Its been a VERY busy weekend! My side of the family came over to visit and stayed with us the whole weekend. We love having the space to have my entire family stay - my parents get the guest bedroom, my brother and his wife take over the media room and sleep on our queen size air mattress, and my sister takes over the library on her smaller air mattress. Its a lot of people for the house, but makes it possible for us to see each other for a longer period of time.
Friday was a work day for most of us, so we didn't do a lot, just went out to eat (and waited for my brother to get there...making the trip from Austin he got in pretty late).
The real fun was on Saturday. We went to see the Texas exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It was a great exhibit - we saw the actual cannon that started the "Come and Take it" slogan. There were a few places where I'd go into the room and not be sure which sign I should start reading first to follow the chronology. After I read a few I'd realize I'd started in the wrong place (further ahead in the history of Texas then other information in that room was) and have to backtrack. I learned quite a bit - and saw some names I recognize from street signs and buildings around town (Travis, Lamar, Beck to name a few). It was amazing to see how many places the items are on loan from and I have to wonder how (and how long) this exhibit was organized. I also could've done without the random costumes from the 20th century, but must admit a dress made with turkey feathers and tape was quite a sight to see! Thank you Groupon for the HALF-PRICE tickets!!
There is a new dinosaur set up in the lobby which was impressive to see, a flying one with a 30' wingspan....good thing for us they are extinct. This is the musuem that we'll have a membership to soon (won at the casino night), cannot wait!! I'm also excited for a NEW wing to open in Summer 2012!!
Later in the day, we introduced my mom to Thai food. She and Kevin stuck with peanut chicken, but did enjoy it and the rest of us had various curry dishes...yummy! Thai and Indian food are what my brother and his wife crave after their extended time in Nicaragua, unfortunately for us we haven't found Indian food near us, but do have some good restaurants of other kinds near us.
After that (told you we were busy!) we went to pick blueberries. Laura and I had been earlier in the season. Our first trip was a scouting trip to see how the crop was, its been so dry we weren't sure if they'd have a good crop this year. It was slimmer pickings this weekend - more moving from tree to tree to find ripe ones. The person who updates their website (owner?) had said he thought NEXT weekend would be better but we were committed to this weekend. We still had a good time and picked over 18 lbs of blueberries in about an hour and a half. I needed to replenish my supply (about half of the ones I picked two weeks ago have already been eaten, and made great muffins!), but I think Mache was on a missions, she filled her bucket completely! We brought some towels this time to put between our neck and rope for the bucket, it was more comfortable and came in handy to wipe our faces. I do think twice in one season is my limit for blueberry picking, but had a great time - and it was my dad's first time to go.
Today's plans changed when we realized that bugs Kevin had been seeing around the house were coming from our pantry. They'd gotten into some of our food - even Smokey's! - and so today was taken over by that project. We tossed some of our food and took EVERYTHING out of the pantry, sprayed it down with bug spray (after putting both of our creatures outside) and then re-organized it as we put it back. This was something I'd wanted to do, but not today.....
My son and I went to go see that exhibit a few weeks ago. It was very well done, although I thought it was a little light on 20th century Texas history.
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