Holiday Treats

I made some holiday treats today on my day off and I thought that I would share the culinary experience with everyone.


Peanut Butter Balls

These are a recipe I got from my grandmother who has been making these for Christmas ever since I can remember.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups Rice Krispies
• 1 stick butter
• 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 18 oz jar of crunchy peanut butter
• 23 oz bag of milk chocolate chips

1. Crush the Rice Krispies














2. Combine the Rice Krispies, , peanut butter, butter, and powdered sugar.














3. Roll mixture in to balls the size of walnuts.














4. Place each one on a cookie sheet and cool inside the fridge until they harden.














5. Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler. Or, if you don't have a double boiler you can improvise with kitchen items around the house. I found this link to be very helpful:

Then roll each ball in the chocolate and coat them evenly.














Place them in the fridge to harden.















Then enjoy!

Jackson's Room

Here's a video of Jackson's room we made today. We essentially have everything we need in his room. The crib, rocker, and changing table are all set.

New Camcorder!

Jill's mom got us a camcorder for the recent baby shower we had over Thanksgiving and this is our first video. It's a video of our house here in Austin and the Christmas lights we just put up. It's not very interesting, but if you watch it then it's your own fault. :)

We'll hopefully have some more interesting footage to come. Then, in the not so distant future we'll have all sorts of movies of Jackson!

Thanks Jody for the camera!

- Pat

New Jill pics

Hey y'all, (the Texas is getting to me)

Here's a new pic of Jill at 34 weeks. As of today we have 35 days left until the baby is due!

New baby pictures!

Jill got the opportunity to go back to the 3D Ultrasound place and get some more pictures of the baby for free! Jack is now about 32 weeks along, and as you can see his cheeks are starting to fill out. Jill think he has her lips, but I think he has my nose.

Jill at 26 weeks

And, here is Jill at 26 weeks.

More 3D pics of Jackson!

Here are some more pictures from our 3D ultrasound!

The baby is about 26 weeks now, so his cheeks aren't puffy and he's only a couple of pounds. He's got a lot of growing to do.

P.S. It turns out that Jill is having the baby right in the time that the ultrasound place will be doing some training for new ultrasound techs so they invited her to come back and she'll get a whole new set of pics of the baby at 32 weeks

Baby...now in 3D!

While my parents were in town this weekend we went to a local ulrtasound facility and had a 3D ultrasound of the baby done. It was very exciting to see the baby in this new way. It makes it even more realistic. We got to watch him move around, yawn, and move his legs and arms. We'll post some pics and a video of what it all looked like.

Recovery

I had my little outpatient surgery for my stones yesterday, and I guess that it went about as well as can be expected. Probably the nicest thing was the folks at the North Austin Surgery Center , they are kind and most of all competent. I smoothly moved through the usually lumbering behemoth that is usually our health system in a quick and orderly fashion. They got me prepped for the surgery, and I only vaguely remember being given the general anesthesia. Next thing I remember is waking up with an oxygen mask on and the nurse saying it was all done. Of course when I had to "void" as they so antiseptically call it, I was bleeding from parts of my body that no one should ever have to bleed from. The Doctor came by and showed me some photos of the stones before and after the laser blast. I was still somewhat fuzzy in the head, but it sounded like he needed to clean out my tubes like Spanish Inquisitor (Sorry, I'm having a hard time coming up with a decent simile on pain meds). In the end, with one pair of ruined shorts I was set to leave. Also, I need to send "props" out to my friend Bob for helping me out and taking me home while Jill was in KC. Thanks Bob.

Set lasers to kill

I went to the Urologist yesterday to see about my kidney stones. He didn’t like where they were and how big they are. He thought they were too big and might cause an obstruction. That being so, he’s scheduled me for a ureteroscopy laser litho/stent. Which essentially means they are going to spear me with a laser scope and blast the stones, and then, supposedly, remove them. Yay for me!

Operation: Hell Stone

After a surprisingly short 3 hour journey to the Emergency Room, I found out that I have kidney stones yesterday. I'd recently had some side pain coupled with changes in urine color, and thought I should probably head to the Doctor this next week. But, that all changed when I started having severe side pain yesterday evening. I passed a small stone at the hospital, and that made most of the immediate pain go away. Then, I had to give a urine sample, which Jill said had the color of Ruby Red grapefruit juice. It's never a pleasant sight to see blood in your pee.

After a CT scan, I've been told that I have four more in my kidneys/bladder that I'll need to pass. First one up in the batting order is a nice 6mmx4mm beauty that is sure to knock me out of the park. Unfortunately, there is not much they can do for me except pain management. I just have to grin and bear it.

Yahoo.

More baby stuff!

Here's a picture of what Jill looks like at 20 weeks pregnant. This was taken today. Isn't she a beauty?

The Doctor's office created a DVD of the ultrasound today. I ripped the video from the DVD and I've posted it. The video is about 11MB, so it may take a bit to load depending on your connection speed.

Here's what you can see:

1. Some general anatomy of the baby, and you can see him move a little bit.
2. You can see his limbs, and they do a few measurements.
4. A look at his hands and his feet.
3. The best profile shot of the baby.

It's a boy!

We had the 20 week ultrasound today, where they check the anatomy of the baby. And it's a boy! We were really excited to find out and both of us are really happy. Although, I think we would have been happy with a boy or a girl. Of course we immediately went out to the closest baby store and started looking at baby clothes and furniture for the baby room. Now that we know that it's a boy we'll know what we can buy.

We've also been calling all of our family to tell them. :)

Well, that's just a little cheaper

We have noticed, on average, that the cost of living in Austin is about 20 - 30% cheaper than in California. This extends to almost every aspect of life. From fast food, to movie tickets. It's a nice change from the ever increasing costs in SoCal.

Also, we've been going to the Walmart Supercenter to do some grocery shopping. Say what you will about what that does to local businesses, but it's just cheaper. Except for produce. That's just gross at Walmart.

Judging your neighborhood

We are currently trying to estimate the "niceness" of our neighborhood. At first we thought it was pretty nice. The neighborhood is relatively new, only a few years old, and it's a maintained by a master community HOA that trims the community lawns. Then, we noticed the disturbingly large number of Payday Advances store fronts around. Is that an indicator of ghetto? Than there are lots of pawnshops nearby. Than there is the drive through liquor store just a couple of blocks away.

Is this bad neighborhood, or just Texas?

What is Austin like?

This is a question that we get a lot from family and friend back in California.

[Note: None of these are complaints, just observations]

In todays edition of "How is Austin different?" we'll look at the roads.

You wouldn't think that roads could be that different, but they are. First off, all of the freeways/highways have frontage roads that run along side them. This is both a blessing and a curse. You can move pretty quickly with out having to get on the highway, but you may have to drive for 2 miles before you can make a U-turn. Then there are the people that are trying to exit the highway or get on the highway and they cross the 4 lanes of the frontage road in about 50 yards. It's a recipe for accidents, and I've already met two people at work that have been in serious accidents because of this.

Next, the roads aren't labeled very well. In Cali you come to expect large traffic poles with big green signs for the street names. In Austin you get small signs usually hidden behind a tree or a bush. This results in lots of missed turns.

Also, urban planning does not appear to have been at the forefront of the minds of the city planners in Austin. In California you can usually expect suburban area to be build on some sort of grid pattern sprouting off of freeways. In Austin, however, the city seems to have grown much more organically. It makes it much more difficult to get around unless you know where you are going ahead of time.

Lastly, are the drivers. I thought that California had some crazy drivers, but Austin beats them hands down. There are some CRAZY drivers in Austin. It's like driving isn't a form of transportation as much as it is some sort of combative exposition. Weaving in and out of lanes, cutting people off, crossing huge swaths of traffic. It's nuts.

Did you hear that noise?

So, we got in to our house, finally got our stuff from the movers, and we're currently in the process of getting everything unpacked. Monday and yesterday were the first nights we spent in the house and we started to hear something scratching and rustling. At first we thought it was someone or something out in the back yard. But I checked and there was no one there, and I heard it in the wall and I said to myself "Oh crap."

Now, we're waiting on pest control to get out to the house and trap it and then remove it. Yay for texas.

The eagle has landed...in Austin

Our move to Austin is almost done. We spent three days, well 2 and a half technically, on the road to Austin.

Day one, we drove from San Diego to Yuma. Not a bad drive. It only took about 3 hours.

Day two, we drove to El Paso. We were pretty surprised about the state of the city in El Paso. As you drive east on the 10 and you enter the city, right when you pass a large smoke stack on the south side of the 10, there appears to be what we can only describe as a shanty town. We didn't think there were shanty towns in America.

Day three, we made it to Austin after about 9 hours on the road. The geography you drive through changes a lot over those 9 hours. You start out in desert, then grassy plains, then rolling hills, then verdant hill country. But, at last we're in Austin.

Now, we've been hanging out in a hotel for the past couple of days. We actually got a pretty good deal at a La Quinta inn for only $80 with a AAA card. We're waiting for out furniture to show up now. We hope that it'll get here in the next couple of days.

There are a lot of things that we've noticed about our new city and I'll be posting about them in the coming days.