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!