Happy Birthday, Husband!

Ok, I have a lot to catch you guys up on, and who KNOWS how long it'll take me to do that, so let's just start with the most recent stuff: this weekend! Sunday was Oliver's birthday, so we decided to put aside most work-related things we knew we should do, and just enjoyed the weekend for the most part. As usual, we were exhausted on Friday night (these 60 hour work weeks make us tired!) so I don't have much to report there, but on Saturday we made a delectable brunch that included a special treat for Oliver: raisin scones and clotted cream (we are privy to The Devon Cream Company's English Clotted Cream). If you haven't slathered a scone with clotted cream and jam, you're missing out. I was introduced to it when I lived in England, and Oliver fell in love when we celebrated mother's day at Lady Mendl's Tea Salon a few years ago. Go have some; one little ounce will fulfill your daily requirement of saturated fat, so you don't have to worry about that! Whew!

Back in December, Oliver's parents gave us some old birdfeeders they weren't using any more and Oliver has been looking forward to refinishing or painting them ever since. This was the weekend! He decided to spruce up the yard with a bright red paint while I sat around in my bikini taking photos.

The birdcages:


Oliver does a light scuffing with sand paper blocks:


After laying out a plastic garbage bag, he got to spraying:


After letting them dry for about thirty minutes, he flipped them and painted the other sides:


We let them dry outside overnight, then filled them up with birdseed this morning before hanging them up:



After another yummy home-made brunch, we made our first visit to the Barton Springs Pool, a three-acre spring-fed pool in Zilker Park, framed by century-old pecan trees. A destination for Austinites and tourists alike, we decided we had to see for ourselves what the hubbub was about. We loved it! The water is clear and COLD (68 degrees year-round), which makes it incredibly refreshing, especially for 100-degree days like we've been having (which, by the way, we are LOVING. For real!). We set up camp near the diving board and watched some pretty impressive moves on breaks from our own dips into the water. We didn't take our own photos, but you can get a feel for it's inherent beauty from these photos:



Not bad, eh? After a couple of hours of sun, we headed home to get ready for a celebratory dinner at Austin's finest (and rare nationally recognized) restaurant, Uchi. We samples all kinds of delectable plates and were thoughtfully treated to a creative dessert in honor of Oliver's birthday. Here we are, feeling very satiated after dinner:

There's the birthday boy looking debonair in his no-socks-with-dress-shoes get up – very sartorialist – with newly-minted birdfeeder in the foreground:

The deck isn't looking all that debonair, but what can you do? We have a deck and that's good enough for us!

Thus ends one of our most luxurious and enjoyable weekends of late!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clotted_cream