Hoping my thumb turns green

(The first bloom of the flowers in my yard)

Happy Earth Day!! So this year I've decided to attempt to grow a garden. I've done it mostly because the side yard was pretty sad but very sunny. I've planted tomatoes, zucchini, salad greens, spinach, pumpkins, watermelons, cucumbers, a couple types of onions, hot peppers, herbs, and cantaloupe. I don't expect anything to actually grow but boy will I be excited if it does. Here's the before:


This is the After... or I guess the in between (cross your fingers)


The first things to sprout was my pumpkin. (To be fair I started it inside... but it has gotten bigger since it's been in the ground). I've already sworn that I won't carve a pumpkin this year unless it comes from my yard.

Shelter from the storm

A week ago I was awakened in the early morning (about 3:30 am) to the worst storm I've ever been in. The wind was so loud and the light was flashing all different colors. I tried to turn the TV on to see if there was a tornado warning. Unfortunately the TV didn't turn on because the power was out. The power was out for three full days (almost to the exact moment). No TV, or microwave, or fridge, or AC. After the sun went down everything was done by candle light. Despite the inconvenience and the loss of a lot of food, I appreciate the perspective that the experience provided. I feel truly blessed that our house was completely unharmed. The morning after I was brought to tears of gratitude as I drove around out neighborhood to find huge trees completely uprooted, fallen branches everywhere and the baseball field dugouts and fences torn up and crumpled. Despite the storm going past our house nothing happened on our property. We have a whole forest of trees and not one branch fell. The garbage can, a large piece of cardboard, a bucket with paper hanging out of it, our grill cover, were all left outside but were still right where I had left them. We were truly watched over and protected and I am grateful.

The pictures are the yards of a few houses in the neighborhood. The bottom picture is of the roots of a tree that took our the fence and leaned on the house.

Disneyworld 2008

So we just got back from our second visit to Disneyworld. We had a great time. E's favorite things were making friends with people, meeting the characters and running around whenever we let him out of his stroller. Most of all he loved getting wet. There were lots of little water fountains all around and E ran for them. On the last day we finally gave in and let him play. Later that day it started pouring rain as we were trying to leave the park to catch our bus to the airport. It was coming down hard and everyone was running for cover. We noticed the faces of people laughing at E as they ran past. We had a rain cover over his stroller but he had lifted it up so that he could enjoy the storm. Silly kid.

Spring Break 2008

My sister J and her boys C and P came to visit for a few days for their spring break. That makes 3 years in a row! Thanks Shepherds for spending your time off with us. Aside from spending time with them, I enjoyed playing tourist in my new home town. Two highlights were going to the West End in Dallas to see the JFK memorial and 6th floor of the book depository. (Well we didn't actually go to the museum since it was overpriced but we did hear about the conspiracy theories as we sat outside.) We also had a really good time at the Ranger's stadium tour and baseball museum.

Memories from Houston

This week a fun little package arrived in the mail from JoJo (Br's mom) of pictures of the trip to the zoo we (JoJo, E, Auntie B and I) took the last weekend we were in Houston. Here are the highlights.