Today, my alma mater, Auburn University, beat our arch rivals, University of Alabama for the 6th straight time. This one was at home in Auburn, and I'm sure that Toomer's Corner is draped in the white finery of victory: Toilet Paper. For those not acquainted with the tradition, following Auburn victories, the students go and "TP" Toomer's Corner, throwing thousands of rolls of paper into the branches. The stuff hangs there until the next big rain, when it drifts into the gutters or gets ground into the asphalt. All in all, mildly destructive, probably contributes to global warming, and is a grand tradition that has lasted for ages, and will for ages to come (or until Al Gore says nobody should do that anymore).
It's been a busy weekend. We had Thanksgiving dinner with our friends Ginny and David, and we just got back this afternoon from visiting Melody's cousin in Kobe. She and her husband have 16 month old twins who are just adorable, and as one can quite imagine, a handful. We took the Shinkansen the day after Thanksgiving to get there, and spent about a day and a half total with them. We really had a great time, and got to indulge in a bunch of Filipino food as well, something that's a real treat for us.
I just have to take a moment here to say how proud I am of Melody. When we first met, she took a short trip to New Orleans and brought a HUGE bag full of clothes she would wear, clothes she might wear, clothes that she knew she probably wouldn't wear, but looked cute, shoes, shoes, shoes, and more shoes, and an umbrella. Of course, I gave her a hard time about her packing for months. However, over the past 7 years, she's improved tremendously. We've done a lot of travel on holiday and work, and she's refined her skills to the point where, this time, she took one 25L backpack for three days. Half of it is still her applications and "girl" stuff, and I have no idea (nor the courage) to tackle that.
We also recently began and ended the process of buying a house. We'll be moving to Texas in the spring, and are trying to get a head start on getting a place to live. We found a great house that, as they say, looks great from afar, but was really far from great. We knew there were a few issues from the sellers documents, relating to storm damage to the roof that hadn't been repaired. What we were not encouraged to see after completion of the inspection, were the myriad other problems with the place. Foundation problems, insulation, termite damage, the aforementioned roof, leaks, electrical problems...it went on for 11 pages. After consulting with the experts (Mom and Dad), we decided not to continue the option, and backed out of it. So, the quest continues, and we're sure we'll find something eventually, and before we need to move in. It was a bit of a disappointment, though...we really did like the place. We just don't want to spend the next 3-4 years totally renovating it, as we most likely wouldn't be able to get what we put into it later on).
Anyhow, on into December we go...we have our Holiday Ball on Tuesday, a bit early due to an exercise going on, and I'll be doing some traveling up north of Tokyo for a few days. I'll be back in time for our anniversary though. At least I'd better be!
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