Whitewater Adventures

Okay, so this post is about our whitewater rafting trip on August 25...meaning I'm not quite a month behind on my blog posts (but getting close). 

I love that my company has a "Newcomer's Club", they put on some interesting lunchtime presentations every other week and they also host outside events...like whitewater rafting!  I signed up Brad and me for the trip, and a group of about 30 "newcomers" and families drove up to Wild Waters Outdoor Center near Queensbury (close to Lake George and the Adirondacks, which we didn't get a chance to explore yet).  The rafting trip lasted all day, with a brief stop for lunch on the shore (they tossed around sandwiches kept dry in a large pack on one of the rafts!)  We rafted 3 miles down the Indian River and 14 down the Hudson.  Our guide was a hoot!  (note the rubber duck on her helmet in the pictures) and it was fun getting to know some of the other newbies at my company.  Our guide told us over and over that we were her favorite raft (perhaps with tips in mind, but she was pretty convincing!)  She was happy that we paddled hard and followed directions.  Paul, one of the guys from work who we carpooled up with, said he figured we did such a good job because "we're engineers...we know how to follow the rules and yet also be creative!"

Anyway, it was a really fun trip, no one fell out of the raft, gorgeous day for rafting and the views along the river were beautiful!

 

Attractive rafting gear!

 

Sadly my waterproof camera got really foggy so most of those pics are no good.

 

 Beautiful

 Menfolk before we put the raft in the river

 And now for the impressive-looking pro pics...note Lucy's awesome ducky.  Brad and I were in the two seats in the back.

 Brad's working hard...I'm just happy?

 Drill team smile always...even in crazy rapids

A Day at the Races

Playing catch-up on blog posts...I have several weekends' worth of fun times to share, and it keeps piling up!  So, first up we have our trip to Saratoga Race Course, the Saturday after we got back from Texas.  We had heard that we should go to the races at least once, for the experience...we had the weekend free, so we went!  We had NO idea how to go about placing bets, but luckily they had a "Betting 101" tent so we could learn some basics. 

 The atmosphere was so fun -- it felt like a tailgate! 

Our first bets!  We did win-place-show on two horses (betting on the horse getting first, second or third) and the two horses finished 4th and 5th :-/ oh well!

 We looked at the odds (and the names) and chose horses #4 and #5...then realized their colors were green and gold!  Perfect.

WINNING.  Overall we lost about $6 but we did have a couple of winning horses :)

It was a loong day (would have been even longer if we had come early in the morning to watch the workouts, as originally planned!)  Amazing how long it drags out for under 20 minutes of actual racing!  But it was nice out in the sun and fun to get caught up in the excitement.

Mittens

Shortly after we got back from Texas, my kitty Mittens had to be put to sleep.  We got Mittens and her sister Muffin in 2001 after my cat Misty died (I guess I have a thing for 'M' names).  We knew we wanted a female kitten, and when we saw these two sisters, I didn't want to split them up, so we came home with double the kitten love!  Mittens was a quirky cat (head-butting if I stopped petting her, licking my arm with that sandpaper tongue) but she was a sweetie.  When I left for college, my dad and Lucy continued to care for the girls, and I know Mittens had a lot of happy years with them.

We'll miss you Mitty...here's a tribute in pictures...

Sister love.

Home Sweet Texas

Last Thursday we left for our Whirlwind Texas Trip.  It was so great to see our families -- even if it was for a short time!

First meal after getting in to Mesquite was Tex-Mex, of course.  We went to Brad's favorite hometown restaurant, Tino's.  We hung out with Teri and Jared, and went to see The Dark Knight Rises that night.  Good movie...this was our first time seeing a movie in theaters since the Aurora shootings, so I have to admit I was thinking about that...

On Friday it was time to head to Waco!  We went on campus briefly to pick up my doctoral robe, love coming home to Baylor (and I'm pretty jealous of the next class of freshmen coming in for Welcome Week right now!)  That evening was the doctoral dinner, where each of the graduating doctoral candidates spoke for a bit about our Baylor experience and where we're headed now.  I got to see my advisor there and it was nice to give him a word of thanks during my speech -- I really couldn't have asked for a better advisor.

Matt got into town on Friday  night so the festivities didn't end after the dinner -- we went out for drinks with a few people once he got in.  Then I got up early Saturday morning for graduation!  The ceremony went by pretty quickly - I guess the August commencement is probably the smallest - and my colleague Hua and I were the two last people to walk the stage.

Then...party time!!  With all of our family that came in town, we knew it'd be hard to find a restaurant to seat us all together (especially with all of the competing graduates and their families!)  Brad's great-aunt Virginia was kind enough to have us out at her place in Lorena.  She and Dick have a party room where they often host friends; it was the perfect place to set up our own little shindig.  My mom brought lasagna and king ranch chicken, and Mimi's friend made an awesome cake!

It was so great to see everyone, even if for just a couple hours.  I was melting in that robe for the photo ops!

After the party, I drove back to Dallas to stay at Brother Dave's house (he had a late-night band practice, but I at least got to say hello/goodbye!)  I got Whataburger for dinner -- had to get that honey BBQ chicken strip sandwich while I was in TX -- and went to bed pretty early...had to get up at 3:30 AM to head to the airport!

Brad flew in on Thursday, so I had a few days alone at the apartment.  Tried to get everything put away and cleaned up before he got in, but I didn't get very far!  Thursday evening we went to a "GM Staff BBQ" put on by my company's Newcomer's Club.  We got to chat with the general manager for a little bit, which was cool :)

More updates to come, but it took two days to get Blogger to load these pictures (annoying) so I'm taking a break!

Thanks again to all of our family members who came out to see us at my graduation.  We're looking forward to a Christmas visit!

Play Ball

We finally made it out to Cooperstown last weekend!  Looks like there are several attractions in the little town but our mission was the Baseball Hall of Fame.  It was great!

"MVSEVM"

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I did take this one of the costumes from A League of Their Own :)

Babe Ruth

Rangers.

Some World Championship rings

Early baseball cards

"You passed by all the greats and now you're taking a picture of this one because it says 'Ducky Wucky'."

"Yep."

It was a neat museum and I highly recommend it for baseball fans.  Even somewhat-fans like me.  

One more day of work, and then we fly to TEXAS!!  I'm so excited for this weekend.  We'll have the doctoral dinner Friday night, then I walk the stage in a funny hat and receive my diploma (the processing of my dissertation was very down-to-the-wire, but I think I've finally completed all the steps.)  We'll have a little shindig after graduation, then...on Sunday I fly back to NY.  Sad face.  But it'll be good to see our families for the first time since making the move.

So much to do before then!  And I worked a 10-hour day today (trying to conserve some PTO on Thursday/Friday) so I'm pretty exhausted.  Short blog post!

I'll end with a BUNNY.  You guys, I was pretty excited about that squirrel lounging on our balcony, but I'm WAY more excited about the bunny that seems to have its home around here.  I see it a lot when I'm walking to/from the car.  It makes me happy.