Stop what you're doing and check this out

I can honestly (and without too much shame) say I'd be looking forward to this movie if it were real. Pure genius.

Opal's after Trail of Lights

Opal's after Trail of Lights
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Never has spiked Egg Nogg been more looked-forward-to.

superwife

superwife
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Today, Cassie..
-took the boys and her Grandma to church to watch my choir sing Christmas music
-took the same group grocery shopping
-took them home and did laundry and cooked Tortilla soup
-decorated her Grandma's house with lights
-came home and finished up our christmas decorations, of which she's done all (they look nice, eh?)

Ho Ho Ho!

Ho Ho Ho!
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Took Jilliebean to her school's holiday fair, made some craft ornaments, sang christmas karaoke, and did some shopping. Got a pic with Santa too.

I actually can run in my neighborhood

A perfect 3 and 1/3 mile route that doesn't cross any major roads. Yay, me.

Sunset from the PJordans

Sunset from the PJordans
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Did some more hiking today with the kids before heading home. Did a little bit of work helping Paul load destructed decking into the trailer before catching a glorious sunset from what's left of Paul's patio. Nice.

McKinney Falls state park

McKinney Falls state park
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Purty cute.

I took the kiddos camping. Its been fun, but when you go to sleep at 8:15, you tend to wake up at 3. So here I am. We did a lot of walking yesterday and saw some cool stuff, including McKinney's (one of Stephen F Austin's original 200) summer homestead. We had venison sausage and beans for dinner, which was very yummy and cooked on my new Coleman stove. Gonna be scrambling eggs before too long.

Been a good Turkey Day

Been a good Turkey Day
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Ran the Turkey Trot this morning, albeit slowly (44:10) and Jillian ran the kid's K. Had a spectacular meal out at the Farm and even caught a nap watching the Cowboy game (snoozer). Now, I'm at the last Horns home game of the season listening to them introduce the seniors. Life is good.

Our trip to Walnet Creek Park

I love fall. We may not have leaf peepers coming down to the hill country to see the leaves change, but we've got some mighty pretty country all the same.

Rather than go on a long run this Saturday (just finished the SA Half Marathon last weekend), I took the kiddos and the dog to Walnut Creek Park. We ended up walking around for about an hour and a half, chasing Myles the dog around the trails. It was quite fun. We did have a little adventure though, when Myles took off after a squirrel down a cliff and ended up at the bottom of the creek when we were on a ledge far above. We had to backtrack about an eighth of a mile to where the trail gets down to the creek bed to reunite with him. Then, on the way out of the park, Myles did it again and we lost him for a good 15 minutes, to find him again at the bottom of the creek. Needless to say, we kept a close eye on him the rest of the time there.

Pics below. I was especially perplexed at the dude on the unicycle. Its weird enough to be riding one, but then to ride one in the mountain biking park. Odd indeed.

Jillian's Thanksgiving Play

Jillian's Thanksgiving Play
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Too fun. Afterward, we repaired to her classroom for a cafeteria tday feast. Got some good footage with the mino as well, if it will ever finish transcoding.

Out with Ian

Out with Ian
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Who is recently back from Japan where he was building the next generation of fembots.

Breakfast, featuring pacman frittata

Breakfast, featuring pacman frittata
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Devil Doggy

Devil Doggy
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Here's Myles taken with my new phone (this one's got a flash!) the room was completely dark.

Jillian at Shady Grove

Jillian at Shady Grove
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

She can really lounge. Mad skills, yo.

Foundation Repair Week Upon Us

Foundation repair started on my house on Monday. Very exciting times! At least, when you're paying thousands of dollars for something, it helps to get a little excited about it. Thought I'd share a few pics...



Here's the view from where I park the car. Lot's of dirt dug out of the holes around the house.



They had to move the bushes to continue the holes around the front of the house.



Here's what's inside the holes. As you can see, they've sunk a pier and added an end cap.

Next step (tomorrow, I'm thinking) is to jack up the foundation and then put spacers in between the end caps and the foundation to hold everything up good and level. Really looking forward to my doors working again and of course not feeling like the house is sinking around me.

Not too busy to blog though, are we?.....

God I love the web site this is from:

busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest

To be so busy, that you will never finish your job
"There is no way I can finish that too!" "Im busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest!"
busier than a one armed paper hanger busy bee fuck busy busy as a fuck busy

So, yeah. Things are heating up right now, as I'm sure they are for everybody. Jillian started 2nd grade and the boys have started pre-k (trust me, there's pressure associated with pre-k). I just realized that because we've signed the kids up for soccer, we'll be up at friggin Wells Branch soccer fields at 5:30 on Wednesday and 6 on Tuesday and Thursday for practice, not to mention games on Saturday. Works not exactly light for either Cassie and I. Football is back (hallelujah...just means there are games to watch :-) ). What's more, we're entering the high season of family birthdays and holidays. There's a little thing called the San Antonio half-marathon in November that I'm currently training for (although I'm doing Marathon-level distances for training runs). I can already see the rest of 2008 starting to pass in a blur. Oddly enough, I'm not worried about getting all the things I need to get done done. If anything, I'm excited about getting it all. Its been a pretty slow, hot, languorous summer for us and I'm stoked at getting things moving.

One of the things I'm most looking forward to getting going is the repairs of the foundations on our house. Let me back up a bit...it turns out that Austin and specifically the little square of Austin that my house sits on is full of a type of soil called Black Gumbo. "Black Gumbo", is a generic term for highly elastic, clay based soils. That means it grows and shrinks a lot based on water in the soil. Last year we had 2x the normal rain fall all summer whereas this year we have 1/4x. So, I live in a house that's slowly sinking into the ground. Check out what happens....

drywall goodness
cracks in ceiling
yuck

Plus, there's other good symptoms like your doors not wanting to close any more.

At any rate, there's a very strong foundation repair business going because of all this. I'm told there are whole subdivisions in North Austin that will have to be redone as soon as they sort out the class action lawsuit against the builder. Live and learn. Repair consists of pushing a peer down deep in the ground, to the load-bearing-strate no less, and resting the edge of your foundation on that. My house is going to get completely encircled in peers. I'll be staying home and monitoring a little of the work and will post some pics. I might as well since I'm spending 10 grand for this lovely home...err...enhancement! If you have the same type of problems, let me know. I've done a whole bunch of research and can point you away from some options.

Football is back

Football is back
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Having a margarita at Vivo after the game. Life is sweet.

Yummy breakfast at Waterloo Ice House

Yummy breakfast at Waterloo Ice House
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Reward for a 12 mile run

Sillian Hawk

Sillian Hawk
Originally uploaded by Matt Hawk in Austin

Jill drew the body. The head turned out slightly smaller than to scale.

Got a new toy

I got a flip mino and took the initial video (below). I'm looking forward to easily recording all kinds of stuff and sharing it. Yay.