GO DUCKS! and a Duck comes to Austin!

The Duck’s game against Arizona two weeks ago was pretty exciting. It turns out we had Arizona friends who were there in support of the Ducks! We looked for them on tv but had no luck. Thanks for the support Angela and Jon!

Last weekend the Ducks played Stanford. We started getting excited Monday night as we planned what to eat and when to watch. Oh boy. Sometimes it’s hard to eat when I’m nervous but I managed to cram in the nachos anyhow. It was a real hardship. Although, the best part of last weekend was my sister’s surprise visit! Val called Friday afternoon while I was at Target with Juliet. She said she wanted to visit and was ready to leave at any moment! I was so excited. Having just had Debby for eleven days, the place was feeling a little empty. I sprung into action helping Val with directions and getting stuff ready.

After only a few tiny mishaps, Val arrived in time for dinner Friday night. We spent a fun evening in, catching up. It felt kind of like déjà vu to have her over. She said the same thing. To her, our new place still felt like our old places, while also being different. We all slipped right back into our normal, comfortable dynamic (after the kids calmed down.) I can’t say why, but it was incredibly comforting to have her visit!

We spent Saturday and Sunday exploring Austin and showing Val around. She seemed to really like it, and also expressed surprise and enjoyment over how cold it was! See? I wasn’t lying, everyone. (This week in the mornings we could see our breath in the air when we took Sophie to school.)

We also took Val to the park to try and wear out the girls. The weather was AMAZING! The girls had some fun on the swings: 

Next thing on our agenda: planning visits to Oregon! Kevin and everyone at Apple was just given the week of Thanksgiving off, paid! Of course, Kevin doesn’t get those days, because his team has to deal with extra hours that week, not days off. BUT, he will get those days at another point. We are trying to apply them to December so we can extend our stay a little. We were at the point where our visit had shrunk from 3-4 weeks to 4-5 days. Now, things are looking better. Hopefully, we will all fly out and back together, which I appreciate due to my issues with planes.

We are also looking at a Spring Break visit. Sadly, it is not at the same time as the Oregon Spring Break, but that’s ok. We’ll take what we can get! Plus, we just might be on the same timing as the California cousins, making a “double” Oregon visit with all the cousins all the more likely!