Maker Faire '08

Zach and I took Graham on a special outing today. We drove into the wilds on Northeast Austin and attended Maker Faire. For those of you who don't know what Maker Faire is, it's kind of like Burning Man with fewer naked people and more crafts. For those of you who don't know what Burning Man is, just visit the link. I'm too tired to describe.

There was a ton of cool stuff, and Graham was impressed by everything, but his favorite part of the day was seeing the fighting robots.

From maker faire

Actually, that might be his favorite thing of this entire year!

More photos...

Playground

Celebrated perfect weather this afternoon with a loooooong playground visit. As you can see, we had a lot of fun.

From playground

Photos from Saturday, and an update

We had some fun last weekend! We started with a trip to the pumpkin patch in the morning with our friends Amber & Michael and their two boys. The kids enjoyed the hay ride, hay maze and obstacle course, painting pumpkins, and playing with their friends. We were able to satisfy all of our pumpkin shopping needs as well!



Afterwards we headed to Kerrville to visit Zach's mom and dad. It was a great visit. Mom's doing great -- she looked and acted terrific, and her doctors are taking good care of her. The boys had a great time playing and being silly while we watched football and ate barbeque. (Both teams we were rooting for won -- go UT and TX Tech!)

Graham made some college plans while we watched the games. He said he wants to go to Tech because he liked their red and black football uniforms the best. We have let him know that we support his choice of Texas university as long as it's not A&M. But I'm still hoping that if he goes to school here that he'll pick UT. We figure it's way too expensive to drink too much in Austin, so he'll get into less trouble and see better music.

In other news, I'm planning to go back to school in the Spring. I'll be taking prerequisites at Texas State for a Bachelor's degree in Nursing (hopefully from UT). I'm exploring a few options, but currently my plan is to get that degree, work in Labor and Delivery for a couple of years, and then get a Master's in Nurse Midwifery. That would give me the flexibility to work anywhere -- hospital, birth center, or home -- and hopefully bring me into contact with a broader spectrum of women's health. I'm really excited about it.

Off to post about cooking adventures with Graham on a Year of Dinners. Check it out!