Wendy's Life

Girl Scout Camp

2012-01-29T21:10:00.002-06:00

I got to spend this last weekend with a bunch of Girl Scout leaders and their daughters. What a fun time we had!

We arrived on Friday to spend the weekend with our daughters.

Saturday morning, those who were interested went horseback riding. So of course, Bailey and I did this. We had great ride through the trees and beautiful area.

Here's the barn as we walked up to it. So beautiful!

And here's Bailey on her horse, ready to ride.

This was our sleeping arrangements for the weekend. Not quite the Hilton, but it was just fine.

Bailey was the oldest Girl Scout there, and she led the girls in several activities. Here they are in front of the building we stayed in.

This was our youngest Girl Scout for the weekend. So adorable!

Saturday night we had a spa night. For those who were brave enough, this meant a home made facial.

Some girls opted for manicures!

On Sunday morning, Bailey led the girls in the Scout's Own ceremony. The girls celebrated a mother's love and the mother/daughter bond.

We had such a wonderful time, and the weekend went by so quickly.

We have Bailey and Michelle to thank for such a fantastic weekend. Bailey helped Michelle plan the event and they had a great time together. Michelle looks young enough to be one of the girls, but she really is one of the moms.

They both worked very hard to make a special weekend for us all.

My Fitbit

2012-01-22T21:06:00.000-06:00

It's a new year, which means new resolutions for many people. Me included. I did so well a couple of years back and lost a lot of weight, but recently I've been struggling to find the motivation to try to eat healty and move more. Because of this, I've gained some of my weight back. Not good.

A big part of my problem was not wanting to exercise. I know the foods I should and should not eat, but I really do not like exercising that much and I wanted to find something to help me with that.

To help me move more, I have gotten a new toy. Well, it's not really a toy, but it sure has been fun over the last two weeks.

(NOTE: this is not a paid endorcement, Fitbit has not heard of me - I just think it's really cool)

It's my Fitbit! (Shown next to my phone to give you an idea of how small it is. And that's a cat hair, not a scratch on my phone.)

I found out about Fitbit from my brother, David. He gave one to my mom for Christmas and I know that she's enjoyed it too.

It's a little pedometer, but it's also so much more. It gives me positive reinforcement throughout the day as to how active I am. It even talks to me!

(Please ignore my bruised thumb, I banged it back in November and the bruise has been slowly moving towards the tip of my nail as my fingernail grows, which has been kinda fun to watch.)

This is just one example of the messages it will give me if I pick it up.

I wear it on my waistband all day long, and it tracks my activities throughout the day.

There is a free website where you can log your food, activities, vital statistics (measurements, blood pressure, etc). If you buy the Fitbit, then it automatically syncs up and you can see your progress in real time.

Mom and I have become "friends" on the Fitbit website and we can check in each other and see who's ahead of who in terms of daily steps taken, etc. (I'm ahead!)

Here's a snapshot of my activity today from the website. I did a bunch of laundry, which meant going up and down our stairs. I'd love to say that I normally have this many floors climbed, but this is an unusual day.

I've set goals for myself and it helps me keep on track.

Another neat feature is that you can wear the Fitbit at night on a wrist band and it will monitor your sleep. This was alarming at first because I found that I wasn't sleeping well at all.

The pink color above is the times that I am awake. The blue color is actual sleep time.

We tried having Rominal sleep in a different bed just to rule out him waking me up. It didn't seem to make much of a difference, I still didn't sleep well.

Rominal was pleased to hear that he could come back to our bed. I was too, I missed him.

Here's another night's record.

What I'm finding now is that I am beginning to be able to improve my sleeping patterns, either that or I've just been super sleepy and I'm sleeping better.

This is from a recent night.

I'm getting better at sleeping! Way cool!

I've had the Fitbit for almost two weeks now and I've lost about 4 pounds so far. I've set my goals to lose slowly, so 4 pounds is great for me.

I just think this is super cool and I thought I would share it with you.

Looks like I'd better go do more laundry - I want to see how many flights of stairs I can do today!

Mmmmm, Chocolate Cake

2012-01-15T10:22:00.000-06:00

Hello There! I'm still catching up from my blogging rest.

I made this cake a couple of times over the holidays and it is a crowd pleaser. I though I would share it with you.

Mmmmm, Chocolate Cake
from The Cake Mix Doctor, by Anne Byrn

1 package (18.25 ounces) chocolate cake mix, I used a German Chocolate mix
1 package (3.9 ounces) chocolate instant pudding mix
4 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350'. Spray a bundt pan with spray (love me some Pam baking spray - smells so good!). If your bundt pan has a tendency to stick, you might want to flour this too. Mine works really well, so it wasn't an issue.

Basically mix everything together, except for the chocolate chips. Add those in after everything else is mixed. Pour the mix into the pan and put it in the oven.

Bake at 350' for 45-50 minutes.

You'll know it's done when a knife or toothpick comes out clean. I remove the cake from the pan and let it cool on a cooling rack for a bit.

I tried drizzling a powered sugar icing on the cake one time I made it, and another time I sprinkled the cake with powdered sugar. I like the powdered sugar sprinkling best. But if you make the cake, you can decide which works best for you. I'm flexible that way.

It's a moist, delicious cake, and super easy to make. Enjoy!

Girl Scout Camp - Camp Grady Spruce

2012-01-09T18:08:00.000-06:00

I am way behind in my posting. Sorry about that. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

I started looking through my pictures to see what I should have been posting and I was thinking I would post a bunch of pictures to show what I had done since my last post, but I had so many pictures from a Girl Scout camp I attended I thought I would start there.

Early in November, my Girl Scout troop went to Camp Grady Spruce in East Texas.

Here's Bailey and Tiffany in front of the sign.

Grady Spruce is a beautiful location, right on Possum Kingdom Lake. This was the flag ceremony on Saturday night.

There were about 125 of us out there. The weather was cold, which I prefer for camping.

Saturday night we (all of us Girl Scouts) were invited to another camp close by where they were going to shoot off fireworks. (sorry, no pictures of this, just wanted to tell the story) We all drove over to the camp and we were treated to one of the best fireworks shows I've seen. I think it was so special because we were so close to where they were shooting them off. It was so beautiful to see the fireworks shooting off over the lake.

On Sunday my two girls (my daughter Bailey and my Girl Scout Tiffany) lead a ceremony called a Scout's Own.

It's a special ceremony that the girls come up with on their own. I couldn't have been more proud of them. They were the oldest girls at this camp and all of the younger girls really looked up to them. They did a fantastic job.

Here's a picture from their ceremony - everyone is in a friendship circle around the flagpole. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful weekend.

Whole Wheat Beer Bread

2011-11-21T14:33:00.001-06:00

We don't drink much in our house. I'm not against it or anything, we just don't do it often. If I do have a drink, it's probably got rum in it - or maybe a glass of wine. We would never drink beer. Again, nothing against it, just don't like it.

However, I happen to have a lot of beer currently in my house left over from several parties, so I've been looking for beer recipes to use up this beer.

I found this recipe and it's great! It's very easy and uses ingredients that I almost always have on hand.

Here's how you make it:

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup packed brown sugar (I add a bit more, about 1/2 cup- I know, your shocked)
1 (12 fluid ounce) can or bottle beer

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
In a large mixing bowl, combine all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt and brown sugar. Pour in beer, stir until a stiff batter is formed. It may be necessary to mix dough with your hands. Scrape dough into prepared loaf pan.
Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.

Just mix everything up and put it in a bread pan. It really couldn't be easier.

Be sure to give this a try - your gonna love it!

State Fair of Texas - Trip 2

2011-10-30T21:10:00.000-05:00

We made two trips to the State Fair of Texas this year. We always have so much fun there.

My brother, David, and his wife, Lauren, were visiting with us for the weekend. They timed their trip to Texas so that they could go to the fair with us.

Rominal is once again getting coupons for food and rides - he did that a lot that day. He was using a credit card with my name on it and the woman actually read the name on the card and said he didn't look like a Wendy. He had to point me out to them.

If only they had some fried food at the fair.

Seriously though, what is fried watermelon? We should have gotten some just to try it, but there was so much food and so little time.

Bailey was pleased to have a ride partner with my sister-in-law Lauren.

Bailey talked Rominal, Lauren, and David into riding with her on a roller coaster.

I took this picture as they passed above me on the ride.
I think they had a good time.

We also talked my mom into coming with us on this trip. We took her to the fair a couple of years ago and luckily she had forgotten how much walking we did on that visit and decided to come back with us again this year.

The fair has packed up for this year, and David and Lauren have gone back home. We had a great time both at the fair and with them.

State Fair of Texas - Trip 1

2011-10-24T18:44:00.001-05:00

Yes folks, it's that time of year again. Time for all kinds of fried foods and fun at the Texas State Fair.

On this trip, Bailey took a friend with her, Taylor.

We arrived at the fair early, to try to avoid the crowds. That only worked for a little while.

I love walking through the Midway, seeing all of the sights and sounds.

Bailey and Taylor loved the rides.

Here they are on the Love Bug.

They clearly hate it.

This ride blows a really loud horn during the ride. Darn thing scares me every time. You'd think I'd be used to it now - Bailey rides this ride each year.

Were's Rominal? Oh, he's getting more coupons (the rides and food vendors only take coupons).

He made several trips for coupons throughout the day.

The haunted house had some fun characters this year. Eeeewwww, what is that? Is it house broken?

This thing was funny. People would go up and stand in front of it to have their picture taken, and then the guy inside would move and scare them.

This was our first trip to the fair this year. I'll show pictures from our next trip on my next post.

Budding Artist

2011-10-08T23:59:00.002-05:00

I just had to share these with you.

Bailey is taking a painting class in school this year and she is loving it.

I also think she is doing quite well.

Here's a picture (that she took) of our cat, Twister. I think this is a fantastic picture too.

And here's a painting that she made of that same picture. It was done in water colors.

Isn't that great?

You can tell I'm pretty proud of her.

BBQ Pulled Pork, I mean Chicken

2011-09-20T17:53:00.002-05:00

When I'm looking for a new recipe, I always tend to go for ones that only use a few ingredients. It keeps things simple, and I like that.

Even better if the ingredients are ones that I already have on hand.

I'm also trying to find recipies that work in a crock pot, but don't come out tasting like rubber.

This recipe fits both of my requirements.

Here's what you need. The original recipe came from here.

Ingredients
6 frozen skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (I did not use frozen chicken and it worked just fine.)
1 (12 ounce) bottle barbeque sauce
1/2 cup Italian salad dressing
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Directions
1. Place chicken in a slow cooker. In a bowl, mix the barbecue sauce, Italian salad dressing, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. Pour over the chicken.
2. Cover, and cook 3 to 4 hours on High or 6 to 8 hours on Low. (I had mine in the crock pot for about 5 hours, then I "pulled" it and returned it back to the crock pot for another hour)
3. Remove chicken and "pull" it apart, return chicken to crock pot for about an hour.

Here's the chicken cooking in the crock pot.

After your chicken has cooked, remove one piece at a time and "pull" the chicken using two forks.

Return the pulled chicken back to the crock pot.

After about an hour, serve the chicken on toasted buns. We served ours with cole slaw on top. It was a nice addition.

I have made this twice now - it really is quite good!

Enjoy!

Bailey and Pat the horse

2011-09-10T15:12:00.001-05:00

Bailey loves horses. But then what young girl doesn't love horses?

Ever since she found out about a therapeutic riding facility nearby, she has been wanting to volunteer there so that she could spend more time around horses. About two weeks ago, she was trained and she is now volunteering there twice a week.

Last Wednesday was her first day.
Her job is to get the horse for the class ready by grooming the horse, getting the saddle and riding gear on the horse, and then warming the horse up by walking it around for a bit. Then during the lesson she either walks next to the rider to ensure that the rider is comfortable, or she is in the lead guiding the horse. After the lesson she has to take the saddle off and put the horse back in his/her pen.

The weather got a bit cooler this week, so it was actually plesant to be outside watching Bailey.

As she and the horse, Pat, were walking around, I started to notice something.

Do you see it?

Look at their feet.

They matched foot steps each time. I thought that was pretty neat.

Also please notice Bailey's new boots. She insisted that she have them for this.

I'd say she's pretty happy.

Honey Bun Cake

2011-09-04T15:17:00.001-05:00

The other day I was looking at all of the cake mixes I have in my pantry and decided I needed to make something.

I should explain. Yes, the show Extreme Couponing has been seen in my house, and yes I may have the couponing bug. I am not going to the extremes that the people on the show go to, but I still have about 30 boxes of cake mixed in my pantry at the moment. What? I got those for about $0.25 each, so it was a good deal.

Anyway, back to the recipe.

This is the Honey Bun Cake. Bailey used to request it for her birthday each year, but back then I made it in a 9x13 pan. I wanted something easier so I made it in a bunt pan today. The original recipe came from here and of course I tweaked it a bit.

Ingredients
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
I added 1 box of vanilla pudding because ~~I also have a lot of those too~~ it makes cakes very moist.

1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

For the icing:
2 cups confectioners' sugar
4 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat your over to 325 degrees. Spray your bunt pan with cooking spray.

Let me just say here that I love, Love, LOVE the smell of Pam Baking spray.

Mix the cake mix, oil, eggs, sour cream and pudding together. Pour half of the mix into the pan. Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle the mixture over the cake. Pour the rest of the cake into the pan.

Bake for about 50 minutes, until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Mix together the icing and after the cake has cooled a bit, drizzle the icing over the cake.

Enjoy!

More home construction

2011-08-27T10:34:00.006-05:00

School started here this week. Bailey was most excited about it. She's a sophmore this year.

I always take a picture of her on the first day of school, so here's this year's picture.

Isn't she adorable!

But, this post is about floors.

This is our old dining room.

In the picture above you can see Bailey and our nephew, Raylon. Raylon is living with us while he attends the University of North Texas. His older brother lived with us a couple of years ago, so it was his turn now. Bailey is enjoying having a brother around.

This is my office, which is officially supposed to be a formal living area, I guess.

Let's see how many pictures Twister can get into.

And here's our family room. Please ignore the mess.

One more picture looking from the family room, back towards the dining room and my office.

This week we replaced the carpet in our downstairs areas and put in wood floors.

Here's my new dining room.

This is from my office, looking through the dining room and into the family room.

Here's the family room. Yes, there's football on the tv.

There's ALWAYS football on the tv.

This is looking into my office from my dining room.

You can see two computer monitors on my desk because I'm working this weekend. Hurricane Irene has me hopping.

There's still a fine layer of dust on everything in my house from the construction. I'll get it all up eventually. Yeah, right!

Home Improvements? And a little help please . . .

2011-08-21T20:23:00.007-05:00

This summer will go down as the summer that was almost as hot as the record summer in 1980. It's been miserably hot here. I can't wait for cooler weather. I'm really 100% OVER summer.

This summer will also be memorable to us as the summer we did some home repairs.

One of the storms that hit us back in early June caused us some roof damage, caused some of our windows leaked, and caused some ceiling damage in our bedroom where the roof leaked.

Since we had to have our bedroom ceiling repaired, we decided to take this opportunity to have our bedroom painted.

I should explain how everything happened though. We knew who our contractor was going to be, we just weren't sure when he was going to be available. So, one day during lunch I was running through Wal-Mart with my coworker and we stopped by the paint section and I picked out four paint swatches that I liked. Then I put them in my purse and didn't really think about them again for a while.

Then one Tuesday I get a call from my contractor saying that he will come out the next day to do the work.

Did I go out and get more paint swatches? Did I go out and look at paint selections any more? Did I even spend more than five minutes reviewing the choices I had in my purse? The answer to all of these questions would be a big NO.

So, now that you have the background story, let me show you some pictures.

This is our bedroom.

When we moved into this house this was the first room I painted (thus the bad edging job).

Here's the other half of our bedroom, and Twister of course.

I should point out that these pictures were taken early in the morning. Our bedroom gets the morning sun and therefore the color looks much brighter than it would have at night.

I should also point out that I don't think my room is ever this clean.

One more picture - Twister was upset that he wasn't in the first picture so he had me take this one.

Ok - so now you know how our bedroom used to look. Now, keep in mind that I spent about five minutes reviewing paint color choices. And I never even read the paint names on the paint chips. This would prove to be a critical mistake.

Here's our room now. And these pictures were taken at night, so the room is a bit more subdued than it might be in the morning sun.

I've changed out the coverlet, and the pillows to try to blend with the new room color.

We are not thrilled with the paint color (the paint job was great, just my bad color choice). However, we are not about to have the room repainted, nor am I going to repaint the room myself. It's too hot here and I'm too old.

And I should have known better than to stick with this paint when our contractor started laughing at the name of the paint, "Sweet baby boy."

So here's where you come in. I love the iron piece we have on the wall. It was from my Grandmother. I like how it stands out more with the blue paint than it did with the brown. I thought I would play off of the blue and black theme when I chose the black throw blanket and pillows.

However, when Rominal came home one night and saw the new bedding, he just laughed. He is not a fan of the new look. Luckily for me he is an incredibly good sport and is not fussing at all. Apparently he never liked the brown paint either. His comment was that he lived in the brown room for 8 years, he can live in the baby blue room for 8 years too.

He is thinking we need dark blue bedding. I guess I'm stuck on the white bedding because fist of all, I just bought it, and second because my initial plan was to have the faintest of blue color on the walls. I wanted the color to be so soft that it almost looked white, and then have nice peaceful white bedding to go with it.

Well, you can se what happened.

So, any suggestions on how to make this work?

Delivering Cookies

2011-08-06T22:27:00.009-05:00

So, I haven't blogged in a while. I just haven't had much to say I guess.

It's hot here in Texas. Very hot. We have had over 30 days in a row with temperatures over 100 degrees. If we stay above 100 through next Saturday, and it looks like we will, this will be the longest streak of 100 degree days on record.

Did I mention it was hot here?

Today Bailey and I delivered cookies. A lot of cookies.

Last week I made two batches of these cookies. They are my Mother and my Grandfather's favorite cookie. The recipe makes a lot of cookies too.

I put them in the freezer and let them chill, then I bag them up in freezer bags so that my Mom and Grandfather can pull out 9 cookies at a time. Once they have defrosted, they taste fresh baked.

Here's what they look like in individual bags.

At first I thought I could use my little cooler to transport the cookies, but as you can see, they wouldn't fit.

I had to use my large cooler.

Mom is most pleased to find all of these cookies. She took half of the cookies and she is so disciplined that she can make these last a long time. She will eat just two a day. I wish I had that kind of will power!

After we delivered cookies to my Mom, we took cookies to my Grandfather.

My Grandfather, and my late Grandmother, have been ever so lucky to have a woman named Gloria help them out on a daily basis. Gloria has been such a blessing to us. When my Grandmother was alive, she loved to look at family pictures. She and Gloria spent countless hours going through tons of family albums. Gloria now knows more about our family than I'm sure she cares to know.

It takes a very special person to care for the elderly, and luckily for us, we found her. We are thankful every day that Gloria is a member of our family.

Here's my mother, my daughter Bailey, and Gloria along with my Grandfather.

Grandpa is now 91 or 92 years old. Yes, I should know for sure, but it's late here and I can't call my mom to verify his age this late at night.

My Grandparents owned a toy distribution company that they had started from the ground up. They worked very hard, but they always had time for family. Grandpa was especially good at magic tricks, and he always managed to found a quarter behind our ears when we would visit.

He did so much for me and every member of our family, I am ever so happy to make him cookies.

Rocky Mountain National Park

2011-07-03T12:39:00.006-05:00

We just got back from a trip to Colorado to visit family and friends. We had such a great time.

One day we took a side trip to one of my favorate places in the world (not that I've traveled that much, but I really love it here) the Rocky Mountain National Park and drove up Trail Ridge Road.

We started by driving through Big Thompson canyon, which is the picture you see above.

Once we got into the park, we stopped at a pull-off to see the sights.

I love the way the area smells, thanks to the pine trees that are everywhere.

Then we started up Fall Ridge Road. There have been times when we have driven this road and it was sunny and warm down below, but we ran into a snow storm up top. This sign is serious.

This picture is a shot-out to my internet friend Donna. (Waving at Donna!)

Yes, that is snow we are driving around. Which is a welcome sight considering it is around 100 degrees here in Texas today.

We are now above timberline, which is the altitude that trees will not grow above. Yeah, we were that high up.

We saw some elk several times on the way up. Here's one group of them.

When we came back down, we stopped in a picnic area and had a nice lunch in the valley.

After lunch we went to Estes Park. Here's the Twin Owls that overlook the town.

In Estes Park we had to stop at my favorite place. I have memories of going here when we would come up to visit my Grandparents. Luckily it hasn't changed.

On the way home we stopped at a pull off in the Big Thompson canyon again and took a couple more pictures.

Bailey and Rominal had to feel how cold the water was.

It was sweet of Bailey to hold my car for me too.

This was a great day. I'll post more pictures later. I've got tons of laundry to do.

Better than What? Cake

2011-06-20T17:27:00.003-05:00

This cake is called the Better Than Sex Cake.

And yes, it is that good.

This recipe comes from a friend of mine at work. She makes this cake for any pot-luck functions we have and everyone loves it.

Let's make it, shall we?

Preheat your oven to 350'

You will need the following:

1 Yellow Cake mix
1 Vanilla instant pudding mix
4 eggs
8oz sour cream
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
6oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 German chocolate bar - grated

Grate the German chocolate bar either by hand or in the Cuisinart.

Mix everything together except for the chocolate. Mix for 3 minutes.

Stir in the chocolate chips, and then stir in the grated chocolate.

Below you will see the batter and the chocolate shavings being stirred in.

Grease your bundt cake pan and pour the mix in.

Bake at 350' for about 50 minutes until your knife comes out clean. It normally takes about 55 minutes for mine to be done.

Allow to cool for about 10 minutes before you take it out of the pan, then remove from the pan and cool.

This cake is so moist and delicious. You are going to love it.

You might even love it better than . . . well, you decide.

Enjoy!

Family Gathering

2011-06-05T21:02:00.007-05:00

Today we had a big family gathering at our house to welcome my husband's nephew and his wife from New Mexico. They are staying with us while they visit with family.

We ended up with a pretty big gathering and we had a great time.

Here's Rominal with his sisters.

And here's Rominal with his oldest brother, Reg.

Rominal got his sister's birthday mixed up - we knew it was the 6th, we just got the wrong month. So, just to be safe, we made her a cake. (and by we, I mean me.)

The kids had fun playing with sidewalk chalk outside on our patio.

This is Rominal with 5 of his 6 brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, one brother couldn't make it.

This is me and April, Rominal's nephew's wife.

Here's some of Rominal's nephews and a niece.

As you can see, we ended up with a big crowd - and we had a great time!

22 Years ago today . . .

2011-05-27T07:46:00.004-05:00

I married a wonderful man.

Happy anniversary Sweetie!

Here's to another 22 years!

Tornado

2011-05-24T20:35:00.003-05:00

I've never seen a tornado in person. Luckily, this one was not very close.

These pictures were taken tonight from our front door.

We haven't heard of any damage - and this didn't last very long.

I just feel so bad for those people in Joplin. How very scary.

Sunday afternoon

2011-05-23T21:35:00.006-05:00

Last Sunday some Girl Scout leaders gathered at a private outdoor area for a cookout/pot-luck lunch. We had a great time and I thought I would share some pictures from the trip.

It was a family event, here's Rominal enjoying the day.

And Bailey and me.

And Bailey took a good picture of me and Rominal.

But here's the reason why we were here - for the kids.

They went canoeing.

And had a great time.

There was giant wild-life to climb on.

I love taking pictures of Rominal and Bailey when they don't know I'm taking pictures.

Oops - she caught me.

It wasn't long before a seaweed, or should I say, pond-weed fight broke out.

The weeds were flying!

They were having such fun!

Luckily us Mom's stayed pond-weed free.

It was a beautiful day - we had a great time with great people!

Kitchen Sink Egg Muffins

2011-05-19T17:39:00.005-05:00

Well, that title doesn't sound appealing at all, does it?

Oh well. That title fits.

If your anything like me, your mornings are hectic. I will sometimes do to much in the morning, thinking it will only take me a few minutes to grab this, or just a few minutes to do that. Before I know it, I've spent an hour doing "just this one little thing" or "while I'm here I should do that" type stuff. So, anything I can get myself to do before hand is a good thing.

Having my breakfast ready was one of those things I can do ahead of time.

Last week I made these muffins and they were really good, even really good the next couple of days - so I thought I would share them with you.

Here's what I did, and I think the beauty of this recipe is that it can be adapted to fit your likes and dislikes, or to what you have on hand.

For these pictures, I used:

5 Eggs, beaten
1/2 cup cubed pork loin from the dinner before
1 cup chopped up broccoli from the dinner before
1/4 - 1/3 cup shredded cheese

I sprayed a muffin tin with Pam (be sure to do this - even with doing this and using my non-stick muffin pan, they were still a bit difficult to get out).

Mix together the eggs, pork, broccoli, and cheese and add in a bit of salt and pepper. Bake in 375' oven for about 20-25 minutes, but keep an eye on them until they are set in the middle.

I put my leftovers in the fridge and would take out 1-2 each day for breakfast. Toss them in the microwave and they are yummy! They are pretty low in calories and they keep you full until lunch - another bonus.

The neat thing is that this would work well with other ingredients as well. Choose your favorite meat and veggie, or just do veggies.

Enjoy!

Random Cat Pictures

2011-05-11T19:07:00.000-05:00

Just since I haven't posted in a while, I thought I would share some random cat pictures of our cat Twister, or Cow, as my brother David calls him.

This is Twister on catnip.

Notice the dilated pupils. The dazed look. He's loving it.

This is a continuation of my series, stuff on my cat.

After having the stuff on him, he had to play with it a bit. This is a stuffed animal he's chomping on. No mice were harmed in the making of this picture.

And how lazy do you have to be to drink water while laying down? That's how Twister does it.

One final strange thing he does - he loves ice. He runs to the fridge whenever he hears the ice maker.

Disney Vacation - Animal Kingdom

2011-04-17T15:10:00.005-05:00

Here's the last recap of our trip to Disney World that we took in March. If you'd like to read about the other days, here's the link to Magic Kingdom, here's the link to Hollywood Studios, and here's the link to Epcot.

Here's Mom and me with Tigger. We love Tigger.

I should mention that it's hard for me to say Animal Kingdom. I always want to say "amminal" Kingdom - saying animal the way Bailey used to pronouce it when she was little.

We went on a safari ride while we were there. We saw some crocodiles.

We also saw some giraffes. I wanted to show you this picture because in the background you can see the cars we rode in.

This is key because after we got off of this ride, and walked a bit away, Bailey realized that she didn't have her cellphone with her anymore. We panicked and searched all the way back to the ride. Of course the truck we had ridden on was long gone. But, lucky for Bailey, this kind woman had her phone. Bailey was thrilled.

I took this picture immediately after we got Bailey's phone back, just to see if I could get Rominal to lighten up a bit. He was a bit angry with Bailey for losing her phone. I didn't know this at the time, but apparently this was the second time she had left her phone on a ride.

I liked how Animal Kingdom had lots of trees everywhere. You really did feel like you were in the jungle.

We took time on this day to meet some characters. Here's Bailey and Mickey.

And all of us with Mickey.

Mom had to kiss Mickey - and he didn't seem to mind either.

Here's Bailey and Minnie.

And Rominal, Bailey and me with Minnie.

Rominal had said all along that he would kiss Minnie, and he was true to his word.

One of the key landmarks at Animal Kingdom is the tree of life. It's carved with all kinds of animals in the trunk.

Inside of this tree (yes, I said inside) was my favorite activity or "ride" of the whole trip. The 3-D show was It's Tough to be a Bug. Mom had seen it before so she was somewhat prepared for the show, but Bailey, Rominal and I were surprised by everything. I won't ruin it and tell you what happens, but I'm still laughing about it.

It got pretty hot on our last day here. And over the 5 days, we had done a ton of walking.

Saturday morning we got up early and started the long drive home. We ended up bringing some poor critters home with us.

It was a wonderful trip - I'm very glad we got the opportunity to see Disney. I'm also glad we waited until Bailey was older. We saw so many parents dealing with strollers, etc. and I was quite pleased we didn't have to do that.

Disney Vacation Continued - Epcot

2011-04-09T18:13:00.008-05:00

Ok - back to our vacation pictures. If you'd like a recap, day 1 of our Disney World vacation is here, and day two is here.

On Wednesday, we took the day off from Disney and went to the beach. We went to Cocoa beach, and specifically to the Lori Wilson Park. It was great!

You can see Bailey is loving it.

Rominal is not a water person. He does not like it one bit.

This was as far as we could get him in the water, and that was with a lot of persuasion. We insisted that he put at least his feet into the Atlantic Ocean.

Bailey and I, however, love the water and we played in the waves for quite a while.

Once again, the locals game out to greet us.

On Thursday we went to Epcot. We started early to hopefully beat the crowds. Here's Bailey and my Mom.

And here's me, Bailey and Rominal.

The grounds were beautiful. We walked the most on this day, there was so much to see.

They were having their flower and garden festival, so it was extra beautiful.

We had lunch in Japan.

We all rode the ride Soarin', which makes you think you are hang-gliding over the United States. It was amazing. We knew that ride would get filled up quickly, so we got fast-pass tickets for that. I'm very glad we did.

We were amazed at their attention to detail.

And we love Pooh, so here's another shot of him.

And we couldn't leave Epcot without doing this.

Corny, I know.

I'll post the last day of our vacation recap in a couple of days.

Texas Bluebonnets

2011-04-02T16:55:00.006-05:00

I'm interrupting our Disney vacation pictures to show you this because it's Spring in Texas, which means . . .

It means the bluebonnets are in bloom!

I found a field close to our house that has tons of them.

After much persuasion and fussing, I got my family to go with me so that we could take some pictures.

Here's Rominal and Bailey.

And then I took a lot of just Bailey.

It wasn't long before my family had gotten into the spirit.

I doctored this one of me and Bailey up quite a bit.

And here's me and Rominal.

The bees were amazing. They were feasting on pollen.

She didn't eat any pollen. We took her to lunch after this.

We saw lots of lady bugs too.

I "Googled" bees and pollen and I read that the bees have pollen baskets on their legs. You can see the pollen basket in the picture below, it's almost red in color.

Next post will be back to Disney. Pardon the interruption.

Disney's Hollywood Studios

2011-03-31T20:02:00.008-05:00

I'm continuing the recap of our trip to Disney World for Spring Break. To read about our first day, click here. Above you see Rominal, Bailey and my Mom.

So, our second full day was spent at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Here's Rominal, Bailey and me.

Rominal loves the movie Aliens, so he had to get his picture taken with the thing. Scary.

And Bailey loves the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and the object below was used in one of the movies (or so they said). It was the net made of bones that they rolled around in.

Would you believe they had New York there? We knew we had walked a lot, but I didn't think we had walked all the way to New York!

Even when we got closer it was amazing to see. The attention to detail was fantastic.

Rominal had to get a closer look, even though that meant ruining the illusion.

We also walked to San Francisco! We were tired!

Here's Rominal and Bailey waiting to get on the, "Behind the Scenes" tour.

We saw some fire.

And just a bit of water.

Ok - make that a LOT of water.

Then somehow we walked over to the Star Wars area. I don't remember what those big things from the movie are called, but it's shocking to see one in person.

We then attended a stunt show, that focused on stunt driving. These cars drove so close together at times that I'm amazed they never crashed.

And of course, there was fire again. The woman you see below who is on fire was just fine. It was hard to watch though.

And what stunt show would be complete without a big explosion? Of course, Disney had one of those.

We ended up staying late at Hollywood Studios to see their fireworks show. It wasn't as good as Magic Kingdom's, but we were still glad we stayed.

I think my favorite thing from this day was the Muppets Show in 3D. Yes, I'm probably too old for that, but it was great. Rominal and Bailey rode the big Hollywood Hotel ride. It's like an elevator that bounces you around and then eventually drops you. Yeah, Mom and I skipped that one.

I'll post more later.

Disney's Magic Kingdom

2011-03-26T22:41:00.015-05:00

First of all, let me apologize for my absence. No real good reason - just life got in the way.

So, while I was gone, we went on vacation for Spring Break. We went to Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

We had never been there, so this was a real treat for us. Another treat for us was that my Mom came along with us for the trip.

Here's my mother and Bailey in the car. They look so happy because this picture was taken 30 minutes into our 18 hour drive.

Rominal looks pretty happy too. Again, this was day one.

This picture was taken somewhere near water. I'm sure you never would have guessed that. It's my self portrait.

When we finally arrived at the condo that we would be staying at for the next week, the locals came out to greet us.

So, our first day we went to Magic Kingdom. Someone was nice enough to take our picture together, so this is the four of us.

Did I mention how crowded it was? I know - we should have known better - it was Spring Break after all. Actually, of the four parks we went to, this was the most crowded park. It was quite surreal to walk down this "street" and see the castle in the background. This is an image we have all seen throughout our lives. And if you have a child in the house, you have seen countless Disney shows from this location.

About five minutes after we arrived here, there was a parade - as if was just to welcome us!

You can tell Bailey isn't going to enjoy this trip at all, poor thing.

Rominal and Bailey were our guides for the trip - Mom and I just went where ever they told us to go.

We are easy-going like that.

The people mover "ride" was our first thing. It's hardly a ride, it just takes you around a bit. But Rominal and Bailey were still having a blast anyway.

We went on a steamboat.

And Rominal had a nice chat with this fine gentleman and his friend. Rominal did all of the talking though.

I loved these little statues.

Mom and I waited for our dinner reservations while Rominal and Bailey ran to tomorrowland to ride a quick ride.

During dinner, we met this fine fellow. We love Pooh.

Bailey's first stuffed animal was a Pooh bear.

Actually, her first and second stuffed animal were the same Pooh bear because at some point we lost the first one and had to get a replacement one before she noticed the original was gone.

Shhhh, don't tell her. She still has that Pooh.

And we met Eeyore. Rominal was trying to cheer him up, but he didn't do very well.

And, we met another favorite, Tigger! My house key actually has Tigger on it, so I was pleased to meet him too.

We stayed at the park late to watch the light show and fireworks. I'm so glad we did - it was probably the highlight of our trip.

The lights on the castle would make it appear as though the castle was actually changing colors.

And this was the best fireworks show we have ever seen.

The only drawback to this day was that there were so many people in the park that when the show was over it took us almost 2 hours to get back to our car. It was worth it though.

I'll post more pictures from our trip in the next couple of days.

Taco Salad

2011-02-26T15:08:00.004-06:00

One of my dear friends who I have known since I was in 7th grade came over last night. In honor of Kim's visit, we made something that we used to make all of the time when we were young - Taco Salad.

I could kick myself for not taking a picture of Kim to share with you. You will have to believe me when I tell you she still looks like a teenager.

Anyway, I've described this dish to adults I know now and at least one person in particular makes fun of it whenever possible.

"Dorito's in a salad?!? That's not right!"

To him I say, "don't knock it until you have tried it!"

Here's the recipe:

1 pound of ground turkey or hamburger (I used turkey) cooked and drained.
1 head of lettuce, chopped
Cilantro - chopped
Tomatoes - chopped
Black olives, sliced and drained
Shredded cheese
Avocado (the ones I had weren't ripe, so they didn't get added this time)
1 can Ranch Style beans, drain and reserve the liquid
Doritos Nacho Cheese flavored chips (crush some of the chips and add to the salad to your liking)

Basically combine everything above and then put the dressing below on.

Dressing:
Honey - about 2 tablespoons
Mayonnaise - about 2 tablespoons
Ketchup - about 2 tablespoons
Vinegar - about 1 tablespoons
Reserved liquid from beans

Mix these ingredients into a jar and shake, or mix up in a bowl. I keep tasting the dressing until it tastes "right." And honestly, if you didn't feel like making a dressing then you could use something like a French dressing.

Here's the dressing ingredients:

Don't forget to drain the beans and reserve the liquid for the dressing.

Most of the salad ingredients:

And again, here's the finished product. This really is good and quite addicting.

Enjoy!

Playing Catch Up

2011-02-07T14:52:00.012-06:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Things have been kinda busy around here.

I'm not sure if you have heard, but we held a little game here last Sunday. So, just to catch you up on everything, here's what I've been up to.

About a week ago we went to the NFL Experience in Downtown Dallas.

Poor Rominal. He's not going to like this at all. Don't let his big grin fool you.

Actually, Rominal loves football. So he was quite pleased to be at the NFL Experience.

Our friend Steve tried on a Broncos outfit, because he's a big Broncos fan.

This ball had special meaning. It was the ball from the Cowboys versus Steelers Super Bowl game back on January 28, 1996. It was the last time that the Cowboys have been in a Super Bowl. About two weeks later, Bailey was born.

Coincidence?

Rominal thinks not.

Here's me and Bailey - I've got a goofy smile, but oh well.

A big part of the NFL Experience is where kids, and kids at heart, can try running formations or tossing the ball. Rominal had to try this out.

Here he is right before he runs his formation.

And here he is running for the ball.

We'll just assume he catches it, ok? Yeah, go with that.

Where's Rominal?

Here's me again as a Cowboy. This is way more difficult than it looks, because I'm having to stand on this statue's feet in order to be tall enough to get my head over the shoulders. I'm really hanging on as best I can.

They had a mock-up of a locker room and I got these shots of Bailey and Rominal.

And now on for the weather related events.

Last week we had some ice, and some snow. It was pretty crazy.

First on Tuesday, we got a ton of ice. Everything was shut down - I stood in the doorway long enough to take this picture and that was it. You can see that our patio and grass is coated in ice.

The ice stayed with us through the week. Then on Friday, we got snow. And a lot of snow for around here.

Here's Rominal outside in our back yard. Hey, what's he doing with that snowball?

Hey! Hey now! That is uncalled for!

Yeah, well luckily I was standing inside taking pictures and I was not touched by snow. I know you were concerned.

We thought we would let Twister get a taste of the snow.

He's not real sure what to think.

I think he's starting to realize it's nice and warm inside, and not so much outside.

Look at his little snow covered paws. So cute!

All of the school districts closed on Tuesday through Friday, so the kids all enjoyed a nice, long weekend.

One last picture - from my front porch, because I too did not step food outside of the house.

And of course, in typical Texas fashion, all of the snow has melted away and this is now just a memory. However, they are predicting snow again for Wednesday. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Hope you are warm where you are!

Nicole Suzanne

2011-01-27T18:02:00.004-06:00

I don't talk about this much, but it's something I think about every year on this day and today I thought I would share.

19 years ago today in 1992 Rominal and I had a baby.

Nicole Susanne was her name. She was named Nicole because we liked the name, and Susanne was for my mother.

We knew something was not quite right when I was around six months pregnant. I was measuring way too big for only being 6 months along.

We had a high-level sonogram done and it revealed that her stomach was enlarged. This meant that she wasn't processing the amniotic fluid properly, therefore I was carrying twice the amount of fluid that you should.

This was also a sign of down syndrome, which was confirmed once we had an amniocentesis.

We met with a local down syndrome group and prepared, as best as one can, to raise a daughter with special needs. We met the most wonderful family and a special little boy who had down syndrome. We felt we were ready for this added challenge and we anxiously awaited her arrival.

After a 2 1/2 month struggle with premature labor, she was born via emergency c-section.

Because of the extra fluid I was carrying, she had been able to twist and turn a lot when I was pregnant with her. The umbilical cord was all twisted up like a phone cord and she had a lack of oxygen throughout my pregnancy.

We kept her on life support until it was clear that she had no brain functioning and would not survive.

She passed away on January 30.

While this was an event in my life that shook me to the core, each year that passes becomes easier. Rominal or I will say to the other, "do you know what tomorrow is?" and then we do the math to figure out how old she would be this year.

As tough as that time was, I still would go through it rather than not. I'm not saying I don't wish Nicole didn't survive, because I do. I'm just saying that I prefer to look at the bright side of life (are you singing the Monty Python song now too?). This probably helped strengthen our marriage, and probably has made me a better mother to Bailey than I might have been had I not lost a child.

This poem appeared in a Dear Abby article sometime after Nicole was born and I cut it out and saved it. I still have it to this day and it still means a lot to me. Even though we never got to experience Holland, in our own way, we experienced a completely different place.

I'll share it with you now.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

2011-01-24T20:35:00.004-06:00

I made this quick and easy dinner tonight.

Yes, that's a Pillsbury crescent roll on the plate, and yes, that's a store-bought pasta salad. I should mention that I'm fighting a cold that Rominal has shared with both me and Bailey. So, the fact that I made dinner at all should be celebrated.

Here's what I did.

I started by mixing up some mayonnaise, mustard, and a bit of Worcester sauce. I then slathered this all over some boneless, skinless chicken.

I didn't measure anything, but it should look like this.

I let the chicken hang out in the sauce for a bit, then I dipped it into some Italian style bread crumbs.

I baked the chicken in a 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes, or until it was done.

The inside was nice and juicy, and it had a great flavor.

I realize this isn't a gourmet meal, but it was quick and easy and it got dinner on the table.

And did I mention that I don't feel well?

So, give this a try if you just can't think of another way to fix chicken. It turned out pretty good.

Enjoy!

I have arrived!

2011-01-13T20:36:00.005-06:00

I got a special envelope in the mail today. One that I have been anxiously awaiting.

It's kinda silly, but I was pretty excited about this.

Any guesses to what it is?

All right, I'll tell you.

It's this:

Do you recognize the logo?

Yes, that is a Gold Starbucks card. A Gold Starbucks card with MY NAME ON IT! (Do I hear oohh's and awe's out there? I thought so!)

I didn't even know they existed until my friend Melissa got one! Once I found out about it, it became my life's goal to get one myself.

Yes, I set my goals high and I go for them.

Sure, I may be a bit pumped up on caffeine now, and sure I might not be able to sleep for several weeks, but I have a Gold Starbuck's card with my name on it and all is good in the world.

Except that after seeing the picture above I realize I am in need of a manicure, or at least some lotion.

First snow of 2011!

2011-01-09T13:23:00.004-06:00

We woke up this morning to rain. Lots and lots of rain.

But then around lunchtime, the rain changed to snow and it hasn't stopped snowing yet.

Of course, Bailey couldn't wait to go out in the snow to play with her friends.

The weather people are predicting that all of this wet, heavy snow will turn to ice tonight. Bailey is hoping for a snow day tomorrow.

(shhhhh, don't tell anyone, but I am too)

The bushes in our yard are coated with snow - and so pretty.

Hope you are warm where you are!

And Erin - I think your blog trick for my pictures worked! Thanks!

Sausage and Roasted Vegetable Penne - Again

2011-01-03T17:58:00.005-06:00

Ok - so this is a re-post because I remembered to take pictures the last time I made this dish. It really is quite good, and I want to encourage everyone to try it. My original post was here.

This is a recipe by Melissa d'Arabian on Food Network. The original recipe is here.
I made a few changes, which I will indicate below:

Ingredients
1 sweet onion, cut into wedges
1 medium zucchini, sliced in 1/2 lengthwise
1 red bell pepper, cheeks removed
1/2 pound button mushrooms, stemmed (nope - did not include these - mushrooms are fungus. Nothankyouverymuch.)
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 pint grape tomatoes, washed and dried
2 sweet or hot Italian sausages, thinly sliced or casings removed (I happened to have chicken with asiago cheese sausage on hand and it worked great.)
1/4 cup white wine (not sure how much I actually put into the pot, because I drank what wasn't used.)
12 ounces whole-grain penne, cooked according to package instructions, 1/2 cup pasta water reserved (Bailey wanted pasta shells, so that's what we used.)
Freshly grated Parmesan, for garnish

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. (I roast my veggies at 425 degrees)

In a bowl, toss all the vegetables, except the tomatoes, with 1 1/2 tablespoons oil. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Arrange on a baking sheet and roast, until caramelized, about 30 minutes, turning vegetables halfway through the cooking time. In a small bowl, add the tomatoes and the remaining olive oil and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper, to taste, and add to the baking sheet, at the halfway point of cooking, to caramelize. (I always do this on parchment paper, mostly because my cooking sheet is nasty looking, and because it makes for easy cleanup.)

Meanwhile, in a large skillet over medium heat, add the sausage and saute until cooked through. Turn up the heat and deglaze with white wine. Once the vegetables are cooked, cool slightly, then coarsely chop. Add the vegetables and any pan juices to the sausage in the skillet. Toss in the cooked penne, adding reserved pasta water, if needed, to moisten. Season with salt and pepper, to taste, and serve in bowls topped with Parmesan.

Here's my cut-up chicken sausage. I removed the casings, because they gross me out.

Here's my veggies after they have cooked for a bit and I just added the tomatoes. They were going back into the oven after this shot.

Yummy browned sausage.

And sausage with wine. Yum!

Here's the final product again. We all love this dish.

Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T22:46:00.003-06:00

I hope your new year is filled with more happy days than sad.

I hope your new year is filled with kindness and love.

I hope your new year is filled with family and friends.

I hope your new year is filled with good health.

I hope your new year is filled with prosperity.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas - (way late!)

2010-12-28T19:35:00.006-06:00

Merry Christmas everyone! Yes, I know I'm way behind on posting. I've been quite busy - as usual. So, here's a recap.

We spent Christmas Eve at my Mom and her husband, Howard's house. It's our tradition to go there that night for dinner. Here's my mom - adorable as ever.

Rominal and Bailey are looking pretty cute as well.

Bailey is especially cute and polite. She thinks there are presents for her under the tree.

Here's me and Rominal, right before we start opening presents.

And another one of Bailey - she's playing Santa by handing out the gifts.

Each year my Mom has given Bailey a challenge to find her final "big" gift. In the past Mom would write a poem or lyric that would lead Bailey from one part of the house to the other, each time finding more clues.

This year she gave Bailey a couple of lines from two popular songs (that Bailey knows well) and gave Bailey the option of which song she would sing for her gift. It was quite fun to watch.

Bailey sang the song, "1,2,3,4" by the Plain White T's. In case you are not familiar with it, here it is:

Of course, Bailey did it without any music and she was quite good.

Well, Mom didn't let me slide on this new tradition.

Bailey and I had to sing our rendition of "Single Ladies" before I could get my last present. Luckily for me, Rominal's cell phone video of this event was lost.

Trust me, it's a good thing.

Rominal was not spared from the singing either. He had to sing the first song we danced to at our wedding, 21 years ago, before he could get his present. It was "Forever in My Life" by Prince.

Here's Rominal serenading me.

I would certainly understand if many of you out there are not familiar with this song. After all - it is pretty old now. Just in case you can't quite remember it, here it is for you.

I should say that there isn't really a video to this - just the song from the album.

After Rominal had successfully completed his task, he was rewarded with his gift.

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and everyone got to spend time with their loved ones.

Mavericks Basketball Game

2010-12-18T11:00:00.004-06:00

Last Saturday, the 3 Girl Scouts in my troop and their families got together for dinner at Babe's Restaurant and then we went to the Dallas Mavericks Basketball game. It was a special night for the Girl Scouts since the Mavericks offered discount tickets to us.

If you ever get the chance to go to Babe's, you must go. The food is fantastic.

This was on the ceiling above our heads. It just made me giggle. Those are the bottom of ducks swimming in a lake, in case you can't tell from the picture.

We rode the Dallas Area Rapid Transit or DART to get to the game. That was fun as well.

Here's the three girls, Elizabeth, Bailey and Tiffany.

Here we are all lined up in our seats. Melissa is ready for the game to start.

This is the look I get from Tiffany when she's tired of me taking so many pictures. I know she will appreciate them when she gets older, but she doesn't right now.

Here's the Mav's guy, jumping over a bunch of service men.

And he made the basket!

The pictures above are a bit more impressive when you see where we were sitting.

There was only 1 row behind us.

We were as high up in the building as you could get.

We were beyond the nosebleed section.

Am I making myself clear? We were WAY up there. I was scared!

On to another night from last week.

On Wednesday, the Girl Scouts got together for dinner and a holiday celebration.

They have all earned their Silver Award and we are so proud of them. They worked very hard for this award.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

A Holiday Song for you!

2010-12-17T18:29:00.008-06:00

Mery Christmas!

The Muppets always put me in a good mood. Hope you like them too.

My new ride!

2010-12-11T09:00:00.006-06:00

For the last 7 years, this has been my ride.

It's been a great car/van. We have made many wonderful trips and memories in this van. It has served us very well.

But, Bailey is getting older and will be driving soon. We will eventually let Bailey drive our Honda CR-V and Rominal will drive the van. So, that meant I needed to get a new car.

Meet my new Honda Pilot!

We brought it home last night.

One of the things I wanted was to be up a bit higher than my van, and you can see the Pilot is slightly higher up.

I have the next 7 years to learn what all of these buttons do. It also responds to voice commands, should I get tired of pushing buttons. Hee hee - love that!

Rominal is checking out the cargo area.

Bailey will appreciate the window shades during Texas summers.

My van had seats for 7 people, while the Pilot has seats for 8. The people in the third row have to be really small or really good friends though.

I often have that many people in my car for work lunches, so that was important to me.

Here's Rominal checking out the third row seats.

I actually woke up really early this morning, just to go for a ride in my new car. Of course, I made good use of my trip and got Starbucks while I was out too.

Have a great day!

A weekend in Paris (Paris, Texas that is)

2010-12-06T12:03:00.015-06:00

This last weekend, me and Bailey (above) went to a Leader-Daughter Girl Scout camp. We had the best time together.

The camp was near a small town - Paris, Texas. Saturday morning we did a scavenger hunt through their old cemetery. The girls were looking for unusual items on the headstones.

It was a beautiful day and some of the headstones were amazing. Here's a baby lamb.

Another monument.

The statue below has an interesting story. It's of Jesus and the person carving the statue passed away before the monument was finished. The person who finished the monument didn't know how to carve sandals or feet so he put Jesus wearing cowboy boots.

I liked these headstones. They say a lot without saying much.

This wasn't part of the scavenger hunt, but we did find Waldo.

The headstones for children broke my heart.

Such detail.

These date back to 1887 in the case of the one below.

They have held up very well over time.

I thought this tree was interesting as well.

Here's the camp site where we stayed.

Here's the inside of our building.

The property had a very small lake as well.

Bailey made for a good subject as I practice taking pictures.

There were tons of leaves around to play in. There are 4 girls in the picture below - can you find them all?

Bailey made this blanket while we were there. It kept her very warm that night.

Bailey was the oldest girl there, and she enjoyed playing with the younger girls. She was so good with the younger kids and very helpful. I was so proud of her.

The kids played tag among other things.

Saturday night was a big parade through Paris. The Chamber of Commerce had arranged for us to ride on an old trolley in the parade. Here we are on the back of it.

The younger brother of a Girl Scout was on the trip too. Ethan and Bailey really had a good time together.

There was room for some of the girls to sit in the front window of the trolley as well.

These local girls were all dressed up for the parade as well.

I was amazed at how big this parade was. The picture below is from the staging area where all of the cars, trucks, and motorcycles were getting ready to start the parade.

Even the Grinch was there.

The fire engine was all decked out too. There were so many people in the parade that I couldn't believe that there would be anyone left to watch the parade!

All of the cars below are part of the parade.

Finally it was time for the parade to start. A high school band followed us during the parade.

People lined the parade route the entire way, despite how cold it was outside.

Bailey and Kendal were having a blast.

This is Beth, the Girl Scout leader who had made this weekend possible. She's amazing. I honestly don't think she ever sleeps. She wanted the Girl Scout leaders to be able to spend a special weekend with their daughters and that's exactly what we did. I can't thank her enough.

The girls dressed as Whooville people walked a bit of the parade behind our trolley.

Our kids were having a blast inside the trolley.

The parade lasted at least an hour. It was very special to be a part of this small town tradition.

Thanksgiving Recap

2010-11-27T18:17:00.007-06:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We had a great time, and a small gathering this year. My mother and my brother Eddie came to our house this year.

We had these cornbread muffins (I'll post the recipe later). Half of them have cranberries in them, just to be a bit festive.

Here's Rominal carving the turkey. It turned out fantastic. We always use Alton Brown's turkey brine recipe. You can find that here. We cooked the turkey according to the recipe as well, and it was so good.

Rominal loves it when I take pictures of him doing things. (Not really)

Here's the mashed potatoes.

And my cornbread dressing. Yum!

And for Rominal, I made green beans with (gag) mushrooms. He loves this, and I really don't like it, but I made it for him.

Here's me, getting stuff ready. Notice the cute apron.

Here's the sweet potatoes, smothered with marshmallows. Another yum!

Mom made this corn pudding and brought it over to my house.

But hey, what's this I see? I think a bite is missing! I'm telling!

Mom also made a yummy salad with pears and walnuts, and my homemade cranberry sauce is in the background.

We are still eating the leftovers, which I am quite pleased to do.

I hope everyone had a wonderful time.

High School Football

2010-11-20T22:30:00.016-06:00

This morning, we loaded up the car and took these two critters out to see a high school football game.

You might not be aware, but here in Texas, apparently high school football is a big deal.

As this was a playoff game, our high school played in a pretty big stadium.

This one.

Yup - that's the Cowboy's Stadium.

I had never been to the stadium before, so I was quite pleased to get the opportunity to go. Rominal and Bailey had been on a tour there before, so they were familiar with it.

Here's me and Tiffany, my "sometimes daughter."

And Bailey and Tiffany.

Rominal is taking in the sights.

It's hard to believe how big this place is. However, it didn't feel too big. I think that's because during the first half of the game we were sitting pretty close to the field. I imagine I would have a different opinion if we were way up in the highest seats.

We played Cedar Hill today. The last time Guyer High School played them they beat us by 1 point.

It was fun to get caught up in the excitement.

I also love to people watch.

Here's some action shots. I'd like to be able to tell you what's going on here, but I couldn't pull that off.

I think they were chasing the ball.

Guyer High School scored first and maintained the lead throughout the game.

This made our side of the field quite happy.

See how happy we are?

The cheerleaders were cute. This spells, "GHS" in case it's hard for you to see.

Oh - and if you think for a minute that Texas doesn't take their football seriously, let me present this to you.

Several high school games were going to be played at the stadium today. While our game was still going on, the team that would play next came in and sat down.

Notice anything strange or different in the picture below?

The football players had all dyed their hair blond.

Wow. That's commitment.

Time for the half-time show.

And another banner to run through.

At this point we decided to get something to eat and walk to another part of the stadium. This area is behind the seating. It was huge too!

And that TV screen that you have probably heard so much about?

Well, it's big.

Really big. And I have to say, I was surprised at how good the picture was.

Rominal was just so happy to be in the stadium.

Guyer ended up winning, 48-35. Everyone shakes hands after the game.

And we take these two critters home.

A new purpose!

2010-11-07T14:21:00.005-06:00

We have a front room that we don't use very much. It's purpose has changed throughout the years. When we first moved into this house, it was the piano room, because Bailey was taking piano lessons and that's where the piano was.

It's always been where we put up the Christmas tree, because it's in the front of the house and I like to leave the blinds open at night so that people can see the tree lights as they drive by.

This is an old picture, obviously right after Christmas. I can tell by all of the wrapping paper still on the sofa.

Here's another picture. Note the piano on the left - we got that one for free about 10 years ago. It served us well over the years.

More recently, we acquired the electric one you see on the right from my Dad & Bonus Mom. The electric one doesn't require constant tuning, so it's a keeper.

Well, recently we gave this room a new purpose. It's now become my office. This means that Rominal has his own office directly above this room. He can keep his room as messy as he wants.

He prefers to call his room his fortress of solitude. We haven't cleaned it up yet, so no pictures of that room right now. Honestly, you'd thank me for no pictures if you ever saw it.

But, back to my room. Here's my new office!

This room is right by the front door and here I'm looking into the rest of the house.

What you can't see in the picture above is our formal dining room, which is directly to the right. The reason I'm not showing that right now is that there is currently a love seat shoved into the room along with our normal dining room table. We plan on donating that to a charity.

Isn't this nice! My friend Melissa helped me accessorize the shelves.

I have no ability in that area at all, so it's a good thing she helped me out.

We gave away the old piano, but we kept the electric piano. You can see it on the left in the picture below.

Someday I want to have bookcases and a window seat built around the windows in this room. And we'd like to yank out the carpet and put in wood floors as well. That's our future plans.

I'm loving the new room and my new clean desk area. I'm not sure what we will do with the Christmas tree this year, but I'm not worried about that right now.

Chicken Tortilla Casserole

2010-11-01T21:01:00.007-05:00

I used to make this dish all of the time, and for some reason I guess I just stopped. The recipe came from my Grandmother and it is quite adaptable.

This was the perfect recipe for this adorable set of baking dishes that my friend Melissa gave me for my birthday! Aren't these adorable?

I think this is pretty adorable too.

Ok - back to the food. I poached 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts in chicken broth.

Then I added these. The thing about this recipe is that if you don't like these soups, you can use cream of celery, or cream of potato. My Grandmother used cream of mushroom, but that's not allowed in my house because mushrooms are gross, so I used cream of onion and cream of chicken soup. Also add 1 can of chopped green chiles.

Chop up your corn tortillas into bite size pieces.

Then spray your dish with cooking oil and put one layer of tortillas down.

Chop up your cooked chicken and mix it together with your soup mixture.

Here's where you can have fun. I've been known to add black olives, black beans, cans of chopped tomatoes even some sour cream. It's a good time to empty out your pantry or fridge. You can add whatever floats your boat.

I kept it simple this time - chicken, soup and chiles.

Mix it all together.

Then spread a bit on top of your tortilla layer.

Then sprinkle with cheese.

Repeat the layers and end with tortillas and cheese on top.

I cover it with foil and bake at 350 until it's bubbly. About 45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake 5 more minutes until the cheese is browned.

Let it set for a few minutes before you cut into it.

Enjoy!

And one more cute kid picture - because it's my blog.

Pan de Muertos - Mexican bread of the dead

2010-10-29T22:08:00.003-05:00

Bailey wanted some extra credit for her Spanish class and she asked her teacher what she could do. Her teacher told her that she could make this bread.

November 2 is Dian de los Muertos or Day of the Dead in Mexico. And don't ask me any more about that because that's all I know on that subject.

While I don't think it turned out looking the way it was supposed to, the bread itself was good and fairly easy to make. However, Bailey said that the kids at school didn't like the liquorice taste, so if you are not a fan of that, just leave out the anise seeds.

The original recipe is here.

Ingredients
1/4 cup margarine
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons anise seed
1/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons orange zest
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon orange zest
2 tablespoons white sugar

Directions
1.Heat the milk and the butter together in a medium saucepan, until the butter melts. Remove from the heat and add them warm water. The mixture should be around 110 degrees F (43 degrees C).
2.In a large bowl combine 1 cup of the flour, yeast, salt, anise seed and 1/4 cup of the sugar. Beat in the warm milk mixture then add the eggs and orange zest and beat until well combined. Stir in 1/2 cup of flour and continue adding more flour until the dough is soft.
3.Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. We did not do this - we just kept the dough in the mixer a while longer.
4.Place the dough into a lightly greased bowl cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size. This will take about 1 to 2 hours. Punch the dough down and shape it into a large round loaf with a round knob on top. Place dough onto a baking sheet, loosely cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for about 1 hour or until just about doubled in size.
5.Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) oven for about 35 to 45 minutes. Remove from oven let cool slightly then brush with glaze.
6.To make glaze: In a small saucepan combine the 1/4 cup sugar, orange juice and orange zest. Bring to a boil over medium heat and boil for 2 minutes. Brush over top of bread while still warm. Sprinkle glazed bread with white sugar.

Bailey used my Kitchen Aid to mix the bread up, so we skipped kneading part. We just let the Kitchen Aid do it's thing.

Here's the dough before it's first rise.

And here's the final bread, before Bailey sprinkled sugar on it.

And here it is with the sugar on top.

And a slice. You can see the anise seeds in the bread.

I think I will try to make this again - it was super easy and the consistency turned out quite nice.

Enjoy!

My Current Obsession

2010-10-25T20:00:00.008-05:00

Food wise - I tend to find something I really like, and then eat it as much as possible until I'm completely sick of it.

My current obsession is tomato, basil, mozzarella cheese sandwiches.

Yum - fresh tomato slices with just a sprinkling of kosher salt.

Notice that I put just a touch of olive oil on the bread as well - just because.

Then it's time to bring on the fresh basil.

Now for some sliced mozzarella. Oh man.

Doesn't this look good! Oh - and these grapes - they were to die for!

The other thing I'm currently enjoying doing is putting stuff on my cat.

For example, the other day I was doing laundry. See anything odd here?

I set a shirt on the bed and Twister jumped up and got on the warm clothes. So, I just continued to put more clothes on top of him.

I don't think he minded one bit.

He's quite content under the nice warm clothes.

Yup - time for a nap.

One day we had a shoe box lying around. Anyone who has a cat knows that boxes are the best cat beds.

He was looking too comfortable, so I put an old shoe on top of him.

That didn't seem to bother him at all, so on goes another shoe. (hee hee)

He's momentarily bothered.

Really - only for a second.

If he weren't so comfortable, he might get up.

Nah - back to sleep.

Cupcakes!

2010-10-10T12:45:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I wanted to play in the kitchen. So I made cupcakes.

And in honor of my little sister, who just became a Mom on Friday, I made cupcakes with baby blue icing. Bailey thinks the "B" cupcake above is for her, but it's really for baby boy. Shhh, don't tell her.

It's so hard to believe that my little sister is now a mother. I so wish I was there with her and the family to see my new little nephew. I hear he's adorable.

So, since I can't be there in person, I'm baking. Every happy occasion deserves baked goods.

Yeah, I know it doesn't make any sense, but oh well. That's how I roll.

I started with chocolate cupcakes.

And then I went a little crazy.

The sprinkles make the icing crunchy.

And then for the baby blue designs.

I had fun making the swirls.

You will notice that one cupcake is already missing. Bailey!

And a special note to my sister (who won't see this for a while because she just had a baby!) - I am so very happy for you and John. I can't wait to meet your son!

I love you!

Oh dear - we've created a monster!

2010-10-07T20:34:00.005-05:00

We have a house cat named Twister (or Cow if you are my brother David). He's a completely indoors cat, we don't let him outside.

However, the other day it was quite nice outside. There was a cool breeze and the sun was shinning. It was a beautiful day.

We decided to let Twister outside for just a minute. You can tell he hated the warm cement.

Then it was time for him to explore our backyard. Oh was that fun!

We kept a pretty close eye on him the whole time.

Bailey didn't let him get too far away.

Back to the cement. He loved rubbing all over it. Who knew a cat could twist like that?

Oh yeah - that's the spot!

Wait - bug!

Nah, I'll just stay here.

I'll use my mind powers to get the bug.

Or, maybe not.

The only problem is that now he occasionally meow's at the backdoor wanting to go back out. Oh well, it was worth it.

Surprise! Kinda.

2010-10-03T16:52:00.010-05:00

Tomorrow is my brother Eddie's 30th birthday. To celebrate his birthday, we had a surprise party for him last night.

Well, that was our plan at least. He arrived a bit early and only a few people where here. On top of that, our front door was unlocked and he walked right in. So, we didn't get to yell, "surprise!"

I think he still had a great time.

Here he is on the left, enjoying a Fat Tire beer with Rominal, Chris, and Tommy.

Bailey loved playing catch with Tommy's son, and he didn't seem to mind playing with Bailey either.

Here's some of the crowd.

And Rominal thanking everyone for coming out to wish Eddie a happy birthday.

More crowd shots.

I didn't have 30 candles, so we made do with as many as I had.

And I didn't even use the trick candles that I had. (You can thank me later, Eddie)

After a bit, Rominal and Bailey danced for everyone. Steve has a video of this and I hope to post it at some point.

It was amusing to everyone.

Then Rominal decided to show everyone another dance, at least that's what he called it.

Steve had to show us one too.

Then Bailey and Brittany did the Cupid Shuffle.

And before long, Rominal had joined in on that too.

And the cutest party attendee award goes to Juvy's daughter.

She seemed to have a good time too.

Happy Birthday Eddie! I hope you had a wonderful time!

State Fair of Texas - and other things

2010-09-27T21:00:00.012-05:00

What a busy weekend we had!

First of all, last week was Rominal's birthday. Poor guy had to work really late on his birthday so the first time we had to celebrate was Friday night at my mom's house.

Rominal's not real big on sweets, but he loves Blue Bell homemade vanilla ice cream.

My brother, David, and his wife, Lauren, were in town for the weekend. We took them to the Texas State Fair on Saturday. Unfortunately, it rained until about 2:00pm that day.

Here's Bailey, David and Lauren.

One of the new fried foods this year is fried beer. Yup - you read that correctly, fried beer.

Even though it was still pretty early in the day, we knew we had try this.

It was so gross. David is trying not to spit it out.

Here you can see the beer ooze out.

We had to get a Belgian Waffle to get the nasty taste out of our mouths - except for Bailey. She didn't have any fried beer, but she did have the waffle.

Because of the rain, there weren't that many people there. We spent some time in the car show area and David and Lauren found a foosball table.

This is Bailey in the main food area in front of the Cotton Bowl. Normally this would be packed with people, but because of the rain the place was empty. We didn't mind the rain so much because Bailey and I had gotten used to walking around in the rain from our trip to England.

Here's Rominal - happy as can be because he has a container of Jack's French Fries.

Here they are. Yummy!

Of course, he shared them with everyone.

Here's the typical menu - can you guess what we got from here?

If you guessed fried cookie dough, then you win a prize!

Although the fried peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwich also caught my eye, we were just too full.

Here's the cookie dough. It was really good.

Bailey and Lauren enjoyed some rides.

Here they are on the swings.

They went very high.

I mean really, really high in the air.

This guy was one of the operators of the Love Bug ride. He was dancing and swaying to the loud music. He was pretty fun to watch. He was clearly having a great time.

Bailey and Lauren - on yet another ride.

Then we saw some great pumpkin carvings.

Oh wait - Bailey and Lauren on another ride. . .

Time for more food. David got some corn on the cob.

Lauren got a funnel cake, which we all shared.

And Rominal got a stick of potatoes.

The aquarium had a new stingray exhibit. We got to feed and touch them.

The octopus was a bit "touchy."

Oh - more food! A carmel apple.

And would you believe that after the very full day at the fair, Bailey still had the energy to go to the homecoming dance at her highschool that night.

As soon as we got home, she rushed and got ready and her she is in her dress. She wore her black sequined Converse shoes with the dress. How smart is that!

And that's all for the fair. Believe it or not, we didn't see or do everything. Rominal and I are already trying to think of another day that we can get out there this year.

Black Bean Hummus

2010-09-23T08:00:00.003-05:00

I love hummus, and I love black beans. So it occurred to me today, why can't hummus be made with black beans?

Well, let's overlook the obvious visual comparisons to ground up black beans, and move on, shall we?

Here's what I did. I first drained 1 can of reduced sodium black beans (reserving the liquid) and put them in my food processor. I then added some cilantro.

I mixed in some seasonings and it was done in no time.

It was really good. I just about ate this whole bowl. I finally had to put it in the fridge just to get it away from me.

Here's the recipe - I didn't really measure anything, so I'm guessing on things here.

1 can of reduced sodium black beans, reserve the drained juice please

Cilantro - as much as you like, and I like lots

Cumin, about 2 tsp

Celery salt, about 1 tsp

Garlic powder, about 1 tsp

Cayenne pepper - about 1/4 to 1/2 tsp

Kosher salt - about 2 tsp

Pepper - about 2 tsp

Juice of 1 lime

Blend together and add the reserved bean liquid until the mixture is the desired consistency.

It was such a quick snack to make - I'll be doing this again, and again, and again. And since there was no oil or tahini, this really is a low-fat, healthy snack. I paired it with naked pita chips.

Enjoy!

Blue Man Group

2010-09-20T18:29:00.006-05:00

Over the years we have taken Bailey to a lot of things. Her first concert was to see Sting when she was around 4 or 5. It was an outdoor concert, so we were able to sit on the grass and enjoy the show. She loved it. And everyone around us thought she was so cute dancing in the grass to the music.

About five years ago we took Bailey to see the Blue Man Group's "How to be a Megastar" tour at the American Airlines arena. She was around 9 years old then. That show is one Rominal's all time favorite concerts - mine too. And we have been to a lot of concerts.

This last Saturday we saw the Blue Man again. This show was held at the new Winsphere Opera House in the Arts District in downtown Dallas. It's a much smaller venue than the American Airlines arena is and it felt more intimate.

Here's a great song of theirs just to give you an idea of what they sound like:

If you ever get the opportunity to see the Blue Man Group, I highly recommend it you see it - with or without a teenager.

Tropical Fruit Salad

2010-09-19T14:41:00.003-05:00

A while back I found this recipe in the newspaper and I clipped it out. I knew at some point I would want to make it. About a week ago, I got the opportunity to try it out. It had two of my favorite flavors, cilantro and avocado. Also it has jicama in it, and I'm always trying to find recipes for jicama - I love it too.

Here's what you need:

• 1 small red onion, peeled, halved and sliced thin
• 2 tablespoons light olive oil
• 1 tablespoon seasoned rice wine vinegar
• Juice from one lime
• 1 (3-pound) pineapple, peeled and cut into bite-size pieces
• 2 cups peeled and diced jicama
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups diced firm papaya (the fresh papaya I bought tasted terrible, so I ended up using a canned tropical fruit salad. It worked just fine.)
• 1 avocado, peeled and cut into bite-size pieces
• ½ cup fresh chopped cilantro

Place the onion slices in a medium bowl and toss with the olive oil, vinegar and fresh lime juice. Add pineapple, jicama and salt; toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate overnight. (I didn't have time for this, so just let it sit for an hour before my guests arrived.)

When ready to serve add the papaya, avocado and cilantro. Gently toss and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Makes 8 servings.

I thought this turned out really good. It was a nice, refreshing salad.

And now for something completely different. . .

2010-09-12T12:39:00.010-05:00

So, I thought I would take a break from posting about our trip to London and tell you what's been going on around here.

A lot has been going on around here. The day after we got home from London, Bailey started school. High school. She is loving it.

She had homework within the first week. She had to build a model of the earth, showing the continents and layers. It was a $40 project.

Here's Bailey with her earth. A styrofoam ball covered with felt. I thought it turned out pretty good, and she ended up getting a 100 on it. I guess that $40 was well spent.

She had to label everything, and show the equator, etc.

Here's the side where she cut into the earth to show the mantle and core of the earth.

Remember a while back when we had a bad storm in our area? It was two days before we were leaving for London.

Well, everyone in our neighborhood has finally received their insurance checks and work is starting to happen. That includes us.

Labor day weekend, the fence contractor came and tore down all of the fence for us and several of our neighbors. We all worked together to get a better price.

Our yard looked huge without the fence.

It was kinda nice to have the big open space.

Here's Rominal checking things out.

Here's the back of our house. Notice that the roof still needs to be replaced.

Well, while everyone's fence was down, we got to know our neighbors behind us. We've lived here for 7 years, but because of the fence we had never really talked to them that much. We found out that we liked them a lot!

While the fence was down, Bailey took advantage of their trampoline. They also have 4 dogs. She loved playing with them too.

While the fence was down, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get rid of Bailey's old play set. She no longer uses it and it was just taking up space in our backyard.

Our neighbors behind us have an 8 year old boy, who would really love a play set.

So, all we had to do was move this thing 10 feet to the left, or right, depending on where you were standing.

Here's Steve working with Rominal to take the swing part off of the tree house part so that it could be moved easier.

And here's Rominal, working on the tree house part.

Well, as of yesterday, our fence is just about complete. It was stained yesterday and they still have to seal it. But doesn't it look great!

And did you notice - the play set is now in our neighbors yard. Yeah!

We actually liked our new neighbors so much that Lisa (my neighbor) and I asked the fence guy to put in a gate between our two yards. He should have that finished in the next day or so also.

And, look what else we got done - we got a whole new roof! It's hard to see in this picture, but it looks really good.

Everyone in our area has been getting new roofs - two went up yesterday. Hopefully this one will last.

Off to Camp!

2010-09-05T23:10:00.008-05:00

I'm recapping my Girl Scout trip to London that I took during the month of August. On August 14, we went to Cambridge and camped for a week with 200 Girl Guides from the surrounding area.

Here's what I wrote after having slept at camp for the first night.

Sunday, August 15, 2010
First night camping in Cambridge

It is 7:00am and we are just starting to wake up. The three of us adults shared a tent and it was not bad. I slept a bit like a mummy but it worked out. We haven't seen the girls yet so I'm not sure how they slept, but they went on a 5 mile walk last night so they probably just crashed.
We had the best time yesterday chatting with the other women at camp. Two of them have promised to bring in a bunch of traditional food. These ladies were quite funny and a joy to be with.

Today we are getting a tour of Cambridge and then some time to shop or eat there. We are looking forward to that.

Time for me to get out of my sleeping bag, if I can.

Happy birthday Dad! I hope you have a great day! Love you!

Cheers!
Sent via BlackBerry

Below was our home for the next week - we are the tent on the far right. And by we, I mean that it's the tent that Melissa, Teresa and I shared. The adults got the nicer tents.

Here's a bit of the camp and that little person in the background is Melissa making a phone call.

Here's the tents that our girls slept in. They are helping putting up the last tent - or at least trying to help.

Here's Teresa in the front parlor of our tent. Don't you like what we did with the place? It's called camping chic. We achieved the look by spreading our suitcases all over. You can try this at home.

This was out kitchen for the next week. One of the most wonderful ladies had made some cake to share with everyone and some of the girls are in line to get some.

Melissa is patiently waiting her turn - notice the cup in hand.

After breakfast, we were taken on a walking tour of Cambridge. We started the tour on Castle Mound, where from that vantage point you can look out around Cambridge.

The days of traveling had caught up to our girls. They were exhausted. Can you tell?

Here we are walking through Cambridge.

We saw some of the colleges that make up Cambridge University. There are actually 31 colleges (I know that because our tour guide said so, and I bought a sweatshirt showing all of the colleges.)

The second floor window on the right is where Issac Newton once studied. How cool is that?

The river is quite pretty. The have boats that they call punts and people go punting down the river. If we had more time I'm sure we would have done this too.

The buildings were so pretty, and so intricately carved.

The women at camp had told us we needed to try a Cornwall Pasty while we were in Cambridge. Here's mine below. They said that in the old days the miners would get them and their dirty hands would hold onto the braided part and they could eat the filled part.

It was filled with meat and potatoes and it was quite good.

Here's a view of the white cows of Cambridge and some of the college behind.

When we got back, the camp was having the opening ceremonies. It was a Mad Hatter's Tea Party theme.

The Mayor of Cambridge came to cut the ribbon to officially start the week of camp.

Our three girls in their Alice in Wonderland shirts.

Nadine, who picked us up at the train station, had made these most adorable cakes for the opening ceremony.

Aren't these cute! They were so good too!

We even got to take our picture with the Mayor of Cambridge - she's the woman in the middle.

Later that afternoon, the ladies from the camp had planned a creamed tea for us Americans. It was wonderful!

Here's Caroline putting together the scones, with clotted cream and jelly.

Here's the finished product. It's probably not good for you, but oh does it taste good!

Here's Claire enjoying her scone.

And here's Caroline enjoying hers.

It was so nice of these two to make the creamed tea for us. It was quite a special thing. We had a proper table and tea with it. They were so nice to us the entire week. Such fun we had with them!

Here's what I posted the next morning, about the first day.

We have made it successfully through our second night at camp. The wind is relentless here so it was quite cold last night and this morning.

Yesterday we did a walking tour of Cambridge. We think we walked around 4 miles. After the tour we had an hour to shop and Bailey and I both got Cambridge sweat shirts which I was very thankful for yesterday afternoon. We also had a lunch of Corinish Pasty which was what was recommended to us. It was very good. Of course I took pictures which I will post later.

Yesterday afternoon they had the opening ceremony for the camp and the mayor of Cambridge was here. We got to meet her and get pictures with her.

I'm not real sure what the plan is for today, but I know we stay on site here at the camp.

Cheers!
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Still Recapping my trip to London

2010-09-02T19:45:00.006-05:00

Another quick recap - I took a trip with Girl Scouts to London last month and I'm still reviewing all of the pictures.

Here's what I posted early in the morning on Friday, August 13.

It's Friday morning in London. We are on our way to the Tower of London. We decided to take the buses instead of the tubes because we can see more of the city on the way there. We have taken 2 buses so far and now we are on the upper deck of the second bus.
A very sweet lady took pity on us and let us follow her most of the way.

It is our last day here and we have another full day ahead, trying to pack it all in.

Oh, the girls really enjoyed meet other girl scouts from St. Vincent last night. They are also staying at Pax Lodge. We hope to get home early enough tonight to meet with them again.

Special message to D&P, happy house closing day!

Ok, I'm off for now.
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We knew that the day would probably mean rain, so we all wore our rain boots, or Wellies as the English people call them. Mary Helen didn't have a pair, so she's in the black sneakers.

They weren't the most comfortable shoes to do a lot of walking in, but it did rain a ton that day, so they were great at keeping my feet nice and dry.

Bailey and I left our Wellies with two wonderful ladies at the end of camp in Cambridge. Claire and Caroline, I hope you are enjoying them!

Here's a look at the London Tower (on the left). The grass you see there is the old moat. It has since been filled in with grass. The London Tower is not just one tower - it is essentially the old village where kings and queens lived, and where they were beheaded.

We had a great tour guide, the woman on the right.

Elizabeth (seen above on the far right) had written a paper about Rudolf Hess (Hitler's Secretary) last year in school. The tour guide mentioned that Hess had been imprisoned at the London Tower for a couple of days and there was a letter with his signature on it there. When Elizabeth told the tour guide about her paper, she took the seven of us to the off-limits place where the paper was.

The storey goes that Hess was put into prison, but he did not know where he was being held. A guard asked him for his signature and it was a piece of paper that said Tower of London. Hess said, "oh, so that's where I am." and signed the paper.

You can see the letter and the story in the frame below.

It was a very special treat to get to see that, and all of the other memorabilia that they had in this room.

Here's a picture of some of the Tower of London.

At several places at the entrance to the city of London, you will see a dragon. The bus tour guide said that they are to protect the city. We found one where we could get the girls picture with it.

After this, we decided to do some shopping. We went to Covent Gardens.

Here's what I originally posted that afternoon.

Well, my friend was just pick picketed here at Covent Gardens. Good news is that Melissa felt what was happening and made a fuss. The store is currently holding the lady and we are waiting on the police.

If the police ever get here we think all will be well. This will be a story we will always tell about this trip.

I will tell more about it later.
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Too bad we hadn't seen this sign outside the store where we shopping. We might have gone somewhere else.

What happened was a woman was following around Melissa the whole time we were in this store. When Melissa was at the check-out counter, she felt something and turned around to see her money on the floor. All of it was there except for 50 pounds. She realized that the woman behind her had opened her purse and pulled it out, she had just dropped it on the floor.

Melissa started saying, "you stole my money!" The woman denied everything and ran down to the basement. The store manager, after talking to the woman for a while, got her to admit that she had stole the money and she gave it back to the manager.

In the meantime, we waited for the police to arrive - and we waited for 2 hours.

Here's Bailey, Melissa and Tiffany waiting patiently for the police.

Finally they came and they arrested the woman. She's in this van.

Then we had to go to the police station and give our statements. Of course, we had to walk a ways to get there.

The whole adventure took at least 4-5 hours, and it was not how we wanted to spend Friday night in London. We had planned to get home early and do some laundry to get ready to leave for camp the next day. Oh well.

Here's all of us going down into the tube station, very late at night.

On the good side, Melissa received a letter from the London police department today apologizing for her ordeal.

We though that was pretty cool.

Cheers!

More Recap - London Travels

2010-08-30T19:37:00.007-05:00

Hello. Again a quick recap - this was a Girl Scout trip to England and we spent the first couple of days touring around London on our own.

Here's what I posted from that day, Thursday, August 12:

Well it is the end of Thursday here. It's 11:15pm and I'm just getting a minute to post.
Today we toured the Queen's Gallery, Victoria and Albert, Art and Love. It was all of the art that they had commissioned and collected. After that we toured the Royal Mews which is the horses and carriages that the royals have and use. We saw the carriage that Princess Diana rode in before her wedding. Then we toured Buckingham Palace.

After tea and scones at Buckingham Palace we went to Harrod's for a very quick shopping trip. We finished the day with a late dinner at the original Hardrock Cafe.

There is just so much to see here that there's no way we can get it all in. We planned to see the Tower of London for 2 days now, but we keep running out of time. We plan to do that first thing tomorrow.

Time for bed. I hope everyone is well!
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Here's Teresa, Mary Helen, Tiffany, Bailey and Elizabeth at the entrance to the Queen's Gallery.

After the tour, we had a nice lunch. I had chicken with black beans.

And we finished lunch up with fried ice cream - it was very good.

Then it was on to the Royal Mews tour. We saw all of the carriages that the Queen uses.

This was the carriage that Diana rode in to marry Prince Charles.

Then the girls got a hold of the camera.

They were having fun.

You can see me and Melissa walking away in the background. We had given up on getting the camera back.

They found out that they could amuse themselves with their own reflection.

After the Royal Mews tour, we toured Buckingham Palace. Sorry - no pictures allowed in there.

But after the tour, we had a creamed tea, which is scones with clotted cream and jelly and tea. Yummy!

This is looking back at Buckingham Palace. We had the tea under the tents you see on the left. Those are geese in the garden as well.

We were allowed to walk around the garden of Buckingham Palace, which was quite pretty. Keep in mind this is in the middle of London, yet it was so quiet and peaceful.

After Buckingham Palace, it was time for some shopping! Harrods here we come!

We were pressed for time, so we only had about 45 minutes here. We went up and down the escalators, and I had just enough time to buy (what else) 2 cupcakes. They made the perfect bedtime snack for everyone.

Last stop on this day was the original Hard Rock Cafe in London. We had a great dinner.

I took this picture in the Underground. It just cracked me up because instead of "exit" signs, we would see "way out" signs.

That's all for now. More later.

Cheers!

Recap of London Travels - Aug 11

2010-08-28T08:09:00.010-05:00

I will apologize for the huge post right off the bat. This day (Wednesday, August 11) was just so packed it was hard not to include everything. And for anyone just joining the blog - this was a Girl Scout trip to London.

Here's the first post I did about this day:

Today we are off to Buckingham palace. The weather is beautiful and the sun is out. We will take part of the changing of the guards and then off to London tower.
My power adapters don't work, so I couldn't charge my phone last night. This might be the last post unless I can find another charger.

We took part of the flag ceremony this morning at Pax Lodge which was quite nice.

Gotta run. We are having a wonderful time!
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And here's some pictures - the flag ceremony at Pax Lodge. All of the girls who are staying at Pax Lodge came out.

This is all of our group in front of the Pax Lodge sign. We are all dressed up because we are headed to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard ceremony.

A bunch of the girls staying at Pax Lodge were going to the ceremony as well, so we followed them to Buckingham Palace.

Here we are walking to the Underground station.

And here's the herd of Girl Scouts and Girl Guides (as they are known in England) walking in London.

This picture was taken after the changing of the guard ceremony. I was looking through the gates that surround Buckingham Palace. Where those guards are now is where we stood during the ceremony - but we were not allowed to take any pictures during that time.

This was taken after the ceremony - just to give you an idea of how many people were there to see the changing of the guards.

And here's the girls immediately after the changing of the guards. They were changing their shoes. We were not allowed to wear tennis shoes, or trainers as they are called there.

We stopped for lunch at a restaurant afterwards.

Here's the adults.

I had the fish and chips. This turned out to be probably the worst meal we ate during the whole trip. The chips were cold and the dry lettuce was just plopped on top of them.

Here's what I posted right after this meal:

Wow. What a day so far and we are still going. We went to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We got to go inside the gates and there were thousands outside. The guards even came over and talked to us.
We are now on our way to the Tower of London - I think.

Oh, and we ate some fish and chips. Not bad!

More later.
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After lunch, we hopped back on the Bus tour because our tickets were good for 24 hours.

Here's a horse head sculpture - not sure why.

I think this was the shopping area - this was taken from the bus. But I thought this picture was interesting to show how many people were out and about.

This is Trafalgar Square - again the picture was taken from the bus.

Before we went to the Tower of London, the girls got their picture taken with Jack Sparrow.

And this other guy - a lizard type thing. These were street performers and for some change you could get your picture taken with them.

After this we hopped onto a boat to take us down to the Tower of London. Here's a view of the London Eye from the river.

And a picture of the girls on a bridge.

We made it to the Tower of London and we took our picture in front of it. However, we realized that we didn't have enough time to do a tour so we moved on to something else.

We got back on the boat and went back to the London Eye.

Here's the underside of London Bridge.

Here's Mary Helen, Melissa and Teresa on the boat.

Here's the London Eye from the boat. Scary high!

Here's the girls (in the very bottom middle) walking to the London Eye.

We all got on, despite at least two of us (Teresa and me) not liking heights.

We are waving at the car behind us.

The views from up there.

It was worth the trip!

So, this was one of the neatest things we saw while in London. It was a Dyson hand dryer! You stuck your hands into the dryer and it blew tons of air on you and your hands dried quickly. After seeing this we often looked for restrooms with this dryer in it. It's the little things that mattered to us.

And here the girls are in the subway after a long day.

Here's my last post from that day:

Wow are we tired. It's 12:15 am here and we are about to go to bed.
Today after Buckingham Palace we had lunch and then went to tour the Tower of London, but we ran out of time so we will do that tomorrow. Instead we went on the London Eye. That was amazing. I normally don't like heights but I'm so glad I did it.

After a quick dinner, we went to the London Tower to see the locking of the gates. This is a very old ceremony that we had special tickets for.

We are quite familiar with the tube now, as we have been taking that everywhere.

Time for bed, we have another long day tomorrow.
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Again, sorry for the long post, but it was hard to not include so many pictures.

First Day in London -recap

2010-08-26T20:40:00.003-05:00

Here's what I originally posted on our first day in London:

We have had a full day in London today. We arrived at Pax Lodge, checked in, and then found a red bus tour. It was a great way to see a lot of London while sitting. We are so tired right now that a bus tour was the perfect thing.
We are at a restaurant now and then will go back to our rooms for the night.

I'm really looking forward to a good nights sleep.
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Here's some pictures from that day:

This is some of our group walking from Pax Lodge to the Underground station. Of course, it was raining.

Some of our group on the double decker bus tour. It was a great way to get a feel for London, especially when we were tired and it was raining.

Our first trip over the Thames river.

Driving through London - on the wrong side of the road!

Our first glimpse of Big Ben.

I'll be posting pictures from the trip for the next couple of days.

I am still fighting jet lag. I wake up around 1:30am and I'm a bit confused as to where I am. The first couple of nights I was home Rominal said that I would say in my sleep, "hello? Who's there? Are you a kid?" I have to admit, for a couple of nights I wasn't real sure who I was sleeping next to or where I was. Hopefully I've got that figured out now.

We have arrived! Repost

2010-08-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

I figured the best way to get through some of these pictures was to go back through my posts from our Girl Scout trip to London.

Below is what I originally posted. I didn't mention that Bailey had thrown up on me on the plane ride over. That was nice.

After flying for 8 1/2 hours and then riding a train and several tubes, we have finally arrived at Pax Lodge. We are so tired but we are very excited to be here in London. We are currently trying to figure out what red bus tour to take.
Gotta run! Bye!
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Here we are (me and Bailey) at the DFW airport.

And here's our entire group - and all of our luggage.

Here's our room at Pax Lodge in London. Bailey and I shared this room for several days. The showers and toilets were down the hall.

I'm still working through all of the pictures, but I will try to post more later.

Back home!

2010-08-22T14:17:00.000-05:00

We have just landed in Dallas after a long flight.
Since American Airlines cancelled our original flight, 4 of us got on the early flight and the other 3 had to catch another flight that connected through Chicago. At least we will all arrive today.

It will take me a bit to get through the 1,000 plus pictures I took, but I will be posting them soon.

I can't wait to see Rominal!

Cheers!
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Trying to get home from London

2010-08-22T00:06:00.000-05:00

We were woken up at 4am London time to find out that our flight had been cancelled. I now believe that this airlines doesn't fly all of their planes on Sunday, since this is now the third time it has happened to me.

At the moment, we think 4 of us are on an earlier flight and the other 3 are on an earlier connecting flight. That is at least better than flying out on Monday which is what they wanted us to do. This isn't a good way to end our trip. Oh well.

Wish us luck! Cheers!
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Leaving Cambridge

2010-08-21T06:00:00.000-05:00

Well today was our last day at camp. This morning we packed everything up and we are currently on the train back to London.

Saying goodbye to all of our new friends was very difficult. There were lots of hugs and tears. As we were walking to our car, the girls from camp started to sing us a goodbye song. It was extremely touching to hear the angelic voices as we waved goodbye. In fact I am crying again now as I write this. Claire - if you read this I am sure you will be crying too. Hugs!

We smell and look awful. In fact a woman walking by us on the train said that something smelled. It was us we are quite sure.

Now it is back to Pax Lodge to shower, do laundry and eventually have a dinner out somewhere within walking distance.

That's all for now. Cheers!
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Camping in Cambridge - last day

2010-08-20T08:27:00.000-05:00

So, I am now at a community center where the girls are learning line dancing. This is the same place we went to go swimming the other day. After their dance, the girls will get a shower - thank goodness. We had our last shower of camp this morning, so we are not dancing or doing anything to gets sweaty. Poor Nadene who will drive us to the train tomorrow - hopefully we won't stink up her car too much.

Our bags are mostly packed and tomorrow morning we will help take down tents and the it is off to the train for us to take us back to London.

We have met the most wonderful people and had a great time. There was a "disco" dance last night for the girls and they loved that.

That's all for now.

Cheers!
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Camping in Cambridge

2010-08-20T05:14:00.000-05:00

So, today is Friday and it is Teresa's birthday. The women here had a camp chair decorated with balloons and wrapped with ribbon for her.

We have spent the morning repacking our suitcases. Oh man do our clothes stink.

Last night was so much fun! Claire and Caroline took us out and toured around Ely and other towns. We saw Abby gardens which was beautiful.

After touring, we went to a pub for a fantastic dinner. Caroline recommended the Lindonberg Burger so that is what I had. It was so good! Melissa and Teresa really enjoyed their dinners too.

When we got back to camp, the ladies were having some wine so we joined in. It helped all of us sleep last night.

We heard one of the ladies calm down a girl who was homesick the other night. She was very good with her. She told her just three more sleeps, meaning three more nights at camp. I have taken to saying this now too. So today is just one more sleep.

Time for me to shower. The showers are taken away today at 1:00, so I can't miss it.

Cheers!
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Camping in Cambridge

2010-08-19T06:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the girls went swimming. I joined in with them and after several days of camping, being submerged in water felt wonderful.

Last night, our new friend here, Nadene, took us to a local pub for a traditional English dinner. We had lamb, turkey, cauliflower in cheese, swede, which is similar to parsnips, stuffing, and yorkshire pudding. For dessert we all picked something different. I had a strawberry meringue, similar to a pavlova.

Today we are at the Jarmin center and the girls are learning about starting camp fires and making bread. Later this afternoon, two of the women are going to sneak the three of us adults off for some more site seeing. Because as Caroline said, "it would be just shit if we came to England and just saw a field."

Time for me to run. Cheers!
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Camping in Cambridge

2010-08-18T05:10:00.000-05:00

Hello! Today is our "spa" day at camp. The girls are currently doing each others nails, and they have had facials. Around lunch time we are going over to a place to swim.

The woman who picked us up, Nadene, is going to walk us over to a place for dinner tonight. We will have roast and yorkshire pudding.

The people here are amazing and so kind to all of us. We couldn't ask for better hosts.

That's about all for now.
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Camping in Cambridge

2010-08-17T13:00:00.000-05:00

We had to get up early today because we were going off camp to the Mepal center. It is an activity center where the girls did all kinds of things.

We spent the first two sessions doing high ropes courses. I don't think I have ever been so scared. I will show the pictures when we get back.

After lunch, I did air rifles while Bailey did archery. It was fun! Then it was on to rock climbing. We are so tired but having a great time.

We were eating dinner, but it was interrupted by rain, so we are hiding out in our tents. Looks like the rain stopped so I have to run.
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Camping in Cambridge

2010-08-16T14:59:00.000-05:00

Its almost the end of the day here in Cambridge. We had the best day here. The girls did tons of activities here on camp which meant a more relaxing day for us.

The girls played a game which simulated not so fair trade, then they learned about water purification. After lunch they played games from around the world and the they built a shelter. If at the end of the allotted time all girls could fit into the shelter, they got to each a package of cookies (or biscuits as they call them here).

Right now the girls are all watching the movie Nanny McPhee. Us ladies have been repacking or organizing the suitcases. Its a mess since we combined stuff for camp.

The ladies here have been the best. Today they brought us meat pie. It was very good. They also brought all kinds of candy for the girls. We couldn't ask for better hosts.

Time to run. Cheers!
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Camping in Cambridge

2010-08-16T01:58:00.000-05:00

We have made it successfully through our second night at camp. The wind is relentless here so it was quite cold last night and this morning.

Yesterday afternoon they had the opening ceremony for the camp and the mayor of Cambridge was here. We got to meet her and get pictures with her.

I'm not real sure what the plan is for today, but I know we stay on site here at the camp.

Cheers!
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First night camping in Cambridge

2010-08-15T01:16:00.000-05:00

It is 7:00am and we are just starting to wake up. The three of us adults shared a tent and it was not bad. I slept a bit like a mummy but it worked out. We haven't seen the girls yet so I'm not sure how they slept, but they went on a 5 mile walk last night so they probably just crashed.

We had the best time yesterday chatting with the other women at camp. Two of them have promised to bring in a bunch of traditional food. These ladies were quite funny and a joy to be with.

Today we are getting a tour of Cambridge and then some time to shop or eat there. We are looking forward to that.

Time for me to get out of my sleeping bag, if I can.

Happy birthday Dad! I hope you have a great day! Love you!

Cheers!
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London Travels

2010-08-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

We have arrived at camp in Cambridge. The camp is a huge field that was fairly recently used as a cow pasture. Guess how I know that?

I bet you guessed right.

It really is quite nice here. It's good to get out of the city for a bit.

A wonderful woman named Nadiene picked us up at the train station. She has given me her cell number in case the camping gets too much for us. She is not a camper and will go home each night. She will hopefully also take us out for a real English meal one night and possibly a drink in a pub. Yeah!

The three adults here have a nice tent and we think we will have quite a nice time. We already ducked in a bit when the rain came. We will enjoy a more relaxed pace this week!

As they say here - cheers!.
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London Pickpocket

2010-08-14T01:19:00.000-05:00

Our plans of arriving back early at Pax Lodge didn't work out after all. It took the police 2 hours to arrive to the store and then they asked us to go back to the station with them. It was about a 5 minute walk from where we were. After they took me and Melissa's statements, we were able to leave. We ended up getting back around 10:00pm.

We had really needed to do laundry because today we leave for Cambridge to camp for a week. We were able to sweet-talk the manager into letting us use the washer, but not the dryer. We can use the dryers at 8:00am this morning.

We have taxi service coming to get us to take us to the train for Cambridge.

There is a lot more to tell about the pickpocketing incident, but I have to get packed up and ready to go.

I don't know if we will have power this week at camp, so I might not be able to charge my phone. So, my posts might not be every day.

Hope all is well where you are!
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London travels on Friday

2010-08-13T12:34:00.000-05:00

Well, my friend was just pick picketed here at Covent Gardens. Good news is that Melissa felt what was happening and made a fuss. The store is currently holding the lady and we are waiting on the police.

If the police ever get here we think all will be well. This will be a story we will always tell about this trip.

I will tell more about it later.
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Friday in London

2010-08-13T04:35:00.000-05:00

It's Friday morning in London. We are on our way to the Tower of London. We decided to take the busses instead of the tubes because we can see more of the city on the way there. We have taken 2 buses so far and now we are on the upper deck of the second bus.

A very sweet lady took pitty on us and let us follow her most of the way.

It is our last day here and we have another full day ahead, trying to pack it all in.

Oh, the girls really enjoyed meet other girl scouts from St. Vincent last night. They are also staying at Pax Lodge. We hope to get home early enough tonight to meet with them again.

Special message to D&P, happy house closing day!

Ok, I'm off for now.
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London Travels

2010-08-12T17:15:00.000-05:00

Well it is the end of Thursday here. It's 11:15pm and I'm just getting a minute to post.

Today we toured the Queen's Gallery, Victoria and Albert, Art and Love. It was all of the art that they had commissioned and collected. After that we toured the Royal Mews which is the horses and carriages that the royals have and use. We saw the carriage that Princess Diana rode in before her wedding. Then we toured Buckingham Palace.

After tea and scones at Buckingham Palace we went to Harrod's for a very quick shopping trip. We finished the day with a late dinner at the original Hardrock Cafe.

There is just so much to see here that there's no way we can get it all in. We planned to see the Tower of London for 2 days now, but we keep running out of time. We plan to do that first thing tomorrow.

Time for bed. I hope everyone is well!
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London Travels

2010-08-12T10:46:00.000-05:00

Had tea and scones with clotted creme at Buckingham Palace and just bought 2 cupcakes at Harrods for later.

More later - we have to catch the tube.
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End of Wednesday in London

2010-08-11T18:23:00.000-05:00

Wow are we tired. It's 12:15 am here and we are about to go to bed.

Today after Buckingham Palace we had lunch and then went to tour the Tower of London, but we ran out of time so we will do that tomorrow. Instead we went on the London Eye. That was amazing. I normally don't like heights but I'm so glad I did it.

After a quick dinner, we went to the London Tower to see the locking of the gates. This is a very old ceremony that we had special tickets for.

We are quite familiar with the tube now, as we have been taking that everywhere.

Time for bed, we have another long day tomorrow.
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End of Wednesday in London

2010-08-11T18:18:00.000-05:00

Wow are we tired. It's 12:15 am here and we are about to go to bed.

After a quick dinner, we went to the London Tower to see the locking of the gates. This is a very old ceremony that we had special tickets for.

We are quite familiar with the tube now, as we have been taking that everywhere.

Time for bed, we have another long day tomorrow.
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London travels

2010-08-11T08:57:00.000-05:00

Wow. What a day so far and we are still going. We went to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We got to go inside the gates and there were thousands outside. The guards even came over and talked to us.

We are now on our way to the Tower of London - I think.

Oh, and we ate some fish and chips. Not bad!

More later.
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London Travels

2010-08-11T04:09:00.000-05:00

Today we are off to Buckinham palace. The weather is beautiful and the sun is out. We will take part of the changing of the guards and then off to London tower.

My power adapters don't work, so I couldn't charge my phone last night. This might be the last post unless I can find another charger.

We took part of the flag ceremony this morning at Pax Lodge which was quite nice.

Gotta run. We are having a wonderful time!
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Full Day in London

2010-08-10T13:24:00.000-05:00

We have had a full day in London today. We arrived at Pax Lodge, checked in, and then found a red bus tour. It was a great way to see a lot of London while sitting. We are so tired right now that a bus tour was the perfect thing.

We are at a restaurant now and then will go back to our rooms for the night.

I'm really looking forward to a good nights sleep.
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Storm!

2010-08-07T13:11:00.004-05:00

Bailey often calls me during a storm because she's scared. Or, she would have me tell you that she used to do this, but now that she's older she doesn't do it anymore.

So, when I got a call from her Friday afternoon saying that a storm was in the area, I told her it would be ok and that I was in a meeting and couldn't talk.

She texted me a few minutes later.

"Mom, I need you!"

I called her back and she said that we had water coming into our kitchen through a light fixture in the ceiling. Keep in mind that we have a two story house and our bedroom is above the kitchen. So, this was alarming.

She was clearly scared, so I packed up and headed home. I wasn't prepared for what we saw.

Here's the fence between us and one of our neighbors. Our grill had been picked up and tossed around - it's ruined.

Here's the fence between us and the people behind us.

And one of our side fences.

More fence trouble.

Our furniture had been tossed into our neighbors yard, and then the fence fell on top of it. We had some major winds.

You can see here where the grill metal was all bent.

So, the water in the house came down one of our vent pipes that goes up through the roof. So much water came down that it dripped down the pipe and ran into our first floor kitchen. Our second floor has water damage as well, but not too bad.

Here's the fixture in the kitchen where the water ran out of. And we had just had the ceiling painted.

Today I went out and took some pictures of our roof. There's quite a lot of damage.

The winds even broke off a light bulb on our back lights. The base of the bulb is still in there.

I'm no roofer, but I'm pretty sure roof shingles are supposed to lay flat.

The power was off for a while yesterday and Bailey was pretty shaken up. Our insurance adjuster came by today to write up everything. Our whole neighborhood is looking pretty beat up right now.

Our other next door neighbor even ended up with a trampoline in his backyard. He didn't have one to begin with. We found out today that it came from a couple of doors down.

We are quite proud of Bailey. She did the right thing during the storm - she grabbed the cat and hid out in the downstairs bathroom.

Poor Rominal, he will have to take care of all of the repairs while I'm in London.

I think I have figured out that I can create posts from my cell phone, so I might be posting while I'm gone.