Winter is gone!

March has arrived in Texas and I think it is safe to say that winter is officially gone.  Here's a quick update of the last couple months:

January-
T.J.'s school year has a January term (similar to Spring Term, but not as much fun) so he just had one class for three weeks in January.  The class was focused on hispanic church studies and missions.  He spent one weekend in Laredo with the whole class and then another weekend with one class member in Irving.  He did give one sermon during this class if you want to read it here: http://padreteejay.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/january-encuentro-sermon/ You can check out his pictures on Facebook too!  My January wasn't quite as exciting.  At work we were preparing for our big every three years accredidation survey, which we successfully passed at the end of the month!  Throughout January, both of us were continuing to run (T.J. more than me) while we prepared for the Livestrong Austin Marathon and Half Marathon.

February-
T.J. preached again in February and you can read that one here: http://padreteejay.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/feast-of-saint-brigid-sermon/  This one was a student-led service and T.J. was part of the group that put the entire service together so he was very proud of this service.  We kicked off February with the Superbowl at the seminary, obviously cheering for the Giants.  I entered every possible contest I could find, even tweeted to Jim Irsay to try to win tickets, but it just didn't work out for us.  We tried to host a Hanover Pub Night here in Austin, but T.J. and I were the only ones who showed up, so it was basically just a date night out at the Pub!  We celebrated Valentine's Day by going out to a nice restaurant and had a wonderful chocolate sack for dessert!

The big event for us in February was RACE Day!  Dad came down here Friday before the race and we had a fun weekend showing him around Austin (got to go to Alamo Drafthouse for the first time!).  Race Day was good - I was a little bit slower than my goal time because of some unexpected knee pain, but still my fastest time and I did it all by myself so I was very proud of myself.  Dad did a great job in the half also - I think he was in the best shape after the race compared to T.J. and me!  T.J. completed the whole 26.2 miles!!  The marathon ran past the seminary so T.J. had a group of his classmates waiting outside the school to cheer him on from mile 24 and one of the guys ran the last two miles with him!    We ended February with a concert last night for The Mahones, Frank Turner, and Dropkick Murphys! 

I have been doing a terrible job taking pictures lately, so my goal is to start being better about that since I can take pictures on my phone and I always have my phone with me.  We'll see how that goes for the next post!

Christmas

T.J. and I (with Hermione, of course!) left Austin on December 23^rd and drove about 11 hours on Friday.  This was Hermione’s first real road trip and we weren’t sure how she would do since she hates being in the carrier on the way to the vet.  

 

We let her out of her carrier once we got on the road and after a few minutes of exploring around the car, she decided it wasn’t that exciting and she was going to nap.   We debated about the hotel with Hermione, but decided that since we had her little box and we wanted to take that in that it was better to find a pet friendly hotel than try to sneak her in.  It wasn’t an issue at all!  There was a $15 charge, but then we didn’t have to hide and sneak in the side door.  Saturday we drove (when I say we drove, I mean that T.J. drove and I sat in the passenger seat) from Blytheville, Arkansas to Oxford to see T.J.’s dad’s family.  We had dinner in Oxford then drove to Kokomo that evening and spent Christmas Day with my family.  From there we went to Marion to see T.J.’s mom’s family.  Hermione was pretty good with all of the travels, but did enjoy some running around and exploring at each of our stops, including on top of things!  

We got to stop for dinner on our last day in Indy and see some Hanover friends, which is always a good time! Since I’ve only been at my job for about three months, I didn’t have a lot of PTO built up, but my boss graciously offered to let me work the week after Christmas “from home.”  That basically meant that I was attached to my phone checking e-mail for five days and spent a few hours sitting with my computer working for a couple days, but didn’t interfere too much.  We made it back to Austin on December 29^th to 78 degree weather.  While it was nice to see a little bit of snow in Indiana over Christmas, coming back to 78 degrees was definitely nice!

San Antonio

I am playing catch up again and posting a few blog updates at once…I really need to get better at doing this when things actually happen!

T.J. and I went to San Antonio for a weekend in December to celebrate his semester being over and just over two years from our last trip there together when we got engaged!  We didn’t have any plans other than to relax and enjoy the weekend.  We spent most of Saturday and Sunday walking around the Riverwalk and stopping at various places for some shopping, eating, drinking, and basketball watching.  We did find a place that had the Crossroads Classic on TV so we got to watch the IU vs. Notre Dame game and see the Hoosiers make it 10-0!  

T.J. thinking about his complete semester!

We stopped at random places throughout the day to take pictures that for our Christmas card that never actually got mailed out…enjoy!

Would have been the Christmas card if I had mailed any :)

Christmas Parties and More!

December so far has been pretty busy with lots of Christmas and end of school parties.  This week we had an 'End of Fall Extravaganza' Monday, I had a Chi O Christmas party Owl Exchange on Tuesday, and last night we had a couple friends over for dinner because we didn’t make it to their Vintage Christmas Cocktail Party last weekend.  My office Christmas pitch-in is Friday and T.J. is making Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie for me to bring!  This weekend we’re going to San Antonio for a nice, relaxing weekend away.  Next Friday we are off to Indiana for a few days of Christmas celebrations and then back to Austin to ring in the new year!

T-9 days until we are back home again in Indiana!

November Update...a few weeks late

It has obviously been awhile since I’ve updated this and I could say we’ve been busy, which is true, but I think it’s more I just haven’t done it.  November was full with seminary stuff most weekends.  I was in San Antonio for a couple of days at a conference, and I was able to make it back to Austin just in time to hear T.J.’s Veteran’s Day sermon.  That weekend was Visitor’s weekend at SSW so we were busy most of the weekend with various activities on campus.

SSW Football Team after the game

The weekend before Thanksgiving was the annual Polity Bowl with the Presbyterian seminary.  SSW lost 6-7, but it was fun to watch the game.  Seminarians can get really serious about their flag football!

We stayed here in Austin for Thanksgiving and had Thanksgiving dinner with about 100 of our new friends here!  The seminary puts on a big dinner – one of the professors made 6 turkeys and LOTS of mashed potatoes and then everyone brought sides and desserts to share.  We had a great time at dinner and then just relaxing for a few days.  My boss let me work from home on Friday and then told me at noon to log off and enjoy the weekend!

Halloween, Hermione, and Chi Omega

Some of the SSW girls (spouses/girlfriends/students)

The past couple weeks have been pretty busy here in the Freeman household.  Last week we had dinner out two nights with a few prospective students so we got to visit a couple of Austin hot spots courtesy of SSW!  Friday night was our Progressive Halloween Party! 

TEXANS!

We spent a few hours at the school's apartment complex between a couple students' apartments and then ended the party here at our place.  Everyone got into the festivities and dressed up for the party.  We had Anchorman characters, Parks and Rec characters, zombie Barbies, hippies, a crazy cat lady, and many others! To get into the spirit, T.J. and I dressed up as Texans!

Last weekend we got a new addition to our family!  We got a kitten on Sunday and named her Hermione!  She is six months old and came from the Austin Humane Society.  We took her for her post-shelter vet appointment and unfortunately she had a parasite so T.J. has been giving her medicine for the past couple of days...she HATES it!  Only 11 days left to give it to her and then she'll be all better!  I think she is now used to us and our house and has learned every place she can jump up and around.

Chi Omega Make-A-Wish

Thursday night we went to a company dinner downtown Austin with one of the company owners and some of my coworkers.  We had a great dinner and T.J. got to meet some of the people I work with at CORE.  Friday evening we went to The Oasis for the Chi Omega Make-A-Wish Extravaganza!  The Iota chapter at University of Texas holds this annual fundraiser and silent auction each year on Parent's Weekend and invited the Austin Chi O Alumnae chapter and their guests.  We had a great time with my new Chi O friends and ended up leaving with a cute owl painting.  We almost won a weeklong trip for 8 to Angel Fire, New Mexico, but we were outbid right before the auction closed.  We didn't get the total amount raised, but annually the chapter raises about $40,000-$50,000 on this night with all proceeds going to Make-A-Wish to grant 5-6 wishes!

It's (kinda) fall!

This week is what we like to call "birthday week" in the Freeman house.  I only pointed out a couple times that for five days T.J. is four years older than me!  T.J.'s birthday was on Sunday and we celebrated with having some friends over to watch the Notre Dame game Saturday (before realizing it was an off-week and they play USC tomorrow) and then out with friends again Sunday evening.  It was also the birthday of one of T.J.'s classmates so we had quite a seminary crew.  Today is my birthday so we are going out to a nice dinner to celebrate both of us and then we go back to it being my day and maybe out for drinks with some friends post-dinner. :)

Weather is the topic that everyone jokes is brought up when there is nothing else to talk about, but I think a little weather update is appropriate this week.  It is starting to feel a little bit like fall here in Texas.  We've had our windows open a few days this week because it is cooling off overnight.  Now don't get me wrong, it has still gone over 80 during the day each day except one this week (high 77 on Wednesday), but it has been dropping into the high 40s/low 50s at night, which is wonderful open window sleeping weather when we've been used to the 80 degree air conditioner.  The leaves haven't turned yet so it still looks like summer, but I have a feeling it will be happening over the next few weeks.