To The ZOO!

Monday Grandma, Erin, Milena and I headed out to the Houston Zoo. I have been there a few times, but Erin was still very little. We had a great time and Erin loved it. She was so enthused about everything. Every animal was a puppy – the turtles, the elephants, even the sea lions.

They have a great children’s zoo with an interactive prairie dog community and lots of hands on activities. Erin’s favorite was the petting zoo. She brushed and petted the sheep and goats. I think she would have been content to stay there all day.
We ended up leaving the zoo (which is downtown) about 3:45 and hit rush hour on the way back. Linda got a nice taste of Texan drivers and the Houston gridlock. We got home and ordered pizza and watched a movie.

Galveston Island

I know it been a while since I have posted. We were very busy last week. Grandma Renshaw came down last week for five days. It was so good to see her again. Thursday Erin and I pricked Grandma up from the bus stop downtown and headed back home. I have been swamped with projects and deadlines this week so she babysat Erin and Milena all afternoon so I could get work done.

Friday Jared took a personal day and we headed down to Galveston Island. At one time Galveston was considered the “Wall Street” of the south. It was a very wealthy area and a place of economic prosperity. In 1900 a large hurricane hit the island killing an estimated 6,000 people and ravished the island. Businesses got smart and moved inland to Houston. Today the beautiful historic district still stands, but the island never returned to its original status.

We toured the Moody Mansion. Moody was a southern businessman that was known for his wealth. Because the moody mansion has a steel beam and brick structure, it sustained very little damage during the 1900 storm. The house was beautiful…..and Erin was horrible. It was one of those places that you can’t touch anything and little kids seem to find all kinds of mischief. I guess we are still learning.
After the tour we went out to the seawall and walked by the gulf. Erin learned to feed the seagulls and found them entertaining. They stocked her for blocks begging for goldfish.

Historical Archives – How to Shave a Cat….

I have been working on archiving thousands of my photos from over the years. As I was going through an album I ran across a few images I would like to share and explain. This may become a weekly venue.

Now that I live in the city, the youth that are growing up here in the midst of mega malls and concerts always ask me what we did for entertainment in a place that lacked theaters and shopping malls. My answer is simple we were creative….

This is one of my best friends - Amy. (now married and living in oake city). Amy and I met when I moved to Strawberry in the third grade. Our life paths ran parallel until a few years ago when jobs and marriage distanced us 600 miles. Amy and I were active in 4-H, county council and ran cross-country together. We eagerly left the small town life and heading for Iowa State to expand our horizons. Amy and I ironically roomed right across the hall from each other our first year of college. It was a year full of pranks, fun, late nights and bouts of homesickness for our beloved rolling hills of NE Iowa.

These photos were taken the summer after our sophomore year at ISU. Amy was an aspiring vet student and I had just been accepted into the landscape architecture program. After a tough semester we found ourselves on home turf visiting old friends, friends that had one hairy cat…..

This cat was so matted and huge (over twenty pounds, but the fur made it twice as big). It was a midweek night in a town with a population of 1200. Not much to do socially, so naturally we turned on our academic thinking caps and decided to shave our friend Amanda’s cat. Actually now that I think about it, it was not her cat, but her boyfriends, who was at work.

First we cut out the clumps (which that cat did not approve of). Then it was time to shave, however neither of us wanted to run home to get a pair of cattle clippers so we just used someone’s hair clippers (which the cat really did not approve of).
Overall it was about a two-hour process (we left the head, tail, belly and legs full).

Unfortunately there were some repercussions – first the owner of the cat was not too happy what we did to his big tomcat. Secondly, the cat developed a complexity disorder and went from being the big man on the block to a shy personality with no character. As his fur grew back the cat returned to his original character and his coat was beautiful.
Moral of the story….well I can’t really think of one besides good times bond good friends….

Swamps and Jumping Fish

Sitting on the dock

Saturday we were free of commitments, so we went to the Bay Area Park. The park has a nice boardwalk system over the wetland area. Then we went to the duck pond and Erin decided to continually harass this white duck.

Chasing the duck

Hmmm, I wonder if I can swim

Which way to the Nerd School???

Here's my photo for my application to MIT

All ours

The check has cleared…Erin is officially ours, heart and all!

We just paid our last hospital bill from heart surgery!

Happy day!

Peanut Butter Mania

Friday night/Saturday morning I had the chance to volunteer at the bishop’s storehouse peanut buttery canary in northern Houston. I went along with two girls from my youth group and we worked the 9:30pm-2am shift.

The LDS church has 113 storehouses and 105 canneries through out the world. The food from these operations goes to humanitarian aid efforts, like the tsunami or Katrina. The food also goes to local food pantries and people in the community that need a helping hand. (more info)www.lds.org/newsroom
Emmaly & Cherise by the bag-o-peanuts
Once a year we are asked to volunteer time to man one shift. The food packed is typically locally produced. So Idaho packs potatoes, the Midwest packs grain and Houston has a cannery that cans peanut butter (west Texas has lots of peanut farms).

The Houston Cannery takes about 30 people to run and they run 24 hours with 4-hour shift increments. We got there and watched the safety video and then geared up for our shift. The factory is small, about the size of a high school basketball gym and the hum of the machinery drowns out any conversion, expect for some loud singing from the bored peanut sorters. One side of the room is lined with 4’*6’ bags of peanuts. The peanuts go through a roaster and then six people sit by a conveyor belt and pick out the burnt or uncooked ones.

An elevator takes the sorted peanuts into a mixer mill (is that what they call it, that’s what they use for cattle feed), where the salt and sugar is mixed in and then the peanuts are pressed into peanut butter.

The peanut butter is then calibrated and filled into the plastic jars and lids are screwed on. They jars are put under a magnetic field to seal the jars, the labels are put on and the jars are packed and ready to go.

My job for most of the night was to screw the lids on the jars It all sounds pretty boring and easy, but the process is moving quickly and the machinery is fidgety. They was constantly someone banging on pipes and calibrating the pressure. We produced approximately 20 jars/minute and by the end of our shift we had packed 4600 jars of peanut butter, not bad for a nights work.

The Bishops storehouse is a great program and helps lots of people and organizations and it was good to be a part of it.

We ended up going to IHOP and eating an early breakfast. Lets just say IHOP at 3 am is one of the most interesting scenes I have seen in a while. However, we did not get shot so I would consider it a successful night.

p.s. I look horrible in these picture, keep in mind it was 3 am and I had been up almost 24 hours. ....I am getting too old for this.

Erin's Heart

Erin had her cardiology visit this morning at Texas Children’s Hospital. Her appointment started at 7:30 am, which meant we left here at 6:30. She had her first experience with a sedated echo. I was a bit worried about the sedation process, always the scary part to put them under. They said that she would be groggy and ornery for 4-6 hours afterwards. There are always kids screaming in the clinic because when they wake up they are very disoriented. But Erin did excellent. She woke up with a smile on her face and acted like she was slap-happy drunk. It was pretty funny. She was very vocal and had no balance for about an hour. Then she just sat back in a daze like she was high as a kite, carefree of the world.

We met with Dr Kolvchin (Erins pedi card whos very cool), and he said her echo results looked excellent.

Heres the report:

There is little scaring on the arch repair
The two holes in her heart they manually closed did not reopen, nor did the pda closure. Her valves are still defective (always will be) but their performance are at an acceptable standard and growing with the other parts of her heart.

It was good to hear that everything was functioning well. Considering her behavior I had no reason to suspect any problems, but then again the worst always seems to hit when your guard is down. But we were blessed this time and now she is peacefully resting off the “good stuff”.

Tonight I am taking two of my Laurels to volunteer at the peanut butter cannery from 9:30pm to 2am. Then they want to go to IHOP afterwards. Hmmm, IHOP at 3 am in Houston , if you don’t hear from me again, we probably got shot :) These two women are nuts, I am sure I’ll have a good story to tell tomorrow.

Fashion Friend or Foe?

Erin picked out her outfit all by herself for the first time. She was very adamant about wearing this particular getup.

Slow Week

Thus far it’s been a slow week. We just got back from the park and the kids are asleep so I have a second to myself. Erin has her cardiology appointment Friday and we have a ton of events coming up this weekend. I am enjoying the down time while it lasts!

In lue of the crazy life…..

Four jobs you have had in your life:
1. Mother/Freelancer
2. Environmental landscape research asst.
3. USDA Maize Genetics Lab
4. Local small town grocery store

Four movies you would watch over and over:
1. Dumb & Dumber
2. Oceans 12
3. O Brother, Where Art Thou
4. Office Space

Four places you have lived:
1. The Point
2. Ames, Iowa 3. In a tent for 6 months across Iowa & Midwest
4. Texas

Four TV shows you love to watch:
1. Everybody Loves Raymond
2. 24
3. Simpson’s
4. ? (I really don't watch that much)

Four places you have been on vacation:
1. Belize & Guatemala (honeymoon)
2. Canada (Several College Road Trips)
3. Traveling Studio – Canada to Mexico
4. Every back road in Iowa

Four websites I visit daily:
1. gmail
2. www.slickdeals.net
3. Bank Site
4. Hotmail

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Mangos
2. A good side of Beef
3. Milk
4. Mint Brownies

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Outside
2. Northeast Iowa
3. Peru
4. Oregon

Emm's Photo of the Week

Seabrook, Tx Nature Trail

Down by the Bay

Saturday was a nice end to a hectic week. The weather has been beautiful– mid 70’s. Saturday we went out and played a round of disc golf in Seabrook. Seabrook has a nice trail system and we hiked through the woods into a park located on the ocean. Erin really liked watching the waves and the people fishing.

Saturday night we went to our Wards annual Teas Independence Day Chili cook-off. Great food, not so great entertainment.

I got my peppers all planted from last weeks sale. The good news is the kid that live below that always ate my produce just moved, the bad news…Erin depots them every chance she gets.