Flower Power

Just a catch up for the last couple weeks, my parents have been in town for a week long visit. While they were here they took care of Zara while we were at work and got to have loads of bonding time. John and I got to go to the rodeo Friday night to see Lady Antebellum since we had "babysitters" and then all five of us went again on Saturday. During the daytime visit Zara got to go in both petting zoos and ride her first carousel (all big hits) and we all enjoyed the rodeo.

We took yet another visit to the Children's Museum (now that we have memberships) on Sunday and had a grand time. This time we wandered around a bit more and found the Water Works area. Zara was way impressed and we will have to go back prepared with a change of clothes for her to really play next time. Zara picked up a few new words this week including "Dii-do" (grandfather in arabic is jihdo) and "day-da" (grandmother being tayta). Zara definitely has an easier time with her d's. She really is starting to communicate verbally more and it's really neat, although she still has no trouble getting herself understood even without words.

I'm a little slow getting this up since the work was done before the relay, but here at last are pictures of the front yard landscaping. Of course the boring before photo, sorry on the right I snapped this picture the night before and barely remembered to do so before the sun went down.

...and the new and improved. We hired a real landscaper to do the work because this is way better than we could have managed ourselves working 2 hours at a time on weekends during baby girl's naps. They did all of this and a few cleanup items in the back yard, like removing the random palm tree that was in the middle of the backyard, in just one day.

A closeup of the south bed.

And the best flower perched in the garden.

TIR-ing Up

Here are more pictures as promised from the relay. They are from two different cameras and not necessarily all in chronological order. For reference, several pictures were during the exchanges. The "baton" for the relay was a TIR reflective slap bracelet just like from sixth grade. So the awkward hand-off usually was someone trying to get it on the other persons arm in a reasonably efficient manner. I will say it was a lot nicer than having to actually hold something while you ran.

Tearing up the TIR

This weekend myself and 11 others from my office ran the Texas Independence Relay. The race is a staggered (slowest team first) start from Gonzales, TX near San Antonio to the San Jacinto Monument in Houston 203 miles away. These are the sites of the first and last battles in the Texas war against Mexico for independence, hence the name. That is also the start and end of my knowledge of Texas history.

The race had 40 legs, teams could be from 8-12 people (but there was one solo and a team of 3 ultra-marathoners also). Most legs were 4-6 miles and I did 4 for just over 20 miles this weekend. Everyone on my team did awesome and mostly beat their pre-race paces so we finished well ahead of schedule. Overall time was 31:51:30 and our trip took us through many tiny towns in country all through the day and night Saturday starting at 6:36am. Then continued with the long run across the expanse of urban Houston Sunday finishing around 2:30 in the afternoon. The race is non-stop so it is a challenge of both running and overall endurance to stay awake and active.

Some of the highlights were the general team bonding occuring from being only semi-coherent in the middle of the night, a relay baton presented to me when I finished the leg in Weimar from the town residents, having Houston PD stop traffic for me (and only me) to cross streets in downtown Houston, and seeing all the people I conned into this enjoying themselves and the challenge.

I think one of my teammates said it best earlier today, it was "miserable fun" we all look forward to doing again! Here is the least bad picture of myself while running (it really was a hill and not a crooked picture) from my camera. I'll post some team shots or other pictures later.

Play-Palooza

We took Zara to the Children' Museum of Houston for the first time today. If going to bed an HOUR early is any indication, she loved it. We really only hit up the Tot Spot for the under 3 set so we haven't even seen most of it. In that area, just the little kids and their parents get to play with lots of way cool interactive things to do. All in all, it was great and we now have a membership so we can go often. As someone else called it, it's like a dog park for kids. True, so so true.

Sweet Sixteen

Any reader of this blog knows we had a hard time getting Zara sleeping on her own through the night and generally she just didn't for a long time. But, sometimes I still get caught by how much she has changed in only 16 months, today. Last night we gave Zara her bath and dressed in her PJs. While she was still in my lap I asked her if she wanted me to read her a story or if she wanted to go to sleep. She still isn't talking much, but in response she got up walked to her crib and patted on the side. Understood. We picked her up gave her a good night kiss and that was it, she curled up and slept the night away. Wow, how did we get here?

Friends with Cake

We got some pics of Zara this weekend looking all cute for her friend Lucy's first birthday. Ok, so the Mommy's are friends and that makes them so by default since they are too young to know differently. Either way, cutie pie Lucy enjoyed her birthday cake and Zara had a great time playing with Lucy's toys. Zara also popped out her fifth tooth a week or so ago and has two more sprouting any day. We went awhile without getting any so now she's overdue and is getting a bunch at once (super fun).

BBQ-Haven

Yesterday after a couple more days work from the company, the patio was sealed and is now ready for use. We really really like how it turned out. Once the second color went down and the sealer gave it a glossy pop I think it turned out great. Prior to this it was really light colored and we thought that was it. The second color really gives it depth. So the BBQ pad is now open for business, course it would help if we actually had some appropriate patio furniture to support said event. The fence also turned out great. It really makes me want to put a small planter box on it too for a little greenery flair.

Pati-No More

Since we are in a round of home improvements, we also went ahead and got a couple items we wanted taken care of outside done. The kind that is way more work and effort than we can manage ourselves and winter rates are better for hiring out. I mentioned the gate previously getting done, but the other major item is the patio. We had a decent size patio, was 8' by about 35', and we had intended on just getting it resurfaced, stamped, and stained. Well...

...turns out it doesn't cost too much more to have the old one torn out and a new, better (as in one with rebar), bigger (450 sq. ft vs. 300), and prettier (curvy) one put in its place. The new pour has already happened and it's stamped and stained. Weather delays are dragging it out a bit and it won't get sealed until this coming Sunday. Here is the picture of the old gate and patio. I'll post updates when it's all finished in a few days.

Zara-Zoo

Since what was supposed to be a rainy weekend turns out will just be a rainy Sunday, we took Zara to the zoo for the first time. We actually hadn't been to the Houston Zoo before so this was a first for of us. The zoo isn't a large one but they did open a new area for African animals that is nice and are in the process of expanding the elephant area. The downside is the parking area is too small for even a small zoo and its ridiculous trying to find a parking space.

Overall Zara had a great time. She could only really see and pay attention to a few animals, small ones that don't move aren't particularly entertaining. The best ones were a juvenile elephant throwing logs around and the chimps who were also being playful. Zara also loved just walking around with all the people and playing on some hand drums in the African area. Not so big on the petting zoo though, goats aren't enough like dogs for her to want to pet. All in all a good time and we'll go again.

More Space on a Sad Anniversary

Today is the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, yesterday was the Apollo 1 fire anniversary, and in four days will be the 8th anniversary of the Columbia disaster. Yes, it is a sad week at NASA. There have been lots of "lessons learned" but some of those lessons are even more relevant in the uncertain times in which the agency now finds itself. Here is are two good articles out about those types of lessons How Apollo was Saved and Space Disasters.

I was just going to post those, but Alicia's comment on the Space Policy video below needed a longer reply that I feel is possible in the comment section. To paraphrase the comment was about how hard it is to see people laid off from ISS/Shuttle when NASA is forced (by law) to waste money on projects that are just waiting to be killed. Couldn't agree more. But the layoffs have also been steep on these waiting to die projects among the contractors (my company alone has lost over 2/3rds of the people on my contract). The only people not in any danger are of course civil servants. So, if ISS cut people to save budget, Shuttle has cut people and comes nearer to retirement everyday, Constellation cut people due to reduced budgets, AND under Continuing Resolution the government cannot (again by law) start new contracts (e.g. projects) but still has the same budget as last year by CR, one has to ask where did the money go? The real tragedy is that HQ is sitting on a pile of money that neither new or old programs are spending and lots of people around us are losing their jobs while the government takes no action whatsoever.