Weekend Work Part XXXIIV

First job for the weekend (besides weeding) was installation of a new fan we bought in Kerrville
last weekend. This required also buying a light fixture to replace the fan. The results are pictured below, but me thinks that halogen spotlights will be replacing the new light fixture soon. These pictures do not reflect the awfulness of the bad 1950s light fixture and 1980s fan.

Installing the fan required reinforcing the electric box by Dave becoming one with the insulation. Sweat and celluose insulation don't mix well!!

Gillian Carter Sip & See

Sunday Tiffany, Michelle and Barbara hosted a "Sip & See" for Gillian Carter at Tiffany's house. 30+ friends and family arrived to celebrate the birth of Gillian. Pictures of the cute baby will be posted as soon as I get some (I forgot my camera...)

Weekend Work

This weekend we spent many hours in the backyard on weeding, mulch pile turning, etc. Also removed another 2-tons of cement chunks buried 1-2 foot deep in the SW corner. The first owner of this house had the original patio removed and then buried it along the fence line - miserly exercise?

We also completed the latest improvement to the Kitchen "hood" area. We first removed the non-working vent back in 2003 and installed a fairly ugly looking light to cover the resulting hole. More than 2-years later we finally bought a stainless steel microwave-vent to be installed above the stove. Installation? Not nearly as easy as the purchase, but now complete except for minor touchup to the woodwork.















Kitchen "Hood" 10/25/2003-----------------------> Kitchen Hood 10/26/2003















Kitchen Hood 3/1/2006---------------------------->Kitchen Hood 3/5/2006

Austin Trip No. 2

We went back to Austin for the 2nd time in two weekends for Lauren's 50th birthday party.

Friday night we caught the Asylum Street Spankers DVD release party at Ruta Maya's Coffee House in the new Penn Field development. Barbara had never seen them before, or as Greg put it "Barbara had never had to see them before." The concert was great, and Barbara enjoyed it too!

Saturday we ate and shopped on South Congress. The Great Outdoors nursery was quite a discovery. We then walked and drove around the Travis Heights neighborhood.

After working out at the Downtown "Y" on this gloomy Saturday we ate dinner at Opal Divines and then headed to Lauren's house.

Lauren's 50th was quite the event, with many in attendance. It was fun to re-meet folks I had not seen in years.

After the gloomy Saturday, Sunday dawned as an extremely nice day - sunny and 68F. Barbara and I went to McKinney Roughs for the first time and hiked 5.5 miles on the Coyote, Cypress, Pine Ridge and Bobcat trails to explore the site. The nature center led to the following two discoveries for Dave: 1 ) snapping turtles eat ducks and 2) rat snakes climb trees and eat bird eggs. Wow. World view change.

Austin Half-Marathon

6:00am traffic jam trying to get to the starting line of the half-marathon in Austin. The start was delayed 40 minutes. Barbara jogged over a mile to get to the starting line. I saw people still 3/4 of a mile away from the start 10 minutes after it started!

The temperature never got above freezing, see the ice crystals on Barb's hat after she finished. She cut over 16 minutes off her time from the Houston half-marathon!

Gasoline Prices 2006-02-12

Let's have a Beer!

Enough of all these cute baby pictures on other blogs! How about a vintage Baby Dave picture, with original caption by my Babci Pastalaniec.

Gasoline Prices 2005-06

POWER COST $/KWH

Just a quick update (after paying the power bill):

Sunday Barbara ran the Aramco half-marathon. She beat her goal by and is now headed to the Austin half-marathon next month.

After living with a non-openable garage door for a month, we finally had a repairman come out Saturday to look at it. Summary "We can't fix a door this old!" We called Precision, whom he recomended. Two springs, 12 rollers, two drums, two cables, 3 sets of bearings and $750 later our 51 year old door is as good as new and quiet. (ouch!) The door itself was fine, just all the hardware was so out of date that everything that broke had to be replaced in pairs due to different sizes, etc. Our 51 year old springs were replaced with springs that "should" last 20 years and have a 10 year warrenty - compared to an average spring life of 7 years. After 3.5 hours the repair man (when told of the other company's response) said "I thought about running, too."

Texas Longhorns - National Champions!

And Peace now reigns in the Pastalaniec Household - temporarily

Christmas 2005

Christmas was a busy day for the Pastas' as it is for many. We started at the Pasta parents' house down in Clear Lake. They generously invited Dave, Barbara, Ted, Kathleen, and Tadd down for breakfast, present opening, and lunch.









After unwrapping great gifts and sufficiently stuffing ourselves, Ted, Kathleen, Barbara, Dave, and Tadd headed back to D&B's to get ready for dinner. As the guys worked on getting an extra table for the meal out of the garage, Barbara and Kathleen worked on dinner--beef stroganoff, spinach madeline, and stuffing along with many delicious sweets.

Nick, Heather and Elissa joined us to open presents. Dave and Nick reacted like little kids as they unwrapped the light sabers Tadd had gotten for them. Elissa didn't seem to excited about all the activity and Barley enjoyed hiding in the presents under the tree. Dan, Margie, and Joanne joined us for dinner.

Brazos Bend State Park

Barbara, Ted, and Kathleen checked out Brazos Bend State Park today. Dave, unfortunately, had to work. It was a Texas beautiful day, the kind that makes those 90 plus degree days in August worth it. Our original intent was to test out Ted and Kathleen's bird watching skills, but we ended up seeing several other species that make their homes on the ground. We saw armadillos, snakes, and many alligators. Typically, the alligators are hard to find in the winter at the park, but since it was such a nice day, many were out sunning themselves. Fortunately, they were far enough away that we didn't have to make any mad dashes to the car. Our final count was 19 alligators of varying size. We recommend checking out the park. There are several trails and a planetarium which is open on Saturday nights.

2005 Christmas Ale Tasting Party

A fun time was had by all at the Annual Christmas Ale Tasting. We had several out of towners including Denver friends Eric, Anida, and Daniel Wheatley, along with Barbara's brother Tadd and dad Ted.

As in the past, guessing the correct beers proved to be quite a challenge. In the end, Dave identified the most, four out of fifteen, and started the White Elephant gift exchange. A wide variety of interesting, one of a kind gifts were brought. A Freedom Pack, Terrorist playing cards, a Got Beer belt buckle, and a special body "improvement" fund were all up for grabs.














After the gift giving, receiving, and stealing was over, many went outside get some fresh air by the chimnea. At this point, all flammable items were up for grabs. Several candles, bottles, and other objects unfortunate enough to be near the chimnea met an untimely, fiery death.



We hope everyone has a great a time as we did and we look forward to seeing everyone back here next year for the 2006 version.

Merry Christmas everyone!

'Horns going to the Rose Bowl! Dave went to the game with Greg and J.J. We biked from the 'Hood, running the gauntlet of car dealership helium balloons on I-610. We sat in the endzone, 9 rows up. UT-70, CU-03 - and we stopped playing after 2.5 quarters. Our 2nd string QB kept making 3rd downs so we put our 3rd string in. The ceremony for the Big XII trophy was cool, and then a rep from the Rose Bowl made the invitation. The players ran around the stadium high-fiving all the fans. Quite an experience!

Barb and the girls (including a special guest appearance by Beth) spent Sat. at Dickens on the Strand and then seeing the Fantastick's. Sunday was scrapbooking day for them, light hanging for Dave.

Thanksgiving w/o Photos

This year was Thanksgiving and the Boyce family compound with the Carroll's from Nacogdoches. A very peaceful visit. The trip up was great in and of itself as it took 4.5 hours, not 9 like our last visit as refugees from Rita. Kathleen set quite the spread for every meal throughout the weekend.

Friday we met up with Beth and spent the afternoon in Boerne. The first day of Christmas shopping was in full swing and the Boerninians were busy preparing for a nightime snow party. Happy hour was spent at the Dodging Duck Brew Pub.

Saturday we me Beth in Bandera, my first time to spend any time there. We took the long way from Kerrville and the fall colors on display in the Hill Country were great - much more vivid than usual due to an ongoing drought.

After lunch at the Old Spanish Trail Restaurant we went hiking in the Hill Country State Natural Preserve. It has some pretty sharp uphills and downhills that would have been really tough at 10,000 ft., not too bad at 1,500 feet.

After hiking we stopped for a couple of beers at Arkey Blue's Silver Dollar - a great hole-in-the-wall bar in Bandera.

Entertaining signs in Bandera:
-On Law Office door: "No solicitation, except for tamales"
-On repair shop bay door: "No spitting in work area"
-On gun shop door: "Attention gun buyers: do not point guns at clerk!"

Electricity Cost 2000-2005

 

Happy early Halloween

Here's Elissa in her very first Halloween outfit. She seems to be quite a night owl according to her parents. Every time we are over there, she is sleeping sweetly. As the night wears on, say around 1:00 a.m. or so, she wants to be awake. Nick and Heather hope to change her ways, but she's so cute sleeping, even if it is during the day, that it's hard to wake her.

They're home

Heather and Elissa made it home on Monday. Everyone is getting to used to the new situation. Enjoy the picture of the proud parents and grandpa Boyce.

Gasoline 10/19/05

 

Announcing Elissa Nicole Boyce!!

We are so excited that Elissa Nicole has finally arrived! She made her debut at 12:32 a.m., Friday, October 21, 2005. She weighed in at 7 pounds even, 18 3/4 inches. She has dark hair and looks just perfect according to everyone in the family. Here's a look or two.
She took her time getting here. Heather went in to be induced around 10:00 a.m. on Thursday morning and ended up delivering by C-section. We got to visit with Heather's mom and sisters for several hours, which was fun. Heather has been a trooper. She was moving around like nothing major had happened 36 hours later. Dad was beaming with pride as were all the assembled relatives hoping to get a closer look in the nursery.
We are now answering the phone, "Pastalaniec house, home of Aunt Barbara and Uncle Dave."

Denver, Part 2

We went back to Denver to visit with the Wheatleys and for a friend's wedding. We enjoyed great weather. The wedding was in the mountains which was beautiful. Our friends Amy and Jason from Dripping Springs joined us at the wedding with their two kids who entertained us all.



































Daniel has a second tooth coming in, although he's a little shy about letting anyone see it. He has become a big fan of drinking cold water out of a straw.

Longhorns, Corn Maze, Aggies, Astros, Italian Fest, Art Fest, and Astros again! Oh My!

The Pastas had a very busy weekend. Saturday started at noon watching the Texas-OU game. It turned out to be a great day for Horns fans as they won 45-12.

Next it was off to the Corn Maze in Brookshire outside of Houston. Dewberry Farms has a petting zoo, lots of animals, a pumpkin patch where you can hand pick your own pumpkin, lots of photo op shots, and even a duck race. We had a great time enjoying lots of the festivities. Next year we will have to return with some kids so people don't wonder why 4 adults are running through the corn maze without any munchkins.



















Next we were headed back to Houston for more sports. The Aggies vs. Colorado and the Astros vs. the Atlanta Braves in game 3 of the NLDS. Needless to say, the Aggies had a bad game. Hopefully they will figure out what the problem was before next week. For some reason, no one approached me for the last half of the game. Could it be the scowl on my face? Or perhaps the possibility of a primal scream coming out at any moment after another missed tackle or dropped pass? I'm not sure.

The Astros, on the other hand, were great. They won 7-3 and took a 2-1 lead in the division series.

Sunday we headed over to the Italian Festival in west Houston. We sampled artichoke casserole, eggplant parmigiana, Italian cream cake, and some sort of bread with garlic, spices and even some sardines. It wasn't bad. We washed it down with a glass of chianti. Like the beerfest, we decided the Italian fest would be better at night.

We stopped briefly by Nick and Heather's to check out the new floor in the baby's room. Very nice. Brenda and Diann were hard at work finishing up the last bit of painting. We saw a little of the Astros-Braves game watching the Astros go down 6-1 early in the game.

We then headed to the Bayou City Art Fest downtown. Lots of great art although nothing that caught our eye. We did keep seeing groups of people clustered together, but not looking at any art. Hmmm... It turned out someone had a radio and the Astros were coming back. We decided to head to the Flying Saucer to watch the end of the game. We were then headed to the gym and church. We didn't make it to the gym or church since the Astros and the Braves played the longest post season game in history. The Astros finally won it 7-6 in the bottom of the 18th inning. Yes, folks that's right, 2 full games in one. The place went crazy. I can't imagine what it was like at Minute Maid. Greg and Cory joined us for an early dinner and then we headed home. Whew!! We needed to get back to work to get some rest.
Next up, St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday. Go 'Stros!!

Back from the Beerfest

Howdy everyone! We've made it back to Houston after a great weekend in Denver. We joined our friends the Wheatleys for great food, beer, and fun. We have decided that Daniel gets cuter every time we see him. I'm not sure we'll be able to handle it much longer.







At one point, Daniel thought enough wine had been consumed so he decided to take matters into his own hands or feet. A karate kick later with his cast and it was goodbye wine glass. Dave points out the lack of stem on the wine glass as Eric re-enacts the action with Daniel's green cast.






Saturday we tried the afternoon session at the beerfest, but decided that we will stick with the evening session from now on. It was a good experiment, but we came to the conclusion that we needed to save the great Colorado fall daylight hours for hikes and save the beer drinkin' for nighttime. It becomes a little disturbing when we are the youngest people anywhere which we were on this occasion. Also, when we were finished with the beer tasting, it was only 5 p.m. How would we pass the night time hours?




We couldn't have asked for better hosts or a better weekend. If this continues, we may have to look for work in Denver. Sunday we did the Race for the Cure in Denver with 65,000 of our closest friends. It is the largest Race for the Cure in the U.S. We can vouch for that. After finishing the race we headed back to the house to relax before our flight back.