Belated Christmas

Merry Christmas (a few days late)!   We had a wonderful Christmas filled with family and food.  We were able to spend Christmas day with ]my husband's side of the family, including his grandmother and husband who flew in that day.   We received wonderful gifts and yet my favorites were seeing the kids' reactions to their gifts.    I think we finally nailed the gifts to niece and nephews (only took 10 years!).  

Our niece recently discovered pop-up books so she received two totally different pop-up books -- one about a ballerina since she loves to dance and the other the more classic story, Little Red Riding Hood.  She "read" them both to us that day.

For our two older nephews, we gave them each a toy car that the hood and doors open and Roblox gift cards, do not ask me to explain Roblox -- I don't get it - but they LOVE it.....I saw them playing it and it looks like a facebook world....I wonder if that is how my parents felt about Nintendo?

Youngest nephew received clothes from us, he's only 3 months so we'll give him clothes until he can complain :)

The other most fun gift to buy was for Kevin's grandmother, a self-proclaimed chocoholic, so we had to go to The Chocolate Bar - that is the BEST way to go there, you can browse and pick stuff out and know its a gift and not for you...we got her a 'chocoholic' mug and an assortment of delicious looking chocolates.

Smokey had a much calmer day (at home) and the picture above is the look he gives me every night when he wants in my lap...how can I say no?   For some reason, "he sees your when you're sleeping" pops in my head whenever I see that photo.

We were also able to show the grandparents our new home over the weekend, and took them to eat at a great place we have been wanting to check out, Grace's.  So good, and the atmosphere is great, the whole place looks like one big living room.....we will go back.

4th of July

Happy Independence Day!

We started our day with fresh made blueberry muffins -- using some of the blueberries I picked with my dad a few weeks ago.   They were delicious and pretty to look at.  I had looked at several recipes and chose one on Pioneer Woman's website, and they are the 'awesome-est' muffins....  I would have never thought to put yogurt in muffins and didn't tell K until after he'd tasted them (he liked them too).  This recipe is a keeper.

I even logged the recipe into myfitnesspal to figure out the calories, and that helped me stick to only 2 of them...though I wanted another one!

We have a pretty laid back weekend planned -- I took Friday off to give myself a 4 DAY WEEKEND!

A neighbor invited us to a block party today, so we'll check that out - 4 years in we're still getting to know our neighbors - and I hope to see some good fireworks tonight.  Smokey hates them, but I love fireworks, and some of the people in the neighborhood go all out and buy fireworks so we get to see a show without leaving the house!!

San Antonio

We took a quick trip after Christmas to San Antonio.  We hadn't been since 2004 (it was our first trip together).   It was great to get away for a little bit and to not have to do any cooking or cleaning after having my whole family over for Christmas - going from 2 people to 7 is crazy!  fun, but crazy!

We made a good choice in going somewhere we could drive to, no worries about what time we had to be anywhere, we just left when we were ready.   I was teasing K that his truck was trying to go north since the only place it (and he) have been recently is Huntsville.   It was a quick drive west and we got settled into our hotel.  We checked into our wonderful hotel, The Menger, and had a perfect location, literally next door to the Alamo!   Thanks Delena for the recommendation!

We hadn't realized that our trip coincided with the Alamo Bowl game.   For our entire trip the city was filled with lots of fans from Baylor and Washington.  We were surprised how many Washington fans we saw!  We expected to see Baylor fans since Waco isn't too far away but both teams had a huge presence.   It made the whole city very festive.    On one of our trips down to the Rivewalk we stumbled on a river parade -- we were wondering what eververyone was looking at, and then saw some members of Baylor's band in one of the tour boats getting ready to play.  They started playing and the boat floated on and we saw several boats with the BU banner and who we assumed to be the team!  K is pretty sure he saw the Heisman trophy winner, we googled him afterwards and yep we saw RGIII.


Since we were located downtown we could walk nearly everywhere we wanted to go, and we did - we walked to the Riverwalk and to and around the Alamo.  We even found a pizza place near the cathedral and walked there.  The only time we got in the car was to go to see the Mission San Jose, and it was worth the trip!   Neither of us had ever seen any of the missions except the Alamo, and enjoyed exploring it and I love that the church is still in use today.

We had some great good food and drinks and did a good job (I think) of not eating at chain restaurants (always a goal when we travel).   The first night we ate at an Italian place called Paesano's, and the second night we each had some delicious seafood at boudro's.  It worked to our advantage to be a party of two, as there were waits at both places, and I think everywhere with so many people in town for the game.

The Riverwalk and the plaza near the Alamo were still lit up for Christmas, and our hotel was still decorated too.   It was beautiful.  I think we'll have to go somewhere at Christmas more often so we can see the decorations, I love seeing the lights!!

Relaxing Holiday

The rest of our weekend was much more relaxing. My parents and sister came up on Sunday and spent that night and most of Memorial Day with us. We had a great time visiting and catching up, and were able to celebrate both my mom and sister's May birthdays with a dinner out (and my dad's banana pudding for dessert). We also played dominos and Phase 10 (card game) and had a great homemade lunch on Monday. We never went to the pool, it was just too hot, but saw that plenty of people in our neighborhood did.

For lunch Monday, we made a recipe I'd gotten from HungryGirl last week and we had for dinner on Friday - we love it that much we had it twice in one weekend. On Friday we didn't make the avocado cream sauce, but we did on Monday and I recommend you make it...so good I could eat it with a spoon. Its very refreshing, perfect for summer. Here is the recipe:

Grilled Go Fish!

Ingredients:
For Tacos
2 tbsp. lime juice
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/8 tsp. salt
Two 4-oz. raw tilapia fillets (or other flaky white fish)
Four 6-inch corn tortillas
1 cup shredded cabbage or dry coleslaw mix (we skipped this, just had lettuce instead)
1/4 cup chopped tomato

For Avocado Cream
2 tbsp. mashed avocado
2 tbsp. fat-free sour cream
1/2 tsp. lime juice
Dash garlic powder, or more to taste
Dash chili powder, or more to taste
Dash salt, or more to taste

Optional topping: fruity salsa

Directions:
Combine lime juice and spices for the tacos in a large bowl, and mix well.
Add fillets and evenly cover both sides of each with seasoned lime juice.
Let marinate in the fridge for at least 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine all ingredients for avocado cream in a small bowl and mix well.
Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Spray a grill or grill pan with nonstick spray and bring to medium heat.
Grill fish for 5 minutes, and then very carefully flip.
Grill for 3 more minutes, or until cooked through.
Set aside.

Heat tortillas on the grill or grill pan until warm and just slightly toasted, about 1 minute per side. Plate and spread evenly with avocado cream.
Break fish into pieces and evenly divide among tortillas.
Top with cabbage, tomatoes and, if you like, some fruity salsa. Fold and enjoy!

MAKES 2 SERVINGS

Christmas

We had a great Christmas, including celebrations with both sides of the family. I love seeing our nephew open his gifts - the Transformers were a big hit, though it did take Kevin and me both working on it to figure out how to transform it back to a vehicle (how is a 4 year old supposed to do it?). We received many wonderful gifts from our families - my favorites: a spice rack for our pantry door (complete with installation by my father-in-law), and a fireplace set from my parents. - With the work we've done and gifts we've received the house decoration is really getting complete! We finally have a place to put up a set of clocks we got 2 years ago, it really fills in the wall above the stair landing.

We were able to spend time with a lot of great people over the holidays - I had a girlie movie night (Julie & Julia) right before Christmas, and we were able to spend time with Kevin's grandmother and husband, and had another movie night with my sister, brother and his wife after Christmas. We love having people over to the new house and hope to have more gatherings in 2010!

On Christmas Eve, we had a scare with Smokey. He had a seizure, first one in all the time we've had him. It was scary, mostly because I wasn't sure what was happening and we love our crazy little dog. He came out of it really quickly and has been back to his normal self ever since. We talked to the emergency vet that night and followed up with our usual vet once they opened up after the holiday. We had a quiet night that night and have kept an eye on him ever since. According to both vets, he may not have another one for months or years, or maybe never.

Christmas Gathering

We had a great day yesterday! Kevin's entire family gets together each year for Christmas and this year they all came to our house.

The food for the event is a collective effort - making it easier on those hosting since everyone brings a little bit. It also making it taste better since everyone brings their specialties. I wish I'd taken a photo of the food, it was quite a spread - Kevin smoked a turkey (turned out great!), his uncle brought a ham, and there were all the fixings for sandwiches, cheese dip, guacamole, veggie tray, bean dip, pickle/olive tray, and desserts galore! My mother-in-law made hosting easy -- she handled the assignments of who brings what and also provided disposable plates and utensils. They even let us leave Smokey at their house for the day, since it would just be too much activity for him. We counted it up and there were 22 people in the house - 17 adults and 5 kids. I didn't think we could fit that many people in our house, but we did :)

From the time everyone got there it was chaos, but great fun. The 4 kids spent most of the time upstairs with the Wii. I didn't even know our nephew had arrived since he went straight upstairs to play with the other kids. It sounded like a herd of elephants running around upstairs, but they had a great time! We thought ahead and had Kevin's brother bring their Wii controllers so each of the 4 kids had their own - avoiding a lot of tears.....they barely ate they were so excited to see each other and play the games. He is good at the bowling game and they love rockband.

We all had a great time eating and visiting, and watching the kids open their gifts. We have gifts too - a white elephant gift exchange. Its funny to see what everyone brings...this year was the year of 'as seen on tv' - there was not one but 2 different Snuggies, a Perfect Brownie, and a laptop stand. Lottery tickets always show up. We were happy with what we got - Terminator Salvation blu-ray for Kevin and cute serving bowls (one that looks like an avocado and another that looks like a jalapeno pepper) for me.

The only one who didn't enjoy the day was our little niece Kendall, they brought her home for much of the party since she just couldn't get to sleep. We think she may be getting a tooth for Christmas, causing her to be UNHAPPY.. poor little gal.

We'd used having this event as an excuse to deck out the decorations for the house - this will be an ongoing effort since we'll add a little each year - this year we've added stockings, a wreath for the front door, garland on the stairs, and a set of light up candles in the yard.

We hope the kids were as exhausted as we were by the end of the night!!

Happy Belated Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter. Houston weather is, as always, unpredictable. Lots of rain was forecast, and we got some of the rain and lightning, but thankfully no tornados or hail. The rain was heaviest, of course, as people were arriving with dishes of food and trying to dart into the house without getting too wet. We ate our meal, and I ate too many sweets! and in the afternoon the rain actually passed on through and it was a gorgeous day outside! Our nephew and cousins were able to hunt Easter eggs and we took some photos out in the front yard.

I helped one of the cousins open her plastic eggs to see what kind of goodies she got, and most of the candy was what I remember as a kid, in the exact same packaging - sweetTarts, nerds, the round chocolate discs that look like money, and my favorite, the peanut buddies. but the ones that she was the most excited about I had never heard of? Am I the only one who has never heard of Krabby Patties? Once I saw it was related to SpongeBob I knew why I'd never heard of it, I don't watch SpongeBob (except for right after Hurricane Ike). It didn't look particularly good to me, but was oddly cute, like a hamburger.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Time flies, I couldn't believe it was Christmastime and now it is 2009! We had a great New Year's Eve. Kevin and I hosted a party at our house. We've done a lot to improve the house over the last year and have a nice set-up for parties, so wanted to take advantage of it. We had good food, and a lot of it since everyone brought something. The food included: Texas chili, shrimp gumbo, cheese fondue with dippers, fruit and veggie trays, and brownies for dessert. We had quite a feast, and though the food was really different, it went really well together. We also had spirits for all tastes - alcohol with mixers, wine, and champagne at midnight.

It really is true that the heart of the house is the kitchen, everyone was in the kitchen for much of the night, that's where the food is and so even though we had chairs set up elsewhere everyone stayed in the kitchen to chat and eat. I had a great time getting to visit with everyone and since it was a smaller group I really did get to visit with everyone. We are all so busy that it is a treat to get to spend an evening together.

After everyone had eaten, we spent the rest of the night playing Rock Band. It is a fun game to play, especially with a big group and I think its even funnier for those watching when you don't know the songs, Kevin is hilarious when he ad-libs and does 'shout-outs'. None of us missed our calling as rock gods, but it is so much fun to play. I love to do the singing, and usually do it badly. In my house is the closest I'll get to karaoke.

Everyone had a good time, everyone but Smokey. Our dog is spoiled, and doesn't like it when his routine is upset (no animals do) and is very vocal to let us know it - he also doesn't like the loud sounds of the game, so he had a stressful night with so many people in his house and being up later than usual...but we'll get him back into his routine and he'll love 2009.

We had a wonderful 2008 and I hope that 2009 is as good to us and that it is a better year for our nation. I do not know what all that this year will bring, but already know we'll have at least two babies to welcome into the world! We can't wait to meet Baby Johnson and will have a new niece or nephew in the summer. Happy New Year to everyone and I wish you health and happiness this year.

Christmas Celebrations

Today and tomorrow are the last two work days of the year for me and Kevin, so I am fairly sure that they'll be spent mostly watching the clock until we're on vacation. I could've taken the days off, but since Kevin has to use a week's vacation to have the same days off that I do thought it best to save the rest of my days to be able to go somewhere on 2009, we used just about all of our vacation days for the two trips we took this year.

We will celebrate Christmas with my side of the family, but aside from that plan to stay in town and just take care of stuff around the house. I'm looking forward to the time off, and in addition to our projects, plan to sleep in (if Smokey lets me), read, work out, see friends, meet up with friends, and just enjoy having some down time. One project I must get done is to go through the stuff in the attic, we can't put the new Christmas tree away until I do.

We celebrated Christmas with Kevin's side of the family this weekend, with all of the family on Saturday and with the immediate family yesterday. Both celebrations were a lot of fun. I love watching the kids open their gifts, especially now that he's old enough to really start to get into it. Kaden's unwrapping of gifts used to be tear off one piece, set it aside, repeat and he'd get tired before he finished unwrapping the gifts. This year he unwrapped them all himself and was excited to get to play with them. I'm excited about my white elephant gift, a panini maker and at the store yesterday I bought some bread, ham, cheese and tomatos to try it out this week.

Yesterday, at Kevin's parents house we exchanged gifts. This is Kaden's first year to really know who Santa is and be excited about gifts, so we were really looking forward to seeing him open his gifts, especially the train table. We opened gifts and then he was taken into another room to play with some of his new toys while my father-in-law and brother-in-law set out the train table and rang the doorbell. We told him that Santa's elf had dropped it off early so it wouldn't have to go in the sleigh, but instead of being excited about the train table he was sad he'd missed Santa. He got over the disappointment and played with the table most of the afternoon (including blowing it up with the toy tank we'd given him), but that was a reaction we weren't expecting. Kids will always surprise you, that's what I've learned.

Christmas parties

On Thursday, we had the School's Christmas Party, called an "Open House" to be cognizant of the different faiths and cultures or politically correct since we're a state institution. It was fun, but oh so different than Kevin's party last weekend. It is during the work day (nice since we are paid to be there and makes for a better turn out), and was held in the event center on the 3rd floor. It was FULL of people, I don't realize how many people work here until I see the huge room we are in and how full it is, and this is just the employees not guests, etc. that many parties have. It makes sense we have so many employees but I forget since I interact with a much smaller group, and with faculty on their own schedules I almost never see them. They had a DJ with karaoke, and a photo booth to get your picture on a magazine (we actually got one this year, last year we got in line too late), and lots of appetizers - my favorites: some kind of fried corn ball, and an arthichoke heart stuffed with cheese and fried, nothing fried is good for me but oh it tastes so good! I'd told Kevin he was on his own for dinner, because I figured (correctly!) that I wouldn't be hungry for dinner. I recognized a lot more people this year than last year (at last year's party I'd been here only a few weeks) and it was good to see everyone, but it fell on a day when I had a meeting all morning and then right after I left for my fitness release time, so I was in my office for all of about 2 hours.

Contrast this party with Kevin's party, they really couldn't BE much different. He works for a small, private company. It was held last Saturday at a really nice restaurant (Smith & Wollensky's) in Uptown Park. It was a great excuse to get dressed up and have a nice night out. They had a cocktail hour with servers coming around with great appetizers, several of which I couldn't pronounce, the ones I can come up with a name are: ahi tuna, chicken salad with truffles in a shell (puff pastry?) that looked like a tiny ice cream cone (my favorite), beef wellington with truffles, spring rolls, some sort of filet with a pepper sauce (I can't remember the correct name, and when I asked the server what it meant - I was trying to remember it, he said he had no idea). They were all beautifully served, and I tried a little of each. This place has a different level of service than any other place we've been - we went to eat here once and they seriously have a person who picks up the crumbs off the table for you with this little metal tool. The servers would wait for you to eat the appetizer then take the toothpick, napkin, etc. back from you. I wasn't ready to eat it so kept apologizing and they're like quit apologizing. I like to eat out but am never comfortable with that kind of attention. After that we had a sit-down dinner, here were the courses (we chose one from each course):

First Course:

• Caesar salad -- everyone at our table got this one, so I couldn't really see the other one. But this was the strangest looking salad. It was like "assemble your own". They were full stalks of romaine, with parmesan pieces on one side and a generous helping of salad dressing on the other (on the plate, not in a bowl or anything). This is one of two things about the night that I didn't like. Strange thing is we had this salad here before and it didn't come out like this.
• Iceberg wedge - from what I could tell, it looked like an eighth of a head of lettuce on a plate.

Second Course:

• grilled mahi mahi - I got this, and it was good. It came out with grilled vegetables underneath it and it tasted delectable


• filet mignon - Kevin got this, it was also very good, but they didn't make sure everyone got the steak cooked the way they requested it (his was way too red), and he said it was chewy :(


• lemon chicken- one person at our table got this, I opted not to since we make chicken at home a lot and I wanted something I'm unlikely to make. it came out with french fried onions on top of it, really pretty presentation.
  

For everyone to share there were these sides, the first two served in copper pots:

• mashed potatoes
  
• a creamed spinach - melted in your mouth
  
• stalks of asparagus - I can't cook it, but I love asparagus

oh, and their rolls, ohhh...i could go on and on about them. They come out in a round dish and are all connected to each other....mmmm..I love bread.

Third Course:

• Chocolate cake - we each got this, and it was so good, layers of cake with a mousse layer in between, we actually split one piece and brought the other home


• berries and cream - looked good, but can't compete (for us) with chocolate
  

Did I mention there was an open bar? We thought they're probably be just wine, the restaurant is known for it, but nope there was pretty much anything you wanted - I had a cosmo and wine, and Kevin had red wine. We also had wassail that they brought around for everyone to have, very sweet but good and hot since it was cold outside (we kept getting a draft from the door on our dining room that kept opening and closing for people to go outside to smoke - the other thing I didn't like about the evening. The smokers are the ones that want to go smoke, so make them walk a little further so I can stay warm! I actually made the comment seeing all that was spent on that night, that in that room you wouldn't know there was a recession. The company had a great year in 2008, their best yet, and we were happy to share in the good fortune. They had a photographer taking photos, we took a picture of us in front of the tree, I can't wait to see it...hopefully they'll get them next week.

Where did this week go?

For being a full workweek after a holiday week, this week has flown by! I am sure its because I was so busy at work (meetings galore) and at home, a quick recap of the week:

• Kevin went to the Monday Night Football game, the Texans' first game and they won! wahoo!
• I volunteered on Tuesday night
• Wednesday night we were both home, made dinner and watched a movie on the new bluray player, Iron Man. It was actually pretty good. I also got to play with my new phone, - having the internet, facebook, etc in a handheld is ~dangerous~
• We had date night Thursday night, much more fun than going to my book club to discuss a book I hated (and didn't even finish) which were my original plans that night. We like going to Buffalo Wild Wings, especially on cheap boneless wing night, and I love playing the trivia games they have there. I do not know how some players get the full points for EVERY question, but even though I'll never be a top scorer I enjoy it.

I love having a Christmas tree at the house every night, and hope to be home a little more this weekend to enjoy it. We'll attend Kevin's company Christmas party this weekend, it should be fun and I hope to finish up my Christmas shopping. Still not sure if I want to do Christmas cards this year...hmmmm

Berries in the tree and Blackberries

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I love getting to spend time with family and only wish we were able to spend more time together. Geographically, we all live pretty close, but it is still a treat to get together.

Yesterday we bought a new (artificial) Christmas tree and decorated it and the interior of the house. The tree has berries and small pine cones in it, making it look a little more natural. I am so glad to have a new tree. The one we had before was a lot smaller, and we didn't replace it last year because we wanted to see how Smokey reacted to a christmas tree before investing in a new one. It is not pre-lit, so I had my first experience of putting lights on the tree. Growing up, I'd help my dad but that was mostly keeping him company and untangling the strands. It looks so great! It is 7'5" tall, so with the topper it is to the ceiling and is very full and takes up the entire corner of our den. I'll have to post photos later. This is the earliest I've decorated for Christmas, but love that we'll get to enjoy it for so long.

Our other splurge yesterday was getting new phones. We now have blackberries! Kevin had been needing to get one for work, and we took the plunge, so we'll be learning how to use those over the next few weeks. It will be great with both of us having the same phone (different colors), so we can both learn from each other :) I never really learned to use his old phone and would try to text for him but it was tough. The full keyboard will be fun, but man the buttons are tiny!

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm posting this a little early. I only work through a half-day on Wednesday (thank you President of my school!), and don't plan to be around a computer a whole lot until after Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving! I love this holiday, it is an opportunity to get together with family and friends and to take time out to realize how much we have to be thankful for. I know that I often take for granted how much I have to be thankful for and how good I have it. This year especially has shown me how much I have to be thankful for - going through Hurrricane Ike and seeing what really matters and seeing people pull together to recover from it. This year has also been a time of watching the economy tank and and seeing the effect it has on everyone. A short list of what I have to be thankful for:

• good health
• supportive family and friends around us
• my wonderful husband, Kevin, who puts up with my moods and my craziness. Even after over four years together, I often wake up and wonder how I met (and later married) such a wonderful man.
  
• having job that I like and that provides me with the means to live comfortably. It seems that every day I hear about more companies doing layoffs, and am very fortunate to have a job that I enjoy and that is fairly stable. I am so glad I took the plunge and changed jobs last year, the job market is one of the many things effected by the economy.
  

If I listed everything I was thankful for, my list would get very long...but those are my big ones.

This week we'll celebrate Thanksgiving with Kevin's family on Thursday and my family on Friday. We're lucky that all of our family is fairly close by, so we can drive to both celebrations.

Thanksgiving is usually the kickoff of the Christmas season, but every year it gets earlier and earlier. Right after Halloween I already saw Christmas stuff up in stores and heard Christmas Carols over the radio at the store in early November. I hate that! I love Christmas, but hate that it takes over all of November and December, and not for the right reasons, but mostly for the stores to have more time to push their products on us and telling us that this is the perfect gift. I love the decorations and the songs, but hate that it becomes a rush to get a gift for everyone on the list. I have to remember "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" when I get caught up in the search for the perfect gift. Spending time with the people I love is the best gift I can give and receive for everyone on my list.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Tropical storm day

Work announced yesterday afternoon that they were going to be closed today for TS Edouard (why do I have such a hard time spelling this?). That is a perk of working for a school, with students from all over town they are pretty good about closing in bad weather - and they are always listed on the news to find out if they close overnight/early in the morning. I like their outlook on it, from the website: Edouard poses no immediate threat to the University of Houston-Downtown, itself, but high winds and flooding could put travelers in danger tomorrow.

Last night Kevin and I brought in everything from the patio and the front porch. He even trimmed the yard and cut the grass. We decided to leave the grills out but used rope to tie down the covers – unfortunately I lost all the knowledge I had of knots from my Girl Scout days, Coletta and the rest of my leaders would be disappointed! – so the best I could do was a square knot and then when I had only one end I had to just kind of rig knots as best and as tight as I could, its not pretty but I think it’ll work.

After we had the house prepared, I made a drink – a 7 and 7 (but with Sprite instead of 7-Up). I rarely drink on Monday nights, but I also rarely don’t have to work on Tuesdays. I’d bought sprite zero a while back to make it, but never made one and Kevin drank most of the sprites that I bought, who knew he liked Sprite – I’d only seen him drink diet coke and coke zero. The random things I learn. It is refreshing though, and no caffeine.

Today I slept in (until 8:30 when Smokey came to snuggle with me – it was so dark I thought it was much earlier – even on the weekends I never sleep that late!), worked out, watched the coverage of the storm, finally finished filing (one of my never-ending chores), and re-arranged the living room for the new sound system we’re getting for the tv. Kevin ordered it online and the pieces started arriving Monday, and even with the rain the rest of them came, by FedEx and UPS today!! UPS even came hours earlier than usual (early afternoon rather than 7pm), my guess because a lot of the places on his route were closed. So we were actually able to get the entire system set up! Kevin made two trips to RadioShack, we underestimated how much stereo wire we’d need. I helped him by stripping the wires and connecting each of the speakers to the receiver, I felt very DIYer! After he had it all set up and adjusted it he ran tests to optimize the sound (Smokey did not like that ~ he was confused by it and kept running over near the speaker that was making sound. We finally had to put him outside, oh and my prediction was right: Smokey wanted outside IN the rain, and when he was out there he’d DRINK FROM THE PUDDLES on the patio. Looking at him you’d think we didn’t have a nice bowl of water for him inside the house, but he loves rainwater). In the evening, we watched our first movie with the new system: The Bourne Ultimatum, and it was a great one to see with it! The speakers make for a very different viewing experience, almost like a movie theater, with speakers in the front corners, a center speaker and a sub woofer, and a speaker near me, another near Kevin for surround sound. We already watched a lot of movies at home, but I think we’ll be watching even more!

We were even able to put most of the stuff back out on the patio, but will leave the grills roped up til we need to use them.

All in all, a great Tropical storm day. The storm came on land near High Island, so we got some much-needed rain (an inch and a half total) but little wind. And there were no serious injuries or damage from the storm. The only injuries I heard about were 3 brothers who had to get rescued in Galveston because they decided to go in the water and got pushed into a rock wall, not too bright! Aside from that, it was a fun experience for a lot of the tourists in Galveston (they interviewed people who were at the hotel who stayed because it was coming)

4th of July

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Kevin and I both have the day off. We planned to smoke a brisket and then go watch fireworks later tonight. Yesterday his company let him off work at 2pm (lucky guy I worked til 5), and he went to buy the brisket. All of them were so large, that he decided to smoke it last night so that he had enough time. He smoked it all afternoon and evening, while I went to my book club (first time to attend –it was fun, and great to talk about a book we’d all read recently. I’ll attend again), and then to a surprise birthday party for a friend of mine. I got home and it was still smoking…we finally took it off the smoker at 11:30 and then put it in the oven to finish cooking.

Since the meat was already cooked, we had time today to try geocaching again. We picked out some other ones near us and went on our way. The first one we couldn’t get to because we couldn’t go the way our GPS told us – we’d be going down the street the wrong way, brilliant GPS! At the second one we tried, in Tom Bass park, we learned how to work our GPS better to give us a better read of where we are in relation to the coordinates, and we know we were right there but were still unsuccessful in finding it. We decided to try a third one, at a small cemetery off of the Beltway. We see the most interesting places doing this. We pulled off and looked around for it, and also looked at the gravestones, many of them were for unknown people, and others were from the late 1800s, but there are recent ones too…one from 2003. I was about ready to give up, but Kevin was still looking, so I walked toward him and kept looking, and I FOUND IT! I won’t say where in case someone else wants to hunt it, but we were so pleased that we found one, and without any hints. This one was smaller than the last, just a film canister with a log inside. We didn’t get to write our names down since we didn’t bring a pen (doh!)

Later we’ll go watch the Houston fireworks, hailed as the “largest land-based fireworks display in the country”. Does it really matter that its land-based vs water-based?? I guess they just want to brag about something. I love fireworks, and am looking forward to seeing them, and Kevin plans to take pictures with his camera and his new shutter release.