Wordless Wednesday: Appreciated

Fall Festival

We (especially K) had a busy, wonderful weekend. Our neighborhood has a lot of events during the year, almost everything geared towards kids (the one adult event was the Casino night which we went to and really enjoyed).  Sometimes we go and sometimes we just skip the events.    This weekend was the Fall Festival and we invited our niece and nephew (and their dad, K's brother).   They came and we all had a good time.  Its always fun to see what catches their interest and what they don't like at all.   There was a rock wall and a bouncy house, but our nephew wasn't interested in them at all...first thing he was interested in -- a balloon sword! (his little sister got a balloon dog)    They also played several games and got prizes (stickers, silly bands).   The funniest to watch was the kids throwing a rubber chicken - Kaden tied for 3rd place.  He probably should've placed higher because the first group of kids threw from further forward, but he was happy and that is all that matters - he got a spider ring, and during some game he got a small teddy bear (Mr Boo).    The biggest hit for the niece - the train!   They got to sit in their own car and rode around in it, poor thing she cried when she had to get out of the train car.    Kevin and Kaden were twins in their orange clothes...


Afterwards, we met my in-laws at Culver's to eat.   I had my first pumpkin-flavored item of  the year, a pumpkin cheesecake mixer...yum!    Thankfully they have a new 'mini' size so I can get my custard fix without overdoing it too much (don't tell me how many calories are in it, I don't want to know).   I'm on the lookout for pumpkin flavored goodies. I'm not a coffee drinker, so that is out but I'll find some other goodies this fall.  I was sad that I'd completely missed their sweet potato fries, must've been a limited time menu item.

Today we got some much needed rain.  If you heard cheering it was probably all of southeast Texas applauding the rain!  It rained pretty much all day and was a great sound to hear.   Kevin went to the Texans game and I ran errands.  One errand has to wait for another day, we had so much rain that the place I went to get my oil changed had lost power and said they wouldn't be able to ring me up if the power stayed out.  seems to me like some of their tools (not to mention the lights to see) wouldn't work, but they only seemed concerned with the fact they couldn't ring me up.....didn't want to tell them people made transactions long before electric cash registers....

I wasn't totally sad to leave my car chore for another day, it let me get a long overdue haircut!   I feel like a million bucks when I get a haircut!  I tried taking a photo of it but haven't mastered taking photos of myself and kind of ruined the style when I had to run through the rain so I don't really want to have K take a photo of it now, will plan to get some photos of it soon.

I met K at my in-laws after the game for a chili dinner.  The weather made that meal the perfect food for today - a rainy day, not really chilly but they were all chilly since they'd gotten soaked coming back from the game.   only disappointment was that the Texans lost :(

Friday chaos

I had more excitement than I needed this morning.  Rockey (parakeet) got out while I was changing his millet.   Luckily Smokey was outside -- that is now our policy, the dog must be outside for the bird cage to be opened.

I tried to catch him but couldn't grab him - not sure how my sister grabbed him so fast when he got out Labor Day weekend.  Kevin gave me the idea to toss a small towel on him so he couldn't fly away, and then grab him and the towel.  That worked well!   I did have to catch him TWICE-- he got away the first time I tried to put him back into the cage, but he is safe and sound.

I'm looking forward to Rockey going to live with my brother and his wife...He's cute, but not much fun as a pet. 

My day can only get better! Happy Friday!

Wordless Wednesday

I picked this up on sale at Kroger a few years ago, love this decoration!  I still need to get it out at my house but its made the appearance on facebook and now this blog!  I thought it might be too early to put out Halloween decorations until I saw all the decorations go up around the neighborhood...

It is too early for me to buy candy.  I am resisting buying Halloween candy because as much as I say I'll just space out buying it (we need a lot since our neighborhood has a ton of kids), I'll just end up eating it, so no extra candy at our house til the end of the month.    I should buy candy I don't like so that I'm not tempted by it, but I'm not that good...I buy what I like but will send the leftovers (minus a few for me) to school with Kevin.   poor grad students need candy more than I do!

weekend o fun

We had a great weekend!  It was just the break we needed from how busy we've both been with work and school, and will be for several weeks (months?) to come....

Friday was very low-key since I'd had to make a quick trip to Austin for the day for work and didn't get home til later than usual.

Saturday we had ~nothing~ on our calendars and K is pretty well caught up with his school work, so it became a 'date day' (my newly coined phrase).  We usually do 'date night' but I like date day even better since they can last the whole day!  Kevin had been wanting to see the movie Contagion so we finally made it to the movie theatre to see it.   He was more interested in the movie than I was initially but we both really enjoyed it.  I usually see a movie just because I want to, forget what the critics say, K reads reviews and lets those influence whether or not he wants to see the movie, which usually means he chooses better movies than I do.  We very seldom go to the.movies anymore, so a movie matinee is quite a treat! The movie did make me want to wash my hands more often and never touch anything in public, it also had the unsexiest scene I think Gwyneth Paltrow has ever appeared in.

After the movie we roamed around Half Price Books and found a set of books that Kevin wanted and one book for me and treated ourselves to a nice dinner out.  We took our time at dinner and enjoyed the day. 

Today (Sunday), K and his family had an extra game ticket so I got to spend all day with K!   We went to the Texans game and what a game it was!  They beat the Steelers, woohoo!  It was a nerve-wracking game, it seemed like the Texans defense was always on the field.   They played a great game and won 17-10.  I could not believe how many Steelers fans there were in the stadium, at times it seemed like a sea of 'terrible towels'..  I'm hoarse from the game - had to be LOUD while we were on defense, should be interesting at work tomorrow.

This evening I even went for a bike ride in the neighborhood!  It was so hot all summer I cannot remember the last time I rode my bike.  Its still pretty warm, but starting to feel a little like fall.....

I hope you all had a great weekend too!  I could use another day off.....

We were so busy having fun I haven't even made it to the grocery store!  I need to get over there - we do after all need to have something to eat, but I'll just worry about that later in the week!