Day Fifteen: A quieter day in Austin

I love this welcome sign on Sabrina and Andrew's front door, don't you? I think it is part of Sabrina's fall decorations for her house. We had an unusual day today, almost all of it without children! Jackson went to his bus stop at his usual time, Olivia was gone to school by 8:00, and we drove Karis over to her pre-school class I think by 8:30, but I'm not positive about that.

We got to go into Karis's classroom and meet her beautiful teacher, see her seven classmates, and look all around her wonderful room! This is really one of the nicest little schools I have ever seen.

Since we weren't picking Karis back up until 2:15, Grandpa Jones, Sabrina and I had fun just running errands, doing some shopping, and looking around Austin. We made a stop to my very favorite paper store in the entire world, where I stock up on beautiful papers to make my cards. Every single time we are in Austin, Sabrina drives way across town to take me there. I have been looking all over for the perfect shade of gray to mount winter scenes on and even use for my Christmas card this year, but even this store has NEVER carried any gray paper the right size. So I said a little prayer on our drive over and ... would you believe they had just this week gotten out some very old paper stock, cut it up and put it on the clearance rack? I bought almost six pounds of various shades of gray paper at 50% off! I am so thankful!

There is actually a Paper Place store in Grand Haven ... but it hardly carries any paper the size I use for my cards, and the selection is quite ... small!

We took many scenic side trips today while cruising around Austin. I have no idea where we were, except that we were near another dam and it was really really pretty ...

I'm going to have to find some appropriate Scripture to put with these pictures at a future time.

We met Andrew over at The Galleria at noon for lunch. We ate at a great Asian place, but I cannot remember the name ... something like Hei Pei. I ordered my favorite chicken fried rice and it was yummy ... not quite as good as the Korean version we ate in Minneapolis last fall with Adam and Emily, but very good nonetheless.

And speaking of Adam and Emily, their wee baby boy hasn't been born yet and he is now two days past his due date! I woke up last night at 3:00 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep thinking about Emily and the baby, so I prayed for them for quite awhile and then went back to sleep. While we were shopping today, Sabrina and I each picked up a really cute gift for this newest member of our family.

We picked Karis up from preschool at 2:15 ... and then the day was not so quiet. We often refer to Nathan Paul as MR. PERSONALITY. Well, Karis is definitely his counterpart. She is something else! She can make up stories like crazy. She remembers almost every single word of a conversation grown-ups are having, and then does her own version of it. She has a very in-charge little personality, extremely colorful and fun ... not at all quiet ... but very interesting.

We did stickers for awhile again today because they are just so much fun.
Jackson and I made a very long sticker train to show to Grandpa Jones.
Karis and I did some lace-up cards ...

Grandpa Jones had a plan to surprise Olivia at the bus stop ... WHAT??!! With his camera??!! But Olivia got lucky because even though it had been pretty cool in Austin so far this week, the sun finally showed up today and with it ... HEAT ~ which meant that Grandpa Jones was standing under the shelter back in the shade and she actually exited the bus without ever seeing him! I don't think his intention was to embarrass her, but ... he might have done so accidently if she had seen him there with his camera.

Andrew and Sabrina made an amazing Italian sausage/vegetable/pasta combination meal tonight that was ... WOW! I took a little break from playing with kiddos before dinner and took a walk around their neighborhood. They live in such a beautiful area and even though they live in a "subdivision" it doesn't take long to walk and see wide open space like this.

Tomorrow is our last day ... ANOTHER last day ... it has gone SO fast! Our time has been really really good here in Texas. We have a full day planned tomorrow, so I'll talk to you then!