"A girl drummer? Coooollll."

W's first concert! Sorry about the potato quality, but she's back there.

Our Second Spring

I'm sitting on the back porch with Chuck and the pups, playing on the internet, listening to the tree ducks and enjoying some down time. The girls are off swimming at a neighbors house and it has been a great if mostly lazy Saturday- so I thought "why not do a blog post?" And her we are.

December came and went so fast. We made our pilgrimage to NC over Christmas to visit friends and family. We drove this time with all three dogs in tow.  It was fun and hectic. Good to see everyone.

My parents enjoyed another trip to the Tucson Gem Show this year and were able to stop by here on their way home for a couple of days. While they were here we put them to work and we replaced the carpet in the great room with laminate. Thank you so much, Mom and Dad! I love the look of the new floor and its so much easier to take care of! The dogs- not a fan of it.

The pups are all doing well. Cupcake has been a fantastically easy puppy. Still a puppy, but we've had very few puppy related mishaps. Butter is a little peeved that she's getting so big- 91 pounds for her last weigh in at 6 months old. She adores Luke- and curls up with him frequently. He is doing great- still plays a bit when the girls get him wound up. Butter- still the princess.

In other pet news, the red foot tortoises that we got last year are happy as can be. They have a new outdoor habitat- a blue plastic pool that has a variety of landscape, edible plants and plenty of hide-y holes.  They're getting to spend more and more time outside now that its warming up.

Our 2nd spring brought our 2nd Rodeo Houston. This year we split up the events/concert and carnival part. Chuck and I took the girls on a Sunday t the events and to see Fall Out Boy in concert. We cruised around the animals and event hall a little before hand. Later, during spring break, the girls and I went with one of their friends and Mom to the carnival. Both days were lots of fun, even if the weather this year wasn't nearly as pleasant.

 The girls both had their birthday celebrations. W chose to have a Mickey Mouse party here at the house. M got to go a Pentatonix concert with a friend, me and W, then had a couple friends spend the night. I can't believe I have a teenager now! They're both doing very well in school, but eagerly awaiting summer. M is in off season after finishing up basketball. W is still taking drums and has a concert coming up. She also was accepted to honor choir.

My birthday is coming up as well- ugh- it's a big one. Chuck tried to lessen the blow with an amazing present- a 2014 Texas Edition Toyota Tundra! It was a total surprise- he drove it up in the drive one day and W yells "happy birthday".  I've been personalizing it as my stickers come in. And it even fits in the garage by the Wrangler!

Another treat for me came in March- Chuck was invited to a conference at Disney's Contemporary Hotel at Walt Disney World, and I got to tag along! My fabulous in-laws flew in to stay with the girls, and Chuck and I got a grown ups trip to the happiest place on earth. We did get some time together at Disney- the day before the conference started and in the evenings, but for the most part I cruised the parks solo. It was such a different experience! Can't wait to go back with the girls later this year!

The last tidbit to share is that Ocean Blue Pools should begin digging our pool in the next week or so (weather permitting)!! Can't wait to have our own back yard oasis.

Time to head in now- it's dark and the skeeters are after me. Gonna have to work on that when we have the pool- hire bats? 

We're still here

Five months since my last post and things have been great. There's so much wonderful stuff happening but what brings me back to post is sad. So, I'll give the sad and try to of set it with all the good news. 

Last Monday, Bo was diagnosed with cancer. He had a large growth in his abdomen and a chest X-ray confirmed it had spread to his chest, most likely attached to his heart.  The vet said he probably had a couple of days. He actually got over a week until he stopped eating and we knew it was time to let him go. He passed yesterday. He had wonderful life, 9 years of love for a breed that has an 8 year life expectancy. He will be missed. 

Everything else, is great. The kids are both getting all A's in school. M was made the volleyball team and now the basketball team. W is taking drum lessons. Chuck's job is going well, and I have actually made some items to sell, finally.  We have been exploring Houston as much as we can, and this weekend we head to Tomball for a German Festival that is said to include a Dutch Santa. Not sure yet what that means. We took our family vacation over Thanksgiving this year. We went on a Disney Cruise. Of course, we had a great time! The next Disney trip will be to the parks. Yay!

Now the really good news. Butter and Luke are both doing well, and we have added Cupcake to the family. 

  

Cupcake is an 11 week old English Mastiff. She's huge, sweet, derby and already rings a bell to go out and potty. More pictures to come, at some point. 

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season! 

Trip Home and More Visitors

The last 3 or so weeks have FLOWN by! When Chuck's parents left to fly back to NC, the kids went with them, and Chuck had a business trip. I spent that week painting the kids rooms. M got a polka dotted accent wall and W finally got rid of the soft pink in exchange for lime green. It went well, and looks very nice. The girls were happy with them when they got home, too. Today I added valances to W windows, complete with turtles, lizards and frogs. Now it looks like her room! I also got all their wall hanging stuff up so the little piles in the floors are gone. Yay!

Then on Saturday, Chuck and I flew up for a visit. It was a hectic visit to say the least. Next time, there will be more planning. I'm not very good at play it by ear. I did get a new tattoo (Disney), got to go on a trail ride on Angel, do some shooting, and some stamping. The girls saw everyone on their list, too, so we'll call it a successful trip. Just- next time- expect an itinerary.

When we left, we had arranged to bring M's friend G back with us to Texas. Our first order of business was picking up fireworks. We planned a 4th of July event with the neighbors and all contributed to the explosives and food. There was plenty of both. We took G boot shopping at Cavenders, got authentic Texas BBQ, went to the Houston Aquarium, skating at the Galleria, climbing at Iron Sports Gym and introduced her to bacon wrapped jalapeño poppers while shopping at the H.E.B. I think she enjoyed herself.  After her week her, her parents and brother drove down to pick her up. They stayed and explored a couple of days and we took them all to Taste of Texas- duh, it's custom. And took them to Cavenders. 

They left on Monday, and now we're getting ourselves back into a routine. I'm sure we'll find something else to get into soon. 

 We've been keeping busy this summer. The kids have been out for two weeks and we've been to a museum, to Galveston with the grandparents, to lunch with Chuck, and of course to the neighborhood pool. We've also had some craft time- making koala shirts, melted crayon art, and some painted fireworks.

Top left: I chose to do crayon splatters- I held different crayons over the canvas and melted them with a hair dryer. M's is top right- she made a flower resist and melted crayons that were glued to the canvas. W, bottom left- wanted a black background and a crazy rainbow pattern. The last picture is our July 4th paintings. We started with a black canvas and used fake flowers dipped in metallic paint. Lots of fun!

The girls and I went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science and took our neighbor friend Raegun. Prior to going, we made matching koala tank tops for the girls. The museum is very nice. Their permanent exhibits include ancient Egypt, complete with human and cat mummies. The mineral exhibit has been added to the take-Mimi-and-BeepBeep-to list. There us also a great dinosaur exhibit, complete with an armadillozilla. There are several exhibits we didn't see, but the best part was the butterfly center. We watched butterflies hatching from their chrysalis', saw a butterfly lay an egg, and so many different species flying around the butterfly enclosure. There we also other types of creepy crawlies- W petted a walking stick and some other strange creature from Australia. Plus,  there were spider and roaches and beetles to look at. I think the girls had a lot fun on that adventure. 

 Chuck's parents also came to Texas! Their first stop was to see some friends in Copperas Cove for few days, then they all came to Houston. On Friday, we all loaded into Leon's Suburban and headed to Galveston. It was a bit over and hour and a half with traffic. Our first stop was Moody Gardens. The Moody Garden complex includes a hotel, water park, aquarium, rainforest and zipline adventure. We chose to tour the rainforest. There were monkeys, bats, birds, butterflies, snakes, lizards and rays. We all enjoyed seeing the animals there.

Next, we went to the seawall and out onto Pleasure Pier. We had a nice lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp. It was a neat place, and the food was pretty good. Then we let the girls (and me) go out and ride the boardwalk rides. There were several we rode, but the heat soon got the best of us. We also fed some seagulls. W and M were throwing it out over the ocean, and I decided to hand feed them. M got brave and let them take a couple bites of food from her hand (eventually). 

Galveston was fun, and we're thinking about going for an overnight and staying at Moody Gardens to taken in the other attractions. Nothing firm yet, but there will be pictures.

Now we see what the next 2 weeks brings...

School's Out!

School finished up with a half day on June 5th, and it was bittersweet for both girls. I had the eating area decorated with balloons and even a Baskin Robbins cake waiting for them when they got home. Let's see what we can get into this summer in Houston!

I'm trying a new style of sharing pictures tonight. I have a lot to share and hopefully this will save lots of scrolling. We'll see. SO- here's what we've been doing…

First up, we took the girls to the Houston Comicpalooza. I saw a post about it on Reddit, found that Ming Na-wen was going to be signing autograph's, told M, and the rest is history. Now the whole family really likes the comics and sci-fi stuff, but not to same degree that SOME people like the stuff. Anyway, we saddled up and headed downtown. There aren't pics since they didn't want you using your own camera. M did her autograph, and W got Elizabeth Henstridge (another actress from the Marvel Agents of Shield). As a bonus, Chuck got to meet Lou Ferrigno and get his picture taken. Can't share because its a polaroid. The picture proof I do have is this ONE- with me and the girls at the TARDIS.

We've tried a couple of new restaurants in the area. We had brunch at Peli Peli which has South African cuisine, and we tried Cheeburger Cheeburger- um, yeah- burgers. Peli Peli was very good, Chuck got some kind of omelet type concoction and gave it 2 thumbs up. M had a berry crepe and enjoyed it, and W had a huge burger- not an ordinary American Burger, but she really enjoyed it (so did Chuck). I had a flight of steak- 6 different steak medallions with different sauces and seasonings. Very tasty. I also enjoyed W's cole slaw, which again, was not typical American cole slaw- it had fruits in it. Strange combo but yummy. 

Cheeburger Cheeburger is a burger joint with all kinds of crazy toppings and milkshakes with seemingly endless combinations. The shakes were great. The burgers were fine- nothing extraordinary. 

 For our most recent adventure, the kids and I tagged along with Chuck to a meeting in Ft. Worth. We headed out Sunday morning, straight up I-45. On the way, the girls and I had our first Buccee's experience. For the not Texans, Buccee's is an enormous carnival of a convince store. There's gas, bathrooms and bottled drinks of course, but there's also clothes, grills, food, jerky, calf skins, fudge and there are beavers on all of it. Yup, the logo is a beaver. He's cute. Then it was on through Dallas and over to Ft. Worth.

Once we got checked into the hotel we headed over to the Ft. Worth Stockyards. It's a historical site from when Ft. Worth was Cowtown. There's a cowboy museum and a cattle drive twice a day! We had a stage coach ride, our picture made on a longhorn, and a steak dinner. 

Dinner at Riscky's- steaks and ribs and potatoes all around. Chuck had the calf fries (some call them rocky mountain oysters) and a bloody mary called the Doc Holiday that included bacon and jalapeños.

Monday, while Chuck had meetings, the girls and I went shopping, and had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. YUM! We picked up Chuck, then headed home by way of a quick dinner at In N Out burger. Ok, not sure what all the hoopla was about on that one.

Kids racked up- I found this awesome Maleficent tank- also got a Lion King one

Finally, I have some pictures of the local wildlife. The 3 baby mockingbirds were sitting super still in the bushes while I watered all around them. Mommy bird was watching form the neighbors roof and must have gathered them later. The bottom right picture is a little lizard that hangs out on our bathroom window almost very night. I really like seeing him there. What a cute belly!

Now that the kids are out of school, we're hoping to get into Houston to the museums and the aquarium and other attractions. The girls also want to go to the pool a lot and do crafts. Cool- sounds fun!

Concert and Beach Trip

So the majority of the week was business as usual. I did make it up to W's school to visit the book fair. I also scheduled an exterminator visit since the bugs are moving in and there are fire ant mounds again.  Worthy of mentioning, Chuck and I completed our CHL class and range qualification. It's more stream lined than the NC version, and done mostly online. All the paperwork is in. Yay!

On Friday, we went to a concert in downtown Houston at the SPA (Society for the Performing Arts). We saw Christina and Michelle Naughton. They are twin piano players, and played pieces at the same piano and also dueling piano style. It was very good- we all enjoyed it.  We've already chosen some other performances we'd  like to see in the next season.

At Worthram hall

With my girl

pianos- duh

Saturday, after the traditional donut run, we headed to Surfside Beach. We've been researching different beaches in the Houston area and decided on Surfside. The weather was beautiful. Low 80's and clear. The sea breeze was very strong, so we did have to fight the wind a bit, but we all had a good time. The tide line had a wall of seaweed- sargassum specifically. It was not a problem for the kids, Butter found it to be a safe haven from the tide and Chuck wasn't  bothered by it. Me? I wasn't crazy about it, but of the 4 of us, I like the whole beach idea the least, so I mostly hung out by the Jeep while the others frolicked. 

I do like that you can drive onto the beach and park wherever. The best part was no lugging stuff from the car- it's just all there. The sand was nice, and the beach itself wasn't very crowded. There were lots of rental houses there, too, and  we talked about doing that next time. Butter liked her first beach trip even though she wasn't very fond of the water. All was well until the surf came at her, then she bolted up the sargassum bank until it receded again. Silly Bulldog.   After about an hour and a half of frolicking we headed over to Sharkies, a little burger joint right off the beach. They had outdoor seating and Butter was welcomed with a dish of water and lots of petting from the staff. Five stars in my book right there. We had beer or sodas (depending on age) and jalapeño poppers and burgers. It was decent food, friendly staff and other visitors, too.  Then we headed back to Cypress. 

Jeep on the beach

Noooo, not the water!

2 foot tall wall of Sargassum

Here and the chair is where I spent my time

Frolicking kids

Daddy saved me from the water! 

Happy Bulldog

This is about as far as I got 

 

Stephen Austin Monument on the drive down

Road trip with my girls

My beach pass. Woot!

Isn't he adorable? 

This week is looking pretty standard but we're all looking forward to the long Memorial day weekend coming up!