Abigail Goes to Houston

Abigail recently came to visit us in Houston, bringing along her mom and dad. The last time I saw my sister, she was eight and some months pregnant with Abigail, but my airline ticket HAD to be used by a certain date; so, unfortunately, I missed meeting Abigail by the tiniest bit. Fourteen months later, we finally got to meet this cute girl, and of course spend some much anticipated time with Rachael and Tyler.

Rachael and Tyler flew in Friday night. I figured Abigail would be pretty tired and go straight to bed, but she is a busy, little girl. Friday night, regardless of how late it was, was no exception. She happily toured around our house opening every drawer and pulling everything out as fast and as happily as she could. I think her favorite thing of the vacation was some Mardi Gras beads we have at our house. She would put a bunch on then just walk all over the house, taking them on and off. She was super cute.



Saturday morning, Rachael and Tyler headed to the temple, and Abigail and I got to spend the morning together. We had fun reading books, singing, playing blocks in the waterless bath tub (which she loved--for some reason), and playing at the park. When everyone got back home that afternoon, we headed out to Mercer Arboretum and Botanical Gardens. The weather was finally perfect...unfortunately, it was also perfect for the mosquitoes. We had fun walking around, but were constantly swatting off the pesty things.



Sunday, our ward had been invited to a different Stake Conference than our own. They ended up reorganizing a stake and creating a new stake. We have been moved into the East Houston Stake. We enjoyed the conference and are very excited about our new Stake Presidency.

Ever since our Dog Joint post, Rachael has let me know that if we were accepting orders for visitors, hers was pasta night. Derek and I were a little hesitant to try making more pasta because we've never had huge success doing so. Rachael brought some good luck with her, though. We made some really yummy, homemade fettuccine with pesto made from our garden and gnocchi with a sage butter sauce, also from the herb garden.



The other fun experiment was a Skillet Apple Pie that we tried from America's Test Kitchen. It was very good, definitely has our recommendation. The Laughtons, our friends that are also friends of Rachael and Tyler from their North Carolina days, came over for dessert. We had fun watching the little girls play.





Monday, we had planned to go to the Zoo. The weather decided not to cooperate. We ended up having a very nice morning playing at home. We took Rachael and Tyler to one of our favorite restaurants: Lupe Tortilla.






We had so much fun with my sister and her family. Abigail was so cute and so much fun. We have missed her in our home. It feels so quiet around here. We were so glad they came, and can't wait to see them again some time.

And a few more pictures of Abigail, because you can never get enough of this little one:

Stacked Chicken Enchiladas

We tried a new recipe this week: Stacked Chicken Enchiladas from Sunset. I really liked the "stacked" presentation, and the cabbage salad on top was a very yummy touch. We actually made this without the chicken and substituted black beans for the meat. I don't think you need that much cheese on each layer, either. We also left out the pine nuts and raisins....because it sounded kind of weird.

Always fun to find a new, good recipe, though.

Miley

Derek's sister just had a cute little girl, Miley. They chose not to find out what the sex was until her birth. We were all excited for the Burns to welcome another little girl into the family.

In keeping with my project mania, I decided to try and sew little Miley an outfit. It went pretty well...except for my inexplicable lack of sense in realizing that the dress I was sewing was more fit for a one year old than a newborn. (Patterns can be so deceiving.) Oh well, I'll just have to make her another sometime between now and her first birthday. It was a fun attempt though, and I learned a lot.



We drove to the Burns home to meet Miley and had a lot of fun with the kids. I'm a big fan of this new little girl. It's just so much fun to hold a tiny, little baby. And she is dang cute.

Mom's visit to Houston

My mom recently visited us in Houston. We had so much fun with her! A friend, who apparently knows how my family works, said to me, "Your mom's coming into town? So what projects do you have planned?"

We were definitely in project mode from start to finish of her trip.
I picked her up at the airport, and we went straight to the fabric store.
I've been wanting to try more sewing projects since I got my machine in June. I would love to learn to sew clothing, and thought that pajama pants/shorts might be a simple enough way to begin. My mom helped me sew a couple.

After several more fabric stores, we finally found the perfect fabric for a valance...which I've been looking for for a LONG time. We didn't end up buying the fabric until the day my mom was leaving, (we had to go home, tape all the options to the wall, second guess which was our favorite, etc.) so I didn't finish the valance until a few hours after she left. I am glad to be done with the project though.


The other nice thing about the valance project was that the guy at the fabric store charged us for one yard while giving us two. This meant I had enough fabric to make a table runner with the left over fabric.


My mom also helped us rip out plants, trim shrubs, and come up with a plan for the yard...which hopefully will be in effect in a few more weeks. We took a trip down to the Kingwood Garden Center, and got some new plants for our yard. (By the way, we highly recommend this place. Every time I have asked my dad about gardening ideas, he tells me we just need to find a good nursery. This place is great. They know so much and are willing to answer questions. They definitely have a handle on what works in Houston, and really don't even sell plants that won't grow well here.)

Of course, the projects didn't stop there. As I was working on the valance, an hour before my mom had to be at the airport, my mom was cleaning all of my windows for me. I'm still walking around my house feeling like it's a new place--all because of my mother.

Of course, we didn't work the entire time. We went on a really fun boat tour of the Houston Ship Channel. It's a free tour, and was very interesting. It was neat to learn about one of the things that puts Houston on the map. We had great weather for it, and enjoyed the day.

We also ate at some really good restaurants: Damians, Tin Roof Barbecue and Nara Thai. I'd never been to any of them, and would recommend them all. Damian's was very classic, and each of our dishes was excellent. I think Tin Roof has earned a place in our restaurant line up whenever we have visitors. Great food and very cool environment. Nara had the best Pad Thai I've had in years (not that I'm an expert) and the service was really great. It's always fun to find new, good restaurants.

It was such a whirl-wind trip, these are the only pictures I got of my mom. The first is terrible, but it's what I have. The second is when I dropped her off at the airport. We were so busy, but we had such a wonderful time! Thanks mom!

August Trip to Cache Valley

For as long as Derek and I have been married, we've been accumulating a list of things I need to experience in Cache Valley--things like eating Aggie Ice Cream, Cache Valley Cheese, Grandma's chocolates, the farm, Bluebird chicken, Tiny Spicy chicken, the Fair, etc... When we found cheap airfare in August, we decided it was Fair time.



We flew into Salt Lake on Tuesday afternoon after Derek worked a half day. Derek's mother picked us up from the airport and we drove back through the canyon to Logan. It's always so fun to visit Logan. Walking through the door at Derek's parents' house always feels like going home to me, even though I obviously didn't grow up there. It's just so nice to be around family. It also doesn't hurt that Scott and Teresa live in such a beautiful place. I love being there.

Wednesday morning, we woke up and Derek went to his dad's office for a dental appointment. (Yes, we regularly visit the dentist on our vacations. And yes, we still see our dads for our dental care. I can't really clean my own teeth, and our dads both have much nicer offices than the ones I work in. So, why not?) Teresa and I had a nice walk in the morning and got back about the same time Derek did from his cleaning. I told Derek before we left Houston that I wanted to spend as much time outdoors as I could. Houston in the summer isn't particularly enjoyable. The weather in Logan was so nice. It stayed cool for several hours in the morning, and it was so pleasant to be outside.
That afternoon, we went downtown to meet Scott for lunch at El Sol, a Mexican restaurant. In the evening, Scott and Teresa made another trip to the airport to pick up Jared and AJ. Derek and I decided to use the time to visit with Grandma and Grandpa Theurer. Derek and I have tried our hand at a little gardening this past year; it is always humbling and inspiring to see Derek's grandparents' garden. It was amazing, and huge! We spent a good while outside picking raspberries and getting shallots to bring home and plant. We had a really good visit with the grandparents.

On Thursday, Derek and I got up early and played a little Tennis. AJ joined us for a while. Afterward, we all worked in the yard carrying and rearranging rocks to border a long, rose bed. Scott and Teresa are planning on transplanting a lot of wild roses to the hill that edges their property. I'm sure it will be beautiful. Later in the morning, Jared and Derek fixed up one of their old bikes for AJ, and we drove down to a river path by a Logan Golf Course. The path was mostly shaded, and we had a very nice walk while AJ rode circles around us.
Later that evening, I had the chance to meet up with my Aunt Karla for dinner. She was in town to go to the theater. We met at Hamiltons, a great steak restaurant, and really enjoyed the chance to catch up. After dinner, I rushed home and we headed out to the Rodeo. I know that my mom has been to and in several rodeos in her life, but somehow, I had never sat through an entire rodeo before. (I think I saw 5 minutes of one once.) It got pretty cold, which caught us off-guard, but we had a great time. We enjoyed all the mutton, horse, and bull riding. They also had a cool stage-coach team of incredibly trained horses.



Friday morning Scott was off work. So all of us except Jared drove to the mouth of the canyon to walk the Bonneville Shoreline trail. After about a mile, we decided we would continue on along the foot of the mountains and walk to Grandma and Grandpa Theurer's house. AJ hadn't seen them yet. So, Derek turned around to get the car and meet us there. AJ was a trooper, walking the whole way except for the last half block, pretty impressive for a seven year old. Once again, we enjoyed beautiful weather. When we got to Grandma and Grandpa's we relaxed and had some more raspberries.




Afterward, we headed out to the fair. Derek, AJ and I saw all the huge tractors, walked through the animal booths, then met up with Scott and Teresa. I really enjoyed all of the quilt, sewing, gardening, and canning displays. There are some pretty talented people out there, and I really loved the whole fair idea of sharing those achievements with your community. It's really very neat. On our way to the fair, Derek had asked AJ what he wanted to do most at the fair. AJ answered, "I want some cotton candy, and a Texas Twister, and....really, most of the things I want to do at the fair are things you can eat."
We had a tasty lunch of Navajo tacos, gyros, cotton candy, Texas Twisters, frozen lemonade, and scones. It was good! Next time I go the fair, I may echo AJs sentiments.


**That cow picture in the middle bottom is made entirely of different types of beans. How can you not love fairs when they do things like that there.

That night we dressed up and headed to The Mikado, a comic opera being performed at Utah Festival Opera. Scott and Teresa's next door neighbor and his daughter performed, which was a lot of fun to see.

Saturday, we had a relaxing morning then headed out to Smithfield to Grandma and Grandpa Lindley's. AJ had spent the previous night there, so he and Derek headed out back to where Grandpa was working with the cattle. They were de-horning, castrating, branding, putting in ear tags and a couple of other things that I was okay not being there for.

Instead, I stayed inside with Grandma where she taught me how to make her pie crusts and apple and lemon meringue pies. We also whipped up some big apple bake and a casserole for lunch. Everything was delicious. You never leave Grandma's house hungry!

That night, my brother Spence drove up from Provo and we went to the Logan temple together. When we got back, there was Chinese--tiny spicy chicken. We enjoyed just hanging out and catching up a bit. It was nice of Spencer to drive up to see us.

Sunday was a nice relaxing day. We were able to catch up with more friends and family. We stayed in Logan until Tuesday, and had a chance to go on a few more walks, spend more time outside in the yard and playing tennis, relaxing in the hot tub, eat at Fredrico's and just relax. It was such a great vacation.

A Texas Rainstorm

I remember when I was in Merced once, the phone rang. It was our neighbor, Karen Fife. She was calling to tell my mom to go outside because there was a beautiful rainbow in the sky.

I must think of this every time I see a rainbow, and it always makes me want to share them with someone else. Today after a great thunderstorm, I went out in our back yard and saw this really beautiful rainbow. I'm not a photographer, so I know my pictures won't let you see what I saw. The light was so great. It made everything look bright and green. The rainbow was full with a double rainbow off to one side. It really was just so pretty.

Caleb's Birthday

Last weekend Derek's sister, Lisa, and her family visited us, along with Derek's brother, Jared, who was in Texas for the week. It was Caleb's 4th birthday and we had a great time with family. Everyone arrived on Friday and stayed until Sunday. On Friday night, the kids helped us bake Red Velvet Cake for Caleb's birthday celebration on Saturday. They did a great job--although it seemed like Jake was more interested in eating batter than getting the project done ("wanna taste, wanna taste").

After the kids went down, Derek and I stayed up late working on our first cake decorating project. We kinda made it up as we went (trying to match Caleb's specifications), but we were happy with the result.



On Saturday morning, we spent several hours playing at the pool and on the waterslides.







After the pool, we came home and got lunch ready. When Lisa and Al lived in Ohio, one of their family's favorite restaurants was The Dog Joint, where they serve hot dogs and sausages with all kinds of fun toppings. We decided to open The Dog Joint Houston for a day.

Derek took orders beforehand, and had all of the ingredients ready to go. We had one with pineapple, brown sugar sauce, green peppers, cinnamon, bacon and almonds. Another had marinara sauce, pepperoni, mozzarella, and Parmesan. It was quite the production--after we all sat down to eat, Derek said, exasperated, "Well, that's it. I'm no longer going to open my own restaurant." He's better at corporate tax than working as a short order cook.



Afterward, we sang Happy Birthday and cut into the cake.



The rest of the weekend, we enjoyed playing around the house. The kids sure like their Uncle Jared, especially since he gave a few pony rides. We played hard and even after naps, we went to bed tired each night. It turned out to be a great weekend. We loved having family come visit our home!