We are coming to you live today from Austin, Texas. The fact that we're in the same place at the same time--actually in person together--is kind of freaky. This is only the second time we've met, can you believe that?  When we realized that a flight stopover in Dallas could be extended a day or two to make this blog retreat/boondoggle possible, we were excited to try to make this happen. And throw in some Tex-Mex in Austin? Done deal.  It's a little surreal, since usually our dailyish interactions look something like this FB conversation from November when we were trying to remember how we first crossed paths:

We are waxing poetic because we are approaching our one year blog-iversary. We started this blog with the idea of reaching out to big-kid parents to solicit advice, offer insight, and celebrate this pivotal, joyful, and sometimes frustrating phase of our lives. We're just as enthusiastic today as we brainstorm our way through the weekend and look forward to the year ahead. Personally, we've enjoyed the reflection and the conversation and we've loved hearing from so many of you in the process. The bottom line is that we're looking forward to MORE of it--more chiming in from other moms and dads about their families, more test-driving of pragmatic suggestions for life with big kids, more wondering about the big questions and the nitty gritty, more discussion, more launching, more nesting, more you.

And if there's more Tex-Mex, too, in the process? All the better. Here's to the year ahead!