Weekend Review: The 4th weekend in August (4 of 5)

This month has been flying by. Kari pointed out to me last night, “14 more days till your birthday!” WOW, that means September is right around the corner.

I am going to start with Thursday night because Kari and I had such a blast with Will (which is the norm), you would have thought we started our weekend than. Will’s birthday was August 14th and somehow I completely forgot to call him on his birthday (found out later he worked 29 hours on his birthday). We took Will to a birthday dinner at the Hula Hut. We enjoyed some great food and conversation, but this was only the start of the evening. We went to Mozart’s afterwards and Kari poured a cold coffee drink down Will’s shirt and made a mess in the coffeehouse. It was awesome. We ended the night by Will’s pool, just hanging out and talking the night away.

This weekend we hosted Kari’s mother and sister Shelbi (actually just Friday and Saturday afternoon). Friday evening we went to the Alamo Drafthouse and saw Mama Mia. It was a little bit over the top at times, but that was expected. Otherwise, it was a good movie experience; good food/drink, good music and the film was shot in a beautiful location. I must confess this was my first Alamo Drafthouse experience. I have recommended it to plenty of people as an “Austin thing” to do, but somehow never went till this weekend. Now more than ever, I will continue to recommend catching dinner and a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse to anyone.

Saturday was spent catching up on some sleep. We got out of bed about 10am; it was so nice. We played some Xbox 360, watched some TV and went to find lunch at Hoovers. As we were sitting down, Will called and said he was getting his brakes done about 5 minutes south of us. I went and picked up Will and we had a wonderful lunch with family and a friend. The food was amazing (as always)! Later that afternoon we went to Bastrop to hangout with Ma ma and Pa pa, my mom, Matt and Alex, Uncle Rus and the Lueders cousins. We enjoyed lots of amazing barbequed chicken and cake to celebrate summer/September birthdays. It was great fellowship and lots of fun. I am blessed to have some of the most amazing family and am so glad we all get along so well.

Sunday morning we had some church at the Well. The Sweet Feet sermon series continued with Jason bringing the Word again! It was a very encouraging sermon and I truly enjoyed the message delivery style. Jason began by focusing on one character from scripture; we broke for worship in song and than he completed the sermon by describing the second figure in the scripture and nicely tied them together. Kari and I join some church folks at Güero´s Taco Bar on South Congress. Güero´s was some good eats. They serve a black bean tamale that is wonderful which I recommend.

Afterwards we hit the 18th Annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival at Waterloo Park. It was a bit dusty and super hot (but we weren’t really dressed for the festival)! We did try a few sauces and enjoyed what we did try. It was packed with people though, so some of the lines were long. We didn’t stay long though because we were tired, sweaty and hot. We went home and Kari crashed out. I fought off sleep, but held the couch down. At about 7pm the closing ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics we on TV, so Kari and I watched them for a bit. After enjoying parts of the opening ceremony, I thought it was wise to watch the closing ceremonies. It was worth my time because they were amazing. I was a little disappointed in London’s mayor; he seemed a little clueless (I’m not sure if London has a chance). Once they put the torch out, bed time was about 9pm. China did an amazing job; I am looking forward to see what Vancouver will put together in the 2010 Winter Olympics.

That’s all folks. I hope you all had a great weekend. God Bless.