House wiring

I forgot to mention the excitement that we had this past weekend, the night before Easter. We had just finished taking showers after spending the afternoon at Avalon. We were getting ready to eat a dinner of leftovers when the electricity went off in half the house. We thought we had a fuse out or flipped but when we checked them, everything was fine. That is when we noticed a funny smell and saw a small stream of smoke coming out of the breaker box. We called Darrin's Dad and started taking the cover off. The smoke was mostly gone by then. Darrin's Dad found the cause of our smoke and loss of electricity. A critter of some variety had climbed into our large fuse box (looks like the things in monster movies that the scientist flips on and the monster wakes up) and got fried. The fuse he was next to was broken in half. We got a new fuse on Sunday and everything seems to be fine. But it was exciting for a few minutes.

Birthdays and other fun

It has been a couple of weeks since I last posted. I keep meaning to take the time to post but then something else jumps in and takes that time. Oh well.

The last couple of weeks have been good for Darrin and I. March 10-14 was Bunny Time at the studio so Darrin was chasing bunnies and 2 year olds around trying to capture cute pictures of them. We didn't get chicks and ducks this year. That was just fine with me because I always had to clean their cage and they stunk. They were adorable but stinky. The bunny is not much better but at least we only have one. He is already gone. Yeah!

Avalon is looking beautiful. I will try to post some pictures of it soon. We put in a hundred or so plants on Friday. They look beautiful in the flower beds and really help it look more finished. Our wildflowers are starting to come up and we look forward to a great season this year. Darrin's Dad is working on the well house and the irrigation guy is getting our watering system all set up. We have a wedding April 19th at Avalon so everything has to be cleaned up by then. Then we have two weddings in May. I don't think I will know what to do with all my free time when Avalon is mostly finished and is just in the "maintenance" stage. We will always have something to do out there but at least it will be mostly finished.

Darrin's 39th Birthday was on Friday the 21st. We went out to eat for sushi with some friends that night. Darrin got a Anthony Bourdain cook book, a few movies and some Transformers peel and stick decorations for the wall.... :). We went to Houston the next day and had Dim Sum with some other friends. It was nice. For those who don't know, dim sum is mostly a Chinese meal where ladies walk around with carts and there are different food items on the carts. You can select what you want from each cart and each item has a price. It is mostly dumplings, meat dishes and noodle dishes. There are also unique things like chicken feet, tripe and other things that they serve that I don't even know what it is. But what we do get is really good and it is fun.

I had better get going. Sorry for the long post. Hope you have a great day!

Snowing in the Brazos Valley

We woke up to snow this morning. It is not accumulating on the ground but the cars and roofs had an inch or so. It was really pretty. The flakes were big and some were drifting down and some were blowing around because the wind was really blowing. This is only the second time we have seen snow since I moved here in 1998. The first time it didn't accumulate but this time there was at least an inch on my car.

It is so pretty and is already melting. Too bad.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Birthdays and Anniversaries

We have a birthday and an anniversary this week in my family. My Dad turns 60 this week and my brother's 2nd wedding anniversary is this week. Time is really flying. It is hard for me to believe that Jonathan has been married two years already. And he turns 30 in August....yikes. Makes me feel old just thinking about it.

We just finished unloading all our equipment. We had a nice short wedding today. I appreciate the receptions that don't last 10 hours like the one before this wedding did. It gets pretty boring after about hour 3 or so. Especially when you don't know anyone---and you are hired help so it's not like you can just get in there and party like the guests. Although, Darrin and I did dance several times at that 10 hour reception and the bride came up to us and said she was so happy we were joining in the fun because it made it feel more like a celebration. okay. Then later on she pulled me out onto the dance floor to dance with her. I have only seen this bride once before at her bridal session. She was an interesting but very sweet bride.

Hopefully this week will be a little less crazy than last week was. The conference was better than I had expected. It is a conference on school safety. They had a few break out sessions and one of them was on how the media is teaching our kids to kill (I think that is the title of the talk). It was pretty interesting and scary at the same time. He discussed the recent school shootings and the research that has been done on the shooters. Then he discussed how in 1965 there were groups going to congress saying that the violence in TV was too much---and think how much worse it is today). He made a case for not letting a child watch any TV, videos or movies til they are at least 6 years old. He was especially against video games. He says they are training our kids to shoot. I would like to look into his research a little more.

Anyways....I hope you have a great week next week. I definitely plan on it...