As mentioned by Elizabeth, she and Dale have been under the weather this last week. Poor Jonathan was stuck at home with sick parents so I got to whisk him away to the Arboretum for an hour or so on Saturday afternoon. We split a tiny Belgium Chocolate ice cream, took pictures in the photo booth, climbed on the stone cows, and rode the escalator at Barnes and Nobel singing "You are my Sunshine". What a blast! He even invited me over for a sleep over though neither his parents or Stepan or Homer were invited.
I've been forced to make the responsible decision and decline my sister's invitation to the TITC party for launching Ann Richards' new book. It's in NYC on Tuesday and getting away from work in the middle of the week is really hard. Especially right now when everybody is preparing for being shorthanded in September and October (two employees will be out on maternity leave). Since I can't go, I decided that the next best thing to actually being there would be to send a representative. Yesterday, I got my dad a ticket to NYC from Priceline. He's sure to have a good time...I just wish I could go, too :-(
Yesterday, Homer and I had a date for a picnic with Elizabeth, Jonathan, and the McHargs at Emma Long Metropolitan Park. I told my co-workers that I was going to try to leave at noon and to save even more time, I took Homer to work with me. Since it was Friday, that meant that we started our day at Town Lake at 7am for a 3 mile run. He's a great trail dog. Homer was very good at the office. He spent the entire morning laying down under my desk and he only barked at one of my co-workers...though he did bark at that co-worker every time we saw him.
I couldn't get off work until 1pm so everybody was just about ready to leave by the time I got there. I did get to visit with Archie and Jessica for about an hour...we definitely need to do more with them...and I got to play with Jonathan in the lake. I was amazed that Jonathan didn't even have his feet wet when I got there. They had been there since 11am or so. I'm very pleased to report that he was soaking wet by the time we packed up to head home. I would carry Jonathan out into the lake and Homer would chase after us, trying to herd us back to shore. As always we had a great time together.
Doug McLean called us up last week to see if we wanted to join him and Luca for a day of fun and sun in New Braunfels. They came by yesterday morning with picnic food already prepared and we were off.
We had a great time...though it would have been tons better if Stepan hadn't decided to get stuffy nosed in the morning! And amazingly enough none of us got sunburned. Most of the lines were of course outrageously long, but they were all fairly shaded and we were able to entertain ourselves through most of them. The absolute worst line was the last one we stood in. It was for Wolf Pack. It launches from the top of a tower and shares it's platform with the Master Blaster. The problem is that both attractions require rafts that are sent up via the same conveyor belt and they had far too few rafts for the Wolf Pack in circulation. The ride was fun but it was definitely not worth the wait.
A couple of great things about Schlitterbaun: there are lots of activities available that don't entail standing in line (we especially enjoyed The Torrent Wave River, you are allowed to bring in a cooler with your own food and drinks, and Splash Cash which is waterproof wristbands with tabs in several denominations for use in purchasing food, beverages, and souvenirs without dealing with soggy money.
Last night, we finally got the deluge we've been needing. It would have been nice if it had come down a little gentler though. Not that I don't love a good, raging storm, but it brought down quite a few trees...or rather quite a few large tree limbs...in the park. We also had to repair two large sections of our fence this morning. After walking through the park this morning, we realized we weren't too bad off...some of our neighbors were missing entire lengths of fencing including the support posts! Here are some additional impressions from last night:
Cool - Watching the storm roll in during our evening walk and being dazzled by amazing bolts of lightning followed immediately by deafening claps of thunder.
Scary - Looking out the living room window and seeing the wind whip the limbs of the live oak next to our house so violently that they almost wrap around our front porch.
Amazing - Grape size hail...and our scramble to move Stepan's car into the garage.
Scary - Watching our newly planted trees being blown nearly parallel with the ground (thankfully, they all survived with little apparent damage).
Cool - Loosing power twice and playing cribbage by candlelight.
Frustrating - Loosing power twice while recording the four episodes of my current favorite show (Stargate: SG-1 on the SciFi channel) that air every Monday.
Last night, my brilliant husband installed a photo gallery script on my website. In case you missed the new "Site Link" in the sidebar, you can click Snapshots to see my pictures. There are currently only 2 albums listed, but feel free to view them at your leisure...and add comments if you are so moved. I'll let y'all know when more albums are added. Also, if you ever see a picture you would like to print out, send me an email and I'll send you a high res version.
We've been trying to get Homer to roll over on command. He's been having a bit of trouble with it since he's not the type of dog to go belly up in most circumstances...he is generally too untrusting to be so exposed and vulverable. Last night, he finally got the gist of what we wanted him to do and managed to heave himself over without any help from us at all (we usually have to give him a helpful push). Needless to say, Stepan and I were quite proud :-)
Stepan and I just saw one of the best movies we've seen in a long time. It was Whale Rider, a story about native people of New Zealand, a stubborn patriarchal hierarchy, generational conflict, and struggles to honor traditions and ancestors in a modern world. The music was phenomenal and the movie was beautifully filmed. Go see this movie and if you tend to be even the slightest bit emotional at movies be sure the take a whole box of kleenex.