state convention in Austin and the LAKE!

I had a great weekend in Austin relaxing with Annemarie and Molly. I drove up on Thursday night and moved into AP's beautiful new place. (She was still in Utah.) Molly was definetely ready for some people time...we snuggled and she talked a bunch! :)

Friday, I headed over to the democratic state convention. I attended the youth caucus then the computers and technology group. Both were interesting. After lunch, I went to the senate district 7 meeting where we elected members of the group for a few positions and I mainly just chatted with friends, as I was just an alternate and didn't get "upgraded" to delegate status, therefore didn't get to vote on any of the candidates. It was great to see the process though. Here's a funny pic from the vendor fair...they had a big cut out of Barack...so I had to grab a pic! After that, there was a general session with many people who spoke including Rick Noregia and Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea was very cute and overwhelmed by the size of the crowd (over 12000 people were in attendance). She represented her mom well.
After that, I headed over to Freddy's on 1st street to meet Dana and a few of her friends. It was a perfect night and we just chatted and relaxed sitting outside on their big patio...exactly what I needed! AP called at about 12 when she landed and we met up back at her place...and stayed up pretty late just talking and talking!


Saturday, I was tired, but got up and went to day 2 of the convention. There were more speeches and Hillary was piped in on CNN giving her endorsement to Barack. It felt pretty historic just being surrounded by all the people, signs and excitement. There were a ton of first time participants (including me) and there was just so much energy in the room. My friend Kerry and I met a great girl from Dallas and spent most of the morning trading stories with her.

AP had talked to her friend, Chris, about heading to the lake on Saturday...and they were still on to take out his boat. So I snuck out early and Annemarie came by to pick me up and we were off!

Chris's friend Collin and their neighbor's son TK were on the boat too. It was a beautiful day...and his boat is so nice! We dropped anchor in Devil's Cove and just spent the entire day relaxing, cooling off in the water and enjoying the great people watching. The highlight was our snack from the neighboring "Tug's" boat that delivers BBQ around the cove. Our sandwiches and watermelon were delish! No pics yet...still need to get them from AP's camera.

We headed in right as the sun was setting...and ditched our plans to go out and opted for chatting with AP's friends Hal and Shiela at her place then making a run to Taco Cabana! We chowed on tortillas and queso and watched Material Girls while I packed and AP dozed off.

I woke up bright and early at 8 to drive back to Houston to catch my flight to Berlin. I've jumped all over the place today...IAH to Cleveland to Paris to Berlin. I'm in Charles de Gaulle in Paris now...the worst airport in the world. And I'm stuck here for 3.5 hours...ugh. Oh well, gives me a little time to catch up on email! And I can't complain too much seeing that the flight was "free" and all on miles...woohoo! :)