Thanksgiving -

This year Thanksgiving was at my parents house. Amber and I were totally down for this because it just meant that we didn't have to have people over to our house and this rare 4 day weekend is the jumping off point for Christmas decorations. This year I rented some scaffolding to put the lights on the house. It was an arduous undertaking, but made all the difference in the execution. It was a little difficult to move the scaffolding by myself, but Amber helped out when she could.

Thanksgiving started with breakfast at my folks house. Originally Amber and I were going to "sleep in" something that we used to do before we had children . . .everyone once in awhile we get an extra 10 minutes but it's rare that we get to sleep much past 8:00 . . .ON A GOOD DAY! So we rolled out of bed and went to mom and dad's in our PJ's to take advantage of a home made breakfast. After eggs, bacon and mimosas our family went home for a quick nap before the carving of the bird. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holiday's because it's really all about family. It's like Christmas without the presents. You don't have the stress of getting everyone something and you can just spend time with them with out all the protocol of Christmas. I really like spending time with the family and talking Andrew into doing crazy things in the back yard and just laughing and being together. It's just good family time. Usually there is a Franco contingency at Thanksgiving and I really like that too, because the Downing/Franco family is close and we can all have a good time. But this year it was just Mom, Dad us and Jennifer's family so it was nice. We had that extended thing the next day at Jennifer's house for THE GAME.

My mother and I surprised the family by flying Aunt Nae Nae in from Vegas to spend the weekend with the family. I think that Amber was very excited to see Renae. They are very close and now that Nicole is getting married, all the sisters have stuff to talk about and are really putting forth and effort to help Nicole have a great wedding. I was looking thought my photo's from Thanksgiving and didn't see a single one with Renae, but I promise that she was there. It was good to have NuNae around. She used to live with Amber and I, and we were a pretty good team. We could always count on Renae to retrieve some type of food item in the morning and she was also handy when it came to working on the house. I actually had Nae help me put up some of the decorations on the house which she was more than happy to do. I actually think she enjoyed the work, it's always fun to decorate for Christmas.

Renae, Amber and Nicole also got some good sister time and were able to go dress shopping together. I know that was really important for Nicole and I'm sure that it made her feel special to have her sister's there with her. I'm really proud of the woman that Nicole has become over the last few years. She's had a few bumps in the road, but we all have. We all really like Jeremy, her fiancé, and I think that they make a really cute couple and two really great parents. I know that she's doing a really good job because the other day I asked Jeremy what he was going to wear at the wedding, a suit or Tux. His reply was, "Nicole hasn't told me yet". I looked him dead in the eyes and said, "Good answer!"

Aggieland 07 / Unsorted

So this post doesn't really have to do with Tristan so much as it does with his parents. But, since we brought him into this world, we deserve at least one post. I also added a bunch of random unsorted pictures form that last few months. These pictures don't really represent a specific occasion, but rather fun times around the house with your kid being so FREAKING CUTE!

So my mom procured some tickets to the Aggie/Kansas game through the Aggie Foundation because of some contributions that will be made in my parents names. I'm sure that my parents never thought that they would be helping some future farmer get their degree, but their son had to go and "sleep with the enemy", so now they have to spread the love. But at the same time, my parents are very respectful of education and A&M is a great school with some great traditions.

I really like going to College Station for game day. It's very different than a UT game. I don't want to ruffle any feathers with this statement, but UT thinks they have fans but Aggie really ARE fans. There are so many "re-locates" in this town that have chosen to be UT fans that have never even attended at class at UT, but there aren't that many "re-locates" in College Station, so you know that 99% of the folks attending those games actually went to the school and experience the traditions first hand.

I love the corp.. and what it stands for. I really hope that those kids know what they mean to the people that are currently enrolled and those alumni that attend every game. It's truly and honor to be part of something that special. I never really understood that it was such a big deal until I went to a non-UT/Aggie game and was able to really focus on just being there for the Aggies. I went to school at SFA, we didn't have anything like that and I'm really happy that Amber got to be part of that experience. It really has had an impact on her life. I'll be happy for my children to attend any type of higher educational institution, but I think that I would be especially happy if they went to A&M. I know that it would cause a ripple in the Downing family, but Amber needs some more folks on her side of the fence to keep it all balanced out!

There is this moment before the team enters the field where they play this montage of football stuff on the jumbotron. They do the same thing at UT and everyone gets all pumped and the players start jumping up and down and getting amped for the game. The Aggie Montage, is so far superior to the UT one, which is surprising because they have a film school at UT, you would think that they would commission some up and coming kid to put together something more exciting than animated longhorns turning into players as they enter the stadium . . . .man I'm down on UT this year . . . .but hey, The Aggies have taken UT to the woodshed the last two years so you got to give them props!

Enjoy the pictures from College Station and the random Tristan picks!

Halloween!

One of my friends tells a story that I hope will be funny in the written form . . . . His family went down to Mexico right after Halloween. The Mexican kids didn’t really understand the holiday very much, but they did understand that there were masks and candy involved. So as my friend and his family were walking around the square shopping, the kids would come up to them and hold a mask up in front of their faces and scream, Halloween! (Said in a high pitched voice with a Spanish accent) It’s very funny when he tells the story.

Of course here in the states ALL the kids understand the holiday and the dressing up and the door to door candy retrieval process. This was our first Halloween in our new neighborhood so Amber and I were really excited about taking Tristan around to our neighbors, knocking on the their doors, saying, “trick or treat”, getting candy and then consuming said candy that night at the house.

Halloween started in the afternoon for Tristan. His daycare friends got all gussied up and had a little party. They even got to practice their trick or treating across the street. You can see a photo below of Tristan and his friend Cash. Tristan is the Dragon and Cash is a peanut, which was the cutest costume. It really fit Cash, he looked so adorable and I can see the photo of Cash dressed up like a peanut in the PowerPoint presentation at his rehearsal dinner.

This year we had ALL the cousins over to the house for Halloween. This included Nicole and her kids along with Jennifer and her family. Also in attendance were Chris and Karin and Joel and Daniel and little Mattie, who was having her first Halloween. My parents were there along with Luis’ mom, who is in charge of candy distribution while all the kids and parents walk the hood.

Tristan made it to about 5 houses before he decided that he was done with the costume so I took him back to the house, put him in something comfortable, strapped him in the jogging stroller, grabbed a fresh margarita and we took off again to catch up with Andrew and Damek.

This was the first year that I think that Damek really got into the whole trick or treating thing. Now Andrew is a seasoned veteran. He hasn’t come up with the idea of having two costumes and hitting each house twice, but I have a feeling that we are only a year or two away from that revelation. Andrew lives for Halloween and much like his uncle, he has no reservations about knocking on some random door and requesting his fair share of candied items. Like any great protégé, Damek fell in line with Andrews’s example and I think between the two of them they had at least 20 to 30 pounds of candy. At one point Karin and I had to carry Damek’s candy bucket because he couldn’t keep up with Andrew.

I think we only missed one street in our neighborhood, but then again it’s not that big so don’t think that we kept those kids up too late. I think that Andrew would have been more than happy to hit that last row, but it was getting late and it was a school night.

We headed back to the house and there was definitely a much more somber mood in the house, post trick or treating. The kids were winding down and we had to keep close tabs on candy consumption. Actually, I like Nicole’s approach to trick or treating. Basically Damek is her candy “mule” and just does the leg work and then Nicole does the consuming . . . It’s a good system, if you like sweets . . . which I don’t. But if the houses gave out bottles of wine, it would work PERFECT!

OH YEAH, AMBER IS PREGNANT!

The Pumpkin Patch

So there is that time right after September where the weather starts to change and the days get a little cooler. That is the first indicator that fall is coming. Fall is Amber’s favorite time of the year. She just loves the fall colors and the decorations. We are both fans of Halloween, but that is just because it is the gateway holiday to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So the first weekend that it was nice and sunny and cool we took Tristan and his cousins to the pumpkin patch just outside of Marble Falls. It’s always a nice drive out to Marble Falls, especially at this time of year when the colors are changing. Amber and I were really hoping that Tristan would knock out for at least an hour before we got to the Pumpkin patch. But, just as luck would have it, he only crashed about 20 minutes before we got there. In hindsight we should have all just tipped the seats back in the van and finished the nap with Tristan, but . . . we didn’t. We thought that the excitement of pumpkins and open space would entice him into giggling and smiling . . .boy were we wrong!

The weather was really nice and things could have been a lot worse, but there was a nice breeze and the sun overhead. It was a perfect day to be out in the weather as evident by every other family within a 50 mile radius that had the same idea that day. There is that point where you grab all your stuff and your kid and you start on your journey toward the inevitable family outing. There is that little voice in your head that says, “ABORT, ABORT, ABORT”, but you just keep moving forward and you just put yourself in that state of mind and you hear the voice of Tim Gun from Project Runway as he says. “Make It Work” . . . .and you do.

I have to say that I was a little apprehensive about the whole pumpkin patch thing as we were moving toward the festivities. I’m not sure if many or you know, but I loath crowds. I don’t like to be part of a crowd, or engage in a crowd, or create a crowd and if a crowd can be avoided . . .all the better! But, I just “made it work” and we really did have a great afternoon. It would have been nice if Tristan had smiled at least ONCE, but he didn’t get much of a nap and as parents we should have known that you can only expect so much from your kids.

All the other families around us were “making it work” too and I thought that everyone’s kids were pretty well behaved. There wasn’t any fighting or getting upset and there was plenty to see and do, so the kids kept occupied. But like all the rest of the mom’s and dads, we just saw photo opportunities and the kids saw things to do. We had to take a few mental steps back and just keep shooting and shooting, hoping that we would get a good shot. (One of the REALLY nice things about digital cameras).

It was a good time and we got to take a hay ride and see some animals and work our way through the corn field maze, which was all that Damek really wanted to do. Actually I thought that his head was going to explode just prior to getting the tickets to start on the maze. Once we got started Damek to the helm and very diplomatically directed the crew through the maze and successfully navigated the family to safety, which is on the other end of the field directing you right toward the horse riding area . . . hmmmmm interesting. Luckily none of the kids seemed too excited about riding a horse and that was good because the maze and hay ride were already limiting my wallet.

All in all . . . a great day, a great time and a definite return next year with a little more information and a nice LONG NAP!