Sea Center

We have a great little sea center down the street from where we live. It's a tiny little place with a few big, wall size aquariums, a few small ones and a touch tank that Collin loves! And did I mention that it's free?! Collin and I loved to walk down when  the weather was cooler, now we drive, and see the fish. They even have a couple times a week that you can watch them feed the fish, although we have been avoiding it during the busy summer. One Saturday in March they had a nature day with lots of fun hands on things for the kids to do. Collin was still a little young for some of it but he surprised Michael and I by being so brave and touching a little alligator and snake. Since then he really has had no fear of touching live animals, sometimes he's a little too fearless! 

Dr Seuss Day

I feel like Dr Seuss Day isn't real a big deal unless you are in elementary school. But I happened to come across something about it and it was only a couple days away so I decided to make an event of it. It also just happened to be my night to plan family home evening and we already had a breakfast meal on the menu so it worked out perfectly! For dinner we of course had green eggs (scrambled eggs mixed with avocado) and ham! And then to tie it into FHE we read the scripture "Seek ye out of the best of books words of wisdom" Doctrine and Covenants 88:118. Then we read some books together and talked about learning and good books we can read. Of course with Collin this all lasted just a few minutes. But despite that I love this time to spend together with my little family and talk about important things at such a simple level. We aren't the best at regular FHE, especially since Michael often has city council meetings Monday nights, but we're trying. 

Grandma Coon Visits

Michael's mom was in New Mexico for a work training (way back in March) and on her way home took a detour to visit us for a week. We are glad she was able to come- she hadn't seen Collin since he was 2 months old! Unfortunately Michael couldn't take off any work, but thankfully we had the evenings and weekend to do some fine things and she and Collin and I were able to do some fun things during the day.

We explored nearby Brazos Bend State Park. Enjoyed a nice walk around a pond (maybe they called it a lake?) Either way we saw a real alligator and some other fun birds and critters. We also checked out the ranger station where they lots of interactive things to touch and look at. We finished off our excursion with a picnic lunch and a little play on the playground and another short walk where we saw another, even closer, alligator just sunning itself a few feet from  us. 

 

Grandma treated us to a day at the zoo.  Collin loved all the animals! And that was his new favorite word after that. Highlight for him though was probably the carousel ride Grandma took him on. I was a little nervous to how he would react- he had only been on the little carousel at Bass Pro Shop when we saw Santa and he was a little hesitant about it- but he had the biggest smile the whole ride! 

 

One evening we took a trip to the beach. There were so many seashells that night. It was fun to collect some. Collin was still in his anti-sand phase so he was content to stay on the blanket or safe in Daddy's arms. 

Had some yummy meals at home. One night we treated Grandma Coon to some homemade sushi. This is always a fun  and unique meal to have with company. 

 

The rest of our time together was filled with evenings talking, sharing stories from Michael's childhood (seems like we now know the source of Collins energy), some movie nights, church, and some of our regular outings like story time at the library. We are so glad that Grandma Coon took the time to come visit. The hardest part of living in Texas is being so far away from family. I am especially grateful for the time Collin got to bond with his Grandma and the memories they made together. Also I know Michael enjoyed seeing some of his family. I've had the chance to see my family quite a bit but it's been harder for him to see his since we moved from Utah. 

Truly

My parent's had to make the hard decision to put our family dog down on February 4, 2015 (or maybe it was the 5th??). She would have been 16 years old in June and had been a part of our family since I was about 8 or 9 years old. I still have yet to go home and not have her there to greet me. She will be missed dearly!

A few of my favorite memories of her. I really could share so many more but I'll keep it at this. And just share some pictures I have of her from over the years.

I loved having Truly sleep in my room with me. Much to my dad's dismay she would often end up sleeping on my bed with me.

One year for Christmas Corinne gave me a "PMS kit"- it included comfy pj's, a rice bag, and a cute tote bag full of chocolate. Well one night shortly after Christmas Truly was sleeping in my room with me and that bag was sitting on my floor. I woke up the next morning to her having chewed through the tote and most of the chocolate gone. Little stinker! Good thing she was cute ;)

She sure did have a sweet tooth- one time Corinne had made a pumpkin roll. We had it cooling on the dining room table, a few minutes later we noticed Truly was missing. She had licked off all the cream cheese filling! Also one time she was staying at Lindsay and Shaun's house. It was Lindsay's birthday so they had strawberry shortcake sitting on their kitchen island for dessert. Lindsay and Shaun went out for a date and when they got home the babysitter said it was all gone after she came downstairs from putting the kids to bed.

She had the softest ears.

If you were laying on the floor she loved to come curl up right next to you...or sometimes right on top of you.

She was great with all the grand kids and didn't mind being climbed on or her ears and tail being pulled.  I am so glad that Collin got to meet her. We have a little stuffed yellow lab from Ikea that we have named Truly. Love to hear him ask to sleep with Truly every night and carry her around the house.

 

 

 

She had the sweetest temperament. Her favorite way to greet you was with a big wet kiss. She especially loved licking your toes.  

Michael says I was too attached to Truly, but she was a like a member of our family, and for that reason he says we will never have a dog. I think someday, when the kids are older and we are more settled, we will be able to convince him to get one ;)

Valentine's Day 2015

Wow Valentine's Day seems forever ago! I don't remember doing much or anything extravagant. We hadn't been in our place for very long- just a couple weeks- so I do know that we were still living among some boxes. I remember I did tell Michael that I wanted to hang a few things on the walls as our Valentine's date. Real romantic ;) We got around to it late that night and after we got a few things up I thought yay now I have a place to put some Valentine's decorations. And then it hit me that today was Valentine's. Needless to say, Valentine's decorations never got hung this year.

But we did wear red and took a little family outing to the beach. At this point Collin was still really uneasy about walking on the sand, so he stuck to the safety of the blanket. Thankfully he is pretty much over that now.

And Michael and I made our traditional Asian food for our Valentine's dinner. This year I really wanted to perfect a lo mein- I am still working on it (I will take any and all recipe recommendations and tips!) And Michael wanted to try a Mongolian Beef- it was a Pinterest recipe flop. I think we made a beef and broccoli too- that's a favorite of ours and super easy so at least we had one successful dish. Despite our failure in cooking this year, I will say that it is one of my favorite traditions that we have started. Beats trying to find a babysitter and dealing with crowds. Plus I love cooking with my hubby!

Sure do love my two, handsome Valentines!!

Auntie Chlo Comes to visit!!

This post was written several months ago. I guess I just never got around to adding pictures and posting it, which is silly since I didn't take many pictures. Better late then never, right? ;)
 
First let me just preface that a great motivation to get things unpacked quick and things hung on the wall is to invite someone to come visit  3 weeks after moving! ;)

Auntie Chlo is my best friend Chloe. We met one of our first few days of 6th grade and have been great friends ever since! We were both so terribly awkward (me more then her) but thankfully we have both left those awkward middle school years behind us.  She is one of my few friends from high school that I can see again after several months/year and we can pick up right where we left off! I was so excited when she called and said she had some time off from work and wanted to come visit us! Its always such a wonderful feeling when people want to come visit you- especially when you live in way south Texas :)

She decided to come February 21st-24th. So it was just a quick trip, but I think we managed to squeeze some fun things in, although I wish the weather had been a little warmer and Collin a little healthier.

She flew into Houston on that Saturday. So Michael and I decided we would spend the afternoon in Houston and do a little shopping at Ikea. The main purpose was to get a bookshelf for Collin's room. And of course you can't leave Ikea with just one thing and without getting some Swedish meatballs. Then we picked up Chloe. We had planned on picking up some dinner after getting her, but with being new to the area, not knowing what was around the airport and our phones being less then helpful we eventually ended up stopping at a McDonalds drive thru as we neared the edge of the city before hitting the empty stretch on our way to Lake Jackson. Food was food at that point :)

Side story: Collin hadn't had a very healthy winter season thus far. Nothing serious, just a bunch of colds that had left him with a thick, lingering, cough. It all kind of climaxed that Saturday night. Collin woke up crying and coughing in the middle of the night, thankfully he was sleeping in our room. Anyway he ended up coughing up/throwing up a bunch of mucus and other lovely stuff a couple times that night. None of us really slept well that night and we decided that Chloe and I would go to church (I had to my first day of teaching my primary class) and Michael and Collin would stay home.

We had a nice time a church. Chloe got a kick out of my energetic and sassy group of primary girls I will be teaching. And when we got home we all ate lunch, and then took nice long naps. After naps we decided to show Chloe our Texas beaches just 15 minutes from our house (The only part of Texas that is slightly similar to living in CA) The weather wasn't super warm, but it wasn't bad for sitting on a blanket and walking along the beach.

And to top off our Sunday we came home and made homemade CA sushi rolls. A little reminiscent of my 16th birthday party :) We all got to make a roll and had such a fun time eating sushi, miso soup, and edamame. So yummy. And of course I couldn't pass up the Poky for dessert when I saw it in the store.

 

Monday was a pretty gloomy day but we headed up to Pearland (about 45 minutes north of us) to check out some shopping I had heard about. We found a fun unique to Texas used book store, and then some other favorite stores. Then we had a yummy lunch at Panera. There was one point while we were eating that it felt like we were back home in CA getting together on one of my trips home. Panera is a favorite of ours :)

Tuesday was the day we had to say goodbye. We headed up to the airport shortly after taking Michael to work. Its always hard to say goodbye to visitors. Chloe is such a great friend and a wonderful Auntie to Collin. Come back and visit us again soon!!

Slacker

I have been a total slacker in the blogging department for the past few months. Well actually in a lot of areas of my life. But I promise I have a good reason! Things are finally getting back to normal around here so its time to get things back on track and start recording all the things we have been up to. We just got back from a wonderful family vacation to the East Coast that I have lots of pictures to share from. Plus I've got a long list of posts I need to do sitting next to the computer to remind me of others ones I need to do. So brace yourselves for a lot of updates!