So here is a quick page from last Thanksgiving in Amarillo. I keep saying I will get Megan's scrapbook done soon, so one page down, many more to go!
13 years ago
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
A start to my scrapbook procrastinating!
So here is a quick page from last Thanksgiving in Amarillo. I keep saying I will get Megan's scrapbook done soon, so one page down, many more to go!
Monday, December 15, 2008
The Carriage Ride
Here is a photo from our group outing last week to see the Christmas lights. Megan had fun, and the weather was remarkably nice for this time of year -- we didn't even need hot chocolate to warm up! Thanks Melissa for arranging all the fun!
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Lots to catch up on!
Wow! What a week. We are still recovering, so I will catch up this week.
The last week has been a blur. Last Saturday, we went with our friends Dave, Melissa and Annie on a great Christmas Light viewing carriage ride in Highland Park. Many of the houses were already decorated spectacularly, and then many other houses were just spectacular in themselves. We had fun, although Megan seemed the most interested in the horses. Since we were in the carriage, we really didn't have the *best* view of the horses if you know what I mean, but Megan didn't know or mind. She had a blast, and has since been wearing the cool jingle bell headband that her friend Annie gave her that night -- thanks Annie! I promise to find pictures soon!
And then Monday we started feeling badly, and Megan and I got sick. By Friday, her doctor diagnosed the poor kid with pneumonia, so we are just getting back around to feeling a little better, although with the bouts of coughing, we do sound a little like death warmed over.
As sick as she was, she did manage to get into my craft stuff and get glitter EVERYWHERE. Despite my best attempts to clean it, our whole house sort of sparkles right now. It would be kind of festive if I hadn't already tried to clean it up twice!
In part of the downtime, we have gotten back into photoshop trying to learn a little. I built this blog background among a few other experiments, although I can't tell how it looks on smaller monitors. So if anyone is interested in being my guinea pig, let me know as I am having a little fun experimenting with ideas.
I have a few fun pictures from the week, that I will sort through this week. Me and my prescription cough medicine (yea for drugs!) are now headed off to bed...
: ) AL
The last week has been a blur. Last Saturday, we went with our friends Dave, Melissa and Annie on a great Christmas Light viewing carriage ride in Highland Park. Many of the houses were already decorated spectacularly, and then many other houses were just spectacular in themselves. We had fun, although Megan seemed the most interested in the horses. Since we were in the carriage, we really didn't have the *best* view of the horses if you know what I mean, but Megan didn't know or mind. She had a blast, and has since been wearing the cool jingle bell headband that her friend Annie gave her that night -- thanks Annie! I promise to find pictures soon!
And then Monday we started feeling badly, and Megan and I got sick. By Friday, her doctor diagnosed the poor kid with pneumonia, so we are just getting back around to feeling a little better, although with the bouts of coughing, we do sound a little like death warmed over.
As sick as she was, she did manage to get into my craft stuff and get glitter EVERYWHERE. Despite my best attempts to clean it, our whole house sort of sparkles right now. It would be kind of festive if I hadn't already tried to clean it up twice!
In part of the downtime, we have gotten back into photoshop trying to learn a little. I built this blog background among a few other experiments, although I can't tell how it looks on smaller monitors. So if anyone is interested in being my guinea pig, let me know as I am having a little fun experimenting with ideas.
I have a few fun pictures from the week, that I will sort through this week. Me and my prescription cough medicine (yea for drugs!) are now headed off to bed...
: ) AL
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Rejoining the wired (or wireless) world!
Wow. I feel so disconnected. We just recovered from a 4 day service issue that made me realize just how addicted we are to some sort of connectivity.
Last Friday, we made the exciting switch from Charter cable to AT&T Uverse. We were excited and everything worked great Friday, so we called Charter to disconnect. Saturday we finished hooking everything else up and then everything went out. No internet, no wireless, no cable so no TV.
Sunday we couldn't figure out what to wear -- what was the weather going to be like???? Didn't there used to be phone numbers for time and temperature or something? Oh yeah, we DO have an antenna hooked up to one of our TVs. Phew, crisis averted.
I have a long four or five page letter detailing the saga. It started kind of average, got really bad in the middle, and then ended in something a bit stupid on our end, which slowed down my five page saga! Basically we had everything working, then apparently had an ethernet connection issue, but this all happened at the same time as AT&T had some crazy flood in the basement of a hub in St. Louis and they lost their ability to fix stuff. Literally. One whole day, they couldn't accept incoming calls -- AT&T, a PHONE COMPANY, lost PHONE SERVICE. Then they couldn't dispatch repairs. The whole time, there was some outage in the software that wouldn't allow them to switch out my modem, and once that was all finally fixed and I switched out my own modem at midnight on Monday night (I was the official field tech after getting a replacement modem from a tech who couldn't switch it while the software was down) it ended in a bad connection found today in a ethernet cable. Hmmmm - not sure which was the root cause of the really bad first weekend of Uverse. The ethernet cable was our issue, but the others some combination of bad luck (Modem zapped or something), a flood, service outage, and an install where not quite everything got hooked up by the tech (she installed one of our computers, but we have a few more than that. It is embarressing to say just how many).
In the middle of all my AT&T visits, charter came by to disconnect my STILL WORKING cable service. Some kind of cruel universal humor or kharma for breaking away from the cable company.
And I managed to reach out in the middle of this via a visit to McDonalds to use their WiFi hotspot! Megan didn't complain about this at all on Sunday. She got to play - a good reason to take your laptop to McDonalds to pass the sliding time!
It is a much longer story than this even, but for now I just want to say "Yeah! We are back!" and "We know what to wear tomorrow! It'll be chilly!"
Last Friday, we made the exciting switch from Charter cable to AT&T Uverse. We were excited and everything worked great Friday, so we called Charter to disconnect. Saturday we finished hooking everything else up and then everything went out. No internet, no wireless, no cable so no TV.
Sunday we couldn't figure out what to wear -- what was the weather going to be like???? Didn't there used to be phone numbers for time and temperature or something? Oh yeah, we DO have an antenna hooked up to one of our TVs. Phew, crisis averted.
I have a long four or five page letter detailing the saga. It started kind of average, got really bad in the middle, and then ended in something a bit stupid on our end, which slowed down my five page saga! Basically we had everything working, then apparently had an ethernet connection issue, but this all happened at the same time as AT&T had some crazy flood in the basement of a hub in St. Louis and they lost their ability to fix stuff. Literally. One whole day, they couldn't accept incoming calls -- AT&T, a PHONE COMPANY, lost PHONE SERVICE. Then they couldn't dispatch repairs. The whole time, there was some outage in the software that wouldn't allow them to switch out my modem, and once that was all finally fixed and I switched out my own modem at midnight on Monday night (I was the official field tech after getting a replacement modem from a tech who couldn't switch it while the software was down) it ended in a bad connection found today in a ethernet cable. Hmmmm - not sure which was the root cause of the really bad first weekend of Uverse. The ethernet cable was our issue, but the others some combination of bad luck (Modem zapped or something), a flood, service outage, and an install where not quite everything got hooked up by the tech (she installed one of our computers, but we have a few more than that. It is embarressing to say just how many).
In the middle of all my AT&T visits, charter came by to disconnect my STILL WORKING cable service. Some kind of cruel universal humor or kharma for breaking away from the cable company.
And I managed to reach out in the middle of this via a visit to McDonalds to use their WiFi hotspot! Megan didn't complain about this at all on Sunday. She got to play - a good reason to take your laptop to McDonalds to pass the sliding time!
It is a much longer story than this even, but for now I just want to say "Yeah! We are back!" and "We know what to wear tomorrow! It'll be chilly!"
Monday, December 01, 2008
Decorating the tree
decorating_NEW
Originally uploaded by homanhouse
Did I mention she cleans?
swiffer_NEW
Originally uploaded by homanhouse
Sunday, November 30, 2008
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....
So today we tackled Christmas decorating. We still have more to do, including most of the outside stuff, but we did get the tree up and several indoor things accomplished. Megan was very excited about the Christmas decorating. After Daddy got the tree put together, she did the first attempt on decorating. We giggled a bit because of how she put on the ornaments. I rather expected them to all be low on the tree (at her height) which they were, but she also put most of them on the same branches, creating this densely decorated area (bottom left)
A close up of the decorating
Then Daddy helped her spread them out a little. Megan used the step ladder to put some higher, and then she and Daddy put the angel on the tree. After they finished, she stopped me and told me to go get the camera and take this picture (of her behind Daddy on the stool). I thought it was really funny as I didn't even have the camera at that time! So here is Megan's pose.
A few views of the mostly finished project in the living room
And "...the stockings were hung by the chimney with care..."
A close up of the decorating
Then Daddy helped her spread them out a little. Megan used the step ladder to put some higher, and then she and Daddy put the angel on the tree. After they finished, she stopped me and told me to go get the camera and take this picture (of her behind Daddy on the stool). I thought it was really funny as I didn't even have the camera at that time! So here is Megan's pose.
A few views of the mostly finished project in the living room
And "...the stockings were hung by the chimney with care..."
And just a quick view of our bar project, which I never posted. Last year (maybe 1-1/2 years ago!) we bought a flat screen TV with the goal of moving it out of the TV area and converting that area to a bar. It took about 10 months to get the TV mounted on the wall, and then several more months before we got the shelves out, and the stemware holders painted and installed. We put the wine refrigerator from my Dad there, and got all of the liquor moved out of the kitchen freeing up some much needed kitchen cabinets. We also installed a hanging pot rack in the kitchen and we have more kitchen cabinet space than we have had in a while (but area already managing to fill it)
With the new bar, it seems like Santa could stop off for a sip after his cookies and milk.........
Friday, November 28, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
Oh I am almost TOO full to type and it isn't even Thanksgiving anymore!
So Megan had a great Thanksgiving. It began with a trip to Corpus, along with 3.3 million other people who were all driving south towards Austin on I-35. That was frustrating, annoying and maddening. We were in stop and go traffic and the drive took about 2 hours longer than it should have, but at 11PM, we finally made it to Corpus.
Megan was so excited to get to see her cousin Lauren -- they are only 3 months apart, and have such fun together. She was a little disappointed to see that Lauren fell asleep while waiting for Megan. Apparently, Lauren was excited to see her cousin too, but just couldn't make it all the way to the late hour.
Lauren, however, is a morning girl, and so she woke up extra early on Thanksgiving morning -- and consequently, so did the rest of us. So we started the day of cooking and eating and playing early, and finished it late after a big meal.
The girls playing piano
The little turkey and her mama (the big turkey?)
Daddy's girl
There was a stuffed turkey, oyster dressing, oyster dressing w/out the oysters (for the two non seafood eaters who married into the family of seafood lovers), squash casserole, loaded mash potatoes, cranberry sorbet (a new trial this year) and dessert: pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and banana pudding.
The cranberry sorbet was a recipe that I saw on one of Blogger's "Blogs of Note" and I stumbled upon a blog that I really like with lots of good recipes. It is called sidewalk shoes and she makes some great food, and takes equally great photos of her creations. We don't have a food mill, so I just pressed the cooked cranberries through a sieve for awhile and used that in the sorbet (does that make ME the food mill?)
Then on Friday, I got to eat my favorite leftover breakfast -- Thanksgiving banana pudding (my mom's recipe). I will share it here because it is SOOOO yummy.
1 pkg vanilla pudding, prepared as directed on the box
1 cup of whipping cream, whipped and lightly sweetened (~1/2 cup sugar)
1 container of cool whip
1 can of Eagle Brand Sweetened condensed milk
bananas
nilla wafers
Prepare the pudding as directed, and also whip the whipping cream. Mix together and add the cool whip and Eagle Brand, and mix together. Layer Nilla Wafers on the bottom of a casserole dish, add a layer of the dairy mix, and slice some banana pieces into the mix. REPEAT with a second layer, and then top with Nilla wafers. It is even better the second day.
Note: It doesn't really matter if you use a large or small box of pudding, a large or small container of cool whip -- I have done both -- the proportions are similar, and it just changes the total volume that you make (so hmmm - maybe the big ones are best!)
Megan invited her cousin to stay an extra day, and so Chris and I along with Nana and Papa, set out for the aquarium to help entertain the girls. They had a blast, and were just hysterical in the car with all the games and things that they made up in the backseat. Megan is just growing up amazingly right before our eyes! We had dinner at Snoopy's on the water, and the girls had a great time, and began to look quite sleepy, so we rushed them home!
Watching the dolphin show on Papa and Daddy's shoulders
Petting the stingrays (well Lauren tried, Megan didn't want any part of actually touching them)
Watching the birds at dinner
Megan really liked the idea of feeding the birds (a big NO NO) and tormented several seagulls. You see, there is thin fishing line strewn all around and overhead to keep the birds away and they could just see Megan's offering, but not quite reach it. Megan and Lauren somehow decided to SHARE a chair at dinner, so here they are eating.
In the back of Nana and Papa's minivan having great fun
Watching "Go Diego Go" on the couch afterwards
On their matching cots at bedtime that Nana and Papa bought them
Saturday, we drove Lauren home to Houston to her Mommy and Daddy and sister who missed her. Then drove ourselves home afterwards, and now we are recovering from a fun holiday!
Sunday will be for putting up the Christmas tree and some Christmas decorating, and Megan is excited!
So Megan had a great Thanksgiving. It began with a trip to Corpus, along with 3.3 million other people who were all driving south towards Austin on I-35. That was frustrating, annoying and maddening. We were in stop and go traffic and the drive took about 2 hours longer than it should have, but at 11PM, we finally made it to Corpus.
Megan was so excited to get to see her cousin Lauren -- they are only 3 months apart, and have such fun together. She was a little disappointed to see that Lauren fell asleep while waiting for Megan. Apparently, Lauren was excited to see her cousin too, but just couldn't make it all the way to the late hour.
Lauren, however, is a morning girl, and so she woke up extra early on Thanksgiving morning -- and consequently, so did the rest of us. So we started the day of cooking and eating and playing early, and finished it late after a big meal.
The girls playing piano
The little turkey and her mama (the big turkey?)
Daddy's girl
There was a stuffed turkey, oyster dressing, oyster dressing w/out the oysters (for the two non seafood eaters who married into the family of seafood lovers), squash casserole, loaded mash potatoes, cranberry sorbet (a new trial this year) and dessert: pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and banana pudding.
The cranberry sorbet was a recipe that I saw on one of Blogger's "Blogs of Note" and I stumbled upon a blog that I really like with lots of good recipes. It is called sidewalk shoes and she makes some great food, and takes equally great photos of her creations. We don't have a food mill, so I just pressed the cooked cranberries through a sieve for awhile and used that in the sorbet (does that make ME the food mill?)
Then on Friday, I got to eat my favorite leftover breakfast -- Thanksgiving banana pudding (my mom's recipe). I will share it here because it is SOOOO yummy.
1 pkg vanilla pudding, prepared as directed on the box
1 cup of whipping cream, whipped and lightly sweetened (~1/2 cup sugar)
1 container of cool whip
1 can of Eagle Brand Sweetened condensed milk
bananas
nilla wafers
Prepare the pudding as directed, and also whip the whipping cream. Mix together and add the cool whip and Eagle Brand, and mix together. Layer Nilla Wafers on the bottom of a casserole dish, add a layer of the dairy mix, and slice some banana pieces into the mix. REPEAT with a second layer, and then top with Nilla wafers. It is even better the second day.
Note: It doesn't really matter if you use a large or small box of pudding, a large or small container of cool whip -- I have done both -- the proportions are similar, and it just changes the total volume that you make (so hmmm - maybe the big ones are best!)
Megan invited her cousin to stay an extra day, and so Chris and I along with Nana and Papa, set out for the aquarium to help entertain the girls. They had a blast, and were just hysterical in the car with all the games and things that they made up in the backseat. Megan is just growing up amazingly right before our eyes! We had dinner at Snoopy's on the water, and the girls had a great time, and began to look quite sleepy, so we rushed them home!
Watching the dolphin show on Papa and Daddy's shoulders
Petting the stingrays (well Lauren tried, Megan didn't want any part of actually touching them)
Watching the birds at dinner
Megan really liked the idea of feeding the birds (a big NO NO) and tormented several seagulls. You see, there is thin fishing line strewn all around and overhead to keep the birds away and they could just see Megan's offering, but not quite reach it. Megan and Lauren somehow decided to SHARE a chair at dinner, so here they are eating.
In the back of Nana and Papa's minivan having great fun
Watching "Go Diego Go" on the couch afterwards
On their matching cots at bedtime that Nana and Papa bought them
Saturday, we drove Lauren home to Houston to her Mommy and Daddy and sister who missed her. Then drove ourselves home afterwards, and now we are recovering from a fun holiday!
Sunday will be for putting up the Christmas tree and some Christmas decorating, and Megan is excited!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
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