Ella and Francisco

This year was our first set of holidays as a married unit. We spent them in Austin creating some new traditions as a family. For Christmas we bought some tree ornaments at Tesoros, a fun store that sells decorations from Mexico and Central and South America. We also purchased a small Christmas tree, which we named Stampy, after our favorite pet on the Simpsons. Naming the tree had some repercussions. We became too attached to the tree and when it came time to recycle it, well, let’s just say it’s hard to give up a friend to the city’s mulching service. Below we have a few pictures of us and our first tree (in memoriam), and pictures of New Year’s Eve at our friend John’s house. The New Year’s Eve pictures get progressively spectral (i.e. blurry) as the night wears on.

By the way, you may have noticed our sassy personalized aprons. They are our lovely engagement gifts from Gloria and Tony. The aprons help us remember who is who.

Ella and I had a great time in Honolulu and in Kauai during our honeymoon. We took in many great sights and really enjoyed surfing. On one of the nights we decided to attend the luau at our resort, this being my first time to Hawaii. The food was great and the entertainment was fun. However, we seemed to catch the fire juggler on a bad night. The clip below is from my tiny camera’s movie mode. It’s not the best quality but it seemed to catch every moment of the fire juggler’s struggles. Click the link below to view the video.

Fire Juggler

I just uploaded the wedding web site. It’s relocated at www.ellaandfrancisco.com/wedding/

You can find the links to everyone’s wedding photos at www.ellaandfrancisco.com/wedding/photos.htm

The link is also located in the list on the front page of this blog.

Austin has been experiencing a very warm winter this year with temperatures in the 70s and 80s and no precipitation. So we decided to go skiing last weekend to get reacquainted with winter. Ella’s friends Ellen and Brian from San Francisco organized a large posse of skiers and rented a beautiful house located right on Main Street in Breckenridge, CO. The place had a full kitchen, multiple fireplaces, and great bedrooms with lots of blankets. Oh, and an outside hot tub complete with a very chilly run from the front door.

In one day Ella went from learning to stand on her skis to going down the green runs on her own. I enjoyed exploring my limits as I tried ever-increasing difficult runs, stopping just shy of hills that looked more like cliffs. I also managed to drop a glove from the chairlift which I recovered by taking note of the surrounding landmarks (thank you Minnesota YMCA summer camp!). On the third night we had dinner with Nicole and Ryan (from Austin) at the Breckenridge Brewery. So-so food but good beer!

Thanks to John, Tony and Gloria, Belle, KJ, and Cheng for lending us their coats and gloves and other ski wear items. If you want see what your stuff looks like on our bodies, and I know you do, take a peek at the photos:

Thanks to Katy and Mike for the gift certificate to Fonda de San Miguel. They wanted us to re-visit the site of where we were engaged, and a year after the fact, we did! On December 17, 2005 we had a delicious dinner with a lot less stress and fanfare, but great new memories. We marveled that so much took place in one year. We also ran into Jeff the Waiter as he was getting ready to close down his tables at the end of the night. He had a worried look on his face when we approached him until we reminded him of the role he played on our big night. I learned never to address people I barely know by their first name while they’re concentrating on cleaning silverware. Enjoy the photos below of our return to one of our treasured places in Austin:

This is the first post to our new family blog. We thought this would be a great way to share our events and photos with family and friends. We hope this makes those that are far from us feel closer. Send us some photos or anectdotes if you’d like us to add them.

We will be adding a link to our former wedding web site in case anyone wants to see it again. We plan on going back to it every now and then to remind ourselves of what a great time we had!