Happy Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for and are excited to be hosting my entire family this year!   We hosted last year but were missing a couple of people (my brother and his wife were living in Nicaragua).   We are glad they are back in their own house and that she has found a job she loves!  I wsh the same for my brother.

Everyone will be arriving at various times later today and I don't plan to be online much, so I'll wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving now!!   I hope you are able to spend it with loved ones.

Before I eat too much food I want take time out to think of how much I have to be thankful for:

 - my health (we often take it for granted until its gone)
-  family and friends who love us
- a sweet husband who puts up with my crap and my temper and can always make me laugh!
- a job I love
- K finding his passion - history - and being able to go to school for it

I'm so glad I took the day off from work, getting stuff done around the house and then running a few errands.  I've worked the day before the holiday before and its always a ghost town, and I end up just trying to get things done but watching the clock too...this is a much better way - good way to spend a vacation day!   Kevin doesn't have class today either, so we get to spend the day together.

Ren fest

This Saturday we finally made it out to the Texas Renaissance Festival and had a great time.   We go every year and have a different experience every time we go.   The weather wasn't quite what we wanted -- we were hoping for a cold snap -- but it was still a great day to be outside.

We like to get there early, so we got up fairly early (it is a weekend, so we let ourselves sleep in a bit), and got on the road.  Its a good little drive to get out there, but with music and great company its all part of the fun. 

Kevin's goal was to do things he hadn't done before this visit, and we both accomplished that!

I tried out the rock climb, it looks like a castle turret so they call it 'storming the castle'.    It was my first time trying rock climbing.   I am terrible - couldn't find any handholds, but they were nice and let me swap to one of the sides used for kids - that was much better!   More handholds, but it was still hard.   When I'd gone up as far as I wanted to go and they told me to let go so they could let me down it took a lot of effort to let go of the wall..  (We have pictures, just need to make time to download them)

Kevin's first was stepping up to the 'tomato guy' and throwing tomatoes at him.  The guy insults everyone the whole time, and Kevin called it - he poked fun at his height, pretty funny...but I don't think I'd want to put myself  in his crosshairs!

The people watching is spectacular!   It was the Barbarian Invasion themed weekend, so there were lots of costumes for barbarians and really costumes of all kinds - we even so a "Where's Waldo Waldo" and a Trekkie...what either of those have to do with Renaissance times, I don't know.   We were both anachronisms...

We finished off the day with a funnel cake and then headed home.   It was sad on the drive in and out to see how many trees (and homes) were destroyed by the forest fires.     There were so many scorched trees, and there is no end in sight to the drought.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing school (K) and getting ready for Thanksgiving (me).   I'm already halfway through my 2 day work week!

a bad day

Kevin had (literally) a shitty day yesterday.   He drove up to campus for the class he TAs for and was walking across the grass.  He tripped on something and went down on one knee...right into a pile of dog poo!  He got most of it off, but had to go on to class like that.

We had a good laugh about it last night, but you know your day is off to a bad start when thats how it starts.  It didn't get any bette ,since the news about Matt Schaub (Texans QB) being hurt came out later in the day.

Here's hoping today was a better day sweetie!

I mostly post about our great and memorable days, but this is proof we have bad days too

Happy Veteran's Day

Until recently, I'd always thought of veterans as people in my grandfather's generation, and while they are veterans and we should be thankful to them, we should also thank the men and women of all ages who have served in wars and 'conflicts' and all the other names for it since then, and anyone who served in peace-time too.    Facebook has helped me realize people my own age enlisted and were deployed.  I wasn't close friends with them but friended them on FB since we went to high school together and see an occasional post from some who are still serving overseas.

I don't know if I could serve in the military - the most structure I've had was marching band and I wasn't even very good at that!    I am grateful to everyone who has served, and to their families who have to worry about them and try to carry on as usual while their loved one is far from home.  I don't know how the families do it. Kevin has spent a lot of nights away this semester to suit his school schedule and eating dinner alone and missing out on talking to him at night gets old.   This situation is far from what they go through, I know that and I'm not at all trying to compare it, it has just made me think of what families must go through when they are apart for a much longer period of time.

Thank you to all the Veterans who serve, and to all of us - we should treat them as if every day was Veteran's day!

PS - I am going to love writing today's date - 11/11/11

Kevin registered for his last semester of grad school today!   

He is very ready for this semester to be over - he has just over a month left!   and next semester his classes will be closer to home, so we'll get to see each other more.  We're all happy about that - Smokey especially.

The last semester will be busy, he has to take comprehensive exams, but should be much less driving..

BBQ cookoff

The people in our neighborhood can COOK!     This weekend we went to the neighborhood's annual BBQ cook-off and did the important job of tasting the food they'd made :).   We had a great time walking around and seeing the teams hard at work - we could even watch them plating the dishes for the judges (reminds me of Hell's Kitchen).  Its serious work getting the bed of greens just right for the presentation!   We tasted ribs, chicken and brisket and even tasted some more exotic bbq.   I walked up to one table and couldn't tell what the food was I was looking at - I'd thought it was chicken but it looked REALLY pink, the guy finally said ''honey, its just tuna it won't hurt you", and it sure didn't.   Once I worked up the courage to taste it, it was delicious and even better with the soy sauce they had to accompany it, reminded me of sushi!


K loves the brisket, but my favorite category was the desserts, I got to taste a peach cobbler, grilled pineapple with cheese and chocolate, and pumpkin pie made by cooking the entire bottom of a pumpkin!


Along with the food, they had attractions to go with the western theme.  Most of them are for kids, but they had a mechanical bull.  I tried it out and am terrible, but did better than last year.  Last year I fell off as soon as the bull tilted, this year I made it a little longer but still fell off pretty quickly.   I'd have done it again if there wasn't such a long line, and I'm surprised the line was almost only KIDS, when else do we get the chance to try riding a mechanical bull?

ready to ride!

We will attend this event every year!  Only downside, it makes K want to use his smoker, but he really doesn't have time to use it, maybe he can use it on one of the Texans road game weekends...

This weekend really revolved around food for me.   K went to the football game today and I watched it from home and made a lasagna for us to both enjoy when he got home.  It was delicious!   It was good to have a home cooked meal, the weekend is about the only chance we have to do this, and this week it'll be Thursday before we have dinner together again.

I enjoyed my extra hour of sleep last night, but am going to be off on what time it is for days......