Medal of Honor

Two years ago my Dad bought me this awesome computer game, Pacific Assault, for Christmas. Unfortunately, my old computer could not handle the game and I never got to play it. Now that I have a new one, I realized I should go ahead and see if it works with this video card. Let me tell you, this is one awesome game. I went through Marine Boot camp in 1941 and just survived the Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor. In any case, the game provides a good break from doing work and figuring out our life. So, thanks Dad!

Lions and Tigers and Bears...Oh my!

Live mascots are all the rage in the Big 12...at least at Baylor, Texas A&M, and UT. Being that we are the Baylor Bears, Baylor has two live bears on campus, and they have had bears on campus since 1914. Judge Sue Sloan "Lady" and Judge Joy Reynolds "Joy" are the current bears, and you can check out more about them at http://www.baylor.edu/bear/ if you are interested. They come to all of the football games, and are sometimes paraded around campus, so if you are afraid of bears...watch out! :-D We took AJ to visit the bears, just for fun, and realized that he is a terrible watchdog. I think at one point he looked at the bears, acknowledging they were there, but other than that, he acted like there were no bears around. Ha! It made me laugh! Virginia Tech should invest in a huge live turkey, like they used to, but build a turkey habitat somewhere on campus. That would be AMAZING! :-)

Flea Market Treasures

We live right by a flea market...like...we can see it from our apartment complex! But...since the apartment is gated, and the flea market is gated, it's WAY to far to walk there, so we still have to drive. It's an old drive-in movie theatre that they have turned into a permanent flea market. We’ve been meaning to go since we’ve moved here…so…we finally went on Saturday!! I love flea markets! It's a pretty big one, but super disorganized. Like, you are walking, and then there's like, three different directions you could go, but you're not really sure, because if you chose one way, you are likely to miss a lot. So, we walked around lots to make sure we didn't miss anything. There was a ton of junk there, like at most flea markets, but then there was some really nice stuff too! Ann and her friend from school, Beth, met us there, and we enjoyed going through all of the stuff! We came back with two treasures: a pepper plant...and an AMAZING orange sequin purse that is going to be perfect for football games!!! :-D

Caramel Apples! :-D

There is nothing like Thursday night football to celebrate the fall...especially with special fall treats, like caramel apples. Being that I am a HUGE fan of caramel apples, despite the Boston College game being one that wasn't our favorite, we enjoyed it greatly because we made caramel apples with friends! :-D So...to celebrate the game tomorrow...we will do something else fallish...and are currently taking your suggestions! We miss the fall leaves like crazy, but Uncle Jeff sent us an awesome site where we can see the fall leaves everyday! If you want to check it out...it'll make you smile! www.highcountrywebcams.com

Photobooth FUN at Grandma and Grandpa's!!

We had a blast visiting Grandma and Grandpa Weller in Rockport, TX! It was soooo good to get out of Waco and have a good time, good conversation, and good food! :-) I can't wait to go back! :-D We took some awesome pictures with our Macbook! :-D YAY!

Virginia Tech Chokies

Well, as we posted earlier we had people over for the Boston College game and made caramel apples. What can we say, the Hokies played a game that seems to come up at least once a year. Our offensive line is horrid, and our defense is unusually out of position. Our play really reminded me of the 2003 season in which team infighting and poor pass rush on defense doomed a possible championship season. Except in 2003, our offense could really score some points... this team hasn't cracked 40 points this year, and I doubt they will (except maybe against UVA!). As Tailgate Fever pointed out, thank you Miami for taking the Thug title away from us!

Rockport!

Last weekend we took a trip down to Rockport-Fulton (near Corpus Christi) to visit Grandma and Grandpa Weller. They live in an Adult retirement camp, where everyone has either double wide trailers or mobile homes on small lots. Many have golf carts, and life is centered around a large club house. This camp is very social, and a very cool place to live. AJ had a great time, and he immediately sucked up to Grandpa, as he probably thought we were leaving him with them.George, their large cat, was not too impressed with AJ being around, and loved to smack AJ from a higher perch. AJ figured out eventually to hit George back when they were on the ground and took to taking cat toys to egg George on. We of course visited the coast and got a tour of Fulton. Grandpa has a boat and was looking forward to fishing this week. We saw some shrimpers on Saturday shifting out their catch, which turned out to be entertaining to watch. What looked like piranhas were churning near the boat, as the shrimpers were throwing fish and jellies that had drifted into their nets. We decided the churning fish may have been some sort of catfish due to their whiskers, but had never seen catfish so active before. We ate at a nice restaurant right on the water before heading out to a beautiful Catholic church in Rockport. All in all it was a very relaxing weekend. Anytime out of Waco is good, but it was great to get back into more humid climates after drying out in Central Texas. We plan on visiting down there several times this semester!

Attack of the killer birds....seriously...

Waco has a serious Grackle problem. We have decided that Hitchcock's inspiration for his horror flick on "Birds" must have come from Central Texas. Instead of nice migrations, such as Canadian Geese and hummingbirds, this area gets Grackles by the thousands. Baylor used to use pulse cannons to disperse the pests, but has apparently given up (budget problems!). The swarms of diseased looking grackles leave parking lots white in their wake... it's pretty gross. And AJ wants to attack them all.

Departmental Picnics

Hurray Free Food! :-) Two weeks ago...I know I know...we've been slackers in updating the blog, but we are working on it...we had our departmental picnics. The History department held theirs at Cameron Park, a neat little park that goes along both sides of the river. It's really pretty, except the river is basically dry right now, so it was kind of ugly at the time. Our friend Ann lives right on the river, and her view that used to be gorgeous must now be quite 'special' to look at. Rivers are supposed to be pretty! But...the park is very nice, although everyone tells you not to go at night...and I trust them on that one. Apparently, it's not safe...and I can see how the park could become creepy. The picnic was nice though, a little get together with undergrads, grads, and professors. There is nothing quite like grilled hotdogs...mmm...mmm...mmmm. And then cookies to top it off! It was nice meeting James' professors, so I could put a name to the faces, and they seemed nice. The one professor made a joke about the political science department, and then he realized I was in it, and he was like, aww...I shouldn't have said that. But...I thought it was a super funny joke...and true at that! :-) Ha! And then he tried to make up for it by talking about the good people in the department, especially one guy, whose name I will not mention. It's sooooo funny...because that is the one professor I was really upset with all week, because he called me out in class for having the worst paper. Blah! But...it was amusing nonetheless! :-) And then we met this awesome undergrad who transferred from Auburn his junior year! We were like…why are you here, and he was like to us…why are you here? It was amusing, and I wish we’d gotten his information so we could hang out! The polisci picnic was at the house of the Nichols, two very sweet professors whom I actually came here to study under. I never see them because I don't have any classes with them, and my assistantship is outside of the department. They have a very nice house, but the picnic was kind of weird, because the department went off in their clicks like they always do. Thankfully Robin and her husband were there, and they are soooo cool! I don't know why we didn't hang out with them more before! :-)

Baylor's Bear Trail

Baylor was recently voted one of the fittest colleges in America, probably because there is nothing else to do here except for work out. Every single time we go by campus, everyone is always running on the Bear Trail, so we decided to check it out on Friday night, with AJ. AJ loves to go walking, and he was super excited to be in a new place. We have a little trail that goes all around the apartment complex that he loves, but the bear trail had all sorts of new smells. First of all, the Bear trail is NOTHING like the huckleberry trail, to our disappointment. Part of it is an actual trail, but over 3/4 of it is just sidewalks, and you don't really know where the trail goes, because there are no signs. And then, for a lot of it, there isn’t even sidewalk…it’s like…I’m on grass, and I guess this is a trail. I was like...this isn't really a trail...it's just people running on sidewalks. But, whatever, AJ still enjoyed it. And...we diverged from the trail and let him explore the fake stream by the newest building on campus.It is really cool...and it's probably my favorite part of the campus! :-) AJ actually really enjoys the water, which is funny, because Spanky and Lizzie hate it! Tony called while we were on our walk and was complaining that he was freezing in Connecticut, and we laughed at him and said that it was about 75 out...and it was night time! :-) The weather has been really dry here, though, and the river has basically dried up, as well as the marina. I couldn't believe the marina though...I mean...there is NO water left! And when I say no water...like...literally no water.

The Towers of Mordor?!

The ALICO building in downtown Waco is the tallest structure to survive the F5 tornado of 1953. Seeing as no one bothered to rebuild after the tornado, the tower-like building rises above the plain and is seen virtually everywhere in Waco. You can be walking through campus, look up and instead of seeing the eerie green light of Pat Neff Hall, you see the ALICO tower a few blocks away. It really reminds us of the EYE in the Lord of the Rings movies, situated at the top of a tower and sees all. What is more moving is the fact that on top of the ALICO building is a "sky cam" which the local news uses to show the weather (which is, by the way, always hot and dry.) This sky cam can zoom in on minute details, such as car license plates and the such. So there is an all seeing eye at the top of the ALICO building, much like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Mordor.

Our lil football player!

AJ keeps getting cuter and cuter by the day! He's definately a football fan, and we expect him to play when he grows up. We leave ESPN on for him while we are gone, so he is learning the rules of the game. We are awaiting a VT collar for him...he's sooooo cute! He loves the football...we are looking for a football dog toy for him, so we can really play! He even tackles!

Tailgate Fever!!! or not.

This weekend we decided to tailgate before the Baylor-Kansas State game. Baylor actually won the game, and it ended up being the first time Baylor has EVER beaten Kansas State... so Go Bears! In any case, in comparison to Tech, Baylor does not have much of a tailgate culture. Perhaps this is due to the Baptist prohibition on drinking... which creates a docile crowd. In any case, we smuggled our drinks to the tailgate, and used Marly's small grill to heat up some good hot dogs and hamburgers. Ann made this great bean dip for our texas shaped chips as well. We were one group of about 10 who tailgated, but there is hope we believe. In any case, there were about 20,000 people at the game, which was very boring. Kansas State has the worst offense I have witnessed since traveling to the Duke game last year. Hence, all Baylor had to do was make a field goal and they were in the clear. In any case, we left at halftime to pursue other interests, like real football on TV. We wish we could have been in Lane on Saturday to see Glennon through 53 passes. What the heck, 53 passes!? 339 yards passing, I bet his arm hurt after that. So Go Glennon! and boo on our secondary... we miss Jimmy Williams... in any case I love J-Dub for his hand waving tactics and BRUTAL hits. So after the game we ended up at this "cultural" fair in down town waco, which was sad. It involved fast food and white grunge rock. We moved to Waco, we want to see Mexican stuff!!! Enough with stereotypes... Baylor is really not a good school.
Angela: Despite the game being super boring, our tailgate was alot of fun! :-) We parked in the grass along the creek, which we later found out we had to pay an extra ten dollars to park there and tailgate. We were like...oh...we do? And the guy was really nice and said that this time we could park there. No wonder no one tailgates here....it costs $20!! Blah! And then like....40 minutes later another lady came and said we didn't have a pass to park there, and it was okay this time, because “tailgating is fun,” but next time we'd have to pay extra. Ann made an amazing bean dip, and we did an awesome job grilling our hotdogs and hamburgers without any tongs...or anything to turn them or get them off. It was a success...and although we only stayed for one quarter of the game...because...it really was that boring, we still had a fun time! :-)

Fall awesomeness!!!! Without the fall...:'(

One of the best things here....ICECREAM! Bluebell....officially the BEST! But...HEB brand....definitely amazing as well! Because we are so used to celebrating the fall...with beautiful leaves changing, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, caramel apples, and warm apple cider, we have been going crazy here without the fall!!! Alas...it is fall, but without the fall. It's still in the 90s here, and the grass is just now turning green! So...to make up for it....FALL icecream from HEB! :-D

Greek and outside entertainment!

Although we spend most of our time working on our assistantships, reading super boring journal articles, writing, and studying, James and I always find time to have a little bit of fun. Friday afternoon, we traveled to the Czech town of West in West, Texas, with our history comrades. Yianni's, "The Best Little Greek Restaurant in Texas," was well worth the drive, but really, Baklava always tends to be worth the drive! I enjoyed moussakka, a meat, cheese, zucchini, and eggplant dish that was amazing, and James had a mixed plate of all sorts of things, which I ended up tasting all of them! :-) It's a cute little restaurant that on the inside reminds you more of a country cooking type of place than a Greek restaurant. A funny slogan: "Yianni's is Zeus' favorite & Aphrodite's true love!" It must be true since we traveled from Waco to West to enjoy the tastiness! After dinner, we ventured on over to Common Grounds, the only cute little coffee shop close to campus. It has so much personality and is always busy, it makes you wonder why no one else has opened another one. But then we remember that we are in Waco where things never make any sense, and do not follow the normal rules of life. Ann had friends from college on tour who were playing at Common Grounds, so we went to see them perform. I must say that they were awesome! :-) You should definitely check out Nathan Angelo and Micah Dalton. If you would like to hear their music, I'll burn you a copy of the CD! Ann, Marly, and I each bought a CD, and then we made copies for each other! :-D They were all so good it was hard to decide which ones to buy. But, I must say that Micah Dalton was my favorite, and I've been listening to his CD's all weekend! It was such an awesome setup for a concert, but once again, the Baylor crowd disappointed me. Here they had an awesome setting, and awesome musicians, yet they paid no attention, didn't get into the music, and were more concerned with taking pictures of themselves and holding their conversations than they were the music and atmosphere. I was sooo disappointed, and felt bad for Nathan and Micah! I mean, really, why would you pay to go to a concert you weren't going to enjoy? James and I really enjoyed it! It was so good to be around live music again!

The cutest little family...

We took AJ to the groomers today...and he can now see...but he looks SUPER funny! The poor thing...James keeps calling him a freak dog...and he's like...we really need to do something about that haircut. It's so bad that when we came back from the groomer, our neighbor was sitting outside, and he was like...what did you do to your dog? About five minutes later he knocked on our door with a hair cutting kit...yup...it's that bad. But...we still love him! :-)

Cricket Update

To date....we have had 21 gross crickets...with AJ helping in the capture of three. Cockroach count still stands at 7! :-D Cockroach traps are AMAZING!

Weather, Work, and a dog

So I was out walking the dog the other night, and I was cold, so I grabbed a sweatshirt. Realizing it was the first time I had been cold since we arrived in Texas I decided to check the weather... 77 degrees. We must be acclimating to the climate, which is sad because we are going to freeze over Christmas break. Graduate school is not what either of us could of have expected, and we were very well prepared. This school is not growing on us one bit. On a side note, we like our assistantships more. I finally finished cataloging all the history book orders and Angela is busy doing the final edit of a book to be published soon. So what we are getting paid for is not horrible, just the class work. I am having a very hard time choosing research topics for my papers, and other people already have their thesis topics lined out. Screech called last night, and he is driving to California from his job with the Naval Observatory in DC. In a few weeks he is flying to Germany… his job sounds like a lot of fun. We heard how grad school just delays the real world, but when are you ready for it? I feel very behind in my work and a slacker, which I haven't really felt since freshman year at Tech, except I am not bust meeting new people. But we met our new dog, AJ, who is quite the little man. Walking him is fun, he thinks that he should be leading and takes the leash into his mouth. But then he decides the leash is a toy and chews at it as he runs, so he is an awkward runner. He is certainly needed to lift this small household through this year and provide some comic relief from work. The pictures below really sum up AJ, but he needs to be groomed as his head hair is so long he is having trouble seeing I think. So far he is very trusting and loves everyone, even the sketchy neighbors.

Cute AJ pictures...the first day...

AJ finding his toybox! :-D He likes the squeaker toys the best! He actually doesn't like this little bed, but I put him in it, and he'll stay until I leave the room and then get up as soon as I leave. James' thinks its super funny...I think it's kind of cute. He's trying to do what I want him too! He loves to nap in the kitchen, and he sticks his legs out to make him as long as possible. And he makes you step over him if you come in the kitchen. Sometimes he'll lift his head, but he's usually zonked out.

Meet the newest Gouger!!

Meet AJ...our adorable little poodle whom James and I adopted from Lil Paws Maltese Rescue in Austin Texas. Actually, we haven't adopted him yet, but are in a one week trial period where we can see if we like him or not...and we do! He is super sweet, and he really loves James...it's sooo cute! AJ is a one year old, and has a ton of energy. He loves to play, and we have a little toy box for him. He definitely knows it is his, and he only chews on things that are in the toy box. His name was Rudy, but since he didn't respond to it, we decided to change it to AJ. Why AJ? People keep asking us if it's Angela and James...but it's not. For all of you Hokies out there, AJ is different colors of gray, like hokie stone. And since James and I spent three years of our time at VT living in the dorm, AJ (Ambler Johnston), we thought it would be cute. Yes we've been called dorks...but let's be honest...we are. :-) We ventured to Austin on Saturday, despite the bad weather. The weather was sooooo bad that we had to stop on the side of the road for about a half hour. I seriously thought our car was going to blow away and was very thankful that it wasn't tornado season, or I'm fairly certain we wouldn't have made it! So…note to anyone thinking about going out in a Texas storm…DON’T! Trust us!  But, we made it!! And the people from Lil Paws were soooo sweet and really encouraging! They said that AJ would need alot of work, because he has alot of energy and he has never been trained before, but he has really been great so far! He knows he's on a trial period, so he's trying to be good! He just loves to be around us, and he feels right at home already! His favorite place to sleep is on hard stuff, and he loves to nap on top of my binders, which I think is really funny! We can't wait for you all to meet him! He's sooooo sweet!!