A Galvin Hunting We Will Go

  

On our most recent adventure, we heeded the call of the Galvins' (as well as the Ryans') ancestral homeland across the Celtic Sea to the to seek out our closest known relative in the tiny town of Kenmare. We had no trouble immersing ourselves in the land of our ancestors, although actually tracking down a Galvin became akin to trying to spy a leprechaun: everyone claimed to have seen one and there was evidence of their presence but none could be produced upon request.

One of our kinsman's buses just passing by...

Despite our inability to pin down a local relation, we quickly felt a connection to pint-sized Kenmare. Although the town itself only has a half-dozen streets and just a few shops, it seems to have as many pubs as residents, banishing any doubt as to whether we had landed in the right place.

We have no doubt that we will return one day, hopefully with additional familial reinforcements to track down our wily kin.

Searching high & low

...leaving no stone uncovered

Cool-o-rado

A primary motivator for our recent global excursions was to celebrate Unkie Chad aka Chutch Migillicutty aka DJ Chimichanga's recent mastery of business administration. To Boulder we went and convened with some of Chad's biggest fans. While getting in some family QT, were also able hit the slopes, indulge in Colorado's finest brews, make sure the local fish weren't getting too comfortable in their ponds, and treat local diners and hotel guests to the joys of an 8 month old's jet lag. 

Victory over an elusive foe

Super shredder Chad pictured behind the gapers

Rare sleeping moment

Much more common awake moment

Although the trip was way too short, we left confident that Colorado was in good hands with a master administrator (and musical styler) in its midst.

Bouncing Round the Global Room

Apologies for the radio silence! Nevertheless, 4 flights, 18 days, 10,295 miles, 14 family visits, one graduation, one wedding, one dead duck, and many new grey hairs later, we have arrived back in London and blogging will resume! So stay tuned for updates and the most recent adventures of the Texpatriate clan.

Biblical Baptism

Confession: up until this point, Dillon had never been baptized. Although he received a blessing at Christmas mass, we hadn't gone through the traditional baptismal ritual to welcome him into the fold. I started feeling a bit remiss about the whole thing as I viewed the seemly endless stream of friends celebrating their newborns in hilarious ancient baptismal costumes with their families.  At the same time, I wanted the event to be special, rather than an impersonal arrangement with strangers at a London church I would probably never attend. So nothing ever happened... until this past Easter weekend when we just happened to drive by the site on the river Jordan where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. 

Whatever your beliefs or current involvement in the church might be, the site has a way of making you feel connected to a major religious milestone that occurred on these same river banks over 2000 years ago. So it was in the river Jordan, witnessed by godparents-in-waiting Michelle and Joseph, that Dillon was properly welcomed to this world and the next.  So now the only challenge remaining is how we are possibly going to match this with kid #2....

Jordanian Journey

Because we like to do things differently, we spent our first Easter as a family in a Muslim country (nevertheless, we actually managed to squeeze in a pretty special religious moment on the trip--more on that here). Visiting Michelle and Joseph in Amman, Jordan allowed us to explore a corner of the world to which we might not have otherwise ventured. After 32 years of friendship with Michelle and many previous trips under my belt, I had an idea that this probably would be a fun-filled whirlwind of a trip.
How an 8 month old would deal with this much excitement was the only mystery to be solved as Joseph had planned out an impressive 5 day tour of the country's highlights.

Awake after a very brief nap. Only 3:54 to go...

Luckily, Dillon rose to the challenge and was quickly nominated MVP for his ability to charm everyone in sight, obtain early hotel check ins and withstand the occasionally non-baby friendly portions of the trip (aka planes, multi-hour hikes, skipped nap times, etc.).







Here are a few photo highlights of the trip:

Our hosts' pad in Amman

Soaking in the Dead Sea's therapeutic mud 

Best buds

Camel Country

Guyz n Style

Not pictured highlights:

• The time when Michelle flagged down a random driver blaring Tupac to give us a ride. After the end o the jam, he inquired if we also liked Michael Buble and proceeded to blast those beats without noticing the slight inconsistency in his musical tastes.
• The time when we almost ran out of gas in the desert and stopped at a fire station for directions. Almost 20 firemen poured out of the building to help, bearing freshly baked treats and offering to siphon gas out of their personal cars. 
• When our personal dance party got so extreme we broke a bench which we then tried to blame on faulty construction

Overall....a trip of a lifetime with great memories and photos to match.

Memorable Mum's Day

March 31st (oh, sorry... 31 March) was Mum's Day in the UK and I thought I would share this lovely note I received "from" my darling son:

Mummy, 

You are the bee's knees!  Ace in every way and I appreciate all that you do for me each day.  I truly fancy the various schemes and bits & bobs you use to keep me prim and proper and away from all things dodgy. I can see that I often leave you knockered (zonked, really) and driven out on the piss. Me being the full can of beans that I am, its no surprise you have lost all those zeds. And lets not waffle, I become a rather pernickity lil' chap when I get buggered! But although I can be a ripe pain in your arse, you simply must know that I love you and am wonderfully chuffed to bits to have you as me mum!

Dillon

PS- Zambezi says "How are you"

Quite the British lad already, isn't he?

Joie de Vivre

For our first international excursion, we felt we had to head to the City of Lights. Armed with two additional helpers, Eurostar tickets and what we felt was the bare minimum amount of baby gear, we hit the road....er, tracks.

The journey from London to Paris takes just over two hours by train, with the highlight being the passage through the famed "chunnel."  Unfortunately, we were so excited about the existence of the bar car, that we didn't even notice the passage through the chunnel on the outbound voyage.  A bit anti-climatic but we were unphased.

We arrived into Paris on a beautiful spring day and were able to perceive an apparent difference in work ethic between Londoners and their Gallic cousins.  The parks were packed almost to capacity with people of all ages doing nothing other than sitting in chairs facing the sun.  On a Thursday. At 2 pm.  Clearly this was not a city where something as trivial as a traditional work day would get in the way of  excellent weather.

We quickly caught on to the local mentality and bought a bottle of Bordeaux for our sunset stroll around the Eiffel Tower (luckily no one in the group had any interest in waiting in a seemingly interminable line to actually go up into the tower).

For the next two days, we spent our time strolling around the city, eating and drinking well, and doing our best to get the Parisians to understand our incredibly basic French (i.e. about 7 words).  

I could tell you all of the wonderful things we ate, saw, and drank on our trip, but lets be honest--it would be better if you just booked a trip yourself. Overall, it was a great start to our, hopefully, many Eurotrips to come and gave us a taste of the famed joie de vivre just south of our new border. 

Just one instance of a member of the group witnessed skipping in delight

Getting the Gang Back Together

That's right- our final family member has arrived! After a few weeks of hanging out with his best bud Ted, Zambezi took his first plane ride over the pond to join us here in London.  Happy reunions all around...

Luckily, Zambezi seems to have settled into his new lifestyle quite quickly.  He loves the weather, long walks in the park, and meeting all of the proper English hounds.  If only we could figure out how to get him to drag the stroller up our four flights of stairs, he would be a candidate for the Texpatriate of the Month award.

3 decades down, many more to go...

As promised, I have a few more pictures to share from the wonderful weekend that was my 30th birthday celebration....

With lots of friends and family to help celebrate, we had....

a cake graciously transported to Austin by Carol, commemorating my extreme nerdiness,



a strong, worthy opponent of a pinata...



and a day at the lake with more than a few beers to keep the good times flowing.
(Note the "shotgun" master preparing to blow me out of the water with his skills)

All in all, it was a great weekend that not only left me feeling more than a little bit loved by those around me, but also confident in the good times to come in the next few decades...

30 and still Keeping it Weird

That's right, this past weekend, I reached the big 3-0.  To celebrate, we headed to Austin for some fun in the sun and good times with the fam.  Turns out I am so popular that our usual crash pad (aka Kelly's house) was packed to the brim with out-of-town guests.  No worries on that front, as Jared had booked us a room at one of Austin's quirkiest institutions, the Austin Motel, smack dab in the middle of South Congress:



The infamously-shaped logo

Unusual signage to keep the guests in check

Although some rooms at the hotel allow pets, ours unfortunately did not.  Lucky for Zambezi, there was plenty of dog-action going on at Kelly's house, although I think that he might have been missing the luxuries of our apartment's central air conditioning as this is where he hung out for most of the visit:

Although the weekend was full of surprises and gifts for yours truly (another post to come), not having to do the 6am bathroom run with our little bundle of joy turned out to be one of the best presents of all...

Crazy Cousin Ted

Everyone's got one (or in my case many): that crazy cousin that rolls in, hypes you up, drags you around, and leaves you exhausted from the non-stop party that was their weekend visit.  In lil Zambezi Ndeble Xhosa Nowitski Dralvin's (who you can just call Zambezi or Lil Beez) case, it is cousin Ted, a six month old, 60 lb black mouth cur looking to assert his dominance.  The video below is a sample of how things went down for 48 hours straight:

Looks exhausting, doesn't it?  Well I can tell you it was.  Between waking up at 6 am, trying to give the neighbors some relief from the high-pitched yipping from Zambezi, cleaning up all the inevitable "accidents"of a tiny bladder, and reassuring Ted that he was not on constant guard duty, Kelly and I were completely exhausted come Sunday morning.  Luckily, so were Zambezi and Ted, who are still sleeping off some of the weekend's excitement.

Faithful Hound

Meet the newest Texpatriate!  Although his name is still in testing phase, he is definitely already a part of the family. A great pyrenees/blue heeler mix with a noted oral fixation and fear of his reflection, this lil guy has already increased our sense of responsibility and "parenting" anxiety by 1000% in just a few days time.

On the his first night, we broke out a wine we had been saving for the occasion, "The Faithful Hound" by South African producer Mulderbosch.   Rated 4 stars by wine guru John Platter, it paired perfectly with our low brow pizza and helped us try to forget the wailing pup back at the apartment suffering from a bit of separation anxiety.

So bienvenidos to our new companero on the journey and feel free to send more good wine our way to help us cope with the joys of training our faithful hound...

J'Adore Paris!

That's right folks, that's me, in the shadow of one of the most famous buildings in the world, shivering, with frozen toes and a steely reserve not to wait in line to ascend to the top of the tower to gaze upon the snow covered city below.

My week-long trip to Paris to visit Michelle and Joseph, students of the French language and tour guides extraordinaries, was too short to say the least. Despite Michelle's ability to keep me awake for longer than I had ever thought possible, I still feel as though I barely scratched the surface of the culture-packed French capital.  Visits to major museums, shows, excellent restaurants, cathedrals, monuments, and innumerable wine bars only left me with the feeling that I must come back.  And that I must learn a bit more French before doing so. 

Here are a few photo highlights from the trip:

Les amoureux at the Arc de Triomphe

The IM Pei pyramid at the Louvre

Checking in with some of the 6 million residents in the Paris catacombs

Running on pure adrenaline (and a bit of champagne) after lots of traveling and little sleeping

Too hungover for more champagne the next morning at Moet & Chandon?

Never!

Le Moulin Rouge

Feeling the love in the City of Lights

Jimmy Cup 4: Retribution

Retribution has been acheived. No longer is a Galvin ceremoniously drinking out of the 3 foot chalice of ancient lore. After two long years, a Drakeley again owns the Cup and there are no plans to relinquish the crown for years to come.

Here are some images of how it all went down:

The former champ enjoying one last drink out of the Cup.



 Yep, we get celebrities. Bobby Carpenter was in full effect at Jimmy Cup 4.

Mack made his presence felt by taking home the Chutch in his first appearance while Marie added some tough East Coast flavor to the event in her debut.

All smiles from a former champ and her competition.  Glad they had a good time, but they should consider adopting Mike's more focused intensity if they want to regain the title next year.

 The face of a bald eagle fueled champion triumphing over Mom Galvin.

Jimmy Cup 5 should be interesting...