COVID-19

It has been a confusing and scary time with rapidly changing rules and decisions of what to do - Should I go to work?  Can I get ok'd to stay home?  What should we tell my mom (in her 70s) to do? Where is all the toilet paper at the stores?  What do the closures mean to those who work at those places? 

 It seems like it has been a lot longer than it has been....hard to believe that in our community it really only started effecting daily life I think 3 weeks ago?   The days blur and I don't really know...

For me, it really started to feel real when on March 12 we had a meeting (I work at a university) to try to plan for taking all coursework online (at that point only for a few weeks), and what questions there are for a variety of areas.   The school was at the end of Spring Break (staff actually had that Friday the 13th off).  That night I met my husband at our local sushi place and was thinking I needed to pick up some stuff, I stopped at the Target in the same shopping center and grabbed a few things (TP was already gone).

This was my view walking into the grocery store that Sunday, March 15, to try to grocery shop.  This (and the TP aisle) were the emptiest but it was anxiety inducing.  

The next week Kevin was on "extended Spring Break", and my school had no classes (to allow faculty and students time to transition) but our offices were still open.   I did a mixture of working remotely and working in the office.  That Friday while in the office we found out we were transitioning to telecommuting (at this point through 4/3), except for a small set of 'essential' staff (I've never been so happy to not be 'essential'). 

This entire week I worked remotely, using both our big set up (two screens, dedicated room) and my work laptop in the dining room when my hubby needs the nicer set up.  I've also been helping him test some technology to be ready to work with his students remotely.  Our attempt at a 'green screen' was a fail....

The county (Harris) ordered a stay home order on March 24.

We are trying to make the best of us.  We are fortunate to be staying busy, and trying to get outside to clear our heads and move our bodies...

Stay safe everyone!

2009 and 2019

I've been seeing posts on facebook of a pic from 2009 and 2019 to show the changes over a decade.

I decided to participate....its hard to believe these pictures are 10 years apart (I also had to laugh at some other photos I found that had me wearing the SAME shirt...time to update my wardrobe?)

For posterity, here again are the pics I chose:

2009 (during our trip to NYC)

2019 (holding our newest niece)

I chose photos of only me, but do think it could be fun to do 2009/2019 pics of myself and Kevin together, or other combinations of family and friends (I love that digging through pictures I found several outings with my sister that I'd forgotten about)

I did also see many time gaps with few pictures, or trips with nearly no photos of me.  I need to make sure I take more photos with me in it, and not keep waiting until I lose that weight that I may never lose to be in the picture.

Looking at pictures was also hard, as I came across many photos of or with my dad.  Its hard to believe he has been gone for almost a year.

I do have many wonderful memories with my dad and am thankful he was so central to my life for 40 years.

Smokey's gotcha day

July became a blur too....we had a great trip, and I am so glad we got home with me having a few more days off (we got home on the 4th, I'd taken off that Friday and the weekend), so we could get caught up a bit at the house before I headed back to work.   Work has kept me very busy, and I've also managed to make a couple more visits (with my mom) to see our new niece -- she is the CUTEST.

Today marks TWELVE years since we brought home our older furbaby, Smokey.  I cannot believe we've had him 12 years.....we know we are lucky to still have him with us, and he's overall very happy (though he still wonders why we ruined his 'retirement' years with a little sister).

We are going to celebrate with a special treat for him - he gobbles up the dog ice cream we found for him....

June blur

I feel like I blinked and June is gone.

We got to meet our brand new niece when we got home from DC, she is such a cutie!

I worked 2 weeks and then we left our on long in the works road trip --  Kevin has had this trip in mind ever since he first bought the Jeep. 

We are driving through New Mexico, Colorado and today we got into Wyoming ...2 new states for K! (NM and WY).   We are having a great time sightseeing and off-roading.  We are doing hotels rather than camping (I love my showers and AC!)

We are actually closer to the end of our trip by now, but the altitude wears me out so I've been too tired to do much updating.....I figure I can send updates when I'm back, better to fully enjoy the trip while I'm on it.

DC Trip

We just visited Washington, DC (first time ever for K; first time since the late 90's for me). The trip was primarily to see K's great uncle laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, and we decided to add on a few extra days to get to see more of the area. We had a good visit with his parents, brother, grandmother and her husband; and we also got to see (and I got to meet) some of the extended family (great uncle's kids and grandkids) for the service. 

I hope my father-in-law didn't get tired of driving us all around -- they had gotten a rental car for the ceremony and we also made sure we saw things that took advantage of having a rental car (and let them see things that were new to them since they'd made trips to DC before).  We did well -- saw a Civil War sight and the Air & Space museum that is out in VA -- including seeing a space shuttle!   and they even had the type of plane that K's great uncle flew in WWII.

The ceremony was powerful and a bit amazing to realize that many Marines were there to honor one man.  I was lucky to get to know his great uncle a little bit - he was the BEST.  We knew him as J.R. but I didn't know much about his younger life -- nor did i know that he was in TWO wars (WWII and Korean).

The day after the ceremony the rest of the family flew home, and we stayed on to see the area.  We met up with a friend of mine from college to tour Mt Vernon, and another college friend met us for dinner (I am still bummed I forgot to take even ONE photo of us together)...still fun to catch up, and we tried crabs (crabs make crawfish seem easy to eat).

Our last full day was just K and me and we used the Metro (and scooters) to tour all around the National Mall.  While there are tons of museums we did not see we were able to see the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence (National Archives) and see the outdoor memorials that were 'must see' on the list.   We even took a detour off the mall so we could see the front of the White House. All in all it was a great trip.

I will admit on that last day I was distracted as I knew my sister had gone to the hospital to have her baby (our niece!).   That is another post entirely.

This is one of my favorite pics from our day in DC.  K really wanted to try these scooters, and they were a great way to get around! I had a good time on them too! We were safe, but sorry moms we didn't have helmets... We definitely had some issues with them - not 2 minutes after that photo was taken my app wouldn't cooperate to reload $ and his scooter's battery died.....we still had fun, and its part of the adventure. Kevin is my voice of calm after my freakout about the app telling me we were in a no parking zone.....didn't give much of a choice since neither scooter would move. and yes, we found other ones to try again