Life in Texas

WE LOVE TEXAS: the people, the atmosphere, our new church, our neighbourhood, the politics, the convenience of everything, the prices, everything but the weather. Oh yeah, and the fact that we knew NO ONE when we moved here! But that has changed.

We have been here for 3 1/2 months and the time has just flown. Sydney loved school (it ended mid-May) and just finished up two weeks of summer camp - three hours every afternoon. In fact, when I told her that today was her last day she said "Really, but I want to keep going". So, we're going to sign her up for another session in July. I think the confusion of moving, the names of various places and the location of family and friends is starting to straighten out in her mind. She knows we live in Texas and finally calls this house "home". She knows we moved from California, and then before that that we lived in Australia. She can list everyone who is still in Australia, but doesn't quite comprehend that we can't "go see Grandma and Pa today" by hopping in the car. Grammie is in Wisconsin, which you have to take a plane to, and Nana and Gramps are still in California, most likely at the Beach House. Whew, very confusing, even for an adult.

At the beginning of May Sydney's school held an auction and faire. We put a few bids in, and ended up winning the lot! One of our "wins" was this inflatable pool (thank you, Lori, for blowing it up, it's never been deflated). I tend to fill it up around noon, set it in the sun, and by 4pm it's like bath water. Sydney will spend a good hour, or longer, swimming, diving, floating, etc in the pool. John is slowly getting used to it and prefers to take a kiddie tea cup and water the plants; fine by me! This above picture was taken a few weeks ago, when Grammie was in town, and we were getting Sydney to do her various Madonna poses.

It's been in the mid to high-90s (that's 35-38 for you Aussies) EVERY day for about two weeks, maybe longer, I lose track. In fact, today's weather forecast said "it is currently 98, and tomorrow and Father's Day (Sunday) will be mid to high 90s, in fact, it will be mid to high 90s every day from now until, oh, Halloween" - and I don't think they were joking.

I was cleaning out the garage on a "nice" 94 degree day and came across a hammock I bought in Belize, um, in 1994. It has NEVER been used. I noticed that the trees in the front yard were perfect hammock distance from one another, so Sydney helped me rig it up. Note to my friends: do NOT use bungee cords (Auckie straps) to hang a hammock, they do not hold! Use rope.

Sydney thought it was the BEST thing in the world to push Mommy on her "swing", and who was I to argue with her. It was heaven. Unfortunately it's against our neighbourhoods home-owners policy to have anything up like this in our front yard, so I only had it up for the 30 minutes we were on it. But I've decided not to get rid of it (I was actually going to try and sell it on eBay) and I'll put it up occasionally for a swing.

Yes, even John is enjoying the local brew. Make that the water from the pool, yuck. Don't know what it is about a beer bottle, but kids seem to love them. The poor munchkin is currently breaking through three teeth at once, so nights have not been all the happy. He's running around like a pro, trying to keep up with his sister. He also mimics words when you focus on saying them to him and is picking up more and more each day. He and Sydney have a few foreign language videos (Spanish and Chinese) that they watch, and yesterday he was walking around saying "flower" in Chinese "hua" - he even had the tone right. What a smarty!

So in general, we are loving life in Texas and making a big effort to make it home. We have a great new church and have a slow-growing circle of friends from there, which is just fantastic. We always seem to be incredibly busy, and the kids are obviously happy, so we are as well!