Weekend trip to Houston

Memorial Day weekend (Saturday - Monday)
Doug and I visited Houston to stay with Karl, Audrey and Aurora.
We had some great down time, some wonderful food and some awesome play time with Aurora.

On our way home, we stopped at the Elliott's they were hosting a Memorial Day BBQ.

There was plenty of food and it was great to come home from a long weekend and not have to cook dinner.

Memorial Day -  May 30, 2016

Friday Night Crafting

Friday night, Jill and Fawn came over and we did some impromptu crafting.

I made the patriotic wreath to display outside for the summer holidays.

 Jill and Fawn worked on a background banner for Caleb's 1st Birthday party in July.

Mother's Day 2016

I was able to spend Mothers Day weekend with all three of my amazing children, their awesome spouses and my three adorable grand children.

Friday night, we all met at Hard Eight BBQ for dinner.
Then there was a little party planning to be done for Josh's surprise party on Saturday.

Saturday
In the morning Jackie & I transported the cake to the birthday party. We helped set up and tear down after the even. After the party, everyone enjoyed some time in the pool. It was a simple dinner: 
Hamburgers/Brats, Pasta Salad and baked beans.

After dinner they presented me with my mother's day gift. They had all conspired to get a family photo done for me. It wasn't a secret but I hadn't seen the final product. They  were all wonderful. See below:

Sunday:
I made some brunch and the Elliotts came over for the day.
Karl,Audrey and Aurora left around 12:30 to drive back to Houston.
Jill and I took Caleb and Andrew to the "new park" but it was a short visit as it started to rain.

I made King Ranch chicken for dinner with ice cream for dessert.

Thank you to all that made this such a special weekend for me (and Josh too..I guess!)

Josh's Surprise 30th Birthday Party

It has been in the works for quite a while and Jill can finally say she pulled it off!!!

Friday night, Jackie, Karl and I decorated some cookies for the party.
Jackie & I made the beer mug cookies and Karl made the bottle cap cookies.

 The cookies were cute but the cake was the big hit. It had many photos taken.
It was the tallest cake that Jennifer's Bake Shoppe (located in The Colony) has done to date.

Jackie & I transported the case in my Expedition. It turned out to be almost 90 degrees today so we can to keep the cake in the truck with the engine running and air conditioners on full speed to keep the cake cool in time for serving.  There was a dowel that went down the center of the cake to keep all 8 layers together. It also kept the bottle in place to look like it was continually filling the birthday mug. The board below the mug is fondant, the Josh sign on the beer mug is fondant and the beer mug handle is fondant. All edible!!  The only part not edible was the internal supports and the beer coming out of the bottle (this was spray foam, painted to resemble beer)  Impressive!!!

 Doug had made Josh a batch of home brew.

The decorations were held to a minimum due to the heavy winds>
Jill made the "Cheers to 30 Years" banner
She also displayed some of Josh's photos (baby to current) on the second banner.

Our table had more decorations, but they kept blowing off in the wind...
so decorations were getting more and more minimal as the day went on.

A surprised Josh trying to take it all in!

 Jackie & Aurora

Josh and his favorite Mother-In-Law!

 Andrew had fun playing with Jessie & Billy's dog "Ginny"
He was taking her for walks, giving her treats for sitting, laying down, speaking, etc.
I think Ginny got wore out before he did!

Pool Maintenance is NOT all fun

So while Doug is gone I'm in charge of a lot more things to do.
One being pool maintenance
1) Check chlorine tablets and put more in if needed
2) Clean spa
3) Sweep steps and love seat
4) Change pool sock
5) Clean pool hose basket
6) Clean the skimmer basket

This last task gets me almost every time
There is either a gigantic spider in there or some dead animal.

Today I fished out a very smell baby bunny. He hand't been in there too long as he still had most of his fur.  It was stinky!

Luckily Doug made me a pool stick to grab the skimmer basket so I dont' have to reach my hand in there to get it out. WHEW!  So the basket was retrieved and dumped in to a set of "double" Target bags. Tied and put in the trash. I'm also fortunate trash collection day is only one more day away.
Because that trash can really stink!!

Hummingbirds

I've been hearing birds or large bugs hitting the windows at the rear of the house.

I day I actually saw it happen...It's not really a bird or a bug I was expecting, but hummingbirds.

This particular hummingbird is a very dark green

This photo shows both hummingbirds
I think the one on the ground was probably the one that hit the window.
They were both fine and flew away the second I opened the door.

So being a good host, I got them a humming bird feeder and put it near the roses.

I must keep missing them, the nectar is disappearing but don't seem them hovering out near the roses.

Weekend Activities 04/30/16-05/01/16

SATURDAY
Saturday morning I arrived at T-ball to witness Andrew running from third to home.

Andrew loves being in the "baseball ready" position

You can see the other two kids in the photo do not!!

After the t-ball game there is a "team meeting"

 And then snacks are given out. 

I went right home after the game to have lunch and meet Jackie for an afternoon of errands
1) Academy Sports
2) Michaels
3) Hobby Lobby
4) Bed Bath & Beyond
5) Corelle store at Grapevine Mills Mall
We arrived home around 3pm and put together the new bathroom organizer for all my free skin care products. Then we were off to the movies at Studio Movie Grill to see "Mother's Day"

Here is a synopsis of the movie: Sandy (Jennifer Aniston) is a stressed-out, single mom who learns that her ex-husband is marrying a younger woman. Her friend Jesse (Kate Hudson) is a fitness freak who doesn't tell her parents that she has a family. Bradley is a widower (Jason Sudeikis) who's trying to raise two daughters on his own, while Miranda (Julia Roberts) is too busy with her career to worry about having children. When their respective problems start coming to a head, the Mother's Day holiday takes on a special meaning.

After the movie we went to Chili's for dinner (Jonathan went to EdgeFest all day at Toyota Stadium)

It was a fun and action packed day!

Sunday

I woke up and did a few things around the house before heading to the Kiefers.

We would attend the RoughRiders game in Frisco; The Frisco RoughRiders (short form: 'Riders) are currently the Class AA affiliate of the Texas Rangers major league baseball club.  This was to be Yu Darvish's first local rehab game. We also got to see Chris Giminez "catcher" doing his rehab. The place was sold out. The tickets were cheap. It was a nice cool day. Yu only pitched two innnings so alot of the crowd went home after that. Chris caught the entire game. Josh Hamilton's name was on the roster but we didn't see him at the park that day. We stayed until the end and the Riders would lose this one, but I will definately be back to see a few more games at this local park.

View from our seats - just past the 1st base bag

 Next weekend is Mother's Day!  I wonder what they have in store for me then?