Who needs sleep?

I've decided I'll just sleep next week. Thank God the Olympics is only 2 weeks long...

American?

Bela Karolyi (US Citizen, 1981), Liang Chow (US Citizen, 2002), and Shawn Johnson sitting together, talking about Shawn's gold medal in beam at the 2008 Olympics.

It doesn't get more American than that to me.

Save me from the Olympics

I'm powerless to stop watching the Olympics every night. I think I finally set the TV to the sleep timer at 1am last night.

Everyone is so caught up in Phelps-mania, but I love the whole thing. Finally, the other day, I got to see some water polo and equestrian events. The only thing I'm really missing seeing now is synchronized swimming (do they still do that?).

The kids keep begging us if they can watch one of "their shows". Poor kids. We have no sympathy for them, however. Our answer is always the same, "The Olympics only happens once every four years. NO. We will continue watching the Olympics and you will love it!" (well, I think we leave off that last sentence - we usually just say, "NO!")

The one thing I could really do without is the arrogant track athletes. I'm already tired of watching them showboat across the finish line, letting up during the last 10 meters of the race and coasting across the line just to show how truly awesome they think they are. And then the interviews of those people afterwards? Please. I don't need them to tell me how awesome they are again.

I was very proud of the three guys who swept the 400m hurdles for the US, though. They were very nice during their interview and talked about how happy they were to represent the US. That was a nice change.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go take a nap during lunchtime...

What a Dud.

Tropical Storm Edouard has turned out to be a complete dud. I was hoping for some good rain; some good wind; some good destruction (but not to our house). But instead, we just got kind of a continuous light rain all day starting at around 7am. Boring.

The forecast made it sound like we were in for a big one. And after tropical storm Allison, everyone was wary of just what a tropical storm could do. Most all of the offices around town closed for the day as well as the daycares/schools. Not our office, though! We got an e-mail that said, "Your personal safety is our utmost concern" but we're still going to be open and if you don't come in, be sure to go ahead and charge that to your vacation account, mmmmKay?

I woke up early this morning and checked the weather. It was still predicting that the storm would hit in the late morning / early afternoon, so I figured I'd come to work, get in a few hours and then leave before the real flooding started. Dumb storm didn't create enough rain to even think about heading home, so here I sit. The good news is that since I came in so early this morning, I get to leave pretty soon. :)

The nanny is off this week, so the kids have been spending some (even more than usual) quality time with Daddy. They stopped by here for lunch today, too, which was a nice break since I was hoping to not be here anymore, but still was.

Well, time for me to go home and inspect the storm damage! Not.

Hiking in Hades

This past weekend we decided that since we haven't been able to pull off a vacation or even a mini-vacation this summer, we'd spontaneously go to Buescher State Park and go hiking. It was a great plan until we were there, 4 miles away from the car, in 100ºF weather, having taken a wrong turn and having to hike a mile back to where we had taken the wrong turn.

But, that's about how most of our vacations go. We decide to do stupid things and then call them fun afterwards.

The MS150 bike ride goes through Buescher and Bastrop State Parks, so we've ridden our bikes through there 10 times, but had never hiked in the park. It really was very nice - so nice that we think we'd love to go back there and go camping and hiking again sometime when it gets cooler. Like in December.

The kids did a great job and didn't complain too much. We ended up carrying them for the last part - me with Fellan on my back for the last mile, my husband carrying a very tired, nearly asleep little girl for about the last two miles. Here they are before we started. No pictures of after the hike, we were all too tired and sore to even hold up a camera. :)

Worth the effort?

Ugh. I keep having such a hard time posting because I wonder if it's really worth the effort! I would like to have all these funny stories on my blog about the things that our kids do that make me laugh every day, but when I get to work, all of my fun life seems to disappear into thin air. And then all I can think about is work and I don't want to write about work on my blog because I'm paranoid about getting fired over saying something about work and so I never post anything anymore because I'll just say this: There are some things about my job right now that make me very angry.

Whew!

Let me see if I can get back into my happy thoughts again... This past weekend was my husband's birthday and he's now as old as me again. That makes me happy! :)

We spent much of the weekend sitting on the couch, working - each on our own laptops - and then went for a bike ride Sunday morning and a pool party Sunday afternoon. Very exciting, I know.

AND we've both decided (finally) that we can't stand our fat selves and that we really, really, really want to get back in shape. So, the weekly weigh-ins have started once again - we write the results on our mirrors in dry-erase marker so that we'll be able to chart our progress and it will serve as a daily reminder of our fatness. Not sure I really need another reminder, but maybe it will help.

Anyway, I'd better get back to work. I'll try to remember some cute story to post next...

Wow - more than a month!

Wow! It's been more than a month since I posted something? Sorry, Courtney! (since you're the only person I know who regularly checks in on me - I think even my parents have given up!)

Anyway, I guess nothing really exciting has happened in that month, otherwise, I surely would have posted about it, right?

Let's see, Fellan's last day of school was at the end of May, but I missed it because I was in Cabo San Lucas with some friends celebrating one friend's 40th birthday! (don't get too excited - we mostly went to bed early and just lounged next to the pool - the perfectly relaxing vacation for all of us since we all have kids under 6 years old) Also, my dad was in Houston at the end of May/beginning of June for a conference. We all had great fun with Grandpa! We took him with us on "family bike ride" night and he only fell down twice! :)

Then there was Father's Day and then we went to New Orleans last weekend. My parents were actually in New Orleans for another conference, so we went over there for a little "quality time" (my mom hates that term - Hi, Mom!, just in case you're reading this...) with the grandparents.

Now we're just in summer-mode, I guess. The kids have been taking swimming lessons for about a year now and they're both getting really good. We're actually to the point where I don't freak out at all around water. I'm fairly certain that they won't drown if I take my eyes off them for a few seconds.

We've re-discovered our neighborhood pool now, too. We visited it once a couple of years ago (or maybe last year?) but didn't really spend much time there. But, they put in a water slide sometime last year and the kids LOVE it. I was surprised - when they suggested that they try it out, I expected them to get to the top of the stairs and then be afraid to come down, but they didn't hesitate at all - down they came! Of course, they wanted my husband and I to be at the bottom of the slide for moral support, so that lead to about 30 minutes of treading water in 9ft-deep water for us. At least that was good exercise!

This week, my husband's parents are out of town, so we're checking on their cat whom they left behind at their apartment. Last night we rode our bikes over there, played in the apartment complex's pool for a little while, and then rode home. Tonight, however, unless it stops raining, it looks like we'll either skip it tonight, or go by car.

So, everything is pretty normal around here - nothing spectacular. Except that my fingers on my left hand keep tingling. I was kind of worried about it until this past weekend. When we were in New Orleans, there was no tingling. But, when we were driving back, about 50 miles from Houston, they started tingling again. I'm really ready for this project to be done...

I'll try to write with more frequency again, but I can't promise anything. 'Til next time...

Blur

The last two weeks of work have been an entire blur. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and I can't keep up with the ever-changing wants and desires of each member of the clients' team. I have developed a tick in my right eye and I'm hoping that my four-day weekend will cure me of it.

On the bright side, there WAS Mother's Day a couple of weeks ago. My husband asked them what they wanted to do for me and Fellan decided they should get me a gift card. "To Target! - Her favorite store!!" (he knows me quite well)

Marxo said that she wanted to make me muffins. (she had been hearing about "Muffins for Moms" for the previous two weeks)

So, for Mother's Day, I got a gift card to Target and Marxo made me some muffins - with some help from my husband. :) And then to top it off, Fellan said, "Hey, I know what would make mommy really happy - we should go for a family bike ride!"

He was correct once again. We rode our bikes - Fellan on his two-wheeled bike - about 6 miles, stopped off for lunch at a non-busy restaurant, came home, and went to Target, where I used my gift card to buy myself a cute skirt and some other stuff.

It was a good day! Now, if I could just get rid of this eye-tick thing...

UPDATED:
Yesterday afternoon, I was stuck in the meeting we were told we wouldn't be having yesterday and one of the guys leading the meeting came back to the bathroom and informed the entire room, "Somewhere between my breakfast burrito and my gourmet sandwich there was an material incompatibility."

My tick is getting worse.

Muffins for Moms

Fellan's school does this thing every year: "Muffins for Moms" It's a get-together at the beginning of the day where they have muffins for all the moms (of course) and then everyone gets together in a big circle and the teacher reads this book called Love You Forever by Robert Munsch and all the moms cry. It's usually held on the Thursday before Mother's Day, but because of some field trips and other scheduling conflicts, they had Muffins for Moms last Monday (a week ago today).

This was both good and bad. It was good because then for the rest of the week, Fellan and Marxo kept asking if it was Mother's Day yet - they were really looking forward to it! It was bad, however, because it poured on me as I was leaving the school.

So, I sent my husband a text message saying, "Raining - I'm soaked." A couple minutes later, I received this Haiku from him:
Raining I am soaked
Wet are the clothes on my back
My heart full of joy

Clever, eh? :)

Great Bike Ride

We tested out the girl on the trailer bike this past Sunday, taking her for a 12.5-mile ride. She did great! When we got home, she was still happy, she never complained and she seemed to be ready for more.

So, we told both the kids how they had done a great job on the bike ride. High-fives with "Great bike ride!" were exchanged all around. Then I turned to my husband and said, "High-five! We make great kids!"

Fellan gave us a funny look and said, "No, you make great parents!"

Aw, shucks... :)