Albuquerque Trip, Part III

While we were in Albuquerque, we were fortunate to be able to catch up with a lot of good friends. We went out one evening with some people from MIOX, the water disinfection equipment manufacturing company where I had worked for two and a half years. We got coffee and played Scrabble one night with our friends Dan and Rebecca Larson, which was excellent (Stephany totally destroyed us all - but I got her back last night). We also had lunch one day with Ed, Eddie, and Becky Mooneyhan, friends of mine through a church there that I belonged to for a while, and we were able to see Craig and Rebecca Glover.

This woman has a very special role in the history of our relationship. This is Beverley Schwartzel. She and her husband David invited us to their home one day (March 5, 2006, to be exact) for lunch and to have us meet one another. Shortly thereafter, we fell completely in love and haven't spent more than about six days apart from each other. So...yeah - Beverley's pretty up there in our book. It was good seeing Beverley and David again while we were there.



Here's Malory pointing to the Flying Star sign after dessert there one night. This is the one on Rio Grande, for those of you in the know.



On Thursday, Stephany and I drove up to Santa Fe for a short day trip. We picked up a few things for friends, ate lunch at The Burrito Co. (excellent carne adovada burritos with red chile!), and walked around a lot of the shops there.









And here are some pictures of the Santa Fe Square. We always enjoy visiting here. It's also a good place to people-watch, especially if there are parades. You never really know what you're going to see here.








Nathan

Albuquerque Trip, Part II

We arrived in Albuquerque Saturday around noon, after spending the night in Amarillo - we had left Dallas on Friday after work. On Monday morning, Stephany, Malory, and I went hiking in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, which border the east side of town. The west side of town becomes more like a mesa (with some old volcanoes, which is also good for hiking), and the middle of town basically sits in a valley (so on either side of town, you can see most of the entire city - it's especially cool at night when you can see the city lights).

We had hiked the foothills back during our December trip, and Malory suggested that we go again on this one, an idea which Steph and I heartily embraced. The hiking is good, because there are some good paths you can follow (or not) and you see a variety of terrain, including desert with cacti (we're pretty sure that's the plural of cactus, but I sometimes say "cactus plants" just to be safe), large rocks (good for bouldering), and even some wooded areas.

Here's us on the drive out to the mountains. We ate chocolate chip pancakes from the morning before, made with love by Diane.





Here's us at the trailhead, preparing to venture out into the open spaces.





Here are some of those cacti I mentioned. Some of them create some truly beautiful blooms.







When I first moved to New Mexico in 2005, I noticed shades of green in the plant life there that I had never seen before (and coming from green East Texas - the "Piney Woods" - that's saying something). These plants are a really unique silvery green. It's an amazing aspect of the desert that although there is relatively little plant life, what plant life there is tends to be dramatic and vivid, as though it is proud of its accomplishment of existing in such an arid environment (and rightly so).



Mal and Steph taking a break.



We hiked on this stuff.



A stream ran through a valley area there. When we hiked back in December, we could easily follow it, but in June, it was too overgrown to even see really. We lamented the fact that we had no machetes.





Steph maneuvering on the rocks.



When we realized we couldn't pass the stream due to the overgrowth, I tried finding a way to go up and around and ended up climbing a good ways up. The girls backtracked a bit and climbed up to meet me. Malory knocked her knee into a rock she was climbing and skinned her leg, but she took it in stride - the girls were determined.





And here's a view of the city from the foothills - it's always an enjoyable part of the hike.



And here's us at the highest point we went.





By this time, we were all getting a bit eager to head back down the mountain and grab breakfast at the Flying Star on Eubank, not far from where Steph and I used to live. The Flying Star Cafe is one of our favorite local restaurants, and those of you who were at our wedding rehearsal dinner likely (because it was a memorable occasion, people) remember our dinner that night at the one downtown!

Okay, that's Part II. Two more parts to come!

Nathan

Albuquerque Trip, Part I

Okay, we're gonna do this quick. We were in New Mexico for about eight and a half days and we captured a lot of our time there on the camera, which means we have quite a few photos to post. We'd been planning this trip for a while, and it was definitely our summer vacation. Our previous trip back was Christmas, and the last day or two of that trip consisted of getting Malory packed up for her move to Dallas. We were really thankful and glad to be able to go back and not only have some down time there with family, but also see a lot of friends and visit some familiar places that are special to us.

SO...here we go!!

Here are the girls at the border of New Mexico and Texas. As you can see, it was windy! The sign has red and green chiles on it, representative of the classic phrase you hear at most New Mexican restaurants: "Red or green?"



Some of the New Mexico countryside on the outskirts of Albuquerque.



On Sunday, Steph's parents joined us for a trip to the zoo with Stephen, Jamie, and the boys. We had a really fun day together there. The Albuquerque Zoo is actually really impressive - the Dallas Zoo isn't anywhere near as cool!



Here's us with Jamie (Stephen's wife) and James, their youngest (of two, with one more on the way!).



Steph's parents: Bob and Diane.



Here is Malory with little James.





My other nephew, Will, just wasn't convinced we were going the right way, so he wanted to see the map. Bob and Will figured it out.



We took the little train for a ride.



James. He's a cute one. And he has ice-cream face.



And here's Steph and me on the train.


More to come...

Nathan

The Austin Trip

Okay, the Austin trip post!! After I finished the second semester of law school, I had about a week off and then started the internship at Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas in downtown Dallas. Stephany and I traveled to Waco for Josh's wedding (see post below) the first weekend after I started the internship. The next weekend, we traveled down to Austin (about three hours south of Dallas) to visit Jed, Emily, and Charlie. These people have been dear friends of mine for years - Jed and I became best friends in third grade. Emily and Charlie run a deli in north Austin, and Jed just finished his first year of teaching tenth-grade biology. He was leaving to head to Germany for about two months later that week to visit his German girlfriend, and we hadn't seen Emily and Charlie in quite a long time, so it was a good time for a visit. Plus, Malory joined us and got to experience Austin for the first time ever!

Unfortunately, we didn't really take a whole lot of pictures on this trip. However, we managed to do some fun stuff: we visited North By Northwest (a great restaurant and brewery in north Austin), Magnolia Cafe and The Omeletry (two local places that serve great breakfasts), the South Congress area and downtown, and the University of Texas (where Jed and I both graduated). We went to the Harry Ransom Center art museum on campus while we were there and saw both an original Gutenburg Bible from the mid 15th century (you can see it here) and the original manuscript of Jack Kerouac's On the Road (take a look - he taped a scroll of paper together so that he could write in crazy multiple-hour increments uninterrupted by the need to feed paper through his typewriter).

Here are pictures we took in front of the Tower on the University of Texas campus.





And here are some pics of us playing poker with Jed, Emily and Charlie (they were married about a month after we were in 2006), and the great Lebanese philosopher/computer programmer/photographer/story-teller Maan (far left). It was a very laid-back evening. When the game was still dragging on in the early morning hours, Malory, Charlie, and Jed finally split the pot.





It was a good trip, albeit a bit short. We're currently finishing up our trip to Albuquerque, which has been really fantastic. I'll get a post up on that soon.

Nathan

Stephany's Birthday!

Stephany turned 26 late last month! Since we had several birthday-related things going on over the course of the week, it was sort of a birthday-week for her! Malory brought dinner over to our apartment one night, which was awesome, and the following week, we got together with our home group friends to celebrate at Chuy's, a really good Mexican food place in Dallas (they have excellent green chile imported from New Mexico!).

The day after Steph's birthday, we went biking on the Katy Trail (see post below) with our friends Don and Molly, both in my class at SMU Law. They were so nice to bring over flowers and dessert (on their bikes, no less!). Later that night, they picked up pizza (in a car this time), and we sang Happy Birthday to Stephany. Don is a big proponent of the high-five - he has highly contested the contemporary school of thought that the high-five has been replaced by the fist-bump (with all the media coverage Barack and Michelle Obama's fist-bump got at his celebratory speech the other night, it's a tough call, but Don's argument in favor of the traditional high-five still has merit).





Here are some pics of the night we went to Chuy's. This one is of Stephany, Malory, and Malory's roommate Kendra (a fellow student of Malory's at Dallas Theological Seminary).



Here are some pics with our home group friends. We had a really fun time that night. We've been getting together with most of these people for the better part of ten months now (since we moved to Dallas and joined a group through The Village Church in Lewisville).











And here is Steph with a fish-shaped sopapilla the restaurant brought her for her birthday!



We're enjoying being back in New Mexico this week, spending time with family and friends, and getting to see a lot of familiar places. We'll post some pictures soon. I still need to get our Austin trip pics up first though!

-Nathan