Volunteering

I'm excited - I found a way to keep volunteering with CAP even though I can no longer work on Tuesday nights. I've "adopted" two CVS stores near my house and will check on them each week to tidy up the display if needed and take inventory to see if they need to be replenished. I did my first check-in last night.

At one store, the display was still in the box so I had to set it up.....can't sell them if they are still in the box! The assistant manager helped me and we got it set up, hoorah! I can follow directions, but sometimes have a hard time understanding what they mean....hopefully it'll still be standing when I check back in next week. At the second store the display was set up, and one design was sold out! So, I'll let my contact know they need to send them some more. The inventory all goes straight to the store, so its a pretty easy job for me, and one I can do in my part of town....I am so glad that I was able to find a way to keep working for this great cause....

Edit: Addition CAP stands for Children's Art Project (Thanks Emily!) I forget that not everyone knows my abbreviations :)

Happy Halloween

This weekend's weather was gorgeous! It made for a PERFECT day at the Texas Renaissance Festival. My sister went with us and we had a great time. Being Halloween, there were costumes of all kinds. She and I dressed up and Kevin was an anachronism :). Some of Laura's friends were also there, so she joined up with them to watch some shows and Kevin and I watched some entertainment but mostly just wandered around and enjoyed the weather outside - cool and sunny. The most entertaining show we saw was "drench a wench" where a girl sits in a dunking booth and heckles people while they try to throw bean bags at a target. often she gets spectators so mad that they pay to be able to try to dunk her. she's good at what she does!

We left early to be home in time for trick-or-treating, and had a LOT of kids come by! I should've had more candy, but wasn't sure if we'd have kids come to our door or not. We had LOTS of kids come by, love seeing them in their costumes - my favorites: the tiny boy in a lion outfit, the boy that just yelled "candy" when I opened the door, and the kids singing "trick-or-treat smell my feet.." as they walked away. Our favorite trick-or-treater: our nephew dressed as a Transformer.

enjoyed our extra hour of sleep last night, though really I just woke up extra early today...

Today we went to my in-laws to watch the game and have dinner, good meal and a Texans' win!!

Cannot believe its already November...

Birthday weekend

Its been a busy few weeks...

The wedding in Dallas was good, not much of a vacation for us (I forget how busy weddings are). We didn't get to go to Dealy plaza or the 6th floor museum because the UT/OU game was going on right near there and we didn't want to get stuck in traffic. We'll have to make another trip up there to see it. The bride was gorgeous and we did get to see lots of family over the weekend. Staying at the same hotel was great since we were able to see people at breakfast and even hung out in K's cousin's room after the reception.

Our nephew got upset right after the wedding - his dad was a groomsmen and the poor little guy saw his dad walking back up the aisle with the bridesmaid and thought he'd married another woman! They had explained weddings to him but guess it wasn't clear to him that only the bride and groom were getting married, not everyone up there....I'm sure it won't be the last misunderstanding, poor little guy for a few minutes his world turned upside down!

This past weekend was my birthday and I could not have asked for nicer weather for it!

I came home from work on Friday to find that my sweet husband had baked me a birthday cake, quite a nice surprise. We had a piece that night and another last night, very yummy! homemade icing is WONDERFUL, hard to believe we had everything he needed for the cake and icing at the house....guess we do have quite a collection of stuff in our pantry.

Saturday we cleaned house in the morning, went to a book sale (got a bunch of books for our nephew and a few for us too), and then we went to the Ballunar festival. We've been trying to go for several years but just never make it down there It is held at NASA. You can tour NASA, but we really went just to see the hot air balloons, and they were beautiful. They launch from all over, so you look around and suddenly see one (or more) come from behind the buildings. They are trying to hit a target on the field, and come right overhead....beautiful.....We also saw skydivers and people in what look like dune buggies with parachutes attached in the air. I do NOT want to be in the air in anything that I can then carry away on my back (they walked right by us afterwards), but it is fun to watch. We brought both cameras and took some wonderful pictures (haven't had time to download them yet). We stayed until after sunset to see the GLOW. All of the balloons are inflated on the field and they turn on their burners - lighting up the entire balloon...pictures won't do it justice, it is amazing to see. I'm pretty sure that is the first time I've ever seen a hot air balloon up close. We ended the night at a Halloween costume party hosted by friends, lots of fun! Kevin and I were both hippies - a costume he's wanted to do since our first Halloween together....

Sunday was my actual birthday, and my sister treated me to a movie (Couples Retreat) while Kevin went to the Texans game (they won!). I love going to the movies but mostly watch them at home. It was fun to go to the theatre to see a movie, and after the movie we went out to eat at Sharky's - thankfully they didn't tell the restaurant it was my birthday, I really didn't want to wear a shark hat. We sat outside to eat, such a beautiful day!

This week we're paying for the beautiful weather with lots of rain, but I'll take nice weekends and dreary weekdays....

Add: Ballunar Festival photos

Dog Movie Ratings

Maybe this is my million dollar idea and I'm missing out by not working on it (but I doubt it). We need to be able to look at movies we want to view with a scale on how much it will engage our dog. This includes notations of how many dogs will appear in the movie that will cause him to run at the tv because he wants to play with them, the front runners for that are:

I am Legend

Shooter - which has not 1, but 2 different dogs that each resulted in Smokey running at and jumping for the tv.

The rating system could also apply to songs, as I've indicated before Smokey bawls everytime the song "Let it Die" comes on the radio

Do other people's dogs do this, or is ours extra special bonkers (or both)?

We want to watch a movie to relax, not to have to grab our dog everytime we hear a bark or see a dog appearing on screen.....

Carpool

Starting tomorrow, I will officially be a Carpooler (what happened to that show? it was dumb, but HILARIOUS). My sis-in-law will ride with me into work, we both work downtown. I'll drive since I can park my car for $85 per year in my work garage vs her $200 a MONTH! I can't remember the last time I was in a carpool, oh wait I can - when my mom and another mom split the driving to take us to school - so it'll take some getting used to, but will be good. we'll get to talk a bit more and I can listen to something other than the mindless morning (and afternoon) radio shows.

I hope it'll also help me get out of work on time since I'll have someone waiting on me..

Its her first day back at work after a 3month maternity leave, I cannot even imagine going back after that long...the longest I've ever taken off was 3 weeks when I got married.

I hadn't realized how many people must make the trip to/from downtown until Sunday when we saw a truck driving home from the game (distinctive since it had FOUR decals for a local university on it), and we followed it nearly ALL THE WAY home. It turned off one street before us in the same neighborhood, poor guy probably thought he was being followed! We joked we should go to his door and see if he wants to carpool to the football games