Hair Cut

So it's pretty hot here in Texas. It's April and almost everyday when I leave the house I grab some clips and twist up my hair to get it up and keep me cooler.  I love my long hair... I just comb it in the shower and then get out and go, letting it air dry and it falls nicely. That's the extent of my hair styling.  I decided it would be a good time to experiment and cut it, it'll grow back by winter when I need it.

A friend recommended a great little salon a mile away.  I went in and told her all of my thoughts...I have to be able to pull it all up in a ponytail, I'd like it thinned out or layered sothe thickness doesn't make my head triangle shaped, and I'd like to be able to still let it air dry and fall nicely. (I get these ideas and expectations in my head that are sometimes overly picky and impossible). She was great and somehow did all three. 





Before

After





Easter Savings

So Dave and I are great at agreeing on things.  One thing we just love about eachother is that neither one of us minds celebrating a holiday a day late just to get the discounted stuff.  Dave was so excited to go after-Easter candy shopping.  We found the candy we wanted and promised to ration them out so we didn't eat everything that night.  The first thing Dave did was put them out in the order that he wanted to try them and then he took a picture. 

If Dave had his way he'd get all chocolate, he loves chocolate!  It was all 1/2 off and delicious!

River Week with the Family

For their Spring Break my family decided to come out to Texas to visit Dave and me.   

We first started with a special Texas quiz we created to make sure they know the important facts about Texas. For the bonus they had to draw the shape of Texas and smart lil' Emily tried to sneak outside and shut the door so she could get a better look at our Texas doormat.  My mom caught on and tried to follow so Emily sat right down on the mat so she couldn't see.  It was hilarious.  Emily had the best Texas flag, it had Lisa & Dave written on it with hearts <3 Tom and Tia actually tied as the winners, so feel free to ask my family any questions about Texas that you have. 

   

We also had my favorite flavor of Blue Bell, Southern Blackberry Cobbler for everyone to enjoy.  Sunday night we watched our favorite, the Amazing Race.

 The kids were dying to see downtown (and the famous Miss Congeniality sites) so we took them to the Alamo and then to the Riverwalk for the fun boat ride tour.

 We had a great dinner right there on the riverwalk...County Line which is famous for their ribs.  I love ribs!!!  Then we walked over to the Tower of the Americas to let them see how big San Antonio is.

We had  blast up on the tower observation deck! The wind was out of control and Emily and I loved letting our hair loose, exept the hair whipping was quite painful.

 Something else we've been dying to do is see the 4D movie there, Skies Over Texas.  It showed lots of different views of Texas with Friday night football games, rodeos, Hispanic cultural dancing, oil fields, and more...all in 4D.  In other words, feeling the wind of helicopters, getting whipped in the legs by a rattle snake and water snorted on us by a cow.

I took them up to the Comal River to go float.  They loved the chutes, searching for sunken treasures, relaxing and the beautiful scenery.

We went to see the new movie "Rio" together in 3D.  Over Christmas break we all went to Brazil and stayed a few days in Rio de Janiero.  It was so cool to see in the video the same streets that we walked on, beaches we played on and sights we went and visited.  Luckily there was only one other family there cause we were laughing and reminiscing (aloud) the whole time.  We loved it!

We also showed them our beautiful temple.  Then off to explore Blanco State Park where we had river races with all our rafts and got a little scared when everyone saw a huge snake slithering along the banks.  Nobody was hurt, and it was a great afternoon.

With any time we had leftover we played our Wii and also got to play some Kinnect over at Sariah's house. We were all posing for our favorite Kinnect game :)

Babysitting

Today we babysit our neice Allie (15 months) and nephew Caleb (3 years) for a few hours. We had a lot of fun, except for when David got peed on. We watched Emperor's New Grove, went on a walk (only 1 scraped knee), let them splash around with their feet in the pool, continued walking because they were too soaked to let them back in our house, tried to put them down for a nap, then finished with a picnic on our balcony. Dave's gonna be such a great dad someday :)

P90X update

We did do all the workouts every morning for about 50 days.  It was tough to get up that early and for me to go to work without showering every day.  It was interesting, just working out a set or two of muscles every day.  Some mornings I didn't even break a sweat and I'd question during the day if I even worked out!  But, somehow it works, and some part of me was always sore the next day. We both got pretty toned too.  We noticed a huge difference when we went to play basketball, we could run and sprint longer without getting tired and we could jump higher.

The diet didn't go so well.  I made it through breakfast and lunch but spent the afternoon an emotional wreck.  So we came to an agreement that I would eat the meals, a little modified, with David.  I couldn't give up my snacking or sweets, but I was going to try to minimize them.  Just the thought of having food restrictions was horrible.

So right now, we're just doing occasional videos whenever we have time and trying to eat a little healthier.  It's a bummer that it's just too hot to go run outside sometimes!

 

All Texan!

Trying to save money we waited til the last month to register my truck, Chuck, here in Texas.  We got the title and all the forms from my dad (registering and transferring an out of state car takes a lot of work). After an easy inspection and getting a notary signature on our half of the affidavit we gathered all our forms and went downtown to the County Office.  After waiting in line they notice that we have the wrong VIN number on the affidavit form that my dad filled out and got notarized. (That happens when you have 3 Ford trucks with pretty similar VIN numbers) So the lady regretfully informed us, as she handed us a new form, that we'd have to send it back to my dad in California and get him to fill out a new form, sign it, get it notarized and send it back to us, hen we'd re-do our half, then we could drive back downtown and get it done.  

So that left us with two options, 1. do as she said or 2. take a chance and let Dave work his magic.  We chose the second.  When we left the County Office the VIN number on the forms ended in 14593KL26.  Five minutes later, with my dad's permission and Dave's skills, I re-entered alone with the correct ending, 14545KE18, on the same form.  I was praying that I didn't get the same lady!  It all worked out and our Chuck is now registered as a Texas truck.

Having second thoughts

 When I came out, Dave had already taken off my California plates, he was ready.  It was a bittersweet moment for me, I had put it off for so long!

Dave is so good at innocently rubbing things in when he has a realization.  He's helping me change the plates and kept making comments like "you're like completely Texaned now and completely Rodericked" and "You've like completely given yourself to me in every way"



I'm a Roderick and a Texan now



A Saturday Downtown

We've heard that San Antonio has a great zoo.  So last Saturday we printed off some online coupons, packed up a picnic and were off.  As we got closer to the zoo, traffic started getting pretty thick.  Even a couple blocks out we noticed other business parking lots full and there were people out directing parking and tons of families out walking.  We soon realized that all of this was for the zoo.  By the time we made it through traffic and could see the zoo entrance, there were hundreds of people outside waiting to get in.  It was crazy!  We learned our lesson, a beautiful Saturday is not a good day to plan a trip to the zoo.

Something else we've been wanting to do is see the wax museum and the Ripley's Believe it or Not place.  So we decided to do that instead and we had a great time. 

There were so many things to look at!  I loved our Ripley's tour guide.  We got a close up, best friends shot with Obama and Dave got to show off some of his famous dance moves.  I also had a great chat with Oprah.  We wandered around for hours.  There was a Jesus exhibit, Mexican leaders, children's storybooks, etc.  Another great date.

I also found the dress of my dreams, made out of Badminton birdies.  How cool is that?!

That Takes The Cake

My sister-in-law Katie lives in Austin and loves cake decorating.  She invited me to come along to this event.  We had a blast and saw some amazingly decorated cakes.  Here are some of my favorites...

 

Yes, these are all decorated cakes, made mostly of different edible things.  Lots of them had pictures of the steps that they took in forming the different shapes and decorations.  There were different competition levels for all ages, 6 year olds to advanced adults.  They were really impressive!  TLC was also there with demonstrations from the most recent group of bakers from their "Ultimate Cake Off" show.  And we ate some delicious cupcakes :)