New Years

Happy 2015!!!    We planned to ring it in at home and did ring it in within our block.   We were surprised with 2 separate invitations from our neighbors to join them in their celebrations, next door was having a few people over and two doors down was having a full-on party.    We happily joined each of the groups - hanging out next door and then our whole group going over to ring in the new new year at the party.   We are so glad to get to know our neighbors a little better, we are much the same age and all in similar places in life so we hope to spend more time with them this year!

Our last dinner of 2014 was delicious, K had the idea to try to replicate a meal we'd had at union kitchen and we did a pretty good job of it -- a steak placed on top of a polenta cake and arugula.   It was our first time to make polenta and arugula and it all turned out great! We already have ideas on how to improve but not a bad first try!

Lessons learned (recipes we used are linked):

Polenta -- next time we want to pan fry it to make it crispy

Arugula - we way underestimated how much we needed, when it wilts it gets small.  I was not sure if the ounces were weight or volume, definitely weight (should've used the whole bag). Silly measurement system using the same unit of measure to mean VERY different things....

I hope you all had a great start to your new year!    Even Smokey had a better start since being in the city limits fireworks are not allowed, our last house would sound like a war zone for days and the poor guy would end up scared out of his mind....

late night adventure

Its always an adventure at our house.

Last night...we'd gone out for dinner and drinks, and had settled in to watch the Nashville episode of the Foo Fighters show since I head there today for work.

Earlier in the evening I'd noticed the sidewalk out front of our house was very wet, I thought it looked odd but it had rained a lot that morning (I got SOAKED trying to walk S so I just attributed it to that).   Later, Kevin sees it and says "we have a major problem".   My first thought is I hope its not TOO major as I have to fly out of town for work in the morning.   There is STILL a lot of water, and its actually flowing.  We go behind the garage and its a tiny lake and we hear flowing water......I wade into the water, get the gate to next door open and there is water just pumping out of their overflow valve.   They are new neighbors and aren't at the house -- they move in TODAY -- so we can't tell them, we did the next best thing we could think of....we found a shut off valve and turned off the water.  I feel a little bad we have to tell them we shut off their water right before move in day but at 10:30 at night it seemed like the best solution....

random thoughts

I found out this week that the Boneyard we recently visited is closing, very sad to hear it.....it was a fun place to take S and though we've only been once we were hoping to make it again soon.    That is one gripe I have about Houston, good places seem to come and go (and oddly some of the bad places just keep on going even though I wish they'd go away).   We also recently found out a couple of restaurants are closing or moving because the land they are on is going to be used for luxury apartments.  When real estate is in demand you have to build up to make it cost effective, but still not happy about it.

We attended the Texas Renaissance Festival yesterday, an annual tradition for us.    It was a chilly (colder than we were thinking it would be) and fun day.  We watch the weather and just go when it looks right, tough for making plans with others but the best way to do it!    We discovered hot spiced wine, it was there as a "cold day special" and loved it.   At least once i wanted to hold onto K's since it was keeping my hand warm.    He is now the proud owner of some very nice handmade gloves, he had needed new gloves anyway and so we did some shopping while we were there :)    He looks very knightly with them!

We both did a 'joust' on a little metal horse that you ride down a track and try to get your pole through a ring, harder than it looks!   We felt a little odd in line with little kids, but are glad we did it!

November adventures

A week into November already?!?!   This year is flying by!

We are still exploring and discovering places to go in our new area, and could not be happier.

Here are two of my favorite recent adventures:

• We finally took Smokey on one of our explorations --- to Boneyard, its a bar with a HUGE dog park behind it -- pretty great idea to put these two things together, and it was very popular when we went last weekend, we were able to park in the (closed for the day) Credit Union parking lot next door.   K actually had to let S and I out since S was getting so antsy when he was all the dogs that it made it easier for him to park.
• One event that we may never live down, S got into a fight with a 3-legged dog, not sure who the instigator was but K could see it was about to happen and grabbed S but no one was grabbing the other dog, so our silly dog got nipped and had what seemed like a bloody nose.   He's fine and we'll definitely go back, just a reminder of why to keep near your dog when you go.

• K has been wanting to check out some of the local food trucks, he's never eaten from one and I haven't in quite a while - there are so many now!    Getting to eat from one is complicated since I refuse to pay to go to a 'food truck festival' -- the entrance fees are more than we'll spend on food(!), so we found a spot that would work for both of us -- our local HEB actually had a 'food truck meetup' advertised and we made that our dinner plans for Friday night.  It was a great set-up, they had 6 or 7 trucks, HEB was selling beer and they had a live musician doing covers set up right outside the store, and the have a large area with tables where we could sit to eat.   It was a tough choice for which truck to order from -- there was Brazilian, burgers, wraps, Gulf Coast specialties and more.  We each chose to order from the Reel Deal seafood truck (definitely a first for me) and were not disappointed.      Houston also has one coffee truck, Espresso Rescue, and we each ordered from that one, hot chocolate rather than coffee...very good on one of the first chilly nights of the season.  I love that it looks like an ambulance, when you need caffeine it truly is an emergency!  and its run by a man who is a retired flight attendant, he wants to serve good coffee out of a truck after serving bad coffee on a plane for many years (from the article outside the truck)

almost WW

artisan gelato....so, so good........