Soaking it Up

I've been a bit out of touch lately with a lot of you, but I keep claiming that I've been busy. Well, as proof, I would like to offer you a bit of a photo journal of the last 2 months of my life.

So let's start with January. Worked sucked, because I made one of the biggest mistakes ever...responded to somebody that said, "Matt could you please help me out by doing X. It will do a lot to help your career."

Here's my thoughts on that.
Then Andrea and I were pretty busy getting ready for our ski trip.

Meanwhile I was trying to keep healthy by doing Ninja stuff. And I also got a punching bag in my place; awesomest present to myself in quite awhile.


Then it was off to the Houston Auto Show. Where despite the awesome cars
I couldn't fit in any of them.
But at least my girl looks cute on a bike.

Unfortunately going to the Houston Auto Show meant that we had to go to Houston. Houston depresses me because of stuff like this.
Why can't developers work AROUND the trees. This is just wanton destruction, and will just be another hideous location with cheap cookie cutter houses that will be shoddily built and will be a bane on the eyes.

Fortunately I was off to New Mexico to teach a class for work. After I was done teaching I flew Andrea out to see me and we headed up to Wolf Creek to go skiing.

The drive up started out being utterly beautiful.

But that quickly turned to completely scary. Even scarrier when you realize that we were driving a Mustang...not exactly the world's best snow mobile, snow plow maybe.


But the girl was quite happy, so it was hard to stay annoyed by the weather.

Then we got to the mountain and it was amazing. 30" of snow had fallen that day and night, and the whole time it was just a fog of snow. Andrea got to try out snow boarding for the first time ever.

btw, snow boarding school is probably the boringest thing ever. If you ever want to learn, simply go to the top of a blue (yes, blue not green), and go down until you get to the base of the mountain.

Never really had a vacation alone with a girlfriend before, but it was awesome. We did what we wanted, when we wanted and didn't have to worry about a thing.

We had a ton of fun; despite the frozen facial features.


But recovery was a bit of a process. There's no soreness like snow board soreness.


All good things must come to an end though, so we headed back to Austin where much time was spent making up for lost play time with Andrea's puppy Abigail (aka Abi).


After a brief bout with having to go to court because I met an officer with a short man complex.


The girl and I went up to Dallas so that she could be a bridesmaid in one of her best friend's (Victoria's) wedding. So we did the rehearsal thing.

In this itty-bitty church that was literally tied together.

Then they did the get fancy thing.

Despite Victoria's white dress, we were still the best looking couple there (and almost the only smiling one).

Then there was the worst part of all weddings...the photos...of everybody...in every possible combination...for almost an hour...ugh. Jeremy and Jess, you two did it right.

But I did get to see an adorable girl that I wouldn't mind stealing someday.

Then it was off to the reception. Where we were 2 of the 7 single people over the age of 12.

Fortunately nothing was caught by us. Throwing crap is the lamest of all wedding traditions.


On the way back, we got stopped in like 30 miles of traffic on I-35...dead standstill. So we jumped the median in trusty Kaida (the Mazda3) and found an alternate route. That took us right over where there was a really bad accident. Turns out somebody hit the barier, crossed traffic, flipped over the other barier, then the next, went into oncoming traffic and at least one person died. Kinda sad, but I'm glad we got to see why everything was stopped.


Since then I've just been doing more domestic things, like waxing cars with my new power buffer. Mmm...shiny and smooth.

Having an innocent St. Patrick's Day.

With some awesome friends.


And last night we got to check out Nickle Creek at Gruene Hall, which was probably the most fun I've ever had at a concert. This group is fabulous, and I think they had a great time too. In fact, the manager of Gruene Hall had to kick them off of the stage. Any bluegrass band that will play 'Toxic' by Britney Spears is awesome.


There's so much more to talk about, so many details to fill in and so much that I would like to convey, but for the moment you will just have to wait. I'm really living my life right now and loving every minute of it. Too many people are convinced that they shouldn't be happy and if they are then something's wrong. Well, the only thing that's wrong is that belief and sometimes life gives you lemonade and you just gotta drink it.

And with one parting gift. Why I hate 'Texans'.