Our favorite spot for date night: Miller Theatre at Hermann Park featuring the movie Avatar. We had a picnic with our good friends Erin and Jason and their little one.

The movie: still not one of our favorites.  Don’t know what all the hype is about, which reminds me…don’t waste your time with Ironman II either.

I just found these pictures on our camera, and we did do more in September than I thought.

The BYU women’s soccer team had a game at Rice University and we got a group together from our ward to go and support them.  There ended up being around thirty of us in our  BYU cheer section.  The girls soccer team (unlike the football team) is actually doing really good this year and are ranked in the top ten.  We won 1-0, but had 15 shots on the goal compared to Rice’s 8. The next day at church, our bishopric announced that they were expecting some more people to arrive to our Sacrament meeting, so they went ahead and had the speakers go first before Sacrament. A while later, they welcomed the BYU women’s soccer team to our meeting! It was pretty cool.

Rice  University is literally at the feet of the Texas Medical Center

On a happier note, we got a lemon tree! It’s not just any lemon tree though.  This one is a Meyer lemon tree. Or in other words, the greatest lemons on the earth. For all you people in Houston, check out Cornelius Nurseries for some awesome fall gardening/holiday decor/huge pumpkins!

If anyone needs some great fertilizer, we have a huge bag of composted manure sitting on our patio.

Not too many blogworthy moments occurred this month but I figure I should post something so we don’t lose readers.

Thank you to all of you for your support these last couple of weeks.  We experienced miscarriage number three.  We kept this one pretty quiet until now, but I feel like I need to talk about it in order to move on. I had yet another d&c last week and we were so happy that my mom was there for support and to keep me busy. I was worried about taking a day off work without giving too many details, but since I just barely started my job, I didn’t want anyone to know that I was pregnant. Luckily they didn’t ask.

So far, there is no answer as to why we keep miscarrying. We’re doing a genetic workup next week which is kind of the last test. It’s possible that we just have bad luck.

A friend of ours from Church announced that his friend was starting a mobile cupcake service. Imagine a taco truck–only selling cupcakes rather than authentic, Mexican tacos. I finally got around to stalking the truck on Facebook, so I decided to drive over and pick some up.

The Mobile Cupcake Shop

It only stays in one spot for up to 2 hours

Carrot Cake — probably our favorite of the four

Snickerdoodle, Red Velvet, and Strawberry

In the end, carrot cake was our favorite followed by red velvet. Both were very moist and delicious. Snickerdoodle was a little dry and strawberry was OK–still moist, but not our preferred flavor. At $2.50/cupcake, it comes in 75 cents less per cupcake than Crave.

The only downfall to MMM Cupcake is that you might have to pay for parking to go buy one. I did, but that’s because the street parking attendant was right in front of me as I pulled up. Anyway, you’ll generally find the truck downtown or in the Village.

So, if you’re in the mood for a cupcake, give them a try. They’re pretty tastey.

A few years ago, Chinatown moved from downtown Houston to west Houston (Bellaire). I had been there once…when we first moved, I had a job interview at a dental office in Chinatown. Needless to say I didn’t take the job, mainly because I don’t speak Chinese, and secondly, tea stain is ridiculously hard to get off of teeth (yep…I really just said that).

While browsing my favorite Asian recipe blog: rasamalaysia.com, I got this notion that I had to have dumplings. So I did a search for the best dumplings in Houston and all of the foodies said to go to FuFu Cafe in Chinatown off of Bellaire and Beltway 8. Since Chinatown is relatively new, most of the restaurants are located in clean, brand new buildings.

The menu had over 100 items, with English translations and a numbering system. The service was fantastic, although the waiters spoke little English, so do your research on what you want to eat before you go.

These are what I came for: steamed pork soup dumplings. They take some skill to eat. You need to nibble the dumpling to let some steam out, then sip the delicious broth while tasting the soft pork inside. Try not to squirt the person next to you or burn your mouth on the scalding hot broth. They are amazing.

These are the pan fried pork dumplings. Like long flat gyoza. Very good as well.

This is Kung Bao chicken. I think they just misspelled it. Sweet and Sour chicken. Very tender and moist chicken and crisp veggies.

We were a little overwhelmed by the large menu which offered very authentic specialties such as pig ears and intestines, so in the end we just went with our American Chinese favorites, sweet and sour and kung pao. All this plus about 2 cups of white rice for $30. We ate the leftovers for dinner the next night plus enough for lunch the next day. It was tons of food. Seriously good Chinese food. Not a bit greasy. And there was only one other non Asian couple there with us, so it must be pretty legit.

I got a new job at a dental office near the Galleria! Well, last week during some down time, I flipped through the latest Ikea catalog and decided that I had to go check out their fabric among other things.  (Ikea is only 3 miles from work now!) Since there was nobody at the cutting table, I decided to flip through the pre-cut fabric bin, and found some cute upholstery fabric for super cheap. I found some cute cotton prints as well, and just as I was about to cut it myself, an Ikea employee showed up and did it for me.  Lucky for me, he was very generous (not like the mean guy at Jo-Ann’s that didn’t even offer me the end of the bolt…it was only 3 inches!).

Well, last month or so, I found this $10 purse at Target that looked super easy to copy:

So, I traced around the Target purse, cut into my fabric and started sewing. I even started making a tutorial, but decided it was way too easy to just use the pattern from an old purse. Upholstery fabric is great for totes and bags, because you don’t even need to use stabilizer if you don’t want.

My favorite part is that the inside is lime green!

The outcome: The Ikea purse cost a mere $3. And it’s better quality, (the inside of the Target purse ripped after a couple of days, but its nothing that can’t be repaired.) FYI, my friend said she saw the Target purse on sale for $5, so go get one and make a bunch of purses for yourself!

Need I say more?

(Pardon the dusty dash, it has been cleaned since I took this pic.)

Every now and then, I get sent off on an adventure to some far away land. Recently, my adventures took me to Cameroon–West Africa for those who don’t know where this is. I flew international business class–which I love–and took some pictures to show others how wonderful it is. Sure, you might think it’s silly of me to be so excited about traveling, but I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, so I still look forward to the perks of int’l business class.

Not a lay-flat seat, but I still managed to sleep well

(Frequent travel sometimes complain about the downward incline)

Built-in back massage was nice during the long flight

Air France’s smaller lounge, but it still had a shower

The accommodations in Douala were not as nice as Nigeria. It’s not that they were terrible, but I didn’t enjoy sharing an apartment with 3 random strangers. There was one communal shower, a kitchen, dining room, and living area. I was mostly displeased with the fact that there was no Internet (it was turned off for visitor apartments) and no phone. In Eket, Nigeria, I at least had WiFi (which I could use for Skype) and a private room.

I was a bit naive and didn’t realize I’d be sleeping in an apartment that required mosquito nets

View from COTCO HQ

My daily  walk down the street to “home”

Lots of slums around town

African Market

Market when it wasn’t raining (as much)

Reasonably good traffic, but when it gets bad, people *create* lanes as needed

Wood carvings at a hotel in the countryside

I like my shrimp with Cajun seasoning…none to be found, though

The people of Cameroon are very nice and pleasant to be around. I enjoyed walking around the neighborhood and eating out at local restaurants (all pretty good). Across the street from the company apartments is a delicious bakery and small grocery store. I had my share of chocolate croissants and other goodies.

I spent the 2nd week on August in a small village called Dompta. Technically, I never saw was in the village from the ground–just from the air. I stayed at our pump station. It’s a relatively small processing area where crude flows through, gets sorted out into various products and then put back into the pipeline.

Me at one of the airstrips

Somewhere near Dompta

If you look closely, you’ll see some traditional African huts that people continue to live in

Sanaga River goes spans the whole country, all the way down to the hotel where I had shrimp

After about two weeks, I was ready to return home. However, I had one last stop in Charles De Gaulle where I enjoyed endless quantities of chocolate croissants and cookies among other things.

One of my staples

Cookies at 6:00 AM? Yes, please!

So good!

My friend Kristen told me about this place called Sparkles in downtown Houston known for their burgers and shakes. It’s in a strange area of town, (1515 Dowling Street) which is a little more run down. We had already eaten lunch but it was a super hot day and wanted to get something cold, so Ferd and I split a vanilla shake.  The choices are vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry.  Mixed by hand with real ice cream. It was 15oz for $2.50. Pretty thick, but you can still suck it up through a straw, it just forces you to take your time. You know when you feel like you’ve been sucking forever and you open the lid to see how much you have left and you’ve hardly made a dent? Love that.  Overall, we’d give the shake an 8 out of 10.

We’ll be coming back to explore the other items offered on the menu.  Their breakfast menu looks super yummy.  Chicken and waffles which are my new southern favorite. Breakfast tacos, and pork chop and waffles…never seen that combo before.