The Smiths in 2018

This year’s accomplishments include keeping my dauntless daughter alive one more year, getting my wife to finally admit Thai food is pretty good, and selling more houses than we ever have. In 2018 we’ve frequented some of our old favorite places (Enchanted Rock) and found new favorites, as well (Urban Air). The kids also got to see their first circus and their first cave, woohoo! This summer, we got to take a short vacation to the Houston area where we saw the Space Center, the beach, and Moody Gardens. Most memorable for me was becoming a speck of dust standing beside the Saturn rocket (much longer than a football field or taller than the Statue of Liberty). It’s almost unfathomable we can build such things, yet what sticks out most in our kids’ minds was the hotel pool. 🙂

In addition to my full time job, this past spring, I enjoyed taking an epigenetics and genomics class on the side. Real estate affords me lots of time for audio books as I’m on the go, and lately I also discovered I like fiction much more than I previously thought, as I tried to make my way through some of the new classics. Really enjoyed The Martian, The Ender’s Game series, One Second After, Harry Potter, Davinci Code, World War Z, etc. I tend to binge on topics, and earlier this year my favorites were AI and the mind. This year I also bought a Chevy volt. Favorite car so far! I’m loving my car wifi, 50+ miles of electric driving every day, and dumping less carbon in the air.

I’m really proud of my two kids this year as well. Logan’s reading is approaching a second grade level, and Addie (our three year old!) is really nipping at his heals. She’s no longer allowed to be within close proximity when Logan is reading since a short stall by him results in her shouting out the word and, in turn, an infuriated five year old! To top it off though, Addie’s teacher’s tell us her Chinese is as good as her English, and Logan is coming along in Spanish, as well, in his immersion kindergarten. Logan is ever more dug in on his ambition to be “a roboticist” when he grows up, and Addie is sure she wants to be “a woman.” 🙂 I’m also happy that total potty independence is JUST around the corner, praise the Lord.

And last but not least, Hillary is undeniably the glue that holds the family together—professional lunch maker, child bather, bookkeeper, bill payer, laundry extraordinaire, and on and on… She’s also become quite a proficient Lego master craftsman. I don’t even want to know how many hours have been logged there! 🙂

Sound too cheery? No we have weekly pitfalls and struggles like everyone (don’t get me started on buying a few stocks right before everything crashed, losing battles with pitbulls, medical bills, etc.), it’s just not interesting to anyone to hear us complain. I showed a home  recently who had a sign that said “There is always, always, always, something to be thankful for.” I like that.

And lest you think all we do is play, we should confess we often work 100+ real estate hours a week. Many of those hours we get to spend with great people like you guys, and that makes the job enjoyable and want to work even harder. If you have friends or family buying or selling in Austin, we hope you’ll send them our way. We’d love to spend our days helping and getting to know them as well!

How have you been? Give us a shout. We’d love to catch up! And by the way, I know this site’s due for an update. After all, we do have TWO kids now! 🙂 We have a new video and pictures coming soon. Stay tuned!