It started off with my trip to Dallas to see my Brother, Sister (-in-law), and Niece for a weekend full of fun and family. We went to the park, to Downtown McKinney, to Downtown Dallas, and to a few other various places around town.

Once I got home, I adopted Brutus.

I took Red for many, many excursions around town.

I went camping in June, July, and September, each time at a different Illinois State Park.

I celebrated the birthdays of a few friends.

I went to Chicago a couple of times and Indianapolis once.

I helped J & J repaint the inside of their home.

I started rehearsing with the Philharmonic Chorale again.

Somewhere in there I found time to relandscape an area at the front of my house, but seriously only mowed the lawn about 6 times over the 3 months of summer.

This was probably one of the most exciting summers I’ve had in a REALLY long time, and I loved it. It was fun to be able to see so many friends and relatives in various places. However, I’m also glad that the majority of my travels have come to an end for a few months. There are a few day- and weeekend-trips planned, but nothing too major.

Along with being in town a bit more, I think I might have a bit more time to blog. I am going to try to blog once a week for a while, and then hopefully I can get back to a higher frequency.

This isn’t my child, but rather my neice. I put this together for my brother and dad for Father’s Day, but thought I’d share it in general. Isn’t she absolutely darling?!

I went to Dallas to visit with my brother and sister (-in-law) and had a GREAT time.

Okay, so it’s been waay too long since I started this post, and now I’ve forgotten some of the wonderful things that I was planning to share here. Anyway….

I flew into Dallas on the Friday before Memorial Day and immediately got to spend time with the cutie. My SIL and the Babe picked me up at the airport and took me to the Galleria mall. We moseyed around there for a while until my brother was able to wrap things up at work to meet us for dinner.

Dinner was at the Five Guys burger place there in the mall. I won’t pretend- Five Guys isn’t the most amazing burger, but it IS darn tasty.

After we ate, we made our way back to the car and headed home. We got to the homestead, put the Babe to bed, and, in true Braun fashion, talked into the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Saturday and Sunday were very laid-back, casual days. We went to the park to see the baby ducks, went out for dinner, and then rented a couple of movies to top-off Saturday night. On Sunday, we went to church and then went to my SIL’s brother’s home doe some delicious Puerto Rican fare. After some hood conversation, we went home and chatted a bit more before calling it a night.

Monday, being Memorial Day, we took our time getting ready and then went back to the park for a walk, to see the ducks again, and to enjoy the sunshine. Later in the day we went to a local driving range to practice the ol’ backswing and topped the might off with some wonderful grilled food.

If you haven’t caught on already, I really seem to eat some good food when I travel. (not that I’m complaining or anything….)

Tuesday and Wednesday were just as great, even though they weren’t holidays. On Tuesday, I accompanied the ladies to downtown Dallas to see some of the more historical/touristy sites. We drove through the plaza where JFK was assassinated and went to the north side of the convention center to see a massive sculpture garden of a cattle drive. I didn’t get any pictures of the JFK site, but I took a whole bunch of the life-sized bronze cattle. We then met my brother for lunch at a park near his office. After lunch, the ladies and I went to a different mall – one where they have valet parking at EVERY door and where they practically despise any vehicles that aren’t worth more than my house. Regardless of their dirty looks, we had a fun time shopping around in stores that we could never afford to actually patronize. There was some really great people-watching, though .

Tuesday night found us sharing dinner with the hilarious Mr. and Mrs. Whiteeyebrows at Scotty P’s Hamburgers. After more delicious burgers, we went back home and played Mao (a card game) with the W.E.s until the rooster was about ready to crow.

On Wednesday, the morning was full of my efforts to take as many pictures of the Babe as I possibly could. I think I ended up with about 180 or so for the first half of the day. We met my brother for lunch again at the same park, and the ladies and I went to Historic Downtown McKinney to browse the couture, antique, and trinket shops that line the street and town square. As was the day before, Wednesday was tons of fun and very relaxing. The Babe is an absolute delight to spend the day with, and her mother is incredibly fun, too.

Alas, the trip had to come to an end sometime, so after we finished browsing we ran home, grabbed my luggage, and raced to the airport so I could catch my flight home.

I had an absolutely wonderful time and look forward to the next chance I’ll have to hang with the Fam in Dallas.

Here are a few pictures for you:

First, the Babe:

Next, the Cattle Drive:

Then the Ducks:

And finally, the Egret:

We saw this dude CATCH and SWALLOW a fish, not even 10 feet away from us, while we were feeding the ducks. I have two pictures of the catch/eat, but they’re not really clear enough to show here.

Christmas has always  been family time for me. There have only been two Christmas days that I didn’t get to spend with my parents and most of my siblings. However, as we’ve all grown older, our “typical” celebration has evolved a bit. On Christmas Eve, we have a candle-lit lasagna dinner that my mom always pulls off impeccably. This meal is preceded and followed with chit-chat, laughter, games, and nacho dip. Us boys rally around the crock pot to prepare our post-lasagna feast with excitement and then settle in for the evening with a bag of chips and many bowls of dip. Christmas morning used to be VERY early, but now we casually have a delicious breakfast of Mom’s homemade biscuits and gravy and the most amazing cinamon rolls in the world. After we’re filled to the brim, we move on to the presents and more laughter/chit chat. The rest of Christmas day is very relaxed – if there are friends to visit, we split off to make our rounds; if there is extended family in town, they may stop by for a visit; otherwise, we just sit around in our PJs all day and do whatever the heck we want.

This year, for me at least, had a few new twists. While I would normally just spend the night at Mom and Dad’s on Christmas Eve, I decided to attend a Christmas Eve worship service with some friends, one of which was singing as part of the service. This program began at the early hour of 11pm and lasted until about midnight. While it was VERY different that the types of services that I normally attend, it was very neat to participate in that type of formal activity on Christmas Eve. Instead of just being lazy and having fun with my siblings, I was focusing on a different meaning of the holiday. But that wasn’t the part that was the most profound. Aside from my family, there are a handful of people that may as well be adopted into my family, as far as I’m concerned. But since they “have their own families”, or some other such nonsense, I don’t normally get to actually SHARE these holidays with them. Well, three of these folks were in attendance at this service, and I got to ring in the first few minutes of Christmas with them. I didn’t realize how much I would deeply enjoy that experience, and I would never have anticipated it, but I truly enjoyed being able to lean over to some of my closest friends and just say “Merry Christmas.” It was really special.

And while that was even a bit sappy for my taste, there was still one more heart-warming event that fits right in. First, some history: I have never really known my dad to have “friends”. He doesn’t “hang out” with anyone other than family, he doesn’t go to the ball games or bars or clubs, and, heck, he doesn’t even go out very frequently with Mom. He goes to work, wears himself out entirely, and then comes home and relaxes for the evening. This evening, though, his side of the family was over for our typical extended family feast, and then he all-of-a-sudden had to leave to “go pick up a friend”. But that’s all that was said as he walked out the door. About an hour later, well after the food had been consumed, I cornered Mom and asked her where Dad had really gone. She then quietly explained that Dad had received a phone call from an old friend from grade school who was having a tough time. He was recently released from jail, but had no place to go on the day after Christmas. He was in downtown Peoria and had nothing. At all. On the day after Christmas. So, without hesitation, Dad had left to go get this guy to bring him into OUR place for heat, warm food, and celebration. I was absolutely impressed at the way that Dad brought the guy into his home, introduced him to everyone, fixed him a plate of food, and then made absolutely certain that the guy felt welcome and loved by all. I’ve never, ever, witnessed that type of outreach, and it has really left an impression on me.

Now that I’ve rambled on and on waaay more than intended, I’ll stop. But, I’ll always remember how much better Christmas is when it is shared. I’ve always made it a point to spend it with family, but, while I don’t want that part to change, I want to be sure to share it with as many people as possible. I have been given SOO much and have enjoyed that for myself – it’s my turn to share.

Moms asked me to whip up an electronic party invitation for the annual family Christmas gathering back at the homestead. I didn’t really think too much about it, but I was willing to lend a hand. I’ve played around in Photoshop enough to be comfortable with the tools that it offers, so I sat down this evening (at Buffalo Wild Wings, no less) and cranked out a simple invite. I don’t think I spent any more than 30 minutes on it at the very most – it was probably more like 20 or so – but I was content enough with it to send over to Moms for her to review.

I haven’t spoken to her directly yet, but she replied with an email that implies that she was quite astonished with the quality of the work. But again, I really didn’t put much effort into it AT ALL. I thought it looked pretty nice, but nothing too special.

Here’s the image, in case you’re curious to judge for yourself:

When I do stuff like this, it makes me want to spend more time on them, tweaking and touching them up until they’re perfect. I just wish there was more time in the day for perfection.

Oh, and for the record, I can’t actually invite all of you… so you can’t take this post as an open invitation for all to join us. Maybe next year…

UPDATE: The blatant spelling error was driving me nuts, so I fixed it and replaced the image.

Ain’t she CUTE?!

Snuggling with Grandpaw

Completely knocked-out with Grandmaw

Chillin’ out with Uncle J-dub

Sleeping nicely for me

Deep in thought, or so it appears

Grandpaw put her in the sleeper-hold. It actually worked, too!

The proud parentals, sporting the first member of the next generation of my family

Okay, so there is more to it than that. I used to work for a company called Cobatco, located in Peoria, IL. My two younger brothers worked there at the time, too, and one of them is actually working there again (for the third time, to be exact). This is a mom-and-pop waffle iron factory, and they also sell waffle batter mix to go along with their machines. Their main customers are restaurant chains – Bob Evans, Country Kitchen, Huddle House, and Dairy Queen (for waffle cones) – and Bruster’s happens to be one as well.

I had never before seen a Bruster’s, but I recall many trips on the fork-lift to retrieve pallets of the Bruster’s Waffle Cone mix. So when I saw one tonight, I knew I had to stop in for a taste. (Thanks, Andrew, for verifying that Bruster’s really was one of the Cobatco joints – I wasn’t positive when I first drove by.)

I walked up to the window, still feeling bloated from so much barbeque, and frankly admitted that I had never been to a Bruster’s before. I chatted with the guy that was working the window, and asked for recommendations. He suggested some sort of chocolately-chocolate death trap, which was chocolate ice cream and ANY other topping that had the word chocolate in it: chocolate chips, chocolate-covered peanuts, chocolate-covered strawberries, chocolate-peanut butter cups, and I’m sure there was more.

As we were talking about chocolatey goodness, I glanced over the guys shoulder and noticed the waffle iron. It looked suspiciously like a Cobatco machine, so I asked him to verify. Once he confirmed that it was from the mecca of waffle cone makers, I was sold. I asked for a double-dip in a waffle bowl – one dip of the chocolate madness and one of their mint chip. Somehow he thought I was a starving kid in Africa or something, ’cause this is what I got (for the price of a single-dip, no less ):

Seriously. I don’t think it was any less than a triple scoop, ’cause I could count at LEAST 6 disticnt scoops of ice cream in the dish. It was gianormous. And delicious. Their ice cream is made fresh each morning, and it was totally tasty. In fact, I ate the whole thing.

And, now that I feel like I’m going to explode, I’m going to continue to lie here on the bed until the sugar buzz wears off and I pass out from a chocolate overdose. When do I get to come back here?!

We left on Friday morning, and quickly jumped onto the interstate for the ride down. While the rest of the car was chatting and having a grand ol’ time, I was trying to work on a project for my job, which wasn’t as productive as I had hoped for.

As we worked our way through Missouri, we stopped in Springfield to meet one of my dad’s brothers and his wife for lunch. We had a nice, but brief, visit with them at the Golden Corral, and then got back in the car to knock out the rest of the drive.

Somewhere around 11pm, we finally pulled up in front of my brother’s house and it wasn’t a moment too soon. I’m definitely not a huge fan of such long drives… My sister-in-law had a bunch of family in town, too, so she and the baby were over visiting with them for a while after we arrived. We, of course, waited for her to get home so we could see the baby that night, and our excitement provided sufficient energy to keep us up well past 1:30am after the ladies returned home. We passed my niece around the room, and finally called it a night.

We all slept WAY in on Saturday morning, but then got up and made some breakfast, and continued to pass the baby around . What ELSE are you supposed to do in that situation?

For the remainder of Saturday, we really just enjoyed each other’s company and hung out. I became the official driver, so I drove around to various places and eventually took my mom and sister to a mall for some gift shopping. i don’t really think that this mall was anything special to the locals, but it was 100 times better than anything we have near my own home. It was a more traditional mall, whith all of the storefronts on the IN-side, but it had such a good variety of stores that it put most malls to shame. I’m not a huge fan of shopping malls, but I AM a fan of this one.

My dining habits were not the most consistent; for example, at 10pm on Saturday, I took one of my brothers with me to get a burrito from Chipotle and a burger from Whataburger. Why? Well, ’cause I wanted both and didn’t want to compromise. I may not have mentioned this previously, but I’m a complete Chipotle addict, and this visit was just as amazing as any other. As for Whataburger, it was my first visit/taste, and it is definitely something that I’ll have again if I can. It wasn’t the most amazing burger in the world, but it was definitely tasty and well-worth the trip.

Sunday was a very lazy morning. We needed to be at church at about 1pm, but we were all up by 7:30 or so. We lounged about, passed the kid around, and talked and laughed with each other. At church, we were joined by my sister-in-law’s family and a few of their friends. Most notably, the amazing, funny, and amazingLY funny WhiteEyebrows was present. (Yes, that was a shameless shout-out.) After church, the whole clan raced over to my brother’s home for a late lunch. Unfortunately, though, WhiteEyebrows wasn’t able to join us… and he was missed by all. (Wow – a shout-out and a brown-nose all in the same paragraph )

We definitely enjoyed the company of the other family. They are a fun, lively group, and they are totally friendly. Good times, good times! After things settled down again, we got back into the ritual of passing the baby around, and that lasted for the rest of the evening (and actually into the wee hours of the morning).

Monday morning really just consisted of us getting ready to leave. My brother got up and cooked breakfast and my sister-in-law got the baby up for us to pass around once more. We got the van all loaded up, and we were off. It was so nice to visit, and we’ll be back down there as soon as we possibly can!

NOTE: I’ll post a few pictures of the baby when I get a chance… we probably have a hundred of ‘em!

I’ll post more pictures as I get them so you’ll all be up to speed on her crazy-fast growth.