Downtown

Today was a incredibly long, busy, yet joy-filled day.


It began this morning at 10:00 (which is early for me...at least on a Saturday). First the Deuce, his friend from Midland named Philip (visiting for the weekend, but is considering a move here) and I helped Chris moved all his larger furniture and things to our new apartment.

I guess I haven't mentioned it here on the blog, but Chris, the Deuce and I are moving in together. There is a lot of intention behind this. I don't think any of us need a roommate situation, but in our smaller single room apartments we weren't able to be as generous people nor create the community enviroments that we want to be about. Hence the larger apartment. The complex we are moving into has a CARES team that attends our church, and we want to be the ying to their yang. The CARES couple, Adam and Lindsey, create community among the residents and model the Christian lifestyle.

So after moving Chris' things, the Deuce and I went and signed our part of the lease. Then while Philip checked out an apartment in the complex and submitted his application and deposit, the three of us began to move the Deuce's larger stuff.

We'll tackle my apartment next weekend, and hopefully be completely in by next Sunday.

After setting up the Deuce and Chris' bedrooms, I returned to my apartment to shower and get ready for a night on the town.

After numerous calls inviting everyone we knew (almost), our outing consisited of Philip, Chris, the Deuce and I, plus Kristi. Kristi is somewhat new to us, but she lives in our new apartment complex and recently attended our community group for the first time. Kristi is a teacher, and it was a blast to hang out with her and see and hear her humor. Plus she thought we were funny, which we all agree is about the only qualification we need in a friend.


We began our evening by having a great dinner at the Blue Star Brewery. The Blue Star is the art/brewery/restraunt/bike shop that sits in the King William district of San Antonio. The King William district has many of the more artsy establishments and old colonial type homes. Very cool place.

Back to the Brewery...We enjoy it for their amazing batch of rootbeer. Their beers are awesome too, but that rootbeer is out of this world. On their walls local artist display and sell their artwork. Check out the website for some of the artist who have been on display there. Another section of the Blue Star complex has a gallery and art studios. I'm curious if all the artist are associated with the complex.

While eating there was a couple seemingly on a date at the table next to us, against the wall. For no apparent reason during their dinner this fella pulls his leg up onto the chair. I don't know if this discription will do the scene justice, but I'll try. He had his foot flat on the chair with his knee bent and up around his shoulder. Are you getting the picture?...very strange huh? That's what we thought, especially on a nice date. We all agreed to try it out on our next date opportunities.

Also before we left, I took a photo of this guy. Talia, who spent some time in that magical make believe place called Canada, says she loves Canadian beards...their her favorite. I sent this picture to her via text messaging, to let her know what she missed by not hanging out with us tonight. On another side note...every male waiter and bartender in the restraunt had a full beard...it must be a requirement. The amazing feat is I've never had hair in my food there... so there you go.

After dinner we decided to work off dinner by walking around the Riverwalk. We parked near the Alamo. As we approached the Alamo, Chris pointed out to Philip (this being his first trip to the historic site) that "this is the backside of the Alamo." Always the helpful guide I told him that the correct terminology for it is "the Alamo's ass".

We then aimlessly walked up and down the Riverwalk, enjoying the sites, sounds and people. While walking Philip had me share with Kristi a story I told earlier in the day. Apparently it's his favorite story about me. He called it "the bird story". Here it is:

The summer after fifth grade coming home from church one Sunday afternoon, my dad parked the family van in the driveway. Suddenly he and my mom noticed a woodpecker in our backyard. They tried to point it out to everyone, but I had trouble seeing it. I couldn't figure out exactly which tree it was on, where on the tree and what the heck a woodpecker looked like if it didn't look like Woody Woodpecker. Both parents tried desperately for me to see, even trying to get me to look down my dad's arm as he pointed out the bird. Their desperation, in my mind, began to turn into frustration and anger. Finally I said, "oh I see it". Unfortunately the bird had flown off and I was caught in my lie. As punishment for lying I was grounded from playing baseball that summer. A punishment that was kind of a cop out plan of my parent's not to pay for baseball since we would be moving early in the summer to Germany...I think. They may have a different take on it all.

My friends laughed at me all night, saying that I have some of the most sad and pathetic stories ever.

We ended the night walking to Ruta Maya's coffee shop and each had a tea. I'm not much of hot tea drinker, and didn't drink all of mine tonight. Mainly because it was liquid magma with just a touch of lemon.

On the journey back to the Deuce's truck, we passed the Hall of Horns. A saloon/restraunt place that has over a thousand mounts of deer, buffalo, elk and just about every big game animal you could think of, including a mammoth (obviously a fake). However when the Deuce saw the mammoth he exclaimed, "Wow a mammoth."

All in all a great day.