The January 2007 Ice Storm in Cedar Park, Texas shut down Austin and the surrounding area for three days. Monday was a holiday already (MLK Day), but Tuesday and Wednesday were Ethan's first "no school for bad weather days." William and I were also off of work and school for the weather. We also were lucky enough to get some snow in the mix. In the picture above Ethan is checking out the ice on the bushes.

We did not get much snow accumulation. If you look closely you can see the snowflakes.

Above are some examples of the big icicles hanging off the house. Ethan ate a few icicles, and we still have a big one in our freezer that we are saving.

Here is Ethan and his friend Zane as they head out to play in the little snow/ice that was accumulating. At one point, Zane's mom called and recounted a funny thing Ethan said. Zane's mom asked Ethan if we had a fireplace. Ethan responded "we do not have a fireplace, but we have a big warm dog." Ethan came home a bit later, and immediately started petting Holly to warm his hands.

We had a nice visit with my grandparents and Ethan's great grandparents Baevich in San Antonio over the Holidays this year. Ethan had fun opening the cool presents from his great grandparents and putting together his Lego Batmobile with the help of dad. After present opening, Ethan and dad headed outside to pick some delicious tangerines on G&G Baevich's tree (which they planted themselves). We brought a great big bag home with us and are germinating the seeds. Our little minerature pinscher "Ginger" loved grandma. I have never seen her so excited about one person before. Ginger kept running around the house and asking grandma to pick her up. It was very cute. We had a great dinner from a nearby mexican food restaurant and enjoyed catching up. It seemed Ethan was playing and not paying attention to the conversations, but he was listening. Every once in a while Ethan added a funny remark.

Part II Christmas in Corpus 2006 - While in Corpus Ethan had is first piano lesson from Grandma Gail. Ethan enjoyed learning about the piano. Aunt Claire was in Corpus as well, and Ethan and Aunt Claire played several challenging games of Othello. I am not sure who won, but to hear Ethan tell it he won every game! He is quite the competitor. We also played a few games of croquet in G&G Billy's back yard. Christmas morning Santa visited and left lots of presents for Ethan. This year Ethan got to use dad's stocking from when he was a kid. This was a real treat especially since "the stocking is huge." Everyone had fun opening presents on Christmas day including the dogs who got to open two wrapped presents each. It was a doggy christmas! Ethan loved his Christmas gifts, and we thank all of our family and friends for sending us gifts, cards, and well wishes for the Holiday season. Last but not least we celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary this year! To commerate our anniversary, I ordered us matching Dunder Mifflin Paper Company t-shirts! Those of you who watch "The Office on NBC" will know what I am talking about. Here we are. Happy New Year everyone - Love, Stephanie, William, and Ethan

Christmas in Corpus, Christi 2006 with Gail, Grandpa Billy, and Aunt Claire was lots of fun! This was the first Christmas in Gail and Grandpa Billy's new house. The had a beautiful 9 ft tree. While we were in Corpus, we went to the new addition of the art museum which was very beautiful and designed by an architect from Mexico. We also went to lunch at Water Street Oyster Bar - one of the Huie's famous haunts for oysters on the half shell. Ethan and I passed on the oysters, but still had lots of fun doing the word search on the kids menu. Ethan is really into world records these days, and during lunch he imagined a world record word seach that would cover the entire world and people would have one year to complete it. Here are some pictures of the museum (Ethan is using his new digital camera) and our lunch at Water Street. After lunch we all headed for a walk on the bay and to visit the replica of the Columbus ship the Nina on the T-Heads. Here is the gang by the ship and another picture of Ethan and me outside of the museum. While we were in Corpus we had the opportunity to go to the beach with Ginger and Holly one morning. We found a strech of beach with no one else around and let the dogs run loose. Ginger loves to run in the water and so does Holly. We all had a great time at the beach. This time Holly did not drink the salt water!! Ethan got to practice real golf (as opposed to mini golf) on the course behind G&G Billy's house. Ethan has a putter at the house and went out with mom and dad for some practice shots. Ethan did a great job, but mom was the real suprise - a perfect hole in one! We also took some time out to feed the ducks in the golf course pond. I am going to finish up the story of Christmas in Corpus 2006 in Part II - stay tuned.