The Wonderful Adventures of Nils

Earlier this week I stood in the kitchen making the kids' lunches to bring to the splashpad. Sandwich? Check. Watermelon? Check. I grabbed a small bag of Cheetos, split it between their two boxes, then tossed the empty bag into our very full, very stinky, very disgusting kitchen trash can.

And then along came Nils.

Nils proceeded to peer down into the trashcan. He looked up at me and exclaimed, "I shall pretend that I am in a smart restaurant and that this is the lobster pond!" He then snatched up the empty chip bag and with a tip of his top hat, he was gone.

I later found the chip bag dump unceremoniously exactly one step out of the kitchen.

Last Sunday I squirted a blob of whipped cream into Nils' hand. He looked up at me with that impish smile, rubbed his hands together... and then wiped them through his hair.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Sitting in the back of my parent's minivan (or was it the Astro by then?) on the way to my first week at Camp Allen's overnight camp I clearly remember my dad's very solid advice: "Just tell the girls in your cabin this story and everyone will want to be your friend!" The story was a captivating, especially to a third grader, and involved little Jimmy in boy scout camp, a bunch of shaving cream, and a shower stall. I showed up at camp with my ginormous duffel, my bedside fan, and my ace in the hole story. I settled in for the night and began my tale.

I had a great week that first year at camp. How could I not? It was camp! I had candy and did arts and crafts every single day! I swam and swam and swam. Messy games, fun songs, more swimming (there wasn't actually that much to do in those days besides swim), it was a great week. The last night one of my bunk mates sat in my bed chatting. "You know," she remarked in that third grader candid kind of way, "you're pretty cool. It's too bad Regina George told all of us to not be your friend at the beginning of the week."

Luckily for me, I'd been too busy having fun to realize that I hadn't made any friends.

I've been going to boot camp on Friday mornings for about six months now. It's the same faces each week. And those are the faces that I tend to see on Mondays and Wednesdays as well. Most people go with a friend, but I fly solo as my workout buddy hates bootcamp (and is now preggo and traveling across the entire country for the next few months).

Last week we went outside to run and a group of girls commented on the skunk smell. "Oh, man!" I said, "When I was pregnant..." and proceeded to tell a fabulous story about being pregnant with my second child, a skunk smell caught in our car air conditioner, and throwing up on my feet.

Nailed it.

Simpy Symphonic

I found out yesterday morning that the Houston Symphony's summer series would play in Katy that same evening. And you know what I love about Chris? That I mentioned it to him and his response was, "have fun!"

He's not a "you're going tonight tonight?!" kind of husband. He's not a "you're leaving me home alone with the kids and I have to get them bathed and in bed by myself?!" kind of dad. He's not even a "who are you going with?" kind of guy. He's a "have a great time! Wish I could go too!" keeper of a dude. Those time when he is a whiner (sorry Chris) it's usually because he wants to go too and not because he wants to hold me back. I digress... the point is...

I went!

None of my friends were free, but I didn't really anticipate that anyone would respond to a 10am text inviting them to a symphony performance that night. But something about going to my first Weight Watcher's meeting was empowering in an "I do what I want" kind of way (yeah, like I needed more of that side to my personality). Or perhaps that's why I went to ww in the first place? Whatever, I feel a little like Mole lately, "The Mole never heard a word he was saying. Absorbed in the new life he was entering upon, intoxicated with the sparkle, the ripple, the scents and the sounds and the sunlight, he trailed a paw in the water and dreamed long waking dreams." When I hear of something I want to do, I want to do it! So I do! And it's made life grand.

The Houston Symphony was ten minutes from my house. It was free. It was calling to me. So I threw on a summery outfit, tossed a good book in my purse, and headed out. I got there nice and early and grabbed a seat front row center.

I'm convinced that this is in fact not prime seating for the symphony, but figured, what the hell. When else will I ever get the chance to sit front center to view the Houston Symphony?!

It was fabulous of course. Beautiful. Powerful. Symphonic. During a Q&A with the conductor I learned that when a seat comes open in the Houston Symphony they entertain around 200 auditions. 200! for one seat! There are 89 members (most of them were there last night) and evidently, the words "symphony," "philharmonic," and "orchestra" are all synonyms. The conductor said that the three are interchangeable and assigned to a group by the founders. Good to know!

Well, "see the Houston Symphony perform" wasn't on my 2015 to-do list, but it should have been. Best summer ever continues and it's only June 10th! Wednesday, what adventures will you bring?

“after all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.”

When it's fall, fall is my favorite season. When it's "winter," "winter" is my favorite (it gets quotation marks because... well... Texas) but, man oh man, when summer comes...

 

There's just something about summer. I think it's because I live in a southern state on the coast that just makes it so darn easy to celebrate summer. I love the fall, but its hard to do fall-like things everyday when you're still wearing short sleeves and sweating buckets. In fact, just read that sentence again and substitute the word "winter" in for fall. Spring is fun... but mainly as a precursor to the jubilant summer. In fact, right now it technically still is spring... but we're calling it summer. We start the summer season early and stretch it out for as long as possible because we've got a lot of hot and sweaty months to spend along the waterfronts down here.

As mentioned and mentioned and mentioned, we kicked off summer '15 with one of my favorite vacations ever. We came back home and immediately went into my "rule" of doing something fun and summer-y every single day. So, we got a new kid pool (last year's cracked) and put up a clothes line for hanging wet clothes and towels. Carolena really wants to start hanging all of our clothes on it from the washing machine. I could totally dig that if it weren't going to be more work for me... but I mean... I'm barely keeping Mount Everest at bay here. Perhaps I'll throw the sheets out there sometimes. That does sound wonderful.

The pool has been thoroughly inaugurated through both a party with Carolena's school friends (a smashing success except for the moment when I realized there were sugar ants in the cupcakes. Did I mention the friends with "cake ladies" were there?) and a family impromptu water fight last night. Taco dinner is postponed to tonight and peanut butter sandwiches were consumed yesterday as we spent all of dinner time waging a water war in our backyard.

I told Chris and Carolena that I want our house to stay clean all summer so that any time we ever want to invite friends over we can. So far so good. The goal is to have people over on a whim any time we feel like it. I see that Tuesday is Donald Duck's birthday and Thursday is Kamehameha Day (luau anyone?) and Sunday is National Bourbon Day and Strawberry Shortcake Day so it looks like we have a lot to celebrate just this week alone.

I plan for us to spend the summer with iced teas and mint juleps and lemonade and popsicles and cookouts and the bubble machine and good books and good friends and our back deck and the splash pad and the ymca and the beach and well... you get the picture. Join me if you're interested.

“This day was the first of many similar ones for the emancipated Mole, each of them longer and full of interest as the ripening summer moved onward. He learnt to swim and to row, and entered into the joy of running water; and with his ear to the reed-stems he caught, at intervals, something of what the wind went whispering so constantly among them.” The Wind in the Willows

Arise and Seize the Day!

Oh yeah, and did I mention this happened?!?!

Somehow I have seen not one, not two... but FOUR shows in Houston in the last six months. What?! I'm one highfalutin' son of a gun! Don't ask me how. Fortune found me. Fame just crowned me!
Carolena sings the next line to that song as "I'm the king of Newark!"It's just as amazing as you imagine it to be.

Speaking of things that are just as amazing as you imagine them to be... holy cow... NEWSIES! What a fantastic musical. Better than the movie. Wellllll... actually, let's get Christian Bale on the stage (shirtless *cough* who said that?!) and then we'll call it better than the movie.

  Remember when I was thisclose to meeting Christian Bale and then we moved?!?! *SIGH* 

Nights out with Kelly are more than fun. People around us cease to exist. Although they do actually still exist and probably think we are insane. I think the next time our husbands get us theater tickets
for a sister night they should also spring for a hotel so that we can stay up all night eating queso and singing showtunes. And guys, "this ain't just newsies no more." Next season I have one must see show: Cabaret! "We have no troubles here! Here life is beautiful... The girls are beautiful... Even the orchestra, is beautiful!"

Trip Highlights

Our road trip was seriously one of the most fun trips ever. I could keep doing separate blog posts about each thing for a very long time. I guess I'll do a more condensed recap today so that I can move on with my blogging life.
Our first stop (and 10 days later the last) was Tyler, TX. Deep behind the Pine Curtain it is home to Tyler roses and that elusive furry hard to capture on camera mythical guy...
Uncle Hunter!

 

From there it was just a short drive to Little Rock where we dove headfirst into civil rights history at Little Rock's Central High School. 

And then it was on to Memphis! Where we ate barbeque and soul food, went walking on Beale Street, played by the Mighty Mississip, and absorbed more civil rights history at the Lorraine Motel.

From Memphis it was on to Saint Looey where we ate more bbq, rode to the top of the Gateway Arch, spent the day at Grant's Farms, had fun in City Museum, and went rollin on the river.

Riding to the top!

 

From St. Louis we had a Laura Ingalls Wilder day and went to Rocky Ridge and the Kansas Prairie. Man, Almanzo was pretty fabulous. That guy did farm work, built their house, made his own shoes, and hand hooked rugs in his down time. Geeze, all my husband does is anoint the sick and dying. Sheesh, man. Chris, I know what I'm getting you for Christmas...

So, in summary, we had a fantastic road trip and did way more than I can feasibly blog about. I have roadtrip fever now and we are in full-blown summer vacation mode around here!

If you are at the end of this and still reading... then you're probably related to me. Hi!

7 hours after posting this and hmmm... you know... I guess there was that time Chris built a deck and pergola onto our house... and the time I went out of town for the weekend and came back and he had cleaned all of the grout. Wow. Well Chris, start making your own shoes (moccasins!) and some fine rugs for our home and I'll continue feeding you so you hang around!

City Museum!

I've traveled to Jamaica, Canada, Belize, Norway, France, Spain, England, and Italy. I've been to 23 states and plan to hit all fifty - hopefully I'll make that goal sooner rather than later. I mention this to give context when I say that last week we went to St. Louis' City Museum and to quote Tommy Boy, "I swear I've seen a lot of cool stuff in my life... but that... was... AWESOME."
There is no way to fully describe how cool City Museum is. You really just have to go experience it. I can't wait to go back. I loved St. Louis. I plan to go back when our kids are older and we can explore the city a little deeper and stay up late for a baseball game. I would guess when we return we will plan for two days in City Museum. It's like the Magic Kingdom of St. Louis: we'll have to go early in the vacation because by the end we'll be ready to go back again.
City Museum... holy mackerel... so, as far as I could tell, pretty much anything there is fair game for an adventure. It isn't really a "museum" per se. It's a playground, fun house, mad house adventure into wonderland. Unless it explicitly said, "do not climb on" - you could climb it. A small hole in the wall might lead to a passageway. Sometimes I would find an entry way and realize I was too big to find where it led. I keep saying there were things like cages on the ceilings, but they weren't really cages:

 Do you see Chris in the picture above?

Perhaps cages" is the exact term for this. The ceilings were covered in these metal mazes and when you found an entryway you could just go up and crawl around. Eventually you would find a slide to get back out.

A tunnel would have a door in it that would lead to another tunnel. A hole in the floor would turn out to be a slide to the floor below... or perhaps the slide was longer than anticipated and you were going down more than one story. Chris went down a 10 story slide!
The record-holding world's largest pencil and world's largest pair of underwear reside there, which both turned out to be a "huge!" source of entertainment for Carolena.

There is a school bus hanging off the rooftop of this eleven story building...

that you can get in just to give your mother a heart attack...

Everywhere we looked there was something exciting to do. Slides, giant legos, huge chalkboard walls, a circus (yes, really), a kid-sized train that Carolena rode at least three times. Everything there was exciting and cool. And if it wasn't... then you just kept walking until you found something else that was.

While we were eating a pile of cheese fries someone crawling through a tunnel beneath our table reached out and grabbed my foot. Even having been warned by Chris to watch my feet, I let out a huge screech and jumped a mile. Moments later a gangly kid came and gave a giggling confession that it was he who had grabbed my foot. He was adorably proud. I'm glad my immediate reaction was to pull my leg away and scream so loudly.

There was more to do there than could be done in a day. We saw a one-woman circus performance (during which Carolena whispered to me, "I'm going to do that when I'm a grown up!"), and I got to run in a huge hamster wheel. In my humble opinion, I was amazingly good at it so let's add that to my resume when I return to the work force. Too bad we didn't get video or photo of that accomplishment. We ran around on skate park ramps,

rode a ferris wheel that overlooked the city (on top of the 14 story building!),

and generally ran amok.

 Did you spot Chris and Carolena in the photo above?

 City Museum, you are awesome. See you again in a few years!