First Day of School

 

So far so good!

Ty is a dream when he gets mom and dad all to himself. Kara loves school and Colby didn't have anything bad to say about it.

It's a Miracle

What is that in my driveway you ask?  Yes. Yes, it's a truck. A truck which holds all of our things.  We weren't sure we'd ever see that stuff again. Welcome to Houston stuff. Welcome to Houston.

This truck has been places. It made it's way to California, then New Mexico, then to Utah, then back to California and then back to Utah. I suppose it's GPS was just confused. Or maybe the driver thought he was driving a tour bus from Utah to California and then took a detour to New Mexico somewhere along the way.  And just incase you are thinking about hiring this fun sight-seeing, detouring company, you should know that that would be a very bad idea. If I can help it, ALL UNITED VANLINES (not United Vanlines) will be going out of business. DO NOT HIRE THEM. Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell everyone. I'm hoping to start some bad publicity right here on this very blog. It may not have many readers now but you just wait.

So now my house looks like this

You may ask yourself, 'how did she live without her stuff for so long?' After the last three weeks, I've wondered that myself. I kind of consider myself a modern-day pioneer, if you will. I went without a washer and dryer, the internet and even a kitchenaid. I know, brutal.  But really, I've never been so happy to have a garbage can. I now know I never want to live without a garbage can.

In other news, here is what I've learned so far living in Houston, Texas.

1. Bet you didn't know that banana meat can turn to liquid magically on it's own. Only in Houston. Don't even think about buying a bunch of bananas that are slightly green in hopes you'll be eating lovely just-barely-ripe bananas for a few days and even better, having some nice brown bananas for sweet sweet banana bread.  Within half a day, they are brown and spotted and in three days, they turn to mush and start leaking banana goop.  How do people make banana bread around here? And chips, cereal and crackers go soft and yucky really quick. That is, if the ants don't get to it first.

2. Everything really is bigger in Texas. Like crazy-intense kind of bigger. Crazy about football. And every other sport on the planet. Crazy about school.  Crazy about...more stuff that I can't think of right now.

3. Texas is cheap to live. This is a myth people. A myth. Recreational sports are double, if not triple the price. Milk? a dollar more. Property taxes? Six times more. And the list goes on.

4. Southern hospitality is not a myth. All the kids say yes maam and yes sir. Everyone holds the door open for you and everyone smiles and waves.

5. Layers of clothing do not belong here. Ever. Ok, I've only lived here for three weeks. In August. During a record breaking heat streak. Layers of clothing=angry Shannon.

6. You don't need  mountains to live in a beautiful place. I've never been anywhere so flat. But there's trees everywhere. Super tall ones with skinny little trunks that look like they'll blow over with the slightest wind. And they're everywhere. At least where we are.

7. And with heat, humidity, and the forest, comes bugs and creatures. Lots of them. I've lived through four fire-ant bites and miraculously, my kids have escaped hem so far. The kids are having a blast catching frogs and lizards and chasing after squirrels. And there are dead armadillos on the side of the road. We have briefed ourselves on the different varieties of snakes, venomous and non-venomous. Now we know which ones to catch and keep in the garage and which ones we just admire from afar. Red touches yellow, kill a fellow. Red touches black, won't attack. Or was is black touches yellow, kill a fellow? Crap.

 That's a tiny frog sitting on a quarter.

I will continue to update on the things I learn here in Texas. Til then.



11 YEARS

11 years ago we tied the knot!

Nothing like a little, I mean A LOT, of lunch at The Cheesecake Factory to celebrate the occasion.

Fried mac and cheese balls. Yum.

Love you Cam!

I just thought you should see one of these babies up close. They are huge. And they like my house.



We're here!

Okay, so we've been here for awhile, I just haven't had the internet so some of this is old news.

We made it, but not without a few hiccups.

Hiccups in kinda-sorta an understatement.

In short, we hired the lamest movers EVER who haven't delivered our stuff yet.

We have become the very needy neighbors.

That's okay though. I guess it's a good way to force yourself to meet people.

Besides not having our stuff, we are loving it so far.

We love our house, our neighborhood and our neighbors.

It's wicked hot so we've been spending everyday at the pool which the kids aren't complaining about.

School starts Monday and wow- things are different here.

7:50-3:15

one recess

no early out

ouch.

Cam's schedule is dreamy. Literally. The kids and I have to wake from our dreams and drive him to work early early in the morning since we only have one car. But then he gets home around 2:00. And then we go to the beach. Or the pool. Or shopping. Or whatever else we feel like.  

I think I'm gonna like it here.

 This is our sweet master room set-up. Really though, this air mattress is the next best thing to a bed. It belongs to our neighbors and I don't think I want to give it back.

 Kara's room. She's decided to sleep in her closet for the time being.

Having no stuff means lots of room to run around and raise some serious ruckus.

I think Colby might say this is his favorite thing about Texas. It's in our backyard and everyday, he waters it so that it will grow coconuts. He says he doesn't even like coconuts.

 And these pictures don't do it justice but our grass was SO long when we moved in. Most of the first thing out of several of our neighbor's mouths was the name and number of their lawn guy.

 This also doesn't do justice to the wasps that are bread here in Texas. OH MY GOSH. They are seriously twice the size as Utah wasps and ten times eviler. Yes, evil-er. This is the nesty nest that adorned our porch. I'm scared.

More to come!