After viewing an ad about lake front properties for sale in the Southwest Magazine for dirt cheap, Fernando decided that he wanted to check the area out for investment purposes. So we contacted a realtor and headed out to Corsicana, specifically the Richland Chambers Lake. It was a nice, up-and-coming vacation area located about an hour south of Dallas and 2.5 hrs north of Houston. However, we decided that now is not the time to buy vacation property–we don’t have a first house to live in, or a boat.

The best thing about Corsicana was the Russell Stover chocolate outlet. The store was huge and super cheap, with tons of chocolates and candies and Blue Bell ice cream. Unfortunately, we couldn’t indulge too much because it would have melted in the car while we played at Six Flags.

I had never been to a Six Flags before, so I was pretty excited to see what it was like, and was glad to hear that they have some huge roller coasters. However, I did get a little nervous when we drove up and I saw and heard the screams coming from the Titan. Fernando insisted that this coaster was weak in comparison to the one he rode in New Jersey last year, although he couldn’t wait to get on it. But I insisted that we take a warm up ride on something little before we attack the big one. However, I later regretted my decision after waiting 45 mins for a kiddie ride. Overall, Six Flags was fun. I thought it was a little crowded, but Ferd informed me that waiting 30-45 mins for a ride is actually not bad. After six rides and massive headaches, we decided to head to Dallas to BJ’s Brewery–the best Chicago deep dish pizzeria–and indulged ourselves in a delicious cookies and cream Pizookie.

The next day, we checked out the Texas state fair, which doubled as a car show. Highlights were the Nissan GT-R, the retro Dodge Challenger, and we checked out the Hyundai Genesis. The rest of the fair was pretty comparable to the Puyallup Fair in Washington, only cleaner and on a bigger scale. One of my favorite parts as always, was the food. We saw everything from deep fried latte’s to giant turkey legs. We settled on frozen chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick and gyro’s.

We didn’t get to see much of Dallas, but we did observe that is has a huge smog issue; the climate is wonderful with very little humidity; it has very nice roads and a good freeway system; it was not dry and brown like people said it would be, and the zoning was nice which kept the nice areas away from riff raff. Overall, we could see ourselves there in twenty years if/when Ferd manages to make it all the way to the corporate headquarters. :)

In case you’re worried about driving through flooded streets, maybe you should get yourself one of these.

Having just lived through Hurricane Ike, experienced no power, no water, gas lines, etc., one thing that I missed a lot was the ability to buy eggs. They were in very short supply during the first half of this week. I didn’t realize how many things that Diane and I cook require eggs. We couldn’t make pancakes, waffles, cookies, cake, brownie, etc. Fortunately, things are getting back to normal in our neck of the woods (many people, including my brother are still without power).

This morning, we were able to enjoy a delicious breakfast: buttermilk pancakes with a fried egg and a banana on the side. Yum!

Even though we have power and water back up, I wanted to get a little more of the hurricane aftermath experience. So, this morning I decided to go fill up my tank, which was half full. The line wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. It was only about 25 minutes. Grocery stores are starting to open up and for the most part, they’re pretty well stocked. I should be reporting to work tomorrow. I’ll be happy to get back to my work routine. Having all of this free time with nothing to do (in this city) isn’t terribly exciting. After all, you can only clean the apartment so many times, you can only play Wii for so long, etc.

[UPDATE Monday @ 10:24am CDT]

I just spoke with the property manager for our apartment complex. Apparently, we got our water restored Sunday afternoon. Power is still not on, but there is hope that it will come on in the near future. Power has been restored a few blocks away, so we’re hoping that it will come back sometime today. That said, our intentions are to return to Houston after lunch. We will stock up on dry goods here in Round Rock and go from there.

I’m happy to say that we survived the hurricane that rolled through Houston early this morning. Sometime between 1am and 2am we lost power and water. It made for a very hot night that was interrupted every couple of hours by noise or phone calls from concerned family members.

I’m sure everybody is aware of what has gone on. Just to give you an idea what we saw, there were several downed trees in our neighborhood. Our apartment complex lost a lot of trees because they were recently planted (in the last few months) and didn’t have a chance to grow a strong root system. The 288 freeway by our house was flooded. It looked more like a river than a freeway. Lots of streets around the area had fallen trees, stop lights, etc littering the roads.

Not wanting to spend the day/night w/o power and water, we decided to pack up and head to Austin, where Diane’s brother lives. It’s very nice to have electricity again and to be able to shower. :) Here are some pics from our drive around town this morning.

Our vaulted ceiling is leaking a little bit (we had to move the furniture)

Our courtyard suffered minor damaged. A few small trees fell down.

Downed trees next to our apartment complex

Hurricane aftermath

Exxon gas station

Downed tree by house

Armada of ambulances traveling to Houston

[Update 5:50pm CDT]

It’s been a pretty boring day since everything is closed. Our beautiful, sunny day is now more overcast and showing the signs of getting stormy. We have been playing lots of Excite Truck and Guitar Hero III. This afternoon, we drove around the Montrose area and looked at lots of condos. It was fun. :)

As of last night (Wednesday), I didn’t think that Ike would have much of an impact on Houston. Apparently, things have changed since last night and it’s supposed to roll this direction as a cat 3 hurricane. Rumor is that the zip code for Baytown (where I work) is under mandatory evacuation, so I should be leaving work early today and staying home tomorrow. I don’t think the impact will be too bad in Houston. We’ll have high winds (up to 100mph) and rain, but the impact will be much less than the coast. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. This storm’s been changing directions a lot, so nobody really knows what will go on. I’ll keep you posted with any details I have.

As I previously stated, we headed to Austin this past weekend to visit Diane’s brother. It was so much fun! I must say that I was surprised to see so much greenery during the whole drive. I didn’t mind it, though; it was beautiful. We spent Saturday shopping at San Marcos’s Prime and Tanger outlet malls. We tried to be prudent, but somehow we still spent a nice chunk of change. :O

Wanting to beat the heat, we all headed to the Guadalupe River for a nice float down the river. It was pretty wild keeping Josh and Trevor in their tubes. It was even funnier when we hitched a ride back in the Texas Tubes-sponsored bus. We had a bunch of drunk college-aged people yelling, screaming, and “singing.” Talk about a wake-up call for the boys. To top it off, we gorged ourselves at Rudy’s. If you haven’t eaten there, you definitely should. I personally love the lean brisket w/ BBQ sauce and creamed corn.

Hearing about the famous Austin bats, we headed over there Sunday evening. I think we arrived a little early because we really get to see much. Diane and I saw lots of bats swarming around the bridge columns, but we didn’t experience a countless number of bats flying out from underneath the Congress Ave bridge like we saw on the Travel Channel.

Since Hurricane Gustav turned into a lackluster hurricance (for Houstonians, at least), we had to return home on Monday. I was secretly hoping for another hurricane “vacation” day. However, we still had one more fun activity planned: Austin’s Park. It’s a family fun center that’s comparable to Boomers (in CA) or Trafalga (in UT).

Even with a 3-day weekend, time flew by so quickly. We didn’t even scratch the surface of things to do in Austin. We hope to make it back there on a semi-regular basis, especially since we have family there.

Sun Block. Does a body good.

Guadalupe River

State Capital

Where are the bats?!

Beautiful Sunset

Uncle “Fer Man Do”

Awaiting the bats

You want a piece of me?

Getting wet on the bumper boats

If you’ve been watching the news (which I really haven’t been in the last two days), Hurricane Gustav is making it’s way towards the Gulf Coast in the next couple of days. It so happened that we planned a mini-vacation in Austin this week. We’re spending it with Ryan and Suzette’s family; it’s been fun so far. We went shopping at the Prime/Tanger outlet malls and floated down the river next to Schillterbahn. Pictures will be posted once we get back to Houston. However, depending on where the storm moves, we might not be traveling back to Houston right away, especially if they have contraflow in place. We’ll keep you posted with anything we hear.

Hooray! We finally got the dvd of our wedding photos, so if you would like any 4×6′s let us know and we can print them off for you. We’ll look into seeing if we can make copies of the dvd. Click here to see the collection of photos.

If I were to buy something on a whim right now, it just might be this: a 2004 Porsche Cayenne S. With only 44K miles and a <$30K price tag, I’m sold. Having driven the Porsche Cayenne Turbo a few times, I definitely like the ride. It may not have the horsepower of a turbo, but it still has the look.

“Eventually, it all boils down to: Do I want a car, or do I want a Porsche?”

Yes, yes I do.