Need I say more?

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

Things have been really busy the last few weeks. My church calling has kept me busy with the missionaries and planning baptisms. Plus, we generally have friends over once or twice a week on top of that.

Anyway, last Friday we got to spend with Mike. He was in town for just about 36 hours to visit a client, but we had a great time. We went to an Astros game and had great seats/free food. If I had the time, I would have taken advantage of the JetBlue “fly anywhere you want for one month” special.

Lately, Diane and I have been playing lots of tennis. We found some public courts just west of Rice U and go there about 3x/week. I’ve starting to feel like I can keep up with her. Maybe by Christmas, I’ll actually be able to win a set.

Our shag rug finally arrived! So here are the pics of the house with us all moved in.

Den

Side yard accessible via our den

Downstairs bathroom

View from entryway

Family room w/ our new rug and shutters

View towards stairs and powder room

Our favorite balcony

Not sure what to do with this nook

It’s nice that the kitchen isn’t completely closed off

Dining room

Powder room

Love our stove and griddle

Lots of refrigerator space, but somehow it all get taken up

Our super quiet washer/dryer

Master bedroom

Master bath

My sewing room/ future nursery

Yesterday, on our way back from Galveston we were stuck in traffic yet again. The glory about Texas its frontage roads. If the freeway is backed up, the frontage road is usually moving faster. Except in our case, the freeway backed up, we moved to the frontage road, then the frontage road was bumper to bumper and the freeway started to speed up and the dang on-ramp was miles away. Anyway, we were frustrated that our normal 1.5 hr trip to Galveston took over 5 hrs to complete, and that we drove my sedan and couldn’t hop over the median like all of the other trucks and SUV’s were doing to hop on the freeway.

We approached the toll booth on Beltway 8. We have a TxTag which allows us to normally drive through without having to stop and pay the toll. For some reason, Fernando is driving in the lane that is marked “Exact Change.” I’m thinking that this is strange, but maybe Ferd wants to get rid of some change or something. As we get closer, I realize we are going very fast, like 60-65mph, and I look ahead and see the usual stop sign and that red and white stick blocking the enterance to the road beyond. I yell “Stop! there’s a…” I closed my eyes and braced myself like I usually do when near death experiences happen…and WHAM! Without even slowing down, and possibly even accelerating, we hit it. Amazingly enough, the stick didn’t break our windshield, but bounced off, leaving a nice faint red and white mark as a reminder.

Sorry Ferd, but I had to tell. You scared me.

Last week we had a silly little horrible adventure. I had come home from a long day of work and right away made a beautiful dinner. We decided to eat it out on our 2nd-story balcony, which we had been doing for the last few nights since the weather had been so good. I cut into my stuffed chicken breast, and taking a bite, realized it was very undercooked. Frustrated, I went to throw the food back in the oven, but I couldn’t get the door open. I gasped, and with huge eyes, stared at Fernando for a few seconds in silence–half wanting to laugh at our stupidity, but horrified at the same time. Immediately, I grabbed a knife and thought I could pick the lock like I used to back in Provo. But it was to no avail. We were really stuck. On the second floor. With nobody around. Thirty minutes later after trying to pry the door and windows with our silverware, we conjured up a plan. Fernando wanted to jump. I was nervous like I’ve never been nervous before, thinking thoughts like: “he’s honestly going to break his legs and I’ll be stuck on this blasted balcony forever!” and “if he breaks his legs I’ll have to take care of him for the next two months!”. Obviously, since you are reading this, I got off the blasted balcony. Eventually, Ferd talked me into letting him jump off the balcony. All of the other doors and windows in the house were locked, so he ran to the neighbors to use their phone to call a locksmith. I waited and waited…occasionally picking at the lock with my bobby pin…sitting down…cursing my cold, undercooked dinner. Nine thirty rolls around. The locksmith FINALLY arrives. And gives us great news that we should feel safe about: our locks are un-pickable. He drills a hole through the lock rendering it useless. And $105 later I’m off the blasted balcony, just in time for bed.

It’s been a long time since we’ve updated our blog. Frankly, we’ve been pretty bad about it this year. Suffice it to say, we moved in the latter half of April and didn’t have Internet access at home until this morning.

The move process went well. Since we were only moving one mile away, Di and I shuttled fragile items like our kitchenware over to the house before the EQ men showed up. It took us about 100 minutes to load up the truck and just 45 minutes to unload. That was the easy part.

It has since taken us days (more like 2 weeks) to unpack all of our boxes. Once everything is unpacked, organized, and decorated (waiting on plantation shutters), we’ll post some pics of the new place. Anyway, I’m just writing to let you guys know that we’re alive and well, enjoying a fabulous new home.

Disclaimer: we are not expecting any time soon. Lately, I have decided to venture outside my world of quilting and into a world of other fun baby crafts. I was dinking around Jo-Ann’s and found a crochet book on Anigurumi (little Japanese animals),  and thought it would be cool to teach myself how to crochet. Unfortunately, the book was more for people who knew how to crochet, so I YouTubed crochet lessons and went on my way making two teddy bears (pictures coming soon, as they are not fully assembled). I decided that crocheting is very technique sensitive and quite tedious.  It took hours and hours and my fingers hurt and I had very little to show for it.  I’m hoping knitting will be a little easier since I couldn’t resist a cute baby booties knitting book off of Amazon a couple of weeks ago. However, distracted in my quest to YouTube knitting lessons, I was inspired by my husband’s friend’s blog, which I check daily because she makes AMAZING things. Cloth baby shoes. They are incredibly easy and fast and very fun to make. You can make a matching bib, and I’m thinking of making a  matching hair clip. The best part is, you can use fat quarters and leftover scraps of fabric! Cloth shoe tutorial.

After my first pair, I decided to stock up on materials and make a second trip to Jo-Ann’s fabric store. Fernando soon discovered why all men hate this store. And it’s not like I love the store either, but fabric stores are especially difficult to find here in Houston. I’ve always known Jo-Ann’s to have less than desirable customer service as they seem to always be understaffed. This trip seemed exceptionally terrible. I left Fernando in the cutting counter line as I went to find some fabric glue. Maybe 30 seconds had gone by and my phone rings and its Fernando saying it was our turn and he didn’t know what to do with the pile of fabric I had left with him. So I ran back to the cutting table. According to Fernando, a customer had asked the employee at the cutting counter to help her find where something was located. The employee told her the general direction of where the item could be found. The customer asked the employee if she could take her to the item and the employee refused, saying she had to stay at the cutting counter. The customer became angry at the employee’s lack of concern and the employee recanted by saying “Obviously you’ve never been in a store where there is no customer service, so stop bothering me!” By the time I got up to the counter, I had no idea about what just went on, but thought it strange that the employee was complaining about a customer and telling her to leave her alone.  As we left, Ferd said, “This store is terrible, why do you shop here?” Ahh Ferd, what other choice do I have?

Tonight, we went to see Beauty in the Beast at Miller Outdoor Theatre. We’re excited for this place to finally be up and running. Our friends who planned on coming with us had to bail because they weren’t feeling well; nevertheless, we still decided to show up a little early and have a picnic.

We played cards while eating sushi before the show. We ended up leaving at intermission because this performance wasn’t too engaging. It was put on by HITS; unfortunately, it felt like a high school quality performance. It too was plagued with mic problems. We just haven’t be lucky lately with the musicals. Hopefully, the Chinese acrobatics show at the end of the month will be better.

It’s been a somewhat eventful week. Rather than spending our time on HAR, we now have been looking at washers, dryers, shutters, blinds, etc. I made a brief plea on Facebook regarding appliances and got some helpful tips.

After about a week of looking, we went ahead and purchased a front loading washer and dryer. We tried using Consumer Reports to help us make an educated decision. It was a little challenging because many machines had both terrific reviews and awful ones. I guess no one machine can please everybody. :-)

Yesterday morning, we had a design consultant from 3-Day Blinds come to our new home and help us pick out some shutters and blinds. It was a little difficult to visualize how they would look, but I’m hoping they look good!

We also had a small “General Conference” BBQ yesterday in between the two sessions. We were hoping for warm, 80-degree weather, but the clouds kinda put an end to that. It was warm, but not warm enough to relax in our freezing cold pool. We still managed to have a good time relaxing poolside and grilling steaks.

Here are some pictures of the inside taken by our realtor.

Kitchen

Dining room

Living room

Guest bedroom

Master bedroom w/ balcony

Master bathroom