weekend in austin...

my sister catherine and her family just built a huge 3 story house in austin, and charles needed help with the flooring in the bottom level and called in the troops (fredgie). the drive wasn't bad...about 3 1/2 hours (a cake walk compared to our 10 hour drive to iowa last month)

they worked out a great system and gave themselves fitting nicknames...

"freddy the floormaster"

"charles the cutmaster"

so while the men were hard at work, catherine and i took the kids to the "texas state history museum" in downtown austin.


catherine's second oldest adam (12), her youngest ethan (7), van (5), and jas (11)

they had fun hangin' out...

dressing up like cowboys...



and learning all about texas



when we got home, the kids decorated pumpkin cookies... which i ate 6 of, not to mention the 5 no-bake cookies i ate earlier. oh yeah, and 3 pieces of chocolate fudge cake the night before ( i'm out of control!)

and later that night we watched lauren, catherine's oldest daughter who's 15 (not pictured) perform in her highschool marching band in the state final competition. it was impossible to tell which one was her...they all had black pants on and big hats. but it looked way cool


by the time we got home at 10:30, "the masters" were on the couch watching football. this is their "all done" picture.... good job boys!