all i wanted was some interwebs. . .

and they wouldn't give it to me! and they wouldn't give it to me! all i wanted was some interwebs! just some interwebs!

it's been a while, friends in cyber-blog-land. i said in my last post that we were going to be switching internet providers and little did i think it would take nearly three weeks. to make a really long story a [very] little less long: i signed us up with at&t on the 4th. the modem came on the 7th. a technician was over-scheduled on the 8th. just missed me on the 9th. i called the 10th and was told (contrary to my confirmation email) i needed to be home. they rescheduled for the 12th. a technician/pastor came on the 12th, enthusiastically commented on grant's books, tested our phone jacks, and said he couldn't finish the work outside but would send someone that night or the next morning to do it. nothing. i called the 14th: "someone will take care of it tomorrow and get back to you." 15th: nothing. 16th: message, "there's a defective cable outside. our tech company will be put on it." several more useless phone calls and on the 23rd, "a tech will come by tonight before 8 pm." nothing. christmas eve on our way home from running last minute errands we passed a cricket store. our conversation was as follows:

r, with a healthy amount of sarcasm: hey! we should get cricket broadband for a month. that should maybe give at&t enough time to hook us up.

g: maybe we should get cricket and tell at&t to take a hike.

r: yes, please.

once back home, we put the girls down for their nap and grant calls: "can you hook us up or not?" "the technicians can't get into the box." "really? well, we want to cancel before we run out of time to get a refund." passes the phone to me: "would you like to reconsider? i could schedule a tech to come out to you on the 3rd?" "uh...no thanks." grant went to the cricket store and an hour or so later we're connected with the outside world. the end....

...kind of. while cricket broadband is "unlimited" it slows down once you've used up your "paid for" downloads. we skyped with my family on that first night and must have used a whole heap of superbytes. it's taken me two days to upload pictures to this post. seriously. 

on to our decembering . . .

last year, if you'll remember, we had a lot of paper chains and snowflakes. this year we decorated our tree with paper chains and penguins:

and put last year's snowflakes on the window:

on a fine, 85 degree saturday, we had amanda take our family picture at the japanese garden in hermann park (i'll post those pictures another day). once we finished, grant and i took hazel and lucy over to the new exhibit at the zoo. lucy was very excited to see one of her favorite, non-extinct animals:

after the rhinos, we walked through tunnels:

until we found:

hazel and lucy called one over:

and bonded:

they've done a really nice job with the new addition. the girls loved the drums:

and the hidden koolookamba:

it was a nice, short trip to the zoo. we finished walking through the new african forest and after a quick peek at the sweet, little meerkats:

we headed home for our naps.

the following weeks were spent doing holiday-like activities, such as drinking hot chocolate (usually with the a/c on):

eating traditional treats, like grant's graham cracker and orange frosting sandwiches:

we really missed not being able to go to temple square for the christmas lights but we braved the traffic and crazy crowds for lights in the heights:

it was . . . different. fun, but not really what i was expecting. there were some pretty decent bands playing and lots of beautiful houses covered in lights.

we did our 2nd annual gingerbread house decorating with amanda and matt:

from upper left, clockwise: mine (and the clear winner, despite [or maybe because of] the broken roof), hazel's, matt's, amanda's, and lucy's grubby hand "sneaking" more candy off the table: 

grant helped lucy with her house:

on christmas eve, we saw most of my family via computer, made cookies for santa, went on a scavenger hunt for christmas pj's, read luke 2, watched mr. krueger's christmas, and then put the girls to bed. fast forward to 6 am:

hazel, knocking on the bedroom door: "daddy! mommy! there are presents under the tree!"

me (aka the grinch): "it's too early to get up. go back to bed!"

oliver starts scratching the door and meowing for his food.

i get up, let hazel help feed the cat, tell her to lay back down, get back in bed and sleep for another hour before lucy starts crying to get out of her crib:

opening presents took ages. both girls wanted to play with everything as they unwrapped them:

they were very happy with all of their presents. thank you for the gifts, everyone!

and that was our december in a nutshell. hope yours was a fantabulous as ours.

zoo-i-ness

alright, devoted readers, you may let out that breath you've been holding all weekend in anticipation for this post:

it was a gloriously chilly evening. so cold in fact most of the animals were hunkering down inside their respective buildings. we were ok with that, wanting to stick to the indoor exhibits anyway. we started at the aquarium, where hazel was fascinated with the new jellyfish tank:

they are rather fun creatures (when there's an inch of glass between us anyway):

then on to the old favorite -- the fish tunnel, where the girls played dead:

next, my personal fav (read: sarcasm), the reptile house:

hazel was very impressed with this snake's camouflage, "his head looks like a leaf!":

and these also delighted my strange, reptile-loving girl, "that one's dancing!":

this little turtle/tortoise was cute:

this crocodile did not move from his position the whole time we were there:

seriously, mouth open and everything. about 5 minutes in, i was sure he was dead or a fake. but just as we were turning to leave, he opened his eye. phew! when we walked out of the reptile house, the zoo was closing so we headed home to our favorite wild animal:

ps. grant did it. poor patient little oliver...

pss. christmas decorations are finally going up. hooray! i'll put up pictures as soon as i can but it may take a while as we're finally getting new interwebs. double hooray!! blast you, verizon, and your capped downloads too! so. . .who's better? at&t or *gulp* comcast? we'd like to watch movies and skype so speed would be nice but we don't want to get stuck in some lame contract again.... help, please!

thanksgiving week '10

*gasp* what? three posts in three days?!? where did my life go?

anyway...we had a nice thanksgiving. we had our traditional feast potluck-style with some good friends on sunday. i made cranberry sauce, a brussels sprout salad (it was awesome. i'm tweaking it a bit and will post the recipe on that other blog of mine that i never do anything with...) and a chocolate-pumpkin trifle (same as salad. yum!). everything was delish and the company was excellent. monday was a regular day, tuesday was our road trip, wednesday we ended up at the grocery store (bad idea. duh.) to get ingredients for cranberry cheesecake (i did a graham cracker crust and baked it in an 8" spring-form pan) and cinnamon pear galette (i used whole wheat flour and "made" my own oat flour and almond flour). thursday morning we woke (way too early) and headed to the galleria:

for the turkey trot 10k (along with just about everyone else in houston):

including santa:

he did the 5k. grant asked hazel if she thought he was the real santa. she said yes. he was very authentic looking: real beard, quality suit, waving and chatting with all of the children. the kids were troopers while we waited for the race to begin:

most of the wait anyway:

lucy was doing fine until grant took away the pump to fill the tires and optimize his speed:

here we are before:

and after:

the race was . . . ok. grant hung back for the first mile (mostly because he couldn't get the stroller through the crowd very easily) but then i had to shoo him away. he was messin' with my pace. i made it to about 3 1/2 miles before my foot started hurting and from there on i split between walking and running. i have no idea of my time (at mile 5 someone yelled out "gun time: 68 minutes"). grant said he thought the clock said 1:07 when he crossed the finish line. we left after gorging ourselves on the danish pastries but before our times were posted. i figured they'd be posted online. no luck so far. oh well. 

lucy enjoyed herself. we limped back to the car and stopped at this bench:

i asked them to smile and that's what i got. stinkers. once home, i made the cheesecake, took a nap, then made the pear galette. we took those over to our friends' home, enjoyed more excellent company and games. when we left, mother nature had a wonderful gift in store: the weather was 30 degrees cooler. heaven! today i got to finally wear my new sweater and in just a minute we're heading to pick up grant and going to the zoo. maybe this blog-athon will extend into four posts in four days... 

ps. my foot feels 99% normal today so no damage done. my biggest issue stemmed from the fact that i hadn't run more than two miles at a time for the past three weeks. time to get back on track or come february, i'm in trouble.

we {heart} turkeys

especially these ones:

happy thanksgiving everyone!

roadtrippin'

we began our thanksgiving vacation early and went on a short road trip. it started out rainy but as we kept heading north we saw peeks of blue sky and sunshine. the best sight? fall colors: 

 finally! (that's a cardboard box, not a deer.) a bit further on we saw that we were close to our first stop:

we made it to the blue bell ice cream factory and had 30 minutes until the next tour. just enough time for pictures: 

headlocks are, of course, included.

after the tour finished (it was very cool [ha! no pun intended.] and interesting) and our scoop of ice cream consumed, we continued on our way:  

i found it somewhat ironic that we were listening to rocky mountain high wilst driving through hill country. still, i'd take hills over houston's flat or cement landscape:

a couple of hours later we made it to our final destination: mckinney falls state park (i saw some pictures on our friends' blog and decided it would make a  fun day trip):

we were greeted by several friendly ladybugs:

hazel managed to pick one up with a stick:

ms. bug quickly climbed her way up hazel's arm:

it then flew from her arm to her shirt and, sadly, from there to lucy's ear. lucy squealed and quickly swatted. the ladybug didn't make it. we walked around a little trying to find the falls and a nice place to wade in the water. unfortunately the water was really low:

so we wandered some more:

soon we headed for the upper falls with hopes that it would be more waterfall-y. we parked by the trail and were greeted by more ladybugs: 

if you look closely you can see half a dozen or so crawling around on the fence. a very short walk brought us to the water: 

which was, once again, low:

thinking we were in the wrong place, we headed up a pathway:

eventually we realized that we'd had it right the first time so we turned back. the girls chased some butterflies:  

then hurried back to the water  and took their shoes and socks off:

it was a crazy-hot day. the humidity was out of control but the water was lovely and cold:

both girls ended up sopping wet, riding home in their skivvies and happy (at least, as happy as you can be having skipped your nap...)