Goodbye Chicago, Hello Austin

It feels like absolutely forever ago, but we said goodbye to Chicago a little less than a month ago, and have since been living with my parents in Dallas. We really had a lot of help from the Spindlers as we prepared to leave -- even though we were in a furnished sublet there was a fair amount of packing to be done. Aunt Katy managed to entertain Louis (who had just started crawling) but placing him in a box! Fun!

The day we arrived in Dallas we found out (finally -- after being quite anxious for a whole week!) that our final contract on the house was signed, and we were set to close the following week. So we immediately set out on a mountain of paperwork and details. Fortunately, we had a huge amount of help from my parents -- everything from painting advice (my mom painted large swatches of all our possible colors -- 25 to be exact -- so we could take them to the house) to extensive babysitting services (James and I left them with BOTH kids for two days to take care of house stuff -- sprinkler system, plumbing, electric, painting; we've never done anything like that and figured it was our 10th anniversary treat!), to personal shopping services (Mamo, mom and I have found some amazing things for the new house at Dallas's extremely cool antique and consignment stores).

The pictures below were from the fourth of July at the Ft. Worth stockyards!


Rosemary was FINALLY brave enough for her first pony ride. Much like carousels, she's had ample opportunity to try pony rides, but has always been VERY firm that she wasn't interested. This time, she initiated it. Up until the last minute I thought there was no way she'd get on that pony ("Tonto" was his name) but she proved me wrong! I guess once she conquered the pony a long-horn steer didn't seem that bad! I was actually fairly nervous about the steer, but she was fine (a very faint trembling lip at the beginning but that was it).