It's Official

Spring is now officially here. Says who? Says me. The grass is finally green again, not brown, and our tree is starting to get little leaves,


The birds are all out singing instead of coughing,


And the temperature is in the 80's. What am I talking about? What happened to Spring? This feels like Summer!

Things to do when you're stuck in the house because of the weather

So, for anyone who hasn't been watching the news, there's been some pretty wicked weather going through most of the U.S.(thunder-snow, anyone? Yes, it happened. At night, though.) There has been some snow.


This much snow.

We have had some of the coldest nights here in 15 years. The roads have been all icy and frozen and so things have been shut down for days at a time. So what does one do when they're stuck in the house for several days(assuming your pantry is adequately stocked.)?

~bake cookies. Promptly hide half the cookies(the ones with white chocolate chips and craisins) from T.J.


~bake scones.


~have a tea party with said scones.

~watch Food Network. Remember how creepy you find Ina Garten. Count how many times Giada squeezes the juice out of lemons.

~Plan your next trip to Target(Three day without Target! A personal record)

~knit


~go outside to take pictures. Promptly come back inside because it is too frickin' cold.

~wonder what the temperature is outside. Check. about 18 degrees.


~knit some more.

~curl your hair.


~be a camera whore.

~contemplate homework.

~watch lots of movies(Casablanca, Alice in Wonderland[the new one, which i happen to like.], the Bourne Identity...etc...)

~bake more cookies when the others run out.


~ dye yarn with kool aid! (yay! great fun!)

~research how to use and make a drop spindle to spin your own yarn. Promptly go out and buy the necessary materials at the first opportunity. Make dad make you a spindle.



~Talk to the cat.

~Sew(if you're Mom)

~Make tiny buildings(if you're Dad.).

~Be really really bored(if you're T.J.)


We've all been managing the weather here. It's almost been a good thing(I get to sleep in. Mom gets to sew.) But after a while it can get a little boring. So we say welcome to the warmer weather. We hope it stays, but you never know in Texas....

Catching up!

Soo I have gotten pretty dang behind on my blogging. Lots of stuff has been going on in the last few months.
First, there was Thanksgiving, which was fabulous and wonderful and that marked the beginning of the chaos.


Becaaaause, right after Thanksgiving...

Aunt Cori, Kerry and I had a booth at a craft fair called the Loopty Ewe where we sold knitted and chrocheted items(they crocheted, I knit.)


We worked our fingers off getting ready for this craft fair and it was a success! A lot of people turned out and we did really well. Also, it was FREEZING!! Good for business, but sooo not fun. We still take orders, so feel free to check out the Loopty Ewe website. :)


Once we had recovered from that there were finals in school(A's in every class! yes!)

and then after thaaaat(I told you it was busy) Grandma and Grandpa moved out here to Texas. Just in time for Christmas. Into a house designed by two of their lovely architect sons(Uncle Andy and Dad).


Also, When I said "just in time for Christmas," I really meant it. It was only a few days after they were here and it was Christmas. It was a great Christmas, despite the new place and missing old friends. It helped that we had so much of the family together again.


Then all the sudden it was the new year! So i figured i should start it out right and let you all(ya'll) know how things have been going. The verdict: not to bad.

The Bipolar State

3:00 PM


4:00 PM

Oh the difference an hour can make...

The Tree In Our Yard

August


September


October


November

Daddy's New Job

Dad got a job! He is working at Covington's Nursery where he someday might become a landscape architect. Right now he is just a normal worker so he can learn all the new Texas plants. Mom, Ms. Carol and I went to go see him the other day so we could see where he worked.


Covington's is HUGE. They use golf carts just to get around there. They sell all sorts of plants from pansies to trees. The trees we bought for our backyard are from there(It was in that trip to buy trees that Dad asked, "Hey, how do you get a job here?" which is a whole other story entirely.).


Right now Dad is just working to learn all the plants, while also learning how to deal with the Texas elements(it's pretty much all outdoors), and the crazyness of Texas that we like to call "Nature." So far Dad has found one of the most dangerous of all poisonous caterpillars(Nature makes poisonous caterpillars! Crazy, I know.). Its called the Asp Caterpillar(like the snake, because its poisonous...) or the Puss Worm Caterpillar, and it looks like a Bantha from Star Wars, minus the horns(or like a headless, legless Persian cat.). Apparently contact with its hairs causes severe pain which can radiate up the limb. Dad pulled it off his jacket and put if on a napkin without getting stung, before he even knew what it was. He is very pleased with himself.



He is enjoying work and having fun learning all sorts of stuff. We are very thankful that he has a job(not that it means that all our financial troubles are over with) and it will be very exciting to see where this takes him.

Some something actually happened in our lives again. We got trees for the backyard! Since we gave the playset to a neighbor our backyard has be amazingly, obnoxiously bare. But now we have two trees that are supposed to grow fast, and the yard has some visual interest.


The first tree is a Brandywine Maple(which i refer to as a "hobbit tree," not because it is small, but because in the first Lord of the Rings movie the hobbits have to escape the ringwraiths by crossing the Brandywine Brige and getting on the ferry thing. Also, Merry's last name is Brandybuck. So, long tangent, but it's a hobbit tree.)


The second tree is a Red Oak, similar to the one in our front yard, and it is supposed to turn really pretty colors in the fall, so that should be fun.

The Harbor

We went on an adventure to find the Harbor in Rockwall. I like it because it looks like California. Except it's not the ocean. It's Lake Ray Hubbard.


It's a lot more crowded in the Summer, but it was virtually empty when we where there. So we got to go around taking goofy pictures and no one was there to care.


Dad, being "Captain Elbow"( but not "Captain Fidget", because that's T.J.) because of his habit of standing with his hand on his hips so that his elbows are dangerously in the way. I was copying him.




We walked around and ended up going the The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory to get some chocolate. Mom got a dark chocolate pecan cluster, Dad got a raisin cluster and I got a pumpkin pie truffle, which really just tasted like a chocolate truffle that was pretending to be something else. But chocolate is chocolate, so no complaints here!


While we were eating our chocolate this guy just walked up to us and started talking to us. In California he would have had to be crazy or a homeless person or both to do that, but he wasn't. He was just a normal guy. People in Texas are just friendly like that. Really friendly. He talked to us for about a half hour. Then we went to Costco and got new phones! yay!

The Symphony

Oops! I haven't posted on here for a while. But that's because nothing was happening. And now everything is happening all at once! When it rains, it pours(especially in Texas..).
This picture is from when we went to see the Richardson Symphony Orchestra at the Eisemann Center. We had to go for one of T.J.'s music classes. They played all Beethoven, and did a really good job, but the orchestra seemed small. There was a strike going on, so that might have been part of it, but I think I'm just used to the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra. Despite their size, they still sounded great, and we had fun.

Happy Late Birthday T.J.!

So my big brother is no longer a teenager! He's a grown up now...kinda.


For his birthday, T.J. got the various delicious foods(because college boys like to eat.), the movie Tombstone, and some sort of computer thing I don't understand. But he was excited about it.


So Happy Birthday Big Brother!

Dad, Wildlife Extraordinaire.

Dad found more wildlife. According to Dad this is a leopard frog, and it was found in one of the drainage pipes in our back wall in our yard. Just hiding out and chillin'...

Blueberry Muffins

The other day I made some blueberry muffins from pretty much my favorite recipe on Allrecipes.com. These muffins are good because they taste good, they look good, and they have a crumb topping(delicious!).


I've been having one for breakfast each morning, but they're really good anytime. Though, if you try to make them, be careful, because if you fill them too full, the crumb topping can spill over and fall on the bottom of the oven and burn, which ruins the normally delicious smell of muffins baking. Other than that, they're really easy. You should totally try them!