Catching up

Well, it seems I have fallen behind. Sunday night for kicks I tried to put some LED lights on a cactus. On Monday we went to a fancy mall. On Thursday Katie and Kris had their respective Christmas concerts in quick succession several miles apart. They did well. On Friday my wife kidnapped me for a date. We enjoyed "Hugo" at the Alamo Draft House. On Saturday I took the took the kids to a mall to play in an artificial snow pile. Lots of people, but the snow pile was underwhelming. Katie had fun and we made a couple tiny snowmen. On the way back we stopped at an overlook for a local landmark, the Pennybacker Bridge. That night we got a free carriage ride at a local mall (after waiting in line a couple hours). On Sunday we had a great time with a visit from the Fritzes (who traveled from Peoria to Dallas for a wedding and took time out to see us). We went to this location west of Ft. Worth called Mineral Wells Fossil Park. It has a really impressive density of Pennsylvanian marine fossils (brachiopods, crinoid stems, even a few trilobite and sea urchin and crinoid head parts - picture) in a soft claylike matrix - easy picking! On Monday another proposal got turned in - this time I was just a Co-Principal Investigator so it was a lot less work. We have been prepping for Christmas. Winter begins tonight, and we are getting more rain. The total so far this month is over 3.5 inches, surprising the weathermen and putting December on track to be the wettest month of the year. The grass is green and we have seen dandelions like spring, but the trees are still turning like the fall. People out here are bracing for "cedar fever". It's like hay fever, only, well, with cedars. There are lots of those trees around here and many people do not like them. From what I have heard from locals (and the local news), any day now there will be a massive release of cedar pollen, which will make a lot of people miserable until about mid-January. Katie has been showing cold-like systems, and I have had a sore throat. Today is also the 20th anniversary of my graduation from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Mansford Dam Park

This afternoon Kris, Katie, and I went to visit the Sometimes Islands. This is a rock formation near the south end of Lake Travis, the large reservoir west of Austin on the Colorado River. These islands appear and disappear as the reservoir level fluctuates. If you look at the location on Google Earth you can look back at old images and watch the islands appear and disappear. The image shown was taken last March. Things have changed dramatically. The "exceptional" drought here has dropped the level to near-record low levels. I read in the local paper that the islands were now connected by land to make a peninsula. I was a little concerned that the recent rains might make them inaccessible again, so I made an effort to get out there. I was not prepared for the scale of the islands, the reservoir, or the Mansfield Dam. (I was also not prepared for the size of the entrance fee-$10-to get into the county park.) I had seen a (smaller) reservoir drained before many years ago in northern Wisconsin, so the sight of clamshells among the remains of stumps was not unknown to me. We found some nice shell fossils, too. The wasteland-looking landscape was vaguely reminiscent of the area around Mt. St. Helens - instead of lightweight pumice there were occasional large chunks of polystyrene foam. Overall we enjoyed the rocky 3-mile round trip hike to end of the peninsula and back, but I'm a bit sore from carrying Katie on my shoulders on parts of the uneven trail.

Katie visits Santa

I doubt we will have snow for Christmas this year, but maybe we could decorate the liquid nitrogen equipment outside of one of the chemistry buildings at the University of Texas. Kris went to a Christmas party tonight so we took Katie to see Santa. She was not real afraid, and Santa wore cowboy boots. Afterwards, Karen and Katie rode on a train through the mall. I thought this decorated sprawling tree was kind of cool.

Multiculture Night

Tonight Katie's school had a Multiculture Night. We did a table about China. It has been a bit chilly lately. I saw frost on cars in the parking lot this evening. We have activated our gas fireplace - it looks nice.

Rainy Weekend

Last Sunday we put up a lot of the Christmas decorations that we brought (we did a little more today). Tuesday I turned in a big grant proposal that I have been working on. Getting more rain lately. This November rainfall total for Austin: 2.91 in (avg 2.96 in). This year to date rainfall total for Austin: 14.75 in (avg 31.84 in). It rained on and off all this weekend, putting us ahead of the December to date average . On Saturday morning Katie went to a cookie-decorating party at a friend's house. Saturday afternoon we went to a Fossil Fest in Round Rock, TX (lots of fun - especially for me) and then to a Christmas Stroll in the town square of Georgetown, TX. It was a typical small-town festival, with craft booths (some with a cowboy flair like a barbed wire Christmas tree), food, live music. There was also a Bethlehem village sponsored by a local church that was quite large and well done. Today Katie's cold took a turn for the worse - now she has laryngitis. She kind of enjoys the squeaking though. After Kris went to youth group, we went to nearby Walnut Creek to get some water for her minnows. It looked quite a bit different - for most of the time we have been here this creek bed has been bone dry. I wonder where all the skinks, spiders, etc. that live under the rocks go when it does this?

Saturday in San Antonio

On Saturday morning, we went to a sales pitch for a timeshare to get some rewards for later in the day. We do not purchase the time share - their "NOW" model of business is incompatible with our caution in making large purchases. Besides, we are still pretty mobile. After that we stopped in Market Square (sort of reminded me of the markets in China, only with a Hispanic flair) and later we used a chunk of our "reward" at the RainForest Cafe. After all that we visited San Antonio Missions National Historic Park. It was pretty cool. I enjoyed seeing the mission complexes (also gave us a good idea what the Alamo complex was like) and loved taking pictures there. The girls did the Junior Ranger program together which was cool. We attended Mass at one of the churches that evening. This was the first time the new Mass words were used, so there was a little bit of tripping on the words. After supper we headed home. It was a great couple days in San Antonio.