Six Flags, Fiesta Texas

On Sunday Jason and I went to Six Flags, Fiesta Texas.

It was fun to be there and not to be working :)

We mostly went on the rollarcoasters and then spent a little time at the waterpark.
Overall, I think I prefer the Six Flags in IL to this one, since it has more rollarcoasters.
Here is a picture of us in our swimming gear.

Grilling Improvisation

Jason here. It's been too long since I've done our blogging...

Well, it seems that they've closed the pool areas here. We had planned on grilling today, but no pool = no grill or at least no nice grilling and sitting area. Thus, we moved back to our apartment and were rewarded with the option of enjoying alternative beverages, that is, beer. Steak and beer are a marvelous combination. It's a wonderful way to spend dinner Saturday evening, or any evening for that matter. Chantal made a wonderful cheese sauce. She was excited that it didn't clump. It was delicious. (See below left.)

The next picture (below right) shows the latest beer I'm trying. I tried to go with the artistic shot here, I call it "Beer upfront, steak in the back." Maybe I can convince Chantal to do a meat-and-brew themed series in charcoal...

The beer is called Skinny Dip and comes from one of my favorite breweries in the world: New Belgium Brewery. It's a lighter beer with plenty of hops and a hint of lime. If you get some, do follow the on-bottle directions suggesting you drink it at slightly above refrigerator temperatures (45 deg. F). It's not as good as their Abbey though. Yum!

Chantal's dishing up the cheese sauce below. Thanks for teaching her how to make that ma! Anyway, enough about food. It was a good meal.

I've been trying to work on my thesis recently in my "spare time." You can see my first draft below along with some editing marks. (I'm hiding the bleeding red and blue pages.) It's going well. I'm actually decently enthused about working on it now. I think having a printout helps.

I don't think it will be long and it'll be done, so if you still are wanting to get your name in the acknowledgments section, there's still time. Drop me a line and I can hook you up!


Work has been going well. I'm going to miss it when I'm gone. I am excited about getting back to Illinois though. We miss our friends, our own place and familiar things. We're both really excited about going camping in a couple weeks though. It seems like it's been forever since we've been camping.

For those of you who have been wondering, we'll be back in Urbana on the weekend of August 18th, probably Sunday.

My South African Passport!

After nearly 10 months of waiting, I'm excited to announce that I just got my South African passport back! Check out a partial view of it on the right.

I was getting a little worried that it was 'lost in space' or my identity stolen, but now all is well.-Praise God!
I have been "passportless" for a long time, since I've also been waiting for my US passport to arrive(should be any day now) :)

Becky and Matt's Wedding in Grand Rapids, MI

This past weekend, we were blessed by flying to Grand Rapids, Michigan to attend J's cousin, Becky's wedding.

The bride was stunning with a beautiful glittery gown and it was great to share in their special day.

We were the guest book attendants...
We got to meet up with the Haas side of the family and had a wonderful time seeing people.
Here is a picture of Grandma Haas, Phil and Mary Lou, Mom and us(Dad is taking the picture).


Here are some pictures of us eating breakfast, shopping and at the wedding.
We went to Denny's for breakfast and I was VERY excited to be able to order one of my favorites; nachos with cheese, tomato, cilantro and peppers-of course salsa and sour cream too!


We also went exploring and had fun looking at cookware and going into a bulk food store-see J and I dueling...

Krispy Kreme...

Hello,

Yesterday, J and I caved in and went to Krispy Kreme.

We got to see how the doughnuts are made and each got to choose a couple.
We each had an original glazed and a kolaches(a spicy sausage, wrapped in cheese baked in dough-sorry for the spelling) and J also had a lemon filled one.

As you can tell, we take joy in the little things :)

More Rain

After I posted the last blog...it rained even harder...here is a picture of the rain collecting behind our apartments...it was crazy!

Rain...

Hello,
(***first, Craig became a US citizen today!! yea- feel free to send him your congratulations and check out some more pictures on his blog***)

As most of you know, it has been raining quite a bit lately here in Texas.
In general San Antonio has not been getting as much rain as other places, so don't worry, we are just fine.

It reminds me a great deal of the rainy season in South Africa, except that it will rain consistently for days at a time there.

Here it mostly gets hot, thunders, lightnings and then rains for a while and then clears back up again.

Here are a couple of pictures of the parking lot by us.
The water pools over the sidewalk and then runs around the back of our apartments and drains into a little stream.