Departmental Picnics

Hurray Free Food! :-) Two weeks ago...I know I know...we've been slackers in updating the blog, but we are working on it...we had our departmental picnics. The History department held theirs at Cameron Park, a neat little park that goes along both sides of the river. It's really pretty, except the river is basically dry right now, so it was kind of ugly at the time. Our friend Ann lives right on the river, and her view that used to be gorgeous must now be quite 'special' to look at. Rivers are supposed to be pretty! But...the park is very nice, although everyone tells you not to go at night...and I trust them on that one. Apparently, it's not safe...and I can see how the park could become creepy. The picnic was nice though, a little get together with undergrads, grads, and professors. There is nothing quite like grilled hotdogs...mmm...mmm...mmmm. And then cookies to top it off! It was nice meeting James' professors, so I could put a name to the faces, and they seemed nice. The one professor made a joke about the political science department, and then he realized I was in it, and he was like, aww...I shouldn't have said that. But...I thought it was a super funny joke...and true at that! :-) Ha! And then he tried to make up for it by talking about the good people in the department, especially one guy, whose name I will not mention. It's sooooo funny...because that is the one professor I was really upset with all week, because he called me out in class for having the worst paper. Blah! But...it was amusing nonetheless! :-) And then we met this awesome undergrad who transferred from Auburn his junior year! We were like…why are you here, and he was like to us…why are you here? It was amusing, and I wish we’d gotten his information so we could hang out! The polisci picnic was at the house of the Nichols, two very sweet professors whom I actually came here to study under. I never see them because I don't have any classes with them, and my assistantship is outside of the department. They have a very nice house, but the picnic was kind of weird, because the department went off in their clicks like they always do. Thankfully Robin and her husband were there, and they are soooo cool! I don't know why we didn't hang out with them more before! :-)

Baylor's Bear Trail

Baylor was recently voted one of the fittest colleges in America, probably because there is nothing else to do here except for work out. Every single time we go by campus, everyone is always running on the Bear Trail, so we decided to check it out on Friday night, with AJ. AJ loves to go walking, and he was super excited to be in a new place. We have a little trail that goes all around the apartment complex that he loves, but the bear trail had all sorts of new smells. First of all, the Bear trail is NOTHING like the huckleberry trail, to our disappointment. Part of it is an actual trail, but over 3/4 of it is just sidewalks, and you don't really know where the trail goes, because there are no signs. And then, for a lot of it, there isn’t even sidewalk…it’s like…I’m on grass, and I guess this is a trail. I was like...this isn't really a trail...it's just people running on sidewalks. But, whatever, AJ still enjoyed it. And...we diverged from the trail and let him explore the fake stream by the newest building on campus.It is really cool...and it's probably my favorite part of the campus! :-) AJ actually really enjoys the water, which is funny, because Spanky and Lizzie hate it! Tony called while we were on our walk and was complaining that he was freezing in Connecticut, and we laughed at him and said that it was about 75 out...and it was night time! :-) The weather has been really dry here, though, and the river has basically dried up, as well as the marina. I couldn't believe the marina though...I mean...there is NO water left! And when I say no water...like...literally no water.

The Towers of Mordor?!

The ALICO building in downtown Waco is the tallest structure to survive the F5 tornado of 1953. Seeing as no one bothered to rebuild after the tornado, the tower-like building rises above the plain and is seen virtually everywhere in Waco. You can be walking through campus, look up and instead of seeing the eerie green light of Pat Neff Hall, you see the ALICO tower a few blocks away. It really reminds us of the EYE in the Lord of the Rings movies, situated at the top of a tower and sees all. What is more moving is the fact that on top of the ALICO building is a "sky cam" which the local news uses to show the weather (which is, by the way, always hot and dry.) This sky cam can zoom in on minute details, such as car license plates and the such. So there is an all seeing eye at the top of the ALICO building, much like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Mordor.

Our lil football player!

AJ keeps getting cuter and cuter by the day! He's definately a football fan, and we expect him to play when he grows up. We leave ESPN on for him while we are gone, so he is learning the rules of the game. We are awaiting a VT collar for him...he's sooooo cute! He loves the football...we are looking for a football dog toy for him, so we can really play! He even tackles!

Tailgate Fever!!! or not.

This weekend we decided to tailgate before the Baylor-Kansas State game. Baylor actually won the game, and it ended up being the first time Baylor has EVER beaten Kansas State... so Go Bears! In any case, in comparison to Tech, Baylor does not have much of a tailgate culture. Perhaps this is due to the Baptist prohibition on drinking... which creates a docile crowd. In any case, we smuggled our drinks to the tailgate, and used Marly's small grill to heat up some good hot dogs and hamburgers. Ann made this great bean dip for our texas shaped chips as well. We were one group of about 10 who tailgated, but there is hope we believe. In any case, there were about 20,000 people at the game, which was very boring. Kansas State has the worst offense I have witnessed since traveling to the Duke game last year. Hence, all Baylor had to do was make a field goal and they were in the clear. In any case, we left at halftime to pursue other interests, like real football on TV. We wish we could have been in Lane on Saturday to see Glennon through 53 passes. What the heck, 53 passes!? 339 yards passing, I bet his arm hurt after that. So Go Glennon! and boo on our secondary... we miss Jimmy Williams... in any case I love J-Dub for his hand waving tactics and BRUTAL hits. So after the game we ended up at this "cultural" fair in down town waco, which was sad. It involved fast food and white grunge rock. We moved to Waco, we want to see Mexican stuff!!! Enough with stereotypes... Baylor is really not a good school.
Angela: Despite the game being super boring, our tailgate was alot of fun! :-) We parked in the grass along the creek, which we later found out we had to pay an extra ten dollars to park there and tailgate. We were like...oh...we do? And the guy was really nice and said that this time we could park there. No wonder no one tailgates here....it costs $20!! Blah! And then like....40 minutes later another lady came and said we didn't have a pass to park there, and it was okay this time, because “tailgating is fun,” but next time we'd have to pay extra. Ann made an amazing bean dip, and we did an awesome job grilling our hotdogs and hamburgers without any tongs...or anything to turn them or get them off. It was a success...and although we only stayed for one quarter of the game...because...it really was that boring, we still had a fun time! :-)

Fall awesomeness!!!! Without the fall...:'(

One of the best things here....ICECREAM! Bluebell....officially the BEST! But...HEB brand....definitely amazing as well! Because we are so used to celebrating the fall...with beautiful leaves changing, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, caramel apples, and warm apple cider, we have been going crazy here without the fall!!! Alas...it is fall, but without the fall. It's still in the 90s here, and the grass is just now turning green! So...to make up for it....FALL icecream from HEB! :-D

Greek and outside entertainment!

Although we spend most of our time working on our assistantships, reading super boring journal articles, writing, and studying, James and I always find time to have a little bit of fun. Friday afternoon, we traveled to the Czech town of West in West, Texas, with our history comrades. Yianni's, "The Best Little Greek Restaurant in Texas," was well worth the drive, but really, Baklava always tends to be worth the drive! I enjoyed moussakka, a meat, cheese, zucchini, and eggplant dish that was amazing, and James had a mixed plate of all sorts of things, which I ended up tasting all of them! :-) It's a cute little restaurant that on the inside reminds you more of a country cooking type of place than a Greek restaurant. A funny slogan: "Yianni's is Zeus' favorite & Aphrodite's true love!" It must be true since we traveled from Waco to West to enjoy the tastiness! After dinner, we ventured on over to Common Grounds, the only cute little coffee shop close to campus. It has so much personality and is always busy, it makes you wonder why no one else has opened another one. But then we remember that we are in Waco where things never make any sense, and do not follow the normal rules of life. Ann had friends from college on tour who were playing at Common Grounds, so we went to see them perform. I must say that they were awesome! :-) You should definitely check out Nathan Angelo and Micah Dalton. If you would like to hear their music, I'll burn you a copy of the CD! Ann, Marly, and I each bought a CD, and then we made copies for each other! :-D They were all so good it was hard to decide which ones to buy. But, I must say that Micah Dalton was my favorite, and I've been listening to his CD's all weekend! It was such an awesome setup for a concert, but once again, the Baylor crowd disappointed me. Here they had an awesome setting, and awesome musicians, yet they paid no attention, didn't get into the music, and were more concerned with taking pictures of themselves and holding their conversations than they were the music and atmosphere. I was sooo disappointed, and felt bad for Nathan and Micah! I mean, really, why would you pay to go to a concert you weren't going to enjoy? James and I really enjoyed it! It was so good to be around live music again!