Life in a Month and a Half

I keep telling myself I need to update our blog, and now I'm finally getting around to it after about a month and a half of not blogging. Easter was enjoyable for all of us. Eli especially enjoyed looking for Easter eggs since he loves a good game of hide-and-seek. I know I told my mom I'd post some pictures and video, but I never did. Well, below is a picture finally, but I'm afraid the video takes a little longer to do.

Grandpa and Grandma Pratt came to visit, which was a lot of fun. We went to Hermann Park with them. We like that park a lot; there's so much to do, and it's right by the zoo. Though Eli has been to the zoo several times, he got to go with his grandparents for the first time. He also got to ride the train with them and go on a pedal boat. Eli seemed so tranquil on the boat, staring at the water, but then maybe he was trying to understand why there was a big life jacket on him. :-)

My Uncles Ken and Don came for a visit at the end of April. They were nearby doing some birding and stopped to go to church with us on Sunday, which we enjoyed. Anyway, their birding trip sparked some interest in Josh, so when his parents were here, we decided to go to High Island and see the birds for ourselves. We went down to Galveston for the first time since Hurricane Ike, and then we took the ferry over to the Bolivar Peninsula. There was definitely a lot of devastation. It's amazing what nature can do! It certainly puts God's power in perspective. Anyway, while we were on the peninsula, we stopped at Fort Travis to take a look, and I wish we had our video camera rolling because it was probably one of the funniest things to see. All I can do is describe, which doesn't do it justice. There's a field by the fort that goes out to the gulf, and Josh wanted to head out that way. He had Eli in his arms, and his dad was walking a little behind him. My mother-in-law and I took up the rear. We were talking, and all of the sudden Josh started doing a little dance while swatting the air and himself. Eli was looking at his daddy like he was crazy. Josh started running toward us, and then his dad started running. Then I found out why. It was like a crazy, nightmare movie or something. The title would be: Attack of the Mosquitoes. Huge mosquitoes were swarming around us like I've never seen before. It was unbelievable! We ran to the car, and they followed us in. We tried to put repellant on us, but that didn't do much. In fact, we later ran into more mosquitoes on High Island while we were bird watching. It wasn't quite as bad there, but we cut our sight seeing short because of them. Still, the birds were beautiful, and we got to see alligators too. Josh's poor dad, though, ended up with quite a case of mosquito bites. The rest of us fared a little better, though Josh says he's still itching from them.

Mother's Day was a nice treat. Josh gave me some sleep, which I enjoyed and will enjoy (since I have a promise for more) immensely. He also cooked me some great meals for breakfast and dinner. What a great husband! I'm grateful to be his wife, and of course, I'm grateful to be a mommy to a wonderful little boy!

Lately I've been putting away some of the things that Eli has outgrown. He's graduating from baby to toddler quite rapidly. While it's exciting, some of it does make me a little sad. Anyone else experience this? I put up his jumper and floor gym, which I should have done months ago since he hasn't used them for quite a while. I put away his infant car seat. He just graduated to a forward facing car seat since he wasn't the required 20 pounds when he turned one. I think he likes it a lot better. I have some clothes I need to put away too that I just haven't done yet. He's down to one or two nursing sessions in a 24 hour period, which is remarkable for him given the night feedings that he likes. It's definitely bittersweet. On the one hand, I'll be glad to have that autonomy again. On the other hand, I'll miss my little baby who has depended on me so much.

Well, enough with the nostalgia; here are a few pictures. There were definitely more taken, but some of them were poor image quality, and then our camera ran out of memory, so we have to get the others from Josh's parents.

Happy 1st Birthday, Eli!

I guess Josh and I are now the proud parents of a walking, talking one year old! Okay, the walking is a little wobbly still, and the talking is still largely incomprehensible, but Eli seems to get better every day. He can now walk the length of a room by himself, and his first word that Mommy understands (other than mama and dada) is "please." It sounds more like "pwee," but at least I know for sure what he's saying. Sometimes I think he says other words, but I'm not completely certain. At any rate, he seemed to have enjoyed his birthday yesterday. We took him to Hermann Park so he could ride the train, and since the zoo is nearby, we took him to the aquarium and tropical bird house. Fortunately, Josh got to spend it with us because he didn't have any class in the morning. Later, after having an afternoon of playing with Mommy, he loved opening his new toys and devouring his birthday cake. Thanks for the phone calls and gifts and blog post ;-). We, especially Eli, wish you all could have been here with us! Maybe next year?!!!

Eli got really excited when the train first started and blew its whistle!

He enjoyed seeing and listening to the ducks that are nearby the train in the park.

Here he is in the aquarium looking at the fish and sting rays.

Silly little Eli showing off as he proudly walks across the room with a sock in his mouth!

Eli enjoyed opening his gifts and playing with his new toys.

He was fascinated by the "fire." He tried to blow but just couldn't get out enough air on his own.

He certainly loved devouring his cake!

March Madness is in Town

Contrary to popular opinion (okay, I don’t really know if it’s popular, but at least I’ve heard it said), Houston is not full of cowboys and tumbleweeds. Maybe another part of Texas is—I’ve not been to Dallas yet :-) —but not Houston. In fact, let me debunk this myth right now. Houston is quite the “mecca” of different nationalities. My neighbors are Black, White, Asian, Jewish, Hispanic, and Indian, and I don’t see them walking around in cowboy hats and boots. As for the tumbleweeds, they usually imply wide, open spaces, and much to Josh’s chagrin, that is certainly not the case. We’ve got a grocery store across the street and a donut shop and restaurant in our backyard (thanks to the lack of zoning laws we have here). We are all CITY. Those of you who have been here to visit can probably testify to that truth.

However, that being said, we do let a little cowboy spirit into our city once a year at this time. It happens to coincide in part with March Madness every year. While the nation was soaking up NCAA basketball tonight, we went to Houston’s own March Madness—the Rodeo. That’s right, the R-O-D-E-O. Who needs hoops when you’ve got cows? Right, Dad :-)? Though BYU played, Josh showed his true colors and chose the better part (J/K :-) I couldn’t resist). Actually, BYU played before we went to the Rodeo. Tough loss! It’s not all bad news for Josh, though. He actually chose our Texas Aggies in his bracket, and I was the one that chose BYU in mine. Let’s hope we both chose correctly for Utah’s game tomorrow. As for Utah State’s game, sorry Dad, we both chose Marquette, but at least we’re hoping we’re wrong on that one.

Anyway, I digress. Honestly, Josh and I are not big fans of bull riding and cattle roping, but we decided we’d finally go to the livestock show, which was pretty interesting. Josh actually commented that we need to do it again next year. The livestock show is simply a showcasing of animals such as rabbits, chickens, cows, pigs, goats, etc. that FFA members have raised. There’s nothing fancy about it, but at least it’s not bull riding and cattle roping. There are also carnival rides, though we didn’t go on any, and tons of deep fried food on a stick. Basically, it’s like a fair, only bigger and more elaborate. We didn’t try the deep fried Oreos or Snickers that many here have raved about, and we didn’t even have a funnel cake, but we did have some barbeque. I guess we had our deep fried foods a couple of weeks ago.

Let me digress again and explain. The restaurant that I mentioned we have in our backyard specializes in deep frying pretty much everything. We decided to try it a couple of weeks ago. My dad tried their fish and chips last year when he came. Though we’ve heard they’re good, we decided to get burgers, which were very tasty. Then we tried their fried vegetable platter. It’s probably not the best way to eat vegetables, but they too were tasty. In addition to fried zucchini, which we had eaten before, they had fried broccoli, fried mushrooms, and even fried avocados. Of course, our favorite were the fried sweet potatoes. Yum! Anyway, it seems easier to stomach a bunch of fried vegetables than a dozen fried Oreo cookies, though I’m sure they are pretty tasty in their own right. Perhaps if I ate chocolate it would be a temptation. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t. Well, enough of digressing. Here are the pictures from the Rodeo.

This is for you, Dad. Sorry, we were too late for the actual demonstration, but you don't need one!

I have never seen so many rabbits in my life and didn't even know so many different kinds existed!

Eli seemed to like the petting zoo!

I don't know if the H stands for "Howdy" or "Houston" but it's the Rodeo mascot.

This is unrelated to the Rodeo, but I have to share. Eli is now standing on his own--not just for a few seconds but for quite a while! I promise there are no invisible strings attached in the pictures below ;-).

The Houston Zoo

This is almost a week late, but we finally took Eli to the Houston Zoo last week during Josh's spring break. We've been wanting to go but have been waiting until Eli seemed a little more interested in animals. He still wasn't very interested in many of them, and he fell asleep for part of it, but he was curious to see some of them, especially those that made noises and the orangutans. They were being silly and playing around, so they were most human-like for him, which is probably why he liked them so much. Truly, had there been people in a cage, he would have watched for hours. He's definitely a people watcher. Anyway, we have a zoo membership so we can go often (it's really close to where we live too), and I'm sure he'll enjoy the animals more the older he gets. Here are some of the pictures we took while we were there: