Bits and Bobs

1. Something about ground chicken and ground turkey really repulses me. I can handle it in, say, bolognese sauce or chili but do not give me a meatball, burger, or meatloaf. ::shudder::

2. Bleach is like, the best. I love bleach. Me and bleach are best friends. I bleach all my dishcloths every time I wash them to keep them white, bright, and not smelling like a musty old basement. Again, ::shudder:: But also, I love pouring bleach down my drains and then in a few minutes the whole house smells like the C'mon Inn. Mmmmmmmm.

3. I have been obsessed with Sunny Day peanuts for the better part of 6 months. I buy a mix of salted and unsalted and then they turn out to be the perfect amount of saltiness. When I go and buy them, I literally can hardly make it home before I've attacked the bag. And when there are no peanuts in the house, I reach for my Sunny Day peanut butter. 

4.  When asked a question, Greta often responds with "Yes sir" or "No sir". It is one of the cutest things I've ever heard.  She also sometimes responds with "Yes baby" in a less than respectful tone which is not so cute. 

5. If you talk to Ruby right this minute, the world is coming to an end around her. She has pink eye. Pink eye is not a big deal in my world but in hers, it's debilitating. She asked me in between sobs today, "Will I feel better in the summer?!?!?" Yes, my sweet dramatic child, you will.

6. Speaking of summer....right, I try to keep my blog rated G. Well, let's just say that if summer doesn't happen soon, this mama is going to do something rash. And I can't say for sure that it won't involve emptying our savings account for a plane ticket to Bora Bora.

7. I am wholly committed to growing basil this year and succeeding. I have tried growing basil many times - from a seed, from a transplant, in the ground, in a pot - and have had very little success.  Last year it survived but I made one batch of pesto and then the rest of the summer the leaves were just tiny little pathetic mini-leaves. If anyone has any tips, please send them my way. 

8. Greta and Ruby have been playing together like champs lately.  And I cannot get enough of it. Listening to those guttural laughs is so beautiful. 

9. I usually love April but this April has been hard.  Really hard. I kind of feel like someone has started each of my days by tweezing a few of my leg hairs. And then throughout the day, they come find me and tweeze a few more. I blame most of it on the weather, I think. I'm ready to put my flip flops on and go to a park and get all sweaty and, yes I'm going to say it, get a few mosquito bites.  Just a few, ok?

10. I wish I was better at shopping online. I feel like I need to feel the fabric between my fingers, see the colours, try it on and dance a little in front of the mirror. I feel like even when I've ordered clothes for the girls, I'm often just a little surprised at what I get. "Oh I didn't realize it was going to be made out of that material!" or "Oh it's shorts and not a dress!" You get my drift.

11. Ruby's dance recital is coming up and I'm super excited.  Their class' costume is a sort of Charlie Brown dress thingy and I think it's very cute. This year I'm watching two of the three shows because one just wasn't enough last year.

12. Even though things have been hard or maybe because things have been hard, I've just been appreciating my cuddles and snuggles with my girls more these days. Before you barf in your mouth a little, please hear me out. I know they won't always want to do that. The way Greta digs herself right into my lap and sucks her thumb is one of the best feelings I have ever felt. And I won't always get to do that. She won't always be there and she won't (Lord, willing) always suck her thumb and one day when I go in for a kiss, she might not want one. I am trying so hard to treasure these moments and not think about how some space would be really awesome. I will have space one day and want less of it.

13. The grass is not greener on the other side.

14. But could we see what green grass actually looks like please?

Everything's Bigger In Texas...

...Including my waistline! But seriously.

Our family just spent two weeks in Texas and we had an amazing time. My parents and Chris' parents go down to New Braunfels almost every year for a month and we've wanted to go visit so many times so we decided this was the year.  We contemplated flying but since we were planning to go for awhile, we knew we'd need a vehicle and car seats and all of that so we decided to drive. You know, it's only a 24 hour drive, how bad could it be?!?!?

Well, to be perfectly honest, it wasn't bad at all.  On the way down, we drove through the night and although the girls probably only clocked in 6 hours of very interrupted sleep, they did pretty amazingly. This is them at 5am at the Texas border.  They were very excited to finally be in the "wild, wild west" as Greta refers to it as but they were also very tired.

We stopped just outside of Dallas to visit some friends for the night and it was really nice to have a chance to catch up, eat some amazing Jordanian cuisine, and take a really long nap.  Everyone slept. Even Ruby which says a lot because she has sworn off naps since the ripe ol' age of 3.

The next day we headed another 4 hours south to New Braunfels. The grandparents were excited to see us and we just took it easy that day, lounging by the pool and buying mass amounts of sweet tea and queso fresco at the grocery store.

The next day we headed into San Antonio for the Grand Tour. First stop, the Alamo!

I had seen the movie years ago but hadn't really remembered the history of the Alamo.  It's an interesting story but a depressing one.  I'll give you the short version: Everyone dies.

We had lunch on the Riverwalk which is a beautiful area of historic San Antonio. There are shops and restaurants and walking paths all along the river and later we took a boat tour of the area which was probably one of my favourite parts of the trip. The old Spanish-style buildings and neat little restaurants line the river. They dye the river green for St. Patrick's day every year and although we missed those celebrations, the river still maintained a slightly green hue while we were there.

We hit up a few other places including the Mexican market where Ruby purchased her first cowgirl hat and then the Cathedral of San Fernando.  It was beautiful inside and out and apparently this is where they keep the burnt remains of Davey Crockett and the other Alamo victims. Fun stuff!

One of Ruby's favourite things we did was head to a place called Gruene dance hall.  It's a tiny little historic town near where we were staying with old buildings that maintain their "wild, wild west" charm. It's apparently the oldest dance hall in Texas but they seem to throw the "oldest....in Texas" phrase around a lot in those parts. It's probably true.  Texans don't seem like the lying type.

Grrramps, being the wonderful Grrramps that he is, shook off any inhibitions and danced with my girls as the famous word art says, "Like there's no one watching."

Ruby was so excited to dress up like a cowgirl. When we went to pick up Grrramps and Nana at their condo, Ruby and Grrramps posed for a picture. Grrrramps said, "Finger guns!" and Ruby promptly corrected him, "Cowgirls don't carry guns." So it was a thumbs' up for her!

Another favourite part was the San Antonio zoo.  If I was going to rate the Winnipeg Zoo to the San Antonio zoo on a scale of 0 to 3,455, it would go something like this:

Winnipeg - 0
San Antonio - 3,455

It was so beautifully landscaped and every exhibit felt like an actual habitat instead of a huge stinky cage.  Sorry, Winnipeg. We can still be Facebook friends.

I don't know how much I've spoken about Elephanté, Ruby's very favourite stuffed animal on here but Elephanté is as close to a member of our family as any stuffed animal can get.  A blog post should probably be dedicated to her in the near future. And Ruby was extremely excited for Elephanté to meet one of her own kind at the zoo. In fact, I would dare say it was a highlight of her day.  Here she is posing with Elephanté and an elephant statue beside the actual elephant exhibit.  We actually got to watch a great show that the elephant put on, including a roar (roar? I'm not sure what you call the sound an elephant makes) that made Greta jump three feet in the air.  

After the zoo, we took a little train ride through the park that the zoo is located in.  Chris is sporting his most recent purchase of an NCAA March Madness t-shirt we got at the game we attended in Austin. It was really fun to feel the excitement and energy of a March Madness game in person.  Plus, I ate a Korean BBQ burrito from a food truck that blew my mind.

As I mentioned above, I think all of our waistlines grew just a little while we were there.  We had to hit up a few of our favourites like Chick-fil-a and Chipotle but we also got to experience some really great Texas cuisine like Rudy's which is a Texas BBQ place. You eat at big long picnic tables, eat off a brown piece of paper and I just have to say that their pulled pork rivaled any I had in North Carolina. So juicy and tasty.

And how could I forget the tubing? It's like a New Braunfels rite of passage. The clear, long, winding Comal River runs through the town and on warm sunny days, you'll find hundreds of tubers floating down the river, booze in hand, enjoying the day. We opted to use our cooler for water and flip flop storage but it was definitely a good time.

 
One of the last days we were there, the whole big gang of us hit up Six Flags.  It was kind of a cool day but that didn't stop the fun. It's located just outside of San Antonio in this big quarry with these huge cliffs all around it.

No it's not a soother. Yes it's a ring pop.

As I've mentioned before, Ruby is a true Carnie at heart and she loved the rides.  They had plenty of smaller kid rides for the girls to enjoy and they had plenty of bigger kids rides for us to enjoy. I went on two big rides - one voluntarily and one against my will. Well, kind of anyway. I have done roller coasters before but it's been a really long time. And I knew I should at least go on one, so I did. And I survived. I also screamed like someone who was being tortured in a Chinese prison. It wasn't pretty.

On the way home, we took two days driving home and I felt like it was a bit of a longer ride than on the way down.  The girls were awake the whole time and needed much more entertainment than they would have at, say, 3am. By the end of the second day, this is kind of how we all felt:

A little (or a lot) disheveled and ready to be home. But overall, the trip was a smashing success. We had a great time with both sets of families and the girls loved having all their favourite people in vacation mode.

And we learned a few valuable lessons: You get REALLY wet on the Gullywasher, don't ever in all your life eat at Rio Rio, and there are definitely no sheep on the other side. Or cows. EpicK.