an unexpected holiday

i'm sure i complain about this all of the time, but it's true: we never take holidays off ("we" meaning grant [and by extension me]) grant goes to school as usual and i try to keep myself from yelling at the girls too much. i try to be understanding because i get it. grant is unbelievably busy, more so now than ever perhaps. well, imagine my surprise yesterday when i got a call from grant telling me to pick him up from school so we could do something fun. after i finished up at the gym, we headed to rice for daddy. at first we thought we'd go to discovery green. apparently that's what everyone not camping also thought. we quickly changed plans:

and ended up at the water wall:

we've only been there once before over a year ago when grant's dad & co. came to visit.

there was a lot of frolicking in the mist:

and a bit of interpretive dance:

i wish i could've gotten the whole tower into this next picture:

i love how small hazel is compaired to the building. here's the part i'm missing:

we took a little break and grant was kind enough to share his lunch:

another posed picture: 

top of the water wall:

a leaf turned boat lucy threw into the water:

hazel and lucy then decided to roll down the small hill:

it looked so fun, grant joined in and they had a race:

sadly, we learned from this experience that lucy is allergic to grass: 

you can't really tell from the photo but her arms were splotchy red and itchy. she takes after her daddy in more than just looks. lesson learned.

this morning was a pretty big milestone:

hazel and lucy went to their first day of preschool! it's just a casual, once-a-week group with two other moms. i'm happy to have the girls in the same group (because i'm lazy). they had a bunch of fun and are already asking when they get to go again.

back in our groove

we've been back in houston for three weeks now. long enough to make it almost feel as though we never left.

hazel and lucy quickly pulled out every toy they own. they also built this awesome car ramp:

grant jumped right into studying for his exams. i had a baby shower cake to make for a good friend:

i made some flowers out of chocolate fondant:

and a chocolate royal frosting crown. the cake was chocolate with pink buttercream frosting:

as always i was completely stressed out but it turned out well.

the weather since we've been back has never strayed below 100 degrees (until today, that is). so we've been staying inside a lot. or heading to splash pads:

this picture makes my heart melt:

she's so grown up! and look at her little ear holding her big hat up! so precious.

once the girls were sufficently wet, they played on the playground:

i made this announcement on facebook a couple months ago but not on the blog: i'm running the houston marathon in january. pretty exciting. there's no time to lose so i've jumped into training which means running outside in the blistering heat. not exciting. last weekend my long run was 6 miles and when i took my socks off, i just had to share the state of my legs with you:

how's that for a dirt line.

one of the girls' favorite activities is hunting for toads:

last sunday we kept our eyes peeled but didn't see a single toad (we definitely heard one though). just as we were about to give up we spotted several of these little guys:

can you see the baby lizard/gecko in the dead grass? look how small it it compared to grant's fingers:

in other news, i dyed my hair. back in june, just before we headed to utah, i colored it a dark copper color:

i had hoped that it would be close enough to my natural color to grow out gracefully. that wasn't the case. so i decided to dye it  darker. grant helped me pick out a color. we held the box next to my head to compare and thought we'd found a really close match: reflective bronze black. keyword is black:



i really didn't like it at first but it's growing on me. now i'll just need to worry about lighter roots.

that brings us to today, which (as i mentioned above) has been the only day below 100 since we came back. why is this? because of the rain: 

hazel and lucy were really excited to go outside and  play in it . . . . until they actually went outside:

 they declared it "too cold!" and hurried inside for sweaters and a better way to watch the rain:

[lone star] state adventures: part 15: finale

grant maneuvered the car back through the mountains and we drove and drove and drove:

we stopped for the night in amarillo at a much nicer, much cleaner (and it goes without saying: more expensive) hotel: 

beds were bounced on and babies bathed:

we hit the road early the next morning (the 4th of august). we went towards dallas/fort worth, a new direction for us. we usually take i-10 through el paso and san antionio.  

this way was a bit more scenic. better scenery wouldn't save us from this, however:

sooooo happy to be back in texas...

before too long we caught our first glimpse of h-town:

just the way we left it: hot and muggy, with plenty of traffic:

a few minutes later, we giddily ran up the stairs, excited to see a certain furry, four-legged creature. oliver welcomed us with open paws . . . at least after i spent 10 minutes coaxing him out from under out bed. 

and that is that. hope you enjoyed this excruciatingly long blog post series.

[centennial] state adventures: 14b: mesa verde

...so we continued on. we visited a pit-house:

by this time we were getting ready to finish up. the girls were getting hungry and tired (bad combination). grant and i decided to make two more stops:

it was here we caught our first glimpse of the crown jewel of mesa verde: cliff palace:

below is a picture of the sun temple (on top of the cliff to the left) and the mummy house (the remains are on the ledge on the bottom):

we hopped in the car for one more stop:

this is the only place grant remembers from his visit here with his family when he was a kid. he says he remembers walking on the walls (a big no-no according to the signs).

we didn't let the kids on the walls. they probably would've hated it anyway. their bad moods were  getting bigger: 

we did peek in the windows:

through the window on the right:

and through the left:

there was a nice view behind us as well:



we followed a path and came to a better view of the cliff palace: 

we took a few pictures:

and then headed east...

to be continued (if you can believe it. the next one is the last one i promise!) . . .