Happy Birthday, Christopher!

Saturday was Chris' birthday. Lucky for him, he also had a lot of studying to do AND it was the weekend of Stake Conference. Not a terribly fun way to spend one's birthday, I would say, so the least I could do was to *let him* stay home with the kids while I attended the adult session of Conference on Saturday night by myself. Happy birthday to you, Chris! Next year will undoubtedly be better. :)

I tried to make his birthday a little special anyway by making him a yummy breakfast on Saturday morning. Breakfast burritos are, according to Chris, a "Texas thing" that he really likes but I never make. (The sausage, potato, egg, and cheese filling turned out great and there was enough leftover that he also ate some for his birthday dinner ALONE.) In the afternoon, we took the kids out to a local pumpkin patch to enjoy some pre-Halloween festivities and we let them choose their very first pumpkins for carving.











We had our actual celebration with Chris last night, and my mom and dad joined us for that. He requested that I make a roast for his birthday dinner. I hadn't made a roast in years probably. To my surprise, his birthday dinner was probably the best meal I have made all year! So, I told him that, once a year, for his birthday, I will make him a roast. :) More likely: How many times can I make roast without burning him out on that, too? For dessert, I made Chris' favorite double-layer triple chocolate cake which we ate with vanilla ice cream. That's EXACTLY how he likes it, so I was happy to oblige. While I was making the cake earlier in the afternoon, Zachary exclaimed, "Thank you, Mommy, for making the best chocolate cake EVER!" Isn't he the best KID ever?!

After Chris opened his presents, we ate that yummy cake and ice cream and enjoyed some fine entertainment that was the highlight of the evening. Enjoy!

"Happy Birthday to Daddy!"


The encore:

Out at the Old Ball Game

The law firm where Chris worked the first half of this summer hosted a family day at the Dell Diamond where our minor league team, the Round Rock Express, played against the Memphis Reds on June 13. It was our first time to take the kids to a game, and it was also my first time to see the Express play. It was very nice to get to meet Chris' colleagues (also for the first time.) What a great group of people he got to work with!

Lucky for all of us, it was a breezy summer night, otherwise, it would have been pretty hot. On the downside of that, the wind was blowing pretty hard, so food and plates and cups were flying. The kids were getting restless, so we visited the playscape which was conveniently located inside the ballpark on the lower level. Zachary and Ashley didn't mind that the place was crawling with kids and quickly lost sight of me. (I see how they are!)

We really didn't get to see much of the game, but we did visit quite a bit with the other families there. Probably the most memorable part of the night for me was when Ashley, who was being ornery and trying to run away from our party, heard the organ suddenly start playing "If You're Happy and You Know It" and she stopped dead in her tracks to go through all the motions. Everyone who was watching her got a kick out of that. In the end, the home team won, so that made for a great ending to an already fun night!

Order in the Court!

Due to our camera still undergoing repairs, which results in a total lack of evidence that tonight actually took place, this case is dismissed!

"OBJECTION!" (I can hear you saying...)

Okay, okay...here's the update some of you may have been waiting for. Tonight, Chris and I attended the Intellectual Property Law Association's annual judges dinner in the Capital Ballroom of the Stephen F. Austin International Hotel. This was a dinner attended by mostly local IP attorneys, who paid a pretty penny for their dinner, and the 4 members of UT's IP Moot Court Team and their guests (lucky us, us poor folk got to eat for free.) There were also a few judges that were there to be honored and appreciated.

I have to start out by telling you how handsome Chris looked in his "lawyer costume" tonight. (sigh) I know I am partial, but he is just so cute! I wish I could get my hair chopped at Supercuts for next-to-nothing and look so adorable. Ain't happenin'! And I lamented to him, on our drive back home, about how easy it would be to dress myself if I were a man. Men have to make nowhere near the painstaking efforts to look good as we women do, and the choices are between A and B...it's really as simple as that...for men. Not so for the ladies. Oh well.

I really like my new suit. I'm glad I don't have a picture of myself wearing it to post here, because I might change my mind after seeing myself from your point of view. It was a little awkward wearing it at first, I admit. I sort of felt like a man, but luckily, I was wearing some nice heels and accessories that helped me escape that feeling before long. It took us over an hour to drive downtown to the hotel, and by the time we arrived, I'd long forgotten that moment of awkwardness.

Because we arrived just in time to check in (we had to dodge some basketball game-goers on our way into downtown), there wasn't a lot of time for mingling, which was really a blessing since neither Chris nor I really knew anyone there at that point. He did run into a guy from a firm that interviewed him today, and we were introduced. Throughout the evening, I met 2 other men from the same firm, and they were all very nice. From what I saw, I think I would be really happy if they wanted to hire him. (I get a little protective of him, so I was pleased that these seemed like good people that he'd be happy working with.) I hope we get some good news soon.

The dinner, itself, was really nice. It was served buffet-style, though, which, in my opinion, makes things a little LESS nice usually, but it was fine. The food selections were excellent and included beef, chicken and salmon as well as 2 kinds of potatoes, a vegetable medley of carrots, squash and asparagus, green salad and a variety of bread and cheeses. For dessert, there was a beautiful array of cheesecake and pie choices. Chris had a plain cheesecake and I had some sort of lemon cream pie that was delicious.

While we were finishing up with dinner, the ILPA president made a little speech and presented each of the judges with a gift, a coffeetable book on Texas courthouses. "Gee, just...what..I, um, always...wanted.." No, I'm sure they really liked it. Then, the keynote address followed and was delivered by a cool judge guy. I don't mean to say that his address was boring in any way, because I could follow along enough to know that the guy had a pretty good sense of humor, but for someone like me who isn't in the field, the whole thing reminded me of a cartoon my mom once clipped for me about what humans say to dogs and what dogs hear:

Human: "Ginger, you naughty dog! You go outside right now, Ginger! If I have to tell you one more time, Ginger, to..."

Dog: "Ginger, blah blah blah! Blah blah blah blah blah, Ginger! Blah blah blah, Ginger, blah blah!"

You get the drift. HOWEVER, I WAS doing my best to pay attention and I really was trying to get something out of this. At one point, I did get distracted and began trying, without making it obvious, of course, to check out what the other ladies were wearing so I could have a better idea for next time. Suddenly, Chris sort of spun around in his chair with this huge smile on his face. I thought the man must have commented on something we had been laughing about earlier. (On the way to the hotel, I jokingly asked Chris for some one-liners I could use in case anyone confused me for someone who had a clue. He gave me some line about tort reform that I can't even remember now, but...it was pretty funny, but I guess you'd have to have been there.) I asked Chris about that later, and he said that, no, he was just checking to make sure I wasn't asleep! (And he checked on me several times.) I thought it was cute how concerned he was about that, but I assured him that I would never do that to him and explained that even as incomprehensible as the speech was at times, I was more concerned about whether or not I seemed out-of-place. He was very confident that I did NOT seem out-of-place. What a sweet compliment? I thought so anyway.

After the keynote address, the meeting was adjourned. Before leaving, Chris introduced me to him teammates. Again, another very nice bunch of people. All in all, we had a wonderful night out together.

Business Nonsense

Today I bought myself a suit. That's right, I bought a suit...as in a PANTSUIT. For myself. And I suppose you might be wondering WHY I would do this?!? Me, too. I mean, I am wondering the same thing myself.

There's a dinner on Friday night, and Chris is taking me. A fancy dinner, honoring federal court judges, and we're invited, and I'm a little nervous. Why? The mingling part, mostly. I'm just not good at mingling. I suppose that at 31 years of age, it could still benefit me to learn. Aside from my fear of being talked to, I'm also a little nervous because the dress code is business attire. I'm afraid I will be on trial or something. "Yes, Your Honor, this is the first suit I've ever owned, and I did pick it out myself." You see, I wear my business attire 7 days a week. With the exception of Three Hour Church on Sunday, business attire for me means jeans and t-shirts. After all, mine is a dirty business. Yes, even dirtier than that of a room full of lawyers.

I didn't google "women's business attire" right away, because I do have SOME sense of what "business attire" means. And I know that I don't own anything that belongs in this category, whatsoever. But I was sure there would be some details in fine print that I'd do well to learn before a sentence is handed down to me on Friday night. Sure enough, I was unaware of the statutes of business attire. If you are interested, just google it and you will see. Needless to say, this dinner feels slightly threatening to me.

I have never had anyone or anything in my life try harder to change my own personal sense of style (or non-style, as the case may be) than the mere act of Chris going to law school. More education started out as a nice idea and very well may still be one, but somewhere, somehow, someone forgot to inform ME that I, too, would be expected to adhere, at least on occasion, to a strict dress code (even stricter than the shorts-must-come-down-to-my-kneecap ordinance at BYU) so as to avoid looking the part of the frumpy housewife-who-let-herself-go next to my husband, the million bucks. (By the way, the term "million bucks" refers to the million bucks SPENT to transform a person from one who sits comfortably to one who waits, UN-comfortably, to rush home and hang up those expensive clothes that must look brand new each time they are worn...or else.) So, in order to be seen with a million bucks, I can't look like 50 cents. But we have no more million bucks, because we spent that all on HIS suits (which, until he has officially earned his diploma, passed his multiple Bar exams--those are different exams, not the same one multiple times, just to be clear here--and is employed full-time IN THE LEGAL FIELD AS A LAWYER, I affectionately call them his "lawyer costumes.") The million bucks is spent. We haven't a penny of it left, so we had to take out loans just to pay his tuition. His parents had to cash out their retirement so he could buy his books and so that his family (peons that we are) wouldn't starve over the course of 3 years.

So, today I went to JC Penney and found me a pantsuit (a black one) on sale for $79.99 + tax. It was marked down from a million bucks, so I don't know if that'll count as perjury when I wear it in the presence of the court or not. That price didn't include a shirt, which I was almost tempted to bypass (I'm learning to be frugal, eh?), but since I've never maxed out a credit card to date, I figured it's better to be safe than sorry and just went ahead and charged me a shirt on it. Even though it wasn't explicitly stated in the hitherto unmentioned dress code for wives whose husbands will one day be forced to keep up appearances in the likes of a TRILLION bucks, shirts are probably required. Since I wasn't sure which colors are acceptable and which ones are not, I went with plain ol' vanilla--white. For fear of being mistaken for a man, I went with the dressed-up white shirt with the clear, sparkly rhinestone buttons. I may be kicked out of this dinner for being a little too flamboyant in my dress, but it was a risk I felt was worth taking. I just hope that Chris isn't charged as my accomplice.

So, I modeled my orange jumpsuit, er, I mean black pantsuit for my parents who both ruled in my favor. Then, I drove home to face the judgment seat of the man that will be putting his own neck on the line if my fashion sense is deemed a failure. His judgment is usually the harshest of all, and his verdict surprised me: Not Guilty! So at least HE is convinced that I can pass muster on Friday night. I hope nobody is fooled by the cover-up and tries to actually talk business with me, because it'll be off to the slammer I go.