After our trip to the coast the weeks and weekends have melded into a blur of activity. Between sickness, cleaning, traveling and working our time has disappeared.
Work has been busy for both of us. Leah has continued her superstar status at Green Mountain. She gets a lot of projects and completes them to everyone's satisfaction. I have a whole bunch of different things to do everyday. The pulling on my time by the special ed and science departments has been the toughest part to deal with.
The weekend after Surfside the rains started coming down heavily. Heavy enough in fact that the Greenbelt had some running water in it. Marie and Ryan joined Leah and I for a hike near the SW end Saturday afternoon. Running water is a rare occurrence here so it was refreshing to see and hear.
Sometime in mid-September I caught the plague and had to go to the hospital. I woke up on a Sunday morning and couldn't function. My fever was high and I was really achy with the chills. Perfect way to spend a Sunday. Leah made the decision that I wasn't going to work on Monday and so put in a sub request. I couldn't seem to get better and my fever came back after Leah broke it a couple of times. Then we went to the hospital. All the guy said was, "Yup, you're sick alright" My fever was 103 and my HR was 135. They did a flu test: negative. They did a chest x-ray: pneumonia negative. Then they thought it might be meningitis, I wasn't too excited about the prospects of that so I agreed to a SPINAL TAP: meningitis negative. Hmmmm, what did I have, nobody knows. After 11 hours with strong painkillers and no food I blacked out on the way out of the hospital. So they checked me back in and gave me a bunch of Powerade. After a couple of rough days all was well. This didn't happen until after we had completed a highly productive Saturday. We finally went to see the infamous bat colony under the Congress St. bridge. Our friend Jordan whom I met in TTF knows his way around the Austin attractions and was our tour guide for the evening. It was quite a sight to see over a million bats fly out at dusk to feed. Unfortunately neither of us remembered our cameras.
I think that was the weekend that Leah and I went for a tandem ride. A friend of mine from work's mother has a great road tandem that hasn't been used in a couple of years. We fixed it up and adjusted it for the two of us and took it for a ride. Unfortunately the weather was not great. Sunny and about 97deg. Not a great day for Leah's inaugural road ride in Austin, TX. I thought it was a blast. We went south for about 6-7 miles and then looped back. A short ride but plenty long for that kind of heat.
The first weekend in October was a long and sad one. Marie and I traveled back to Michigan to visit our Grandpa Harrison and our family. Grandpa's health had been deteriorating for a long time and things appeared to be coming to a front. Marie and I had a few great final conversations with him and spent some valuable time by his side. On Sunday afternoon we each gave him one last handshake and said, "goodbye", just like every time we had left eachother anywhere. And that was that. We had to get back to the airport for our return flight to Texas. Over the course of the following week Grandpa's condition deteriorated until the end on Thursday night. Thus ends the long life of a wonderful grandfather, father and husband. He is sorely missed by all who knew him.
This most recent weekend was an enjoyable one. Our longtime family friend Paul Lane drove up from a conference in San Antonio for a stay of about 20 hours. We met Marie and Ryan for dinner on Friday night. We went to The Eastside Cafe and the food was delicious. Saturday morning the three of us went for a long walk down to Town Lake and through Zilker Botanical Gardens. Afterwards we went out for brunch to a place called Z'Tejas ad again the food was tasty. We followed that up with a walk around the State Capitol grounds and then it was time for Mr. Lane to head back to San Antonio for his retrn flight to MI.
Today it is raining and about 58deg. Not exactly the weather that we signed up for when we moved but not bad either.
That is all the catching up that I have time for right now.
We hope that all is going well for you wherever you may be. Currently we are looking forward to a visit by Leah's parent's in a couple of weeks.
Until next time.
Love Jay and Leah
