Birthdays and Football

On a gorgeous October day, friends and family gathered around for the first birthday of Julien, my youngest roomie. He knew all eyes were on him as he indulged in cake (his first time tasting sugar!) and riding on the Zilker Zephyr, a little train in Zilker Park that I used to ride as a kid. The train starts at Barton Springs, goes through a play ground, then follows Barton Creek down to Lady Bird Lake, where you can see views of nearby downtown Austin, and finally loops back around to the station. Julien powered through all the attention and managed to hold naptime at bay until we reached the car, where he cried a bit then promptly passed out. Such a cute little pumpkin! I made him a beanie as a gift, but so far, he just rips my labor of love off his head whenever we put it on so that he won't be distracted from playing with the box it came in. Figures.



The next day was a big game day for us Longhorns, as we faced off with Missouri. We played at home and ESPN Game Day showed up to cover the insanity. Susan, Yvonne and I got up super early (8:00!) and headed over to campus where we were treated to lots of yelling, homemade signs, the Longhorn band and some fun stories about our home team. Naturally we stopped by my neighborhood bakery (Quack's) where we somehow managed to avoid their cupcakes with towering piles of fluffy, homemade icing, despite the tantalizing artwork on the walls. Maybe next time.

Texas-y Things

Being since I don't have a job yet (I think I'm in denial that I've come back to Austin as an adult, not a college student) I have been filling my time with all things Texas, Austin and yoga. For starters, Stephanie (who I nannied during college and who now ATTENDS college) went with me to see the wonderful documentary The Unforseen. The film is about conservation of water here in Austin - particularly of the Edwards Aquifer, where our city gets all its water, and Barton Springs, a natural wonder where I grew up swimming and that is my zen place. Austin is so gorgeous that people keep trying to build here, but developing sensitive areas will pollute the water and ultimately destroy something we humans have no right to obliterate: Barton Springs. Time and again the community here has spoken out against these developers, and The Unforeseen exposes that struggle against big corporations and deep wallets. It has been critically acclaimed and hopefully its message will not only inspire more Austinites to protect their community and public space rights, but it will also help the conservation movement nation wide. It is a wonderful, touching movie made all the more meaningful by being shown at the springs! So, Steph and I brought oversized towels and sat out under the stars with fellow movie/Austin nerds watching a film in the very place it focused on. Ahhh. . . so satisfying.

Alright - enough about my pet causes. Now, it's time for ice cream! Texas has an ice cream company called Blue Bell Creameries and they make the yummiest, creamiest treats! If you grew up in Texas, this stuff is like mother's, uh, frozen milk. Susan and I made a little day trip to their headquarters and learned the following: although Blue Bell is only offered in about 13% of the US, it is the number 3 ice cream nation wide! Also, it takes the milk of 50,000 cows to produce one day's worth of ice cream - and all of that milk comes from independent, Texas dairies. Oh, and my favorite piece of trivia about Blue Bell is that Bush, Sr. used to have it shipped to the White House while he was president. Hooray for ice cream!

Susan with the sculpture of the little girl and cow that are always on Blue Bell products.

That cow looks pretty content, right? Surely this ice cream comes from "happy cows."

Me with Blue Bell's first refrigerated truck, purchased in the 30s. Its a Ford, naturally!