Water, Water Everywhere

We had a horrible storm come through last night and dropped about 11 inches of rain. This is the most I have seen our neighborhood flood in the 13 years we have lived here. Dennis had to move the truck at about 4:30 this morning from the front of the house to the driveway because the street was flooded. The water came really close to the front door but didn't come in. Instead the back flooded so much we had water come in through the back into the master bathroom and the family room. The master bath includes our closets so I had to move all my clothes hanging on the bottom and anything on the floor. Luckily the bathroom and closets have tile floor. The family room has laminate which is already buckling. Time for a new floor! The kids are excited about no school today, especially Denise because her Math TAKS was today. I'm sure Maxie is excited also, because she gets to stay inside the house instead of dealing with the wet backyard.

Weekend Recovery

We were supposed be resting and recovering this weekend, but we still kept busy. I feel fine, but Denise and Brianna have been having a rough time with a hacking cough that won't go away. They cough all night long and choke on their coughs during the day. They went to the doctor last Monday and were prescribed Amoxicillin, which finally seems to be working. Their cough flares up anytime they get overheated by running or jumping so we decided to keep it simple this weekend! Saturday we took it easy and woke up late. I took the girls in for manicures and pedicures, which kept their coughs down. They enjoyed putting their feet in the mini jaccuzis and sitting in the massaging chairs. I picked a basic red color and they picked lime green and yellow. The girl doing their nails put little flowers and pink polka dots on their toenails and fingernails. It came out so cute. Dennis came by and picked up the girls to take them to Lowe's to buy the materials they need for their lemonade stands. They will be participating in the Prepared 4 Life Lemonade Day next Sunday, May 3 here at Hearthstone park. They worked with dad building their stand for a few hours while it rained off and on outside.We all went to bed early on Saturday night and Dennis seems to have gotten a relapse of the hacking cough so he went to bed all drugged up. On Sunday morning after walking Maxie who needs the exercise as bad as I do, I wrote up some clues for chores to do in and around the house for the kids. Denise came up with an idea of playing Amazing Race around the house. Every Sunday evening we watch our favorite show, the Amazing Race and the kids wanted a race of their own. Some of the clues had them style their hair, read a chapter from a book, take out the garbage, load the dishwasher, take out the clothes in the dryer, fix their beds, and many others. The pit stop ended at the front door. There were no real winners in the game because they would end up fighting about it, so they both won lunch at Olive Garden and a visit to Willowbrook mall to buy them a prize. We overstuffed ourselves with breadsticks, calamari, pasta fagioli, seafood Portofino and lasagna. It was all yummy and the kids have changed their favorite restaurant from Outback to Olive Garden. We needed badly to walk off this rich food so we went into the mall. I bought 3 pairs of shoes at Dillards and of course, Brianna picked out a cute little outfit and Denise wanted a 72 piece set of police and gangsters figures at the toy store to play with. She will always be my tomboy! We made it back home in time to watch the Amazing Race and than the Rockets game. The game was a good one, but nail biting. They took it down to the wire and won by one against the Trailblazers. They lead the series 3-1 and play in Portland next.
I can't believe this month is almost over, next week is the church carnival and lemonade day sales. Then, there is Mother's Day weekend and the kid's recital on Sunday, May 17 at 2:30 pm. Brianna will lead off all of Mr. Richard's twenty-plus students and this will be Denise's first solo playing. Should be a good recital!

Manor on Washington

My co-worker and friend at work, John Paliatsos has recently opened up a new club called Manor on Washington. It really looks like a cool place to go, so when Dennis and I can get a babysitter we will try to make into the Heights area to visit. This may even be a cool spot for all the buddies to get together one night. John is a cool guy and I'm sure would love to meet all my friends! Yesterday he was in the Heights area near his club and he passed by this couple and took a picture. He was thinking of maybe using this idea for barhopping on Washington and called it a tipsy rickshaw. I honestly think it is so sweet of this man to pull his wife around so she wouldn't have to walk, especially in Houston!

Buddy Girl Weekend

Dennis and the girls have gone to Arlington to visit Alicia and watch her play in a volleyball tournament in Dallas. So that leaves me here alone to go to my yearly gettogether with my buddy girlfriends. It's been a year since we've been all together and we certainly have missed each other. It's kind of strange that we all live in the same city and some of us close to each other, but can't seem to get together more often. We all live such busy lives with work and kids, it just makes it so hard. To be able to spend this one weekend is the best. It's so much fun to reminisce about old times, look at old pictures, eat, drink and be merry. Staci picked me up and we drove to Kingwood in the worst rain storm I've seen since Hurricane Ike. One by one we all showed up at Brenda's house minus one of us. Rhonda is with her family because her dad is not doing so well, he is certainly in our thoughts and prayers. We all made a toast to him and those special dear ones who have passed away. Brenda was the perfect hostess to the mostest. She had crackers, cheese, dip and fruit in a lovely spread. She kept the wine flowing and cooked us the best meal of pork loin, green beans, salad and the best mashed potatoes I've ever had. We definitely need to share the recipes. Theresa brought along a copy of a video we made way back in 1990 at Xmas time. It was bizarre seeing how young and very skinny we used to be. In another 20 years we will look back at tonight's pictures and probably think the same. Each time we meet we bring a birthday gift for a White Elephant gift exchange except we give out really nice gifts! This is our way of celebrating all our birthdays together and not forgetting anyone. After opening our gifts we put on our PJs and watched Mamma Mia. Even with all the sing-a-long songs we lost a couple of us to bed before the movie was over. Than there was just me left with Cabo the dog, he ended up sleeping with Fran and I in the guest room. In the morning we had a wonderful breakfast, of course and continued with our conversations. All the water that looked like a pond the day before from all the rain had gone away and you could see the golf course in the backyard. It looks like we are going to have a beautiful Sunday. We haven't decided where we will meet again next year, but I am already looking forward to that.

Happy Easter!

What a beautiful day! Where is all that rain that they were predicting? It is nice cool, and the sun is coming up. I woke up early, of course and took Maxie for a nice brisk walk. After coming back we ate breakfast, got the kids ready and walked down to the Journey Church, a non-denomination church. There were 50,000 eggs everywhere laid out in sections for the different age groups. There was a climbing wall, which our kids hit first, moonwalks, a train, petting zoo and other things. 700 bowls of jambalaya were served before they ran out and pizza was brought in and they ran out of that. The snowcones were really good, they even had an ice cream flavor. Everyone was walking around with blue, green and red lips and wearing LSU t-shirts! Such a normal sight in Baton Rouge. They let loose all the kids to collect eggs. The way it worked was that the eggs were empty except for a few that had a chicken in them. If you got that chicken you traded it in for a toy prize. Denise and Brianna must have collected 100 eggs each and we went through all of them and found no chicken. Brianna called it a rip-off! But when we turned in all the empty eggs they gave the kids a yard long pixy stick and Brianna was happy again. We walked back to the house to color eggs and hide all the kids' stuffed eggs. They must have had about 100 eggs, I lost count while hiding them. It was fun to watch them race around the back yard and find the eggs. I believe there is still one egg somewhere in the back with a dollar bill in it which will show up one day. The church down the street said they have a 6:00 pm service and St. Alphonses Easter vigil is at 8:00 pm. We chose the 6:00 to get back home early to watch a couple of Flash's new movies. Her collection just grows and grows. She can open up her own Blockbuster store! I haven't seen quite a few of the latest movies so I'm looking forward to taking a few back home with me.

Good Friday

We drove out of Houston at 6:30 pm on Holy Thursday on our way to our first Easter stop in Port Arthur. The construction on I10 delayed us by half an hour but felt like 2 hours instead! My parents are doing well and were glad to see the kids as usual. We spent the night and got up this morning to make the drive to Baton Rouge. I got up early this morning to do some work on my computer and felt just fine but after I took a shower I got very dizzy so we had to wait until I got over it. Felt like a bad hangover. Must have been all that green tea I've been drinking lately. Dennis drove first so that I could finish sleeping off my dizziness. By the time we got to Jennings my dizziness was gone. We stopped to look at the alligators which maybe moved an inch the whole 15 minutes we were there. Maxie had never smelled an alligator before so she was very curious to know what that was in the cage. After our bathroom break, I drove the rest of the way to Grandpa Harv and Flash's house. We got there just in time for some Cowboy Stew and Lousiana strawberry shortcake. Flash was rearranging all her statues in the back yard and the kids posed for a picture with her new concrete deer. The others were destroyed by the tree that fell in their back yard during Hurricane Gustav last year. Brianna had informed me last night that we forgot their Easter dresses at home so we made a mad dash to Target to buy new ones but they had slim pickins so we ended up at Wal-Mart. We found some cute ones that met to Brianna's approval. She is very picky about clothes, I don't look forward to her teen years! After watching some Wheel of Fortune and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire we had crawfish in the patio. Flash had gone out and bought 30 pounds with corn and potatoes at Frog's down the street.The crawfish were good and spicy enough to make my fingers hurt. This was my first batch so far this year and I'll try to make it a point to have more later before the season ends. We tried to listen to Prince's new CD but couldn't get everyone interested so switched to a local country station. A song "Swingin'" by John Anderson started playing that brought back memories of a country western night club we used to go to near Parkdale mall in Beaumont. I'm hoping Fran or Sybil can refresh my memory on the name of the place.
Tomorrow the kids are going to an egg hunt at the church down the street. They said they will hide 50,000 eggs. I hope the weather holds out so the kids can have fun. Have a Good Friday!

End of Soccer Season

My husband, whom I thought didn't read my blog, has told me that I need to write a new post. I have been so busy with work and running around with the kids that I have had no time to write any blogs. Sometimes I do so much programming with web applications at work that I don't want to get on the computer when I get home.
Anyhow, I will do my best to write more often. I will most likely not be like an old friend, Sybil who keeps up with her blog daily and does an excellant job. Instead, I will write when there is something to write about, maybe daily or maybe weekly.

This past weekend was the end of another Spring soccer season. The kids played their hearts out on Friday and Saturday for their last games. Brianna's soccer party was first on Saturday night. I forgot my camera so I took the picture of her and her trophy later.
We went to a place called Husky's on West Road near the house. The food is good and there is an arcade to keep the kids busy. Coach Matt, Coach Joe and all the team was there with their parents to celebrate. The next day on Sunday we went to church in the morning for Palm Sunday, the longest mass of the year! Afterwards, we went for a bike ride at Bear Creek park. My poor bike which has not been used in quite sometime ended up with a flat. We dropped it off at Bike Barn on the way home for some needed repairs and maintenance. That night we went Husky's again for Denise's soccer party. Most of the same parents were there because many have siblings that play on Brianna's team.
All seventeen girls of Denise's team was there to get their trophies and medals. They even had a tiger mascot to help Coach Joe hand out the trophies.
This was Denise's sixth season with Coach Joe and she has played 104 quarters so far, with 13 quarters as goalie this season. Looks like she has found her favorite position to play.