House of Estrogen

San Antonio, Picture A Day, Day 5

Having fun in a tree house at the Hyatt Wild Oak Ranch

San Antonio, Picture A Day, Day 4

Natural Bridge Caverns

San Antonio, Picture A Day, Day 3

Schlitterbahn!

San Antonio, Picture A Day, Day 2

Sweet twin baby cousins! (I may steal one to bring home with me!)

San Antonio, Picture A Day, Day 1

I had grand plans of daily "picture a day" posts from our vacation, but so far our internet access has ranged from non-existent to spotty, so I'm a bit behind.

Travel Day!

You Know You're In Texas When...

1. On your flight, all the overhead bins around you have saddles in them belonging to professional rodeo riders.
2. Your four year old walks into the bedroom where she is supposed to sleep and stops dead in her tracks, scared of the "moose" head on the wall (technically an antelope, but correcting her didn't seem to solve the problem).
3. When your bored eight year old asks for something to do, your husband responds with, "No TV. Read a book. Play a game. Count the number of dead animals in this place."
4. Your kids go out to play in the pool, and instead of playing with foam water squirters and rubber duckies, they are playing with toy pistols and wooden duck decoys.
   
5. You can randomly choose any Mexican restaurant in town and get great nachos, tamales, and margaritas.
6. It all feels like home.  :)
   

What Do You Know?

Earlier this week, my good friend C over at Brightenthecorner posted What Do You Know? - a game to post at least five things you know. Following in her footsteps, here are five things I know.

1. I know that I have some sort of civic black cloud of karma over me this week. On Tuesday, I got summoned for jury duty. On Wednesday, I got pulled over and received a ticket for an expired registration. The court dates for both are in the same week. Good times.

2. I know that the politically correct thing for me to say is that I will miss Elise horribly while she is at camp this week, and that it pains me to even think of my child being away from me for a week. That said, I can't wait. I think Elise will have a ball. I always loved summer camp as a child, and I know she will too. Also, a week of just two children in the house sounds so quiet, peaceful, and relaxing.

3. I know that I don't like Dunkin' Donuts. The Daylight Donuts near us went out of business, so we were stuck with Dunkin this morning for breakfast.  I don't like them. I don't know why it is so popular. They don't make good donuts.

4. I know that my poor husband was in a bike wreck yesterday and is pretty beat up. He injured his ribs and wrist, and is all scraped up on his face and back.

5. I know that round trip flights to San Antonio right now are only $160. I really want to go down there to see C and some other friends who are going to the Hill Country Hyatt in August, but J.C. is going to be out of town, so I don't think I can make it work. Wah.

So there you go... five things I know. What do you know?

If I Had a Spaceship...

This was Nina's independent writing for the topic of "If I had a spaceship..."

If I had a spaceship, I would fly to Texas. I would pick up Maggie, Will, and Rowan. I would go to the spa with the girls, and Will will watch football. He sits next to Jacob. I would be at Texas for a week.

That's my kind of girl! She's off to Texas for a week at the spa in her spaceship! Love it!

 

 

Fall Fun in Big D

Elise, Addie, and I headed down to Dallas this past weekend for a little fall fun with my parents. Why just two kids, you ask? Well, have you ever tried traveling alone with three? Yes? Then you understand. No? Then try it and let me know how it goes. Air travel with a toddler is not my idea of fun regardless, so adding in two constantly-bickering older sisters sounded like more than I was willing to tackle. In a lucky twist of fate, it turned out my choice of Elise and Addie was for the best in more ways than one. Nina ended up with a horrific case of strep throat all weekend. I felt horrible for her, but I was also glad she wasn't part of the traveling half of the family.

It was a nice trip. We did a little swimming...

where the girls decided to push poor JoJo in the freezing water.

We went shopping and had lunch at the American Girl Store and Bistro.... Elise's definition of a dream vacation.

We hung out with Bubba. My poor ol' Dad can't really travel any more, so the girls don't get a lot of opportunities to spend time with him. I wish they could have gotten to know him more before his hearing and vision deteriorated so much. We just have to take advantage of the time that we do have with him.

 
 
Of course, we went out for Mexican food... for my beloved nachos.

My personal favorite part of the trip was the visit to the Great Pumpkin Festival at the Dallas Arboretum. I've never seen anything like it! The pumpkin houses were spectacular!

 

It was k.i.l.l.i.n.g. me not having my good camera with me. I was surrounded by dSLR's with killer lenses for all the awesome photo ops while I snapped away with my sad little point and shoot. I had serious camera envy. Then again, it was so crowded that it was hard to get pictures without a background full of people anyway, so maybe it was just as well. It was clearly a popular photography spot. We saw two brides and three girls in their quinceanera dresses doing photo shoots along with loads of kids either in Halloween attire or (of course) their UT or OU outfits.

One of the girls being photographed for quinceanera was wearing a dress very similar to this one, and she had a doll wearing a matching dress. I thought Elise's jaw might fall right off her face. You would have thought that Cinderella herself stepped right out of one of those pumpkins. I'm just envisioning six years from now Elise trying to convince us she needs a quinceanera dress even though we don't have so much as a drop of hispanic blood in us.

In true Texas style, one of the brides was wearing white cowboy boots - love it! I may not live in Texas any more, but I'm still a Texan at heart. You know what they say... "You can take the girl out of Texas..."

 

 

We really had a fun trip. If you'll be anywhere near Dallas this fall, I highly recommend a visit to the Arboretum.

Nina seems to have recovered from her strep. She and J.C. made the best out of the remainder of the weekend once she was feeling a little better, and she knows she is on the roster for the next trip to Dallas.

 

Mamma's Been Traveling

I've been a bit absent from the blogosphere lately, in part because I've been a bit absent from home. Last weekend I took a spur-of-the-moment three day trip to Dallas to visit my parents. I am entering the world of the "sandwich generation", the group of people caring for both young children and aging parents at the same time.  My poor broken-back mostly-bed-ridden dad needed some company, and my tired, worn-out mom needed a break from the full-time care duties. I wish they were closer, so I could help them more. It is tough being across the country, and sadly, it isn't in the cards for them to move just yet. I was glad I was able to go though, and we had a nice visit.

This weekend, my traveling was of the fun, carefree, selfish variety! I drove a couple hours to meet up with my shopping buddies, J and H, as we do once or twice a year. I abandoned the stroller and pool bag in favor of an icy Dr. Pepper and GPS in the car. Instead of the Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, High School Musical filled playlist, my iPod was rocking Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna, Lady Ga Ga, and Glee. Dinner was grande margaritas and enough tacos and enchiladas to feed a starving nation rather than my toddler's favorite meal - edamame dipped in ketchup. The weekend was my me time.... desperately needed me time, I might add. I didn't miss the girls at all. Does that make me a terrible mother?  I don't think so. I think it makes me a mom trying to do her best at a tough 24/7 job who realizes that she needs a break every now and then. Most jobs come with built-in vacation days. Motherhood doesn't. You have to invent your own vacation days occassionally in the name of sanity.

J, H, and I are the mothers to a collective 8 girls (ages 10, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, and 2). When we started these shopping excursions, the 5 year old was in an infant seat, and Addie wasn't even a blip on an ultrasound yet. We would spend our day ooh'ing and ahh'ing over the delicious layette at Gymboree, piecing together mix and match coordinates at Carter's, and buying sweet Mary Janes at Stride Rite. This year, we found ourselves spending the most time in Justice, Old Navy, and Aeropostale shopping for jeggings, graphic tees, and hoodies. My how times change! Instead of buying whatever our hearts desired, we were saddled with the expectations of the child who will only wear green, the one who will only wear jeans, the one who won't wear jeans, the child who wants the exact same dress from last winter, and the child who wants to wear Uggs every day. We reminisced about the "good old days" of shopping while all agreeing that we are DONE having children and glad to be moving forward with life. Our discussion topics and shopping tactics may have changed, but the good times have not. We all want need that time away to decompress, commiserate, and just relax... child free.  I'm glad to be home and loved the hugs I received when I walked in, but when our next shopping weekend rolls around, I know I'll be waving good-bye and blowing kisses as I race out the door!