Baseball Road Trip

Sunday night our BBQ went great and everyone ate, drink (ok not everyone), and had a good time. Lots of good food showed up and it was an excellent night to relax with friends. Also, really like the kabob BBQ thing. I had them premade before people showed up and John only had to spend 20min or so on the grill. If we make burgers for a crowd it takes a lot more contiuous cooking to get everyone fed. So if others liked them, that may be a repeat main dish.

But this was a three day weekend, so what did we do with our Memorial Day itself? ROAD TRIP! Friday John found that the Yankees were playing Texas, whose home stadium is up in Dallas. So he got a couple tickets at not awful prices, but not great either being the Yankees, in the left field seats. We took off in the morning, caught the game and then headed back. The game was good (for us) Yankees won 11-1 with a whole lot of hitting by the Yanks. The weather was good, if a little hot, and it was a nice afternoon at the ballpark. A round trip to Dallas in one day makes for a long day, but that's what a Yankee fan (John) will do apparently.

A Rose that Smells of the Sea

A rose by any other name, may swell as sweet, but Rose's smells like fresh seafood and the sea (as it should).

Tomorrow we are having a BBQ for the Memorial Day weekend and one of the things we decided to make wash fresh gulf shrimp. Given the havoc of Hurricane Ike last year, I wasn't sure what the state of the seafood markets were. For us, the seafood markets consisted of some rather ramshackle buildings on a spit of land sticking into Galveston Bay in Kemah. But, when they say fresh fish they mean straight off the boat that morning fresh so who cares what the building looks like.

Needless to say, pretty much nothing on that spit of land survived the hurricane and the 10-15ft water that was there. In fact, the much more solidly built Pappadeaux's restaurant built on pilings above ground was also completely destroyed, as in no longer in existence, not just flooded, and has not been rebuilt. But for tomorrow's BBQ, John and I ventured down this morning (just in case we needed a backup shrimp hunt tomorrow) and were pleasantly surprised. There are 4 or 5 seafood places open, some just in portable buildings but more then half the spit is still flattened. But Rose's Seafood was having their Grand Opening in their brand new and very nice new building. I was really happy with the seafood selection and their new digs are a huge step up for the family run place. Happy to see some of the businesses recover in one of the worst hit areas around here. Hope the shrimp taste as good as they look!

Beats a Telecon

As with any job, you get frustrated and forget why you do it. But then something happens to remind you how neat it can be. I had that happen yesterday. While minding my own business getting work done at my desk, my boss called and asked if I didn't mind an interruption to go fly the shuttle. Um, gee let me think. I can sit here and continue trying to follow an incomprehensible requirements trace or I can fly the shuttle, tough one. Of course my answer was you bet I want to be interrupted.

So we headed over to the fixed base sim. Apparently, our group had a few people from out of town getting a tour and Howard was taking me along. But I got to sit down and fly 3 landings. Did fine on two of the three, but I blew a tire on one of them so that would have been a bad 'oops' in the real world. The other folks were crashing in far more spectacular ways as none were pilots and didn't have the advantage I had. Then I just headed back to the office for a staff meeting.

I'll take 30 min interruptions like that any day.

Cannon-ade in Wedding Major

Friday night and Saturday of our weekend were devoted to seeing two awesome folks get hitched, Aaron and Jen. John was a groomsman, so Friday night he was at the rehearsal and then we were both at the dinner that followed. It was nice to meet some of the extended family of the two and we had a great time with them and old friends from Colorado that were also down for the wedding.

Saturday was the wedding, naturally beautiful as they all are. The reception was also great fun, albeit completely dry for me with baby on board, so I was no help on the kegs. We had a good time, danced, and talked to even more old friends and coworkers and stayed until we could send off the bride and groom. Aaron and Jen will be leaving a couple days for one heck of a honeymoon, 11 day (?) Mediterranean cruise. I'm sure they will enjoy it and it is one heck of a good start to a marriage.

Slowest Golfers Ever

I had today off from work (my 9/80 Friday) and I headed down to Green Caye to walk the 9-hole par 3 course. It's exercise I can handle without getting my heart rate up too high for baby and good fun to boot. I was going to play by myself but a retired couple from Canada were walking behind me and we joined up at the first tee to form a threesome. But what was truly amazing was the speed of play. The group in front of us were a dad and 3 teenage boys. They were so SLOW!! We waited on every tee box for them to finish... teeing off. Meaning me and the Canadians were finishing an entire hole in the time it took them to just tee off... and they were driving carts and didn't let us play through.

But how do I know they were the slowest golfers ever? Because the retired gentleman I was playing with had both an artificial hip and knee and was waiting on these cart driving yahoos too.

Clown Plane ?!?!?

Today, with a bunch of friends and fellow fliers, we checked out several of the aero club planes and headed down to Angleton for a quick flight and lunch at the diner on the field. It was a really good flight even if it was bumpy in the wind and we had to stay below 1500ft to keep under the clouds.

Jen M and I took the C-150, with each of us flying a leg. Neither of us had flown in a few months and had to make a quick triple pattern touch and go's to get our currency back to have each other as a passenger. But the truly noteworty part of the flight was the first and, probably only time, 5 "people" have been in the miniscule two-seater aircraft. Here's a picture of us in flight. Guess where the other three are... for reference, I am the minority.

Mile High Milo

Tuesday morning I flew up to Denver for a couple days for work. Taking advantage of my rocky mountain high, I drove up to have dinner with Brian and DeAnn that evening. The star of the evening, however, was 3 month old Milo who I was getting to meet for the first time. He was a charming gent all evening right up until it was bedtime and I got to listen to him cry/scream all the way back to the house. Oh well, guess it is just training. But it was great to see all three of the Sanders' clan and it will be a short wait to see them all again as they head to Houston next week for the Cannon wedding. Here is a picture of the little and the new parents when we were having coffee/tea.

Prequel Sequel

As most people are aware of, the Star Trek movie came out yesterday night. John and I had planned on going, but didn't want to fight the crowds opening weekend. Turns out, you just have to know the right people, or at least know the people that know the people.

One of my ISS GNC coworkers Yared used to manage a movie theater when he was in college and called in a little favor. Last night the ISS GNC team (and myself and ex-ISS GNC-er) got to hit the theater for a private screening of Star Trek. John and I met up with everyone for a drink (soda for me) beforehand and then we all headed over to the cinema. We got in for free for our 11 pm show (even better) and had the theater all to ourselves (read no talking teenagers, phones ringing, or even just being crowded since we all had the best seats).

In a nutshell, great movie. I like Star Trek without considering myself a full fledged Trekkie, but this movie rocked and was a great big breath of fresh air in the franchise. If you are even mildly interested, I say go see it. You don't even have to be a Star Trek fan, I think they did a great job on the movie and its good entertainment for everyone.

I was also in Denver this week for a couple days and flew back yesterday morning. I have a couple pictures and will post them when I get them off the camera.

Baby status, had monthly checkup yesterday and we listened to the heartbeat. Good and strong, no worries there. Still not really showing, but nothing is amiss, at some point I'll just explode. :)

Baby Sized Goodies

John and I have started to get a couple baby gifts and since they are so cute they deserve a shout out here. First, John's youngest sister Melissa sent us a handmade baby blanket her friend made for us and a squishy stuffed frog to go with. I'm sure baby will have tons of use for both items and we'll happily tuck the mini-Merancy in with the blankie.

My brother and sister-in-law also sent us one heck of an original present that I certainly appreciate. It is a rocking CAMEL!! It is a carved teak camel complete with painted saddle and decor. It's awesome and, as an ex-camel racer myself (two races, photos to prove it), I certainly hope baby enjoys it. Baby will have to grow into this a little, but I am pretty sure this will get put to good use in our house.

Thanks to both Melissa and Mark and Yousef and Kari! We are looking forward to using both gifts for sure.

We also toured two daycare facilities today and it was pretty obvious what our choice is going to be. We went to the Montessori School of Downtown first (space center and el dorado for the locals). It is a little more expensive than a typical daycare, so we weren't sure what kind of benefit there was going to be for the money. It seems there is quite a bit of value in the money and we were very impressed. The second place we went to was your standard Kindercare daycare. Ummm... not bad, but seriously I think the decision was actually very easy. The two we saw today I am pretty sure are the high and the low from our list. Then we went online and read about the other 2 we were going to see and, compared to what we saw today, we don't see the point in taking a tour. We really liked the Montessori closest to our home so we will be enrolling the peanut there. Also, since we have looked far enough in advance, all we have to do is pay the initial enrollment fee and our spot will be guaranteed for whenever we need it. One major decision down, one gazillion to go.

One Down, Two To Go

Today is officially the start of my second trimester (or week 14) of baby incubating. I hope I got straight A's for the first trimester! FYI, my high school was on a trimester system, so finishing a "trimester" means a report card to me.

Otherwise, having gotten rid of the morning sickness and fatigue a few weeks ago, I feel down right normal, which is great. I haven't gained more than a few pounds and only my skinniest of clothes are too snug. Reading the pregnancy websites, they imply I should be having more clothes problems than I currently am. But I am not complaining, I will happily wear real clothes for as long as I can. I am stockpiling a few things to help the clothing issues out when they start including Bella Bands and a B-Buckle as used by Gwen Stephani and Tori Spelling! oooohhhh! aaaaahhhh! totally a reason to buy one! ;) JK! Marketing on them is funny though.

Anywho, this week begins the daycare search too. Apparently, there are 8 month waiting lists in our area. I hope we can get in a little quicker or we could have a problem.