Tonight we had a lot of fun when we headed over to Brig’s house to help Mason celebrate his 4th birthday. Pizza, presents and cake were in ready supply as we had fun socializing with Brig and co., in addition to Stephanie’s parents and Tiffani and her family.

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Afterward, Tiff, Travis and the kids, followed us home, though we did make a brief stop at the observatory at UT to check out Mars and the moon through their rooftop refracting telescope. It turned out to be quite a night of fun for everyone!

When it comes to stuffed animals, Asher certainly has an elite entourage that accompanies him on his adventures. They vary by species, but he knows them by the names of Yoree (Eeyore the donkey), Kissing Frog, Tweet Tweet (the penguin), and Twinkle Star (the monkey that plays ’Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ when you press his belly).



It’s funny to see how he likes nothing better than kicking back on the sofa with a few stuffed friends and catching a flick from time to time.

I was pretty excited when Austin got a few snow flurries last December, but that was nothing compared to what we got today. Kyle wasn’t hit nearly as hard, though Asher enjoyed playing in what came their way, but the look from outside my office window was remarkable. It was a full on whitewash.

This weekend certainly has taken its fair share of ups and downs. It all started with Asher and I going on an adventure to find a mysterious observatory in west Austin that Justin swears he visited at some point. After diligently searching high and low with no luck, Asher and I drove over to the park near the dam to take some photos only to discover that my camera’s battery was completely dead.

Down, but not beaten, Asher and I decided that we’d head over to UT to see if we could snag any last minute tickets for the baseball game. We were in luck and managed to get some great seats right behind home plate. UT won (which is great considering they lost 2 of the 3 in that series) and we even got a 50 cent piece when we bought popcorn.



So in light of not having my camera at the game, here is a consolation photo to prove we’re not just making up this magical weekend.

Jill left town this afternoon for a few days, so Asher and I decided to put our heads together to come up with a special Valentine that we could send her while she was on the road.



I supplied the paper heart and Asher supplied the good looks.

Asher and I had so much fun last week at Enchanted Rock that when Brigham called me this weekend to see if we wanted to go out there with him and Mason, we couldn’t refuse. This time, I made challenged Asher to walk up and down the entire mountain, and with little help (Brigham cheated a bit by carrying him a hundred yards or so) he did it!

Mason practically ran up and down the hill, and to Brig’s surprise, had no trouble jumping from boulder to boulder.

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While we only stayed a few hours, the kids really had a lot of fun in what will hopefully be the first of several outdoor adventures this year.

Tonight I completed work on my latest creation: a laser-triggered camera flash. While that may not sound all that impressive, it has been the culmination of the last two weeks of development and a dozen trips to Radio Shack.

What it basically does is when any object crosses the path of the laser beam, a sensor turns this disturbance into an electrical signal that triggers my camera flash to go off which allows me to catch some high speed photos of whatever object crossed the path of the laser.

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I’m still experimenting with what I can do with this new creation, but I’ve been pretty pleased with the results so far.

On our way home, we passed a quaint little rest stop just outside of Johnson City that we decided to pull over and take a few photos. There was a nice little church there with a cool old fence and a grove of trees, so we all got out and had some fun taking a variety of photos as the sun set.

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After a really fun round of golf with our friends Aaron and Katrina, Asher and I were sad to hear that Brigham and Mason were not going to be able to attend our much anticipated day trip to Enchanted Rock. On our way back home, we decided that we’d make a go of it anyway and we were even able to convince Jill to shirk the several hours of work that she had to do at her office to come along and have some fun.

The hike to the top of the dome was surprisingly short, though we kept prodding Asher along with promises of all sorts of snacks once we reached the top. Sadly, it turns out, I had forgotten all the snacks back in the car when I repacked the bag to make room for all the camera gear. Nevertheless, Asher quickly forgot the issue when he discovered a wide variety of puddles to run through on top of the mountain.

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Everyone on the mountain got a pretty good kick from seeing Asher splashing through ice cold puddles without a care in the world. Once we hiked back down, however, it was a quick change of clothes and we were on our way home.

Ever since we got the newest Wii Fit, Asher has been really excited about all the new games that he can play. His favorite by far is one where your character is dressed in a chicken suit and you have to flap your arms to fly from platform to platform.

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He really takes his arm-flapping, chicken-flying exercises seriously and even had to stop halfway through to get a drink (though, for some reason, his real thirst quenching beverage is milk).