority of the congregation lived in Petaluma, maybe even the on west-side. =) We would prefer to find a church in Boerne, but know that this should not be the most important factor in deciding upon a church.

That was our list and we set out today with that criteria in mind. (But knowing that no matter what kind of Church service it turned out to be, we were there to worship and glorify God - I hope I don't give the impression that it was like we were out apartment hunting or something. We've been glad to be able to go to church at all every Sunday since we've been here.)


And this is the church we attended today. Well, really this not an actual picture of the place, but it did meet in a school cafeteria. (Quite a stark contrast to the old St. John's building in regard to aesthetics.) Despite its not-so-reverence-inspiring- appearance however, I am soooooo happy to be able to say that it meets criteria #1, #2, and #3 beautifully. It is in San Antonio, meaning a 35-45 minute drive, so it doesn't fit criteria #4. We don't feel like we can complain about the distance too much though as there were people there from Austin (who, by the way, recognized Paul from attending Redwood Chapel in the late 90s/early 2000s - small world).

But most of the elements of the liturgy that we so enjoyed at St. John's were present - we read Scripture responsively, sang the Doxology, confessed our sins corporately and privately, recited the Nicene creed, prayed the Lord's prayer (but not necessarily in that order), and stood up, sat down, stood up, sat down, stood up, sat down. We both found the sermon to be very thought-provoking and challenging too. And, hooray, they celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday! (I like that rhyme.) We even got to eat lunch (melt-in-your-mouth brisket, no less) after church with everyone and the people at our table included a young couple with a 4 month old baby, a single guy who was also there for the first time, a middle-aged mother with 7 kids (who was so nice that even though we had just met, she hugged me when we left - and it didn't seem weird), and a dad in his early 30s - a pretty nice mix to enjoy fellowship with.

We came away feeling like we were finally at home in Texas.

Some day last week we visited a really neat town called Fredericksburg. (As a side note, we spend every day of the week except Sunday not knowing or really caring what day it is. It's strange - like we're old people or something.)

This is a really nice winery just outside of Fredericksburg. Yep, a winery! We moved from wine country to more wine country apparently. By the way, there are trees everywhere in Texas it seems, so it's hard to take panoramic-type pictures. I probably could have moved to get a better shot, but I'm trying to convince Paul that I need a better camera. =) (Hey, he tricked me into buying a Wii because he needed a better video game system...)

A lavender field at the winery.

It might not show up well here, but there were huge ants where we stood to take a picture of the lavender. It was fascinating to watch them, but from a distance as we were wearing flip-flops and have been warned to stay away from ants in Texas.


I told Paul I wanted to take his picture on the porch of the winery and as he was about to pose he noticed a cat sleeping peacefully next to him atop a wine barrel. So we took pictures of the cat instead.

Another building on the winery property. Every building is made out of stone in Texas.

Part of the inside of the winery. We didn't taste any wine because it was morning, but we did purchase an award-winning bottle. (And we're waiting until YOU visit us to open it!)

After visiting the winery we went to a place called Wildseed Farms. It's basically just a nursery but they have flowers and grasses planted too and you can take a walk around the mini-fields.




Fredericksburg not only has wineries, but also a local brewpub.

Paul was pleased. (Not necessarily ecstatic about taking this picture though.)

I was excited by this bread muffin thing that came with my salad. It was half pumpernickel (or is it rye?) and half wheat! We have a new-found love of pumpernickel/rye since moving to Texas because of all the German culture here.

There is a lot more to share but it's now 12:20AM CST. So, goodnight.