We heart the library!
Marin and I discovered the library a couple of weeks ago. Actually Eric went with us as well. He wanted to see if they had up to date computer books (geek!). But Marin and I loved looking through all the books and picking out a few to take home. We also found the DVDs they had. Marin decided on Disney’s The Fox and The Hound. I let her watch it by herself because I can’t watch those sad movies. Don’t like Old Yelller or Where the Red Fern Grows either. Too depressing! So anyway, we have already read the books so we’ll be due back for another visit to the library soon. They are building a brand new library close to our house. Wylie has this huge project they are doing to build a new city hall with a recreational area and the library is going to be moved there as well. They are estimating it to be done by late spring next year. Our neighborhood has two empty lots where we thought the city was going to build us a park but instead they keep telling our HOA that they are going to just build a bridge/walkway to the new complex where we could just walk to the new recreational area or library. That was the plan proposed last year but we still haven’t heard anything else about it. That would be pretty cool if we could just walk over there from our house.
Marin started ballet last night. I asked Eric if he wanted to go and watch her first class with me. He asked if they have wifi there…so I told him nevermind. She did really well and did everything she was told to do. She really enjoyed it and had a smile from ear to ear on the ride home.
Marin was going to be Snow White for Halloween this year but now here lately she has been obsessed with Princess Jasmine from the Aladdin movie. So she told me last night that she wants to be Jasmine for Halloween. When I told her I already bought the shoes to go with her Snow White costume she was not excited. I can easily return the shoes and we already have so many dress-up costumes I bought at a garage sale for $1 each so no big deal. We have the Jasmine costume (it’s basically a genie costume) so I am not upset about it. I told her I would start looking for some shoes that will go with it and once I find them she cannot change her mind again. She was very adamant that Jasmine would be her final choice so I am going to hold her to that.
We are going to Vegas again in October…don’t judge. 
I remember when it was pretty cheap to go to Vegas. Now the flights alone cost us almost $700 for both me and Eric and that is flying out of Houston. Dallas was even more expensive than that. Crazy! So we decided since my parents are babysitting Marin while we go we would just drive to Diboll and drop her off and drive to Houston to catch a flight. Jason and Jackie are meeting us out there and Eric’s mom has decided to go so it should be a lot of fun!
Destin Vacation
Day 1: Sunday
We arrived in Pensacola, FL around 2PM. The rental car place was nice enough to get us in a rental car that fit in with the rest of the Floridians...a Mercury Grand Marquis. It was about an hour drive to Destin from Pensacola, but was it was a nice scenic drive. We stayed at Silver Shells which consists of 5 buildings about 15 or so floors each. We stayed in the St. Lucia building which is not the closest to the beach, but still within view. When we arrived we stopped at the security gate and let them know which room we were staying in. They gave us a tag to hang from our rearview mirror and opened the gate. We drove around to our building and entering the garage which is on the basement level. We had one designated parking spot which we gently maneuvered our Grand Marquis into. They had those carts that bell hops use for luggage available for use. We loaded it up and headed to the 6th floor. Our room had a numeric key pad on that was to be used as our key. The owners gave us a 6 digit code to use to get in. The key lock allowed us to create a unique "guest" code that was easier for us to remember which was nice. I like the idea of the code instead of a key since that is one less thing we have to worry about losing on the beach. Our room (#605) faced the ocean. We found 2 key fobs on the kitchen counter that would be used for entering the garage and building after hours. The room was quite nice and well decorated! It was 2 bedrooms with a living room and kitchen separating them. The patio had 3 sliding doors; there was a door for each of the bedrooms and 1 entrance from the living room.
After unloading our luggage we heading downstairs to check out the pool and beach. The beach is very nice with some of the whitest sand I have seen. We were a little concerned if we were going to see any tar balls from the BP oil spill in the gulf. Luckily we did not see any the entire trip...I will have to look to see if any does eventually show up.
By this time it was dinner time so we heading to Cracker Barrel. This was my first experience at a Cracker Barrel. I had a bacon cheese burger...it was okay. Since we had a full kitchen in the condo, we headed to Wal-Mart (which was right across the street from the condo) to load up on some groceries. As usual, Wal-Mart on a Sunday, it was a mad house. Our plan was to eat in for breakfast and lunch and eat out for dinner. It was a little difficult to find the small servings of the typical items as they were out of stock. For example, we had to buy a large package of sugar since they were out of the little single use bags. It worked out fine and we wasted very little at the end of the trip. I also picked up a $9 boogie board to play with on the beach.
Next we headed back to condo and unloaded the groceries. Then we suited up and headed to the beach! The condo already had 4 beach chairs that we could use as well as a bucket and shovel for Marin to play in the sand! By this time the sun was starting to go down, so the timing was perfect. The wave were much larger than I had originally expected being on the gulf side and all. I played around on the boogie board for about 20 minutes...what a work out! I was so out of breathe by the end of it and red faced (not from the sun). We then headed to the pool to relax for a while.
Day 2: Monday
My plan for the trip was to stay out of the sun between noon and 4PM. The main reason was to avoid getting extremely sunburned like in Mexico. Hector and I knew we wanted to ride jet skis at some point so we looked up some places. The condo had jet ski rentals on the beach so I called to get availability and pricing. They charged $70 for an half-hour and $100 for an hour. I decided do some price comparisons using the free wifi (DSL speeds) that was provided by the condo. I looked on the bay side and found Xtreme H2O which had good reviews. I gave them a call; they charged $70 for an hour and you could go anywhere you like in the bay. They also did not charge any kind of deposit and didn't even require a credit card (not that it would have stopped us). I reserved 2 jet skis for 11AM to noon. The place was easy to find so we got there about 20 minutes early. They went ahead and got use suited up and ran down the ground rules which were really only two. Number one, stay under 3 mph until you pass the sign with a red circle about 200 yards away. Number two, stay at least 150 feet away from each other (maybe he said 150 yards...but we got the idea). We ended up shoving off about 15 minutes late since we had to wait on the jet skis to come back in from the previous renters who were running a little late. They seemed pretty easy going about it so we acted the same in case we were running late on our return. After a few minutes of riding I realized that we made the better choice of renting on the bay side instead of the gulf side. The was PLENTY of places to go! We ran down the shore line for a few miles then circled back. That took about 20 minutes, so then we heading out towards the center of the bay area and played around for most of the remainder of the time. Riding them really made me want to purchase one! Angela's Dad tossed out the idea of splitting one if we decided to get one (since we live a few miles from Lake Lavon). I ran it by Angela and she didn't seem as excited.
After returning from riding the jet skis, we stopped back at Wal-Mart to get a few items that we had forgotten and then met back up with Sara, Angela, and Marin at the beach. After about an hour there, we went back to the room for sandwiches. Later that evening we went to the pool, then finished off the evening with dinner at The Lighthouse which was not too bad.
Day 3: Tuesday
For lunch we used one of the 4 gas grills and cooked up some hot dogs and hamburgers. You could see the grills from our balcony, so the girls stayed on the patio while Hector and I went down to grill the food. I had finished my beer while I was down there so we asked Angela to toss one down 6 floors to us. Hector took the challenge of catching it. His hands slowed it down a bit, but it ultimately landing on the concrete...it was still good!
Dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse.
Day 4: Wednesday
We went to the indoor pool and used the complementary computer in the office to print out our boarding passes.
Since this was the last full day and we were leaving the next morning, we knew we had to finish most if not all of the food and drinks that we purchased so that we wasted as little as possible. Angela took inventory and we were set on the food, but she had a few doubts on the alcohol situation. I told her to rest assure that we would not have to throw away any alcohol when we left the next day. She said okay. But then around 3PM she questioned my earlier statement when we picked up another 12 pack. I finished the last beer at the end of the Country Music Awards and we all headed off to bed.
Day 5: Thursday
We woke up and slowly finished packing up the few items that we had not packed the night before. We took the 45 minute drive back to the airport in Pensacola, returned the boat car, and checked in for the flight. On the flight back I sat with Marin and Angela sat across the aisle (the plane was 1 seat/aisle/2 seats). Directly in front of me was about a 6 month old baby boy with a set of lungs...I'm sure I will see him on American Idol in about 15 years or so. It was not that he was screaming of discomfort, but screaming for joy...but it was so loud! Then behind Angela was this lady would not stop bragging about her son to the couple in the seats next to her. He is extremely good in baseball and football, runs 40 yards in 4.2 seconds, State Campions...etc, etc, etc. He is hoping to go to UT for college although the parents referred OU. The mother went further by saying that he does not like to run but they make him since he is so fast. He never even warms up before a competition. She was telling this other couple how his last competition (state level or something) he placed 3rd. The man in the couple she was telling this story to then said, "3rd...so 2 other people beat him?" I quickly turned my head towards Marin so she wouldn't see the huge smile on my face (she was diagonally back from me across the aisle).
Marin did just fine on the plane ride. She had some goldfish, water, and pretzels, then watched some Spongbob Square Pants on her portable player and even knocked out a 30 minute nap.
Once back in Texas, we went directly to Papasito's for some mexican food. We didn't even try to have any mexican food while in Florida since we knew it would not taste the same as in Texas.
Spring Fling
We had a great time at our HOA Spring Fling today. We were afraid it was going to rain but thankfully it stayed away until the event was over. We had two bounce houses, face painting, and a DJ with fun music and prizes. Marin spent most of her time in the bounce houses and had a blast. I won a $50 gift card to Home Depot. We had a good turn out and plan to do another even probably sometime later in the year.
Yesterday we went to Fort Worth to look at a Honda Pilot and ended up driving it home. We got a pretty good deal on it but I think Eric misses his Acura. But the mileage on the Acura was pushing 86,000 so it was getting close to time to get rid of it since we only had 20,000 miles left on the extended warranty. We could have kept it for a little while longer but when we started thinking about what we wanted to replace it with we just got the itch to go ahead and pull the trigger. It has DVD built in which Marin already loves! We are happy with it.
My Addiction
I was told that I don’t update the blog as often as I should. Well, that is because a) Eric should be helping me out and writing his blogs, and b) I have an addiction! Yes, you read correctly…a major addiction! Is there a group that helps those of us who read too darn much? Maybe RA (Readers Anonymous)? I used to think this was a good habit to have. Reading books isn’t harmful to my health…except maybe to my eyesight if I read in poor lighting. But I do enjoy books way more than any normal person should. Eric can attest to this since I am reading one almost every night. I really knew I had a problem when I read 3 books in 3 days! I just can’t help it, when I get into a really good book it is so hard to put it down. When I finally give in and stop reading for the night I’ll lay in bed and wonder what happens in the next chapter. It’s a sickness! And to heck with the Kindle, okay maybe one day I’ll break down and buy one but that is far down the road when I will probably have to because of technology and price. But call me crazy because I love the smell of those book pages, especially those old books that smell like a library. Don’t judge me! So now you know why this blog gets updated once a month…
We went to East Texas for Easter. It was a beautiful day on Saturday and I kept telling everyone we should hunt the eggs because I seemed to remember a forecast for rain on Sunday. Of course no one listened to me so it was drizzling outside when we woke up Easter morning. We had to hunt eggs in the wet grass. But we still had a fun time. The confetti eggs were a big hit as they always are so even though they are a pain to make they are still worth it to see the kids have fun cracking them over each other heads.
Spring Break
Well, it’s spring break for a lot of people. I am only off one day for spring break but that’s only because I have to work Saturday to make up for it. Marin is spending some quality time in east Texas and Eric and I are going to drive each other crazy by ourselves. He’ll get drunk and I’ll slap him around…you know…the usual. J But seriously, we don’t know what we are going to do without having the responsibility of feeding, bathing and entertaining Marin. I guess I’ll just get a lot of reading time in. And definitely catch up on sleeping.
We finally decided on vacation for June and booked it. We are headed to Destin, FL. Expedia had a fare sale to Pensacola which is just 45 min from Destin so we jumped on the opportunity. We are flying Continental Express (sorry, Darren) out of Houston so it will be a short flight. We rented a very nice condo on one of the resorts there. I am looking forward to it. Can’t wait to be lying on the beach, looking at the crystal blue water with drink in hand…and then Marin will probably pour sand on me or something but at least I might get a few minutes of relaxation in.
I started playing co-ed softball again. Man, am I sore! I am pretty sure I pulled a muscle in my leg but I am powering through it. We have played 3 games and have yet to win. It is kind of discouraging but we are just out there to have fun so I’ll stick with it. I’ll be glad when it warms up a bit because it is awful trying to playing in the chilling wind. I am ready for sunny months ahead…but I guarantee you by July I will be wishing for the fall season because it will be so hot!
A few days ago I was driving home from work and it was raining. About halfway home it started to clear up and the sun came out and with it came this beautiful rainbow. I have never in all my life seen one so bright before and the picture I took of it with my phone does not do it justice. It’s the little things like this in life that puts a smile on my face…
Marin is Turning 3! Or as she would say…”free”!
My baby turns 3 this Sunday. Can you believe its been 3 years? It's such a cliche' to say it but "They do grow up fast!" We decided to not have a huge party this year. Birthday parties are so expensive and she won't really remember it anyway at this age. My mom asked me if I remember my birthdays when I was little and I can only remember as far back as maybe 7 or 8 years old. But I think we'll still have lots of fun. We will probably take her to Peter Piper Pizza or something and I am going to let her pick out an ice cream cake at Baskin Robbins. And of course she has lots of presents already stacked up on the dining room table. They are not all from me and Eric though...I did buy more than I initially thought I would but she also got presents from my friend Christy and my mom sent one as well. My poor mom spent about $10 to ship Marin her gift and then decided that her and my dad were going to come up for the weekend. So she could have saved that shipping cost. Next year we plan on taking Marin to DisneyWorld for her 4th birthday. We have a Disney Rewards credit card that we used for the past year and a half so we racked up a few Disney dollars to help pay for it.
The Chicago trip was fun! Marin had no problems on the plane ride. She actually really enjoyed it. On the flight back we were waiting for our name to possibly be called for standby (we used our friend Darren's buddy passes) and Marin watched the other passengers boarding and started to get worried. She kept trying to pull me up to the line to board because she wanted on that plane! We finally got on and was spoiled with the amenities of the 777. That is the one with the 5 seats in the middle and 2 on each side. I had never been in one before so it was quite nice. We had our own screen in front of us and got to pick which movie we wanted to watch and it also had games (the remote served as the controller). It was pretty neat. Marin got a little restless towards the end but who can blame a kid after being cooped up in a small seat for 2 hours.
So what else is new? Oh, Christy found out she is having a boy! So I have been shopping for little boy things. Since she and I are both huge baseball/softball fans I have picked up a bunch of clothes with little baseballs on them. I'm a sucker when it comes to shopping for baby clothes or any kids clothes for that matter. Anyone who has seen Marin's closet can attest to that. Anyway, I am anxiously awaiting Darren and Kelli to find out the gender of their baby (or I-Mixed as Darren likes to refer to it). I wish I had a guess but I really don't know which way I would lean. Maybe I'll ask the Tarot cards... 
Yes, I bought Tarot cards and a learning guide but I have not picked them up in several months...maybe I'll try and practice again.
Well, enjoy the photos we took during the Chicago trip...there isn't many since Eric forgot the camera almost everywhere we went. 
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- On the way to Chicago.
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- Jackie and Marin in Chicago
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- LegoLands are almost as popular as Starbucks in Chicago
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- Jackie and Marin
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- Eric had more fun than Marin at the Lego store
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- Marin at the playland in a mall in Chicago
Lazy…a thing of the past (hopefully!)
I have been waiting to do a new post until I could get some pictures from Christmas uploaded and share them with you however I am really busy lately. And when I do get some free time I am too darn lazy tired to get it done! Sorry...I will try to get some pics added sooner or later.
Christmas was good. Marin loved the presents from Santa. He brought her a toy cash register with a shopping cart and toy groceries. I think by far that has been her favorite gift. She plays with that register everyday. I played "shopping" with her for about an hour one night and it was amusing to see how much my grocery bill was. She is too young to understand the concept of money so she was charging me like $8 for peanuts and $10 for pretzels. Thank goodness it was play money!
Of course being our only child she was kind of spoiled with too many Christmas presents. For her birthday I am cutting back. She'll probably only get 2 things since I am already tired of cleaning up all the toys!
Marin and I had a little vacation in East Texas the week after Christmas. Poor Eric had to work so he missed out. We got to hang out with my parents and just relax a bit. New Years Eve was a fun party and we did fireworks as always. Marin was very scared about the sparklers at first and I went through a whole box of them trying to get her to hold one. I finally gave up and was walking back into the house when she decided she would try it. After handing her that first one she was hooked. It was like her magic wand that she kept waving around. I had to make sure she didn't get too close to anyone because she was going crazy with it. It's fun to watch someone discover something for the first time.
So its my birthday month! Yes, I know a birthday is only one day but I celebrate the entire month..deal with it! This one is a bit more tolerable than last year. Thirty was hard to swallow but thirty-one is not so bad now that I have already dealt with losing my twentys. I have decided that I am going to age gracefully. I haven't quite figured out how to do that but that is what I've decided nonetheless.
I finally broke down and bought a treadmill. Because of the recession my company is no longer paying for the 24 hour fitness memberships. We had cancelled them about 3 months ago anyway since we never went...lazy. So I decided I am not going to let gluttony get the best of me!! So it is a little bit of an eyesore sitting in the living room area but I know I won't use it unless that thing is in front of the TV. So far so good...I have walked 20 miles in the past 7 days. I am sore as hell but hopefully that gets better with time.
We are headed to Chicago this weekend. We are using our good friend Darren's (works for American Eagle) buddy passes. We have to fly stand by so it can get tricky if the flights start filling up. We will get there by Saturday, hopefully and endure the cold weather. But we'll deal with the weather since we get to see our good friends Jason and Jackie. We haven't seen them in a while so it is due time for a visit. It will also be Marin's second time on a plane. The first time she was only 16 months old when we took a vacation to Cozumel. She probably doesn't remember that so this will be interesting now that she is almost 3 and can understand what's going on around her. We have loads of stuff to keep her busy though....from coloring books to Spongebob episodes we'll try to keep her from getting bored.
Images in the Sky
When you look up at the clouds what do you see? I see Marin, Angela, myself, friends and family, and several vacations! Before you ask...there is just Diet Dr. Pepper in this cup! I have slowly been sorting through a bunch of photos that I have stored on my computer. I have a little over 5,500 pictures and a few video clips from the digital camera that add up to about 12 gigabytes of data. I have gone through and got rid of most of the duplicates and started organizing them into relevant folders. I have been using the new Picasa 3 for managing the photos. The newest version includes face recognition abilities.
Once you name a few, it will try to find others based on the facial features. I have noticed that it sometimes suggests the wrong person when it comes to children because their face changes so much, but it does well on adults.
As everyone, I always try to keep backups of files that are of importance. This use to be in the form of burning files to multiple CD/DVD's every so often. Of course you have to remember to do it. Another problem is that burned CD/DVDs do not last forever. I have had several issues trying to read back burned discs that were only several months old! Sometimes I could only end up reading the disc by placing in the original burner that I had used...weird!?
Over the summer I implemented a RAID 1 configuration for storing my videos, pictures, and documents. This works great to protect against a failed drive, but they will tell you to always keep a copy elsewhere in case the worst happens. There are plenty of online backup companies out there, but I'm not talking about them today.
Google Picasa 3 will let you sync your web albums! I have uploaded images to Picasa in the past, but typically reduced the quality to keep the file sizes low due to the 1 GB limit. You can now purchase additional storage at a dirt cheap price in my book. I just added 20 GB to my Picasa account for $5 per year! I dare you to find an online backup company that is cheaper and as trustworthy. So I now have 21 GB's of available storage to store my 11 or so gigs of photos (taking away about 1.5 GB of short video clips that will go to Google Video or YouTube). Luckily I have a decent ISP that will allows me 5 MB upload speeds. So it will only take about 6 hours to upload all of my photos.
Don't get me wrong...I'll still keep the RAID of course. In fact, I added another RAID 1 of 2 750 GB hard drives for Marin's movies and shows!
Taking it to the WiMAX
The other day I was running through a Vegas casino with a couple of buddies chasing after this terrorist with a machine gun and something strange caught my eye...it was an advertisement for a mobile Internet company in metro areas that do not require a contract and as low as $30/month. I know what you are thinking...month-to-month Internet for my laptop for $30!?! Crazy! I then proceeded with my mission at hand.
Okay, so it did happen in a game, but still! It's kinda cool on a couple of levels. The wireless Internet and in-game advertising. I assume it somehow updates the ads from the Internet as well so they are somewhat current?
The company offering the wireless Internet is Clear.com. They offer several different packages with or without a 2 year contract. They also are currently running some specials for reduced rates for the first 6 months. I have read some good and bad reviews, but for the price it is worth a shot if you are in the market for something like this. The idea is that you use WiMAX technology and is currently only available in certain metropolitan areas (at least by this company), DFW being one of them. The connection speeds are quite nice as well.
Below is a short video clip I made of the in-game advertising experience.
Christmas and Babies
We've got the Christmas tree up. We also taught Marin how to turn on the lights everyday when she gets home from preschool. We have a tree with the foot button that you just step on to turn them on so it is very easy for her. No luck on getting Eric to put up lights on the house this year...lazy. I also found my Christmas dinner plates in the attic and decided to lay those out on our formal dining room table. I bought them when we still lived in the townhouse and had a smaller table so there are only four plates in the set. Now that we have a table to seat six the 2 end chairs have no place setting. So I am currently looking for another set of plates to accommodate six. I tried to find 2 plates to match the set I already have but it is a discontinued pattern and hard to find. And when I do find them they are outrageously priced. I can't believe I am rambling about dishes...I must be getting old...
Babies are everywhere! I've had a couple of friends who have just had babies (one had twins! yikes!). We also have a couple of friends who are trying to get pregnant. And as I announced in an earlier post my best friend Christy is expecting her first baby in June. Geez...I have a feeling I will be buying lots of baby gifts soon!! Everyone keeps asking when Eric and I are going to have another one and I always say...SLOW DOWN! We are still learning how to manage Marin right now and have you seen the price of daycare? Think about how much it is with two kids enrolled! Marin will need to be close to public school age before we can think about numero dos!