Just Having Fun

We've had a fun and busy week. On Monday, I didn't have work since the roads were still "too icy" for traveling. Most of the roads were clear, but bridges in the area were still pretty bad. Of course, since I got a free day off, I am not going to complain about the decision.

Sabrina made herself a little bed out of one of the many, many boxes that has been showing up already in this Christmas season.

 Clark, ever graceful, broke the box apart pretty quickly when he tried to do the same thing. Sabrina didn't mind - she said Clark had made a ramp to get into bed easier. 

 On Friday, my family met me downtown when I was done with work. We went and visited the Neiman Marcus flagship shop. Around the outside of the store were these great tunnels set up for kids to crawl through. They had cameras throughout them, so you could see your kids on monitors as they crawled through. The tunnels started outside then went inside the store then back out then back in then back out.

 Sabrina had been right behind Clark, but went down the slide right before the camera finally took the picture. Oh well. Clark was too young to in the tunnels, but he had a blast playing with the toys inside.

The tunnels had cool art, flashing lights and music throughout. In this picture, Sabrina is between two parts of the tunnel just inside the window of the storefront. You can't see it in this picture, but Mona Lisa's eyes moved back and forth like she was watching the kids as they crossed. Pretty cool, or creepy?

We also had our ward Christmas party, put up new Christmas lights, I put together my new workbench, and we went skating at the nearby skating rink. We don't have pictures of any of those things. Skating was really fun, though, so we will be doing it again soon. We will be sure to get pictures. I was told by my lovely wife that I looked like a "scared little old lady" while I was skating around the rink. I might have added one of those adjectives, but that is close to what she said. At least the kids were very brave. Clark would almost fall over a bunch of times and demand to have his skates taken off. Then after a minute he would insist on having them put back on. He is already at least as good of a skater as his dad.

Adding a bit more of my taste to the house

Here is a picture of Manburger's snow day project.   We had freezing rain and a touch of snow and very cold temps today, so Manburger's work closed the office.  A lot of houses in the neighborhood have downed branches or trees, but we were fortunate to be spared that and to have full power even with the ice on all the power lines.   Manburger spent about all morning getting this project done for me and I love him for it.  For his first light fixture installation, I'd say he did a great job.  No, there are not bulbs in the chandelier yet.  Once the roads clear up, we'll make the trek to Home Depot and pick some up.   Next project...obtaining an appropriately formal dining table.  One step at a time :)

Moto...Moto..Got a lot of Motivation

Check out our sweet new Marine Corps address sign!  

And our cool Marine Corps license plates!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year....

We are so excited that it's finally the holiday season.   Christmas is such a magical time of year and we were so happy this year to get our tree out and actually have a house to put some lights on.

Marine Corps Birthday and Swearing In

It's official, Patrick is really an attorney and can legally practice law here in the great state of Texas.  We went down to his work this week to see him sworn in by one of the secretaries who is also a notary.   Another of the secretaries who has done her time with the Boy Scouts, was smart to grab the flag to make a great backdrop for the swearing in.

  We had our neighbor and his wife over to celebrate the Marine birthday with us since he was also an enlisted Marine.  Finally, Patrick found another excuse to use his NCO sword.  Happy Birthday Marines!

Little man turns two!

Clark had his second birthday this past weekend.   I can't believe how quickly these past two years have gone by.   He is such a sweet and loving little boy.  The day before his birthday, we took the kids to the Dallas Arboretum to check out their "pumpkin village" and their new children's garden.  The kids had a great time and I felt it was exactly on par for a little person's birthday celebration.   All they really want is a chance to run around outside and explore.  

  On Sunday we had cake and gifts.   He was so excited about his new trucks!  He walked around that evening with his little dump-truck in one hand and the Hummer in the other.   He and Sabrina have both been enjoying the car-transport truck he received.  I keep finding it in different rooms as they cart it around to play with.

State Fair of Texas

Dallas is the home of the Texas State Fair. We had never been to a state fair, so we decided to go. For those who don't know what a state fair is like, allow me to explain. It is like a county fair but with ten times as much of the same stuff. We only tried a tiny dose of all the fried foods that were available.  Our favorites were the fried s'mores and fried red velvet cupcake.

 There was a big area devoted to showing kids the basic idea of what you do when you work on a farm. Sabrina and Clark both had a really good time.

 Sabrina was born to drive a John Deere.

This is the family in front of the new Big Tex. The previous Big Tex burned down last year and people from Dallas are generally not impressed with new Big Tex. For those of us who just got here, he seems just fine. And really big. 

My old buddy Cody was passing through town and had time to come to the state fair with us. I thought he didn't need to be back to Pensacola much later than he actually needed to be, so he ended up driving late at night to get back. Sorry about that Cody, glad you made it home safe. 

Sabrina talked about going on the carousel the entire time we were at the fair. When we finally got on (at the absurd price of $4 a person) Clark decided he was scared of all the horses and wanted to sit on a bench. Then Sabrina saw us there and decided to join us instead of riding a horse after all. Oh well, as long as they enjoyed it, which they seemed to.

They Let Us Buy a House!

Can you believe they let us buy a house?! Thanks to Uncle Sam and his VA loans, we were able to buy a house shortly after I started work. I was worried that the government shutdown would affect our loan origination, but it did not. Thank goodness.

The kids love the new house as much as their Momma. They just want to run around barefoot in the grass and on the concrete area in the back all day long. Today we were outside after church and I was holding Clark when he pointed at the grass and started saying "Grass, grass!" So I set him down and he pointed at his feet and said "Shoe-ess, shoe-ess (shoe-less)." Then he sat down and tried to pull his shoes off. Too bad it is starting to get too cold to be barefoot all the time, but we let them be as much as possible.

The kids thought the moving truck was a wonderful play area.

This is just a little silly upside down time in our last place.

I had some very important visitors when I was in my office a couple of Fridays ago. 

 One of them even took my seat away from me.

 Sorry we don't have more pictures of our new place, but we will get some more put up as soon as things get a little less busy.

Practicing for the Paparazzi

Since we normally have such a hard time getting a decent picture of Sabrina, we decided to have some smile lessons so she would look a little more natural and less grimace-y in photos.  I think she did a pretty good job. She asked if she could take her baby doll, Twinkle Toes, outside, so I fashioned a baby carrier for her out of an old scarf.  Sabrina thought it was pretty cool.  Of course, Clark then came up and gave an awesome smile!  He is normally very good for the camera, we haven't reached the crazy toddler stage yet.   And I just had to share a photo of this dress I found on sale at Old Navy for Sabrina.  I just love the design and color, especially with her fair skin and golden hair.

Off to Pre-School

 Sabrina started preschool again!  She goes two days a week to a little church run preschool near our soon-to-be home.   The days are a little longer than last year, which is actually good preparation for Kindergarten next year.  She has rest time every day and has a cute little nap mat she lays on.

 Clark really misses his sister when she's at school and is so excited when I wake him up from his nap to go pick up his sister.  It's been fun having some one-on-one time with Clark, but I do miss Sabrina's chatter and excitement while she is away.

Herb Garden

So even though we moved to Dallas in the summer, I was eager to try to start growing something right away. We planted 8 different herbs in this planter. I was letting them grow in the back patio area, where they get only a few hours of sun and no afternoon sun, for a few weeks. I knew that I should wait a little longer for most of them, but the basil was chomping at the bit, so I moved them to the front yard. The thyme and dill died almost right away, but the basil grew and grew. A couple weeks after the picture above, we had several basil plants that were probably 9 or 10 inches tall. So we used them to make some homemade pesto!

 All the basil for this came from our little garden! 

 The kids sure enjoyed eating it. 

Now that it is cooling down the sage and parsley are really starting to grow, and the basil is already regrowing really fast. Hooray for herb gardens. We can't wait to have a great big garden once we buy our house!

Kids Aquarium and More

 On my first Friday off of work (thank you flex schedule), we went down to the kids aquarium in Dallas, and it was really cool. We got to pet stingrays and I even fed a couple. The kids were too scared to feed them, and it probably is because I squealed like a little girl when I fed the first one. The fish was falling out of my hand so I squeezed on so as not to lose it. Since I was squeezing it, though, the stingray came up and started sucking on my finger to get at it, which was quite a surprising sensation. Fortunately, my sweet wife didn't start recording the video until the worst of my shrieking was over.  

We went downtown yesterday so the family could see my office, but I apparently don't have weekend access to the office. So we just toured downtown a little bit. We went to fountain place, which was very nice, but none of the fountains were running. Oh well, we still had fun. 

Our current home seems to be haunted by some little ghost that likes to attach itself to the back of Yogurl's legs. I have a feeling that it will follow us when we move to our new home soon.

Time off in Big D

 A mall nearby had little playhouses set up that were being raffled off. Sabrina really enjoyed playing in the big cheese one.

 Clark thought it was okay, but was frustrated that he wasn't allowed to eat it. Next time we went there, they had blocked off the entrances to all the play areas, so you could only look at them. 

 We went to a wild western show in Fort Worth. It was a really long drive and the kids didn't like the show very much. The bullwhip horrified Clark at first. Then he thought the cracking was clapping, so he alternated between hiding from the sound and clapping when he heard it. He also overflowed his diaper while sitting on my lap. Then just before the trick-shooting part Sabrina insisted on leaving and Clark wanted to as well. So Yogurl watched the trick-shooting alone.

 How Sabrina spent most of the show, while Clark looks much happier here then he did for a lot of it. We had moved all the way as far back as we could, and Clark didn't mind it so much from way up in the back of the seating area.

 Clark loves playing with onions. He moves them back and forth between the baskets and up on the top. He walks around saying a word meant to be onion that I can't spell without the use of enyes.

 This is a picture of the kids at the Fort Worth water gardens. We had to go to Fort Worth to get my photo ID for work done. Yes that is a 45 minute drive to get my work ID done. And of course when we got there my information had not been properly entered and so they said I would have to come back some other time. The also apparently could not access the internet to find a phone number to call to fix the problem. So I had to call my dad and ask him to access my email and find a phone number for me. Of course the guy I needed to reach was on vacation. It all ended up working out okay, but Yogurl and the kids ended up roaming the streets of Fort Worth looking for a bathroom without me for quite a while.