CyberhippieKat

Happy Halloween!

Many many cute kids. But we still got lots of candy left. I'm gonna make Lyn take it to the office.

Yesterday we went to a birthday party for a 3 year old. I was really stressed about the gift so I spend an hour at Toys R Us watching other little kids. I saw a bunch of little boys surrounding the race track displays in the store, so luckily I found a pre-school track suitable for a 3 year old.

I brought it home to show Lyndon and he thought it was really cool. He was getting real excited cause he will be able to get these kind of toys for Dylan too.

Well...it seemed like the present was a hit. Simon really liked the track and played with it all night while the adults played cards. We were really happy.

Now that Halloween is over...I'm skipping over Thanksgiving and moving right over to Xmas. Who knows if I'll be early, so I'm in my last stage of nesting and I already got my Xmas tree up. I got stage one of ornaments up already and I should be able to fill up the tree in the next couple of weeks before I deliver. I'm so excited about this year's Xmas. I even bought lawn decorations already!!

Pocket Cowboys' chili...hmmm...

Yesterday was Lyn's chili competition. All the teams set up on the top of the CSC building cooking up some serious spice. Lyn's team was called the Pocket Cowboys...yes, just like his card club. How lame...hahaha. And their premise was to wear cowboy hats, play cards and drink beer under the tint and serve their venison chili. Oh man...we've lived in central TX too long. LOL. Good news was that Lyn's team won the award for hottest chili. The Star Wars team (another lame name) won the best chili, but Lyn didn't taste it cause he was too busy playing cards.

This is Florent aka Flo or CashFlo. He's French but educated in England, strange mix...enough said. Haha. Love this guy! BTW, this is not a pose, he was actually prancing around like this.

This group just got back from an assignment in China, so they wanted to do a Chinese theme with all the stuff they brought from overseas. Crazy folks! They served chili with chopsticks! Only in Austin is being Chinese is a novelty. LOL.

Another interesting team: CSI. I swear...these CSC folks are geeky!

And many many more teams, but I ain't got the time to post them all. But they are all geeky!!! Haha.

And last night was also boys night out. I told Lyn that I plan to allow him to have a life even after we have Dylan, so I'm starting to practice now...hehe. We don't want to turn into one of those couples that our entire life is about the baby and never go out and have a good time. So we plan to take turns and still enjoy life as Austinites. Lyn didn't come home until 1am but this time he was smart enough to call and let me know. Thanks babe. Anyways...a few newcomers decided to hang out with his gang, but one of them really got on Lyndon's nerves...actually everyone's nerves. (And we all know that Lyndon is pretty tolerant, unlike myself ;). And he was still mumbling about him this morning. LOL.) To make the long story short...this dude got really drunk and started to stumble all over the place and broke some chairs. So at the end of the night, they decided that this new guy is no longer allowed to hang out with them. How high school?!? Haha.

How clean it is...

With the baby on the way, Lyn and I decided to invest in some air purifiers. And the docs highly recommend it for people with pets and allergies. But the funny thing is...even I feel tons better. We got one for the bedroom, the gameroom, and the nursery. We are trying out three different brands. So far only one has arrived, the Honeywell. Boy, does it make a world of difference. We can actually feel the air is cleaner in the room. We breath better, sleep better, and Lyn stopped snoring. How crazy is that.

Can't wait for the other 2 to arrive. Wow... If we only had the money to install a whole system in the house...

Bella Vista Halloween Party

Boy! I'm tired!!! I've been up since 7am baking cookies, setting up the playscape, and tending the kids during the event. I think I will really feel it tomorrow.

I went to Williams-Sonoma and got a set of Halloween cookie cutters for my 6 dozen cookies. Others just brought standard round ones. So mine were a serious hit. Lyn said it tasted good too. Everyone liked them and thought it was way cool. (Don't know what it is with me and cookies, but I should keep baking them...LOL!)

I made bats, ghosts, witch hats, pumpkins, and cats. The kids really enjoyed decorating my cookies.

Lyndon had a cat one.

Lots of kids showed up. We had a moonwalk, a slide, pumpkin painting, cookie decorating, candied apples, marshmellow spiders, and mummy wrap. Can't believe the amount of sugar they consumed in an afternoon. Can't possibly be healthy.

A bunch of kids came in costumes. Girls all came as princesses or cheerleaders...how funny. The boys had more variety. One thing I noticed was that boys are wild. They wanted to play kung-fu in the moonwalk. That's crazy!

Overall it was a very productive afternoon. Met tons of people and got some good gossip.

Oh...and notice how all the men just sits and talk football while the wives watch the kids. Haha.

All the kids got a souvenir blow up Halloween balloon for coming, so Lyn got one too! Haha.

I do have to thank Lyn for helping me today. He helped me prep the dough, watched the oven, and even helped clean up after the party too. He said he was stressed for me. How cute. But it was really nice of him since I knew he had his own work to do. So in return, I watched him play some NBA2K5 at night. He did a whoop ass on the Nets. Haha!

A blog for Lyn...

First of all, too bad for the Astros. Our defense just wasn't as good.

Moving on...

Lyn's been MIA all week. I only see him when he comes home to sleep.

Anyways...he's met a lot of interesting people this week. One of which is a high-level solutions architect, Steve. This dude's been around for a while...got all the gadgets a man that makes that kind of money should have, but still loves playing the XBOX even though he has no time. What's up with men and their game consoles? Whatever...but most importantly...he chooses to live in Orlando, right outside of DisneyWorld with his wife and kid. Lyn says he invited us to visit anytime, and yah...we will take him up on it. DisneyWorld! Wooohooo.

But yesterday was one of those very seldom days that I can't shut Lyn up. He even made time during his meeting to tell me about a special guest IBM invited to pitch a sale to him. And this dude is Grady Booch. And for those of you that don't know...he's the God of Object Oriented Language, a theorist, a philosopher. He doesn't need to do, he just visions. He's an IBM Fellow but since he was in town, he dropped by for IBM to help with the sale. Lyn said some sales and marketing folks had no idea who he was, but Lyn and Steve were in awe. It was somewhat like the highlight of his career or something to meet someone of that stature in the software engineering biz. How funny... But Lyn said he couldn't think of anything smart to say. But he did sneak a picture of him on his picture phone. Haha. What a groupie! He messaged his director too and she even walked over the other building just to try to get a glimpse of guy, but he was already gone.

(BTW - guys like these keep a blog too. I've been reading some of them... Very curious what goes through the mind of geniuses. Surprisingly, with some techno-mumbo-jumbo aside...they are very normal people...LOL.)

Oh well. So I had to listen to all his crap all week. It's good that I used to be in tech and knows what he's saying. Otherwise I'd tune him out and make him talk to Mushi. But listening to all that stuff makes me kinda miss what I used to do, but then when I see him come home at 9pm...I forget all about it. NO way I'd go back doing that. I'm not exactly the 8 hour day person either...I give it my all or none at all...I'd take the work home with me and get frustrated. I'd never be a good working mom. Best I just support Lyn in what he does well.

Dot's Place is gone!

It is certainly the best soul food I've ever had. And dirt cheap. I haven't been there since the Dell days and I sure miss it. I've never had such greasy chicken dumplings! Serious...it was swimming in fat! We had to leave work at 10:30am just to wait in line for food.

Anyways...yesterday around lunch time the place burnt down. And Dot let her insurance lapse so the place is all gone. Some locals are offering up some money for her to rebuild...but what are the chances.

Crazy...

Go Astros!

After watching this year's playoffs, I think I'm beginning to get baseball. It ain't as boring as I thought.

Anyways...sucked to watch 12 innings and have the Astros loose. But oh well...that Munro guy was not a very good pitcher. It was scary that we had to use Lidge for 4 innings. He will be needed in today's Game 7.

It was great to see the Red Sox win. Where were Damon and Affleck? I was hoping to see them in the stands.

Anyways...we better win tonight. I wonder if we can get tickets to the World Series?

Halloween planning (Phase I)

What better way to spend a boring day than to do some yard work. I wonder if I'm even supposed to be bending down pulling weeds. I swear...a lawn is overrated. But I have to keep it up cause the neighbors are coming and I don't wanna pay for landscapers...haha.

Anyways...after I worked up a sweat pulling weeds, I finally put out some decorations for Halloween. I got all these signs and stuff from Hobby Lobby for a bargain price of $25 bucks. Yah! I'm gonna put up some lights and lanterns and other stuff throughout the week. My only splurge was a cool pumpkin light from Foley's to put infront of our door...hehe.

Phase I:

Home alone...

*my rant*

Lyn is in a conference with a bunch of vendors for the rest of the week so I won't be able to talk to him during the day. Boohoo. And tonight he's going out for drinks so I'm home all alone and there is nothing on TV. So sad.

He's getting kinda busy...hopefully he will wrap up his responsibilities before paternity leave. What's crazy is that they even asked him to travel during the week I might deliver. What's up with that? At least he was smart enough to say NO! They will just have to wait till January.

I'm getting good response from people volunteering for the Halloween cookies. That's a good thing. But I'm still a bit stressed out about it. But I know I shouldn't. Bad for baby.

Last night we went to our second child birth class. I find these things really boring. We have to practice breathing and stuff. It's very irritating. Who doesn't know how to breath. And I've done it in yoga. I just wanted to go home. I was tired.

And on top of that, I'm not the type of person that like to be calmed by touch. That's irritating too. I just want Lyn to read the monitor and keep me informed as when my contraction is over. That in your face coaching crap is annoying.

Or maybe I'm very irritable. Haha.

Good daddy!

Lyn woke up this morning and put together the crib!!!

They gave me the wrong knobs for my changing table, but I'm assuming they will change it out. Besides, I think I may look for some Mickey or animal ones to use for the first few years as well. That will be cute.

The night table is coming in about a month since the baby doesn't need it right now. I'll use that next to my glider.

Going to pick up his NBA2K5 and eat at Arandas now.

Have a good weekend everyone!