A New Park To Love

We love living so close to Sea World, but unfortunately, it isn't open year around. So, when that outdoor venue is unavailable, we get into a boring rut of lack luster parks that are kind of out of the way.

That is until recently. While driving in my dog pattern to the grocery store one day I glanced over into a near by neighborhood and saw a beautifully new park. Each time I drove past after that, I hungered to explore its potential. Concerned that the park was meant only for the neighborhood, I just drooled from a distance. Finally, I could take it no longer and was rewarded greatly for my curiosity.
ZIPLINES!



MERRY-GO-ROUNDS!


MERRY ME GO ROUND


BALANCE BEAMS


AND SO MUCH MORE! Ok, not that much more but enough to use our bodies and play pretty much all by ourselves most days! Thank heavens for new discoveries!

Chinese New Years

I had hoped to have a fantastic party to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit, but didn't. I planned on attending the Asian Festival to watch Sumo Wrestling, Lion/Dragon Dancing, and some Polynesian hula dancers, but didn't. I did steal my friend's idea to make lion puppets



and watch Lion Dancing on the internet. . .good enough!

Rapture

About two weeks ago, San Antonio had a snow storm. The snow was almost 1/4" in some places! Everything shut down. Well, almost everything. To be fair, they are completely unequipped to deal with such weather conditions since they are so rare.

Fernando had hoped that he wouldn't have to go into work, but never received a call. So, dutifully, he drove himself across town on iced roads at about 20 miles per hour. The freeways were closed which forced all traffic onto the famous Texas access roads. For several miles, a truck road Fernando's bumper. Fernando, who has driven many times in much more dangerous road conditions quickly realized that the all powerful truck driver was unaware of the laws of physics. Pulling over to allow the truck to pass, Fernando noticed a trafficless freeway and a simple orange cone blocking the on ramp.

Solution, move the cone and have free access to work without all those pestering traffic lights and over confident SUVs. He said it was strange to drive on the normally busy freeway devoid of any traffic, but it was when he passed car after empty car that really started to make him question. Did I miss the rapture?

With only one police officer attempt to stop him, he made it quickly and safely to the hospital to sit around with all the other driven doctors.

Elephants at Play

Fernando has always loved reading. He tells of how he would hide in the log pile outside his home just so he could finish reading. His life as a resident has cut all possibilities of reading for fun and limit his selections to the scriptures and medical reference books which I am sure that his patients enjoy whether or not they realize his sacrifice. Thank heavens for audiobooks.

Now, as he drives to and from work, he can listen to book after book. Some of the best books I have "read" are from this endless collection of audiobooks Fernando has gotten for himself. Currently, I am overtaken by the book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. Amazing, frustrating, incredible, almost unbelievable. More than once I found myself shaking my head in disbelief and audibly guffawing.

Last night, as I listened to the story of Louis Zamperini, I became livid with the choices people make that drastically effect the lives of others. Some upstart Lieutenant, unfamiliar with the workings of airplanes, ordered Zamperini and his crew to go on a search and rescue mission. The only plane available was unfit for flight in the sight of all pilots, but passed all the "test" some book read inspector gave the plane. Even upon explaining that the plane was unfit to fly, the men had to follow orders with devastating results. Over and over in the war, men were killed in non combat situations. Thousands of men lost to "war" because of the ignorance or inattention to detail by the superiors. It made me think of the saying my mom often says "When Elephants play in the mud, the frogs are the ones who get hurt."

Get the book. Read it. Or, better yet, listen to it. It is not for the faint of heart and there are war scenes that are unpleasant, but it has been an amazing life story to remember.

This is SO Tiago!

Tiago has been wearing his Darth Vader costume for days.

Best Laid Plans

So remember those dozen donuts? I decided to freeze most of them, and "hid" them in our ice cube making machine box. This plan seemed so genius until the day Fernando found both plastic and chocolate donuts in his ice water. Whoops!

Musical Fans

I don't really understand what possesses me sometimes. I have this problem of starting into big projects when the more important day to day chores (dishes, vacuuming, showering) are left undone. Such is the case this past week. I have been going to bed ridiculously early and waking up at 2 am. Too lazy to get out of bed (even though I had slept 7 hours) I would ponder various things like: how long would it take me to pressure treat my fence and seal it or how easy would it be to replace my light fixtures above my garage and outside my front door or how could I maximize the ceiling fans I currently own and fix the mismatched configuration that we have been "enjoying" these many months.

Realizing that the ceiling fans were the most irritating to me, I promptly headed to Lowes one day after picking TIago up from school to purchase the cheapest yet most effective ceiling fan for our downstairs family room. Then came the moment of musical fans. The downstairs ceiling fan and the ceiling fan in my room were identical which made placing them in the children's room ideal. The ceiling fan in one of the children's rooms was worthless while the other was fantastic in ability as well as ugliness (were talking gleaming gold metal with 80's oak blades). I opted to spray paint the blades black to match our bedroom set and deal with the bling since it is close enough to the antique brass hardware on our furniture in our room.

Five fans later and a repaint job, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Luckily, reality hit in when I turned on the fans in the kids' rooms only to realize my foolish error. The fans had dimmer remotes that also controlled the speed of the fan. To install, the fan must be set on high and then controlled by a remote located in the ceiling and on the wall. Because a little remote spelled disaster in my head with kids and playing too much with a non toy item, I opted to leave the remotes out. So now the fans have two settings---off and turbo jet speed. Good thing San Antonio weather makes such speeds desirable, because the problem has been solved for now.