It's Official. . .We're Texans

Well, we at least joined the ranks of people who have Sea World Season Passes to help make all the heat worth our while. Yesterday, after we picked up Mia from "early release" we drove two minutes to what we hoped would be an oasis. Unfortunately, the teeny bopper life guards that work in the Lost Lagoon water park portion of Sea World are still in school. This means the water park portion is open Sat and Sun only until school is out. Bummer. Then as we were packing up the stroller and sun "screaming" all the kids, the sun screen disappeared. 10 minutes of unprofitable looking almost meant an end to our adventure before it could even begin. Mia wisely suggested saying a prayer and we found the sun screen. (My kids still call it sun scream which makes me giggle. No amount of pronunciation helps change their way of saying it.)
Luckily, in Shamu's Happy Harbor, there was little play area there with enough water to cool down.


Cooling down happened more quickly then we imagined. Mia crouched up next to Talia and me in order to get warm. We got dressed and headed over to the rope area. Tiago and Mia slowed down just enough for me to get this picture.




Talia and I took it easy with a little peek a boo game on some giant slides.





We ended the day with Tiago and Mia going solo on the Shamu Express "roller coaster". It was fun to watch them obey the hands inside rule so explicitly.


Today we are going to visit the Lost Lagoon and see the really water works. We'll also see how fun it is with me and the three kids trying to explore.

This morning, my friend helped me feel more close to the Texas way of life. We settled on our house backing another person's yard instead of the green belt (a plot of wilderness). We only found out later that homes that back the green belt get a lot of nature in their yards and homes. One such native of Texas and/or the scorpion was found this morning in my neighbor's home. She left it on my porch. Now I can really feel apart of the Texas experience in a safe (and dead) way.

Cinco De Mayo

After La Cucaracha, who wouldn't be in the mood for some fiesta fun? Tuesday, we were invited to make Tamales over at a neighbor's house. How could I resist the chance to learn such a skill? Tiago had been fine the day before and so I felt like we were in the clear. You should have seen how his face lit up when I told him we would be going to someone's house to play and that kids would be there.

The neighbor had served her mission in Costa Rica and makes a lot of good food. She adapted some recipe from her brother with the package of Maseca Masa. We got all sorts of tips. The most awkward part was spreading the masa onto the husks. She had the tamale spreader like shown here:

I didn't think it was that hard, but it also wasn't as easy as that lady made it look.

Sadly, we were only there for a short amount of time. Sometime between the spreading of masa and rolling the husk, Tiago began moaning on the stairs. I guess he had been sitting on the stairs for most of the time and began moaning when he realized that things weren't getting better for him. I had to make a tacky exit with my child crying and saying he needed to throw up and had to make my ride leave with us with puke kid. I felt so sorry for bring Tiago out and about. I felt sorry for bringing sickness out of our house.

Later that day, we received a bunch of homemade tamales and beans for our dinner. How fortuitous that the lady randomly decided to make tamales and we got invited and then I didn't have to think about what to make for dinner and it help us celebrate the Cinco de Mayo in a small way. Happy day. Talia and Tiago snarfed down the beans and Mia chowed down a Tamale or two.
Ole!



My family was introduced to these characters via a friend's blog. We watch it all the time and have watched some of there other things. The other long day that we stopped at Taco Cabana Mia suggested that Fernando order in such a fashion. He did, but not so well choreographed and the lady was totally confused. May be that is why our order took so long?

La Cucaracha

What happens to children who are quarantined to their house due to sickness? You find some friends who don't mind how sick you are.


This little friend was found "dead" in my house in the middle of my living room floor. Weird. I tried my best to scoop it onto some paper to escort it outside for the birds to eat. As soon as I flipped it around it revived momentarily and then flipped back to his playing dead routine.

After searching long and hard, I found some cap large enough to act as a barrier between me and the cockroach. Doing my best to still look brave, I awkwardly carried it out to the most exposed area on my patio in hopes of providing a delicious meal for the many birds that frequent our yard.

Tiago decided that he was still interested and picked it right up. The cockroach even got a ride on Lightening McQueen. For the first time in days, Tiago had someone/thing to play with and I didn't have the heart to tell him what a poor choice such a friend would be. So, for the first time in history, I didn't cringe at the bug and one cockroach found acceptance in this Cucaracha hating world.


Side note: Aren't cockroaches supposed to hate light and people. What happened to the scurrying effect? Do I have an infestation that has left me unaware until now?

At BYU, they show a wide and some what strange variety of movies in their Varsity theater. The movies would have been passed up when viewed on a movie store's shelf (who does that anymore), but turned out to be quite entertaining. Some such films I liked were Dreams, Flamenco, and Microcosmos.

Miscrocosmos was definitely ahead of its time. Pre Planet Earth (which is quite enjoyable), the up close and personal look at nature wasn't really explored. Here in Texas, you don't really even need to be up close to be apart of nature. It is everywhere and it is trying to reclaim its home. Daily weeding sessions are the only solution for the mass amounts of weeds that grow here all year long. This bad boy, was taken care of back in January. I looks like it has been existing for a while, but really it wasn't all that long.


The day after I started my antibiotics, I was feeling the need to work and or put mother nature in her place. The tree in our backyard has been in need of removal for awhile. It was dead except for some shoots at the base of the tree. Poor thing. So I decided to get a shovel and go to work with Tiago as my sidekick. (He is a little more then concerned about the ginormous mushroom. My kids were warned once not to each mushrooms in the wild and have been terrified of them since then. Funny since they won't touch the store bought kind either.)








A lot of work as you can see. (Tiago ditched the shovel and became a free lance photojournalist. Oh, those legs need some color.) I finally opted fro pulling it around in circles to break the roots enough to pull out. I was so sore after that. And I felt a little sick again. I guess I should take it a little more easy.

Our Not-So-Much Mini Van and Vomit

So I hope that title lured you into this little tale. It begins with a hopeful family off for some Saturday errands before heading to the promise Sea World Land. The errand isn't all that bad for the kids because it was filling the kids' desires for buying a mini van which almost surpasses ours. We only had two we were viewing. . .one in San Antonio and one in San Marcos a good 40+ min drive away.

The first look took no more then 10 minutes. The van was nice but more then a bit monochromatic with it's light gray exterior and matching light gray interior. Blah, to say the least. We opted to get some lunch on the way at our used to be favorite Taco Cabana. Isn't speed the point of drive thrus? Well, after ten minutes of waiting and a free lemonade for our inconvenience, we finally were on our way. Psych! The people at the Cabana gave us so box loaded with about 20 burritos. We didn't notice until we were down the road away. We wound our way back getting slightly lost on some back roads to return the unordered food and pick up the oj we had ordered and wasn't given to us.

Then, 3 exits from our destination, Tiago pukes. Lucky us for free lemonade because it caught the second round of vomit. A tearful and slimed Tiago created a dilemma. (there goes all the good parent vibes you had earlier when you saw us playing baseball in the house). Should we abandon the search and drive the 45 minutes back always wondering what if? Or should we just take a quick look? Tiago voted quick look along with the rest of us. I told you he wanted a van.

Now imagine, a family of five squished into a dirty civic with puke child and nap needing infant along with a disheveled mother who noticed that her leg hairs with borderline neanderthal looking pull up to see your sparkling vehicle. You would probably burst out laughing and send the show on its way. Instead, this poor, desperate college grad wooed us with much vigor and vim. One reason had to do with Fernando's lust filled eyes. After five hours bargaining, revealing top secret documents, offering babysitting, loan reviewing, sleeping in the van, heading the the outlets, I wanted to bail. Fernando kindly agreed and as we were leaving they told us to take the van home and think about it for the weekend. SO here it is at it's temporary home. Kind of funny, no? I personally think the black on black is a bit hearse looking, but that is the top of the line for you.












I am revelationally challenged. Knowing this, I asked for a sign. Please feel free to look up all the scriptures that discuss sign seeking people. I deserve all the repercussion for doing this to my family. So, just before we were going to "seal" the deal, the sales rep wanted to let the kids watch one of the movies they brought. He starts into the bonuses of having such a dvd player when it totally malfunctions. That's right. The dvd player that had been working all of the sudden "ceased" the dvd and could not be fixed. All the mechanics came to look and tried to solve the problem. One even tried to jam a folded paper into the player as if that was going to work. Each one had a different story. Combined, the reason for the stuck dvd was due to a jam riddled sticky dvd that was ceased by the player. Time needed to repair the dvd 6-8 weeks. This didn't look good since we were planning on that dvd player to help us on our California drive. That's a post for another day.

We brought it home. Fernando did some more internet researching. He fixed the dvd player. We made pro and con lists. We are taking it back. I will miss the supped up everything that the van offered. I won't bore you with the complete list but it was the top of the top model for Honda Odysseys at a pretty good price. It even came equipped with PAX tires which magically never go flat or can even be penetrated. The only real regret (aside from keeping Tiago there) is the disappointment that sales rep will have for his schmoozing.