Tuesday, September 20

sitting here in the office eating an early dinner (or maybe it's a snack?) of spring green salad, spagheti squash, homemade hummus courtesy of margaret, and a bit of hatch green chile guacamole, listening to the girls acting out some sort of drama that involves a race a la Cars. i'll be walking over to watch william's first football game of the season in just a bit. waiting on my sitter - John - to get home from school to take over for me.

Brian and i had a fabulous time away thursday through sunday. linda came thursday morning so we'd have plenty of time to get to Jefferson in time for dinner. the six hour drive was so pleasant. we put on some john mayer and didnt think to change the station the whole way. didnt think it was possible to listen to him straight for six or so hours, but we did and didnt seem to mind. i read to Brian from my old journals just for fun. there were lots of things we'd forgotten about and we had some good laughs. it was surreal seeing life from my twenty five year old perspective now that i'm 15 years down the road. 

we had dinner at the Stillwater Inn, one of our special places. we've been celebrating things there for nearly twenty years. mama and mike had given us a gift certificate last year for our anniversary and we never got around to using it then. we stayed at the Excelsior Hotel, the place we stayed on our second night as a married couple. it's a quaint, spooky place that has been in continuous operation since 1850. 

friday night we went to the sabine high school homecoming football game. sabine is the high school brian went to, and about 45 minutes to an hour from Jefferson. we saw a few familiar faces : mont and suzanne roper, mike simpson, a few of brian's old teachers. after the game, we drove back to Jefferson and had a couple of drinks at Auntie Skinner's while we watched a little football and listened to karaoke. 

our main reason for going up to north east texas was for the Sabine Class of 1991 reunion. there were two events on saturday, a picnic at the park in Liberty City, the town where the school is, and a dinner that night in Longview. for a class of only 61 graduates, i guess the events were fairly well attended. the last reunion i attended with Brian, his 10 year, he was voted Graduate Who Has Changed the Least, and if they had given awards this year, i'd say he would have got it again. i guess the only difference is that he has a little less hair, and he's smaller than he was in high school. i enjoyed meeting his old friends, most of whom still live in the area. he's in the minority of students who moved away after graduation. 

we went back to Auntie Skinner's after the dinner in Longview and watched most of the Longhorn vs. Cal game. we gave up and went back to the hotel around 1 am. we just arent night owls.

sunday was my birthday morning. brian gave me a small purse from Anthropologie and a bottle of Dulce + Gobanna (sp?) perfume. he gives the best gifts!

we enjoyed a leisurely drive back to austin and came home to a clean house full of the lively products of our love. Margaret made a delicious indian fusion meal and the kids gave me some thoughtful gifts - a Herschel backpack that i've been dreaming about for awhile, lots and lots of chocolate, and a large cosmetic bag. i could tell that margaret was the ring leader in picking out the gifts. she knows what i like. what wonderful people those kids are!