As the sun was setting on the Texas Hill Country last Saturday, my brother Matthew and his lovely fiance Beth were married.

We got to my parent’s house in Austin around 2 in the morning last night. Woke up at 10 (we’re still on pacific time, natch) and repacked for the trip down to San Antonio. Dropped things off at Beth’s parent’s house, met up with Matthew and crew, and headed over to the tuxedo shop to get fitted (my pants needed to be hemmed).

From there we went to the hotel, checked in and dropped our things off, and then we went over to Serengeti Resort where the wedding ceremony and reception is being held. Rehearsed for a surprise dance I discovered I’ll be participating in, then rehearsed the wedding ceremony, then rehearsed the dance again.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel to meet up with cousin Casey, and then the whole Watt family plus Stephanie and Casey went out for a Texas barbecue dinner. Now we’re all back at the hotel and everyone has dispersed to their rooms.

Tomorrow morning we’re going tubing, hopefully chillaxing in the afternoon, and then having the postponed and expanded rehearsal dinner on the River Walk in San Antonio at night. Let’s hope we have some energy remaining for the wedding on Saturday night.

Update: I added the photos to this post after the fact.

Stephanie and I are heading to San Antonio for Matthew and Beth’s wedding on Saturday.

Update: this is how we carried our “luggage” from work in San Francisco to the airport in Oakland.

Naturally, you can see it hanging in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum (which I visited a few years ago).

I point all this out because my Grandfather worked as a draftsman at Bell Aerospace Company and was involved in the design of some of the empennage components for the Bell X-1. It’s famous for being the first aircraft to break the speed of sound (roughly 761mph) as flown by Chuck Yeager.

My recipe for Melt-in-the-Mouth Cookies came from one of my mom’s handwritten recipe cards, which my dad scanned and emailed to me back when I was in college. I transcribed it and then posted it to my blog in June of 2004 so I could easily share it with friends (and the internet).

As long as I can remember, they have been my favorite cookies, and certainly one of the most popular in our family. The cookies come out of the oven slightly chewy, brown sugary, and small enough that you can eat more than one or two without feeling guilty. In that way they stand out from most other cookies, which tend to be more chocolatey or more filling.

Since I posted the recipe, I’ve gotten the occasional drive-by comment from people saying this is one of their favorite recipes, one they had lost and were happy to rediscover. Considering that I got this recipe from my mother and she got it from her mother (my grandmother, aka “Grandmommy”), I didn’t see how that was possible. I just attributed their comments to a similar recipe or a similar name. For all I knew, my grandmother had created this recipe from whole cloth through relentless experimentation, or perhaps accidental discovery.

And then on December 10, 2008, a certain Donna left a comment on my blog which began:

I love these cookies and so do my kids. My mother-in-law made them and she got the recipe from The Woman’s Day Encyclopedia Cookbook Volume 3…

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