Our little family in the great big state of Texas

It's already almost Thanksgiving! The Christmas stuff in the stores at Halloween really gives me anxiety, it just makes me start making all those lists in my head of things I have to do. Oh well, at least I don't have the mailing deadlines like we did in Germany.

We just had our first bit of cool weather, we actually got to wear long sleeved tshirts over the weekend. Very nice, we opened all the windows and enjoyed the cool breezes. People were breaking out the heavy coats, I think that was a bit much.

We survived Ike with no ill effects, although the same can not be said for our beaches. There was so much debris washed up for weeks after, we may go check it out again this weekend and see if anything has changed. About 10 days after the storm we drove about 20 miles down the beach toward Mexico, and it was unbelievable. Hotel doors, tvs, rooflines, couches, vending machines, telephone poles, mailboxes ..... you name it and it was on the beach. People were picking up all the lumber, I don't know what they were planning to do with it. One of the piers on our beach had some very serious damage, it should be fixed early in 2009.

Our little dog Heidi died over the summer, she had cancer and it finally got too bad. That was a really sad time for all of us, and we still miss her very much. The picture above is of her when we lived in Germany, she used to do this on our stairs and scare us. We were always worried she was going to fall through. Other pet news is that Jacob got a new pet of a hermit crab, which really doesn't do much. He's very easy to take care of so that is nice for me. (Meaning I am the one that takes care of the crab!)

We have been sightseeing around the local area, and up to the Austin area. It's hard to get to Florida or Tennessee between work and Jacob's school schedule. But of course everyone is always welcome to come visit us. Jacob also has a pretty full social calendar, often letting me know that friends are being dropped off moments before they arrive. :) There are children in the neighborhood that come over to jump on the trampoline and play Wii, that is the usual weekend activity.

As always I do update pictures on the flickr site, so even if there are no blog updates you can give the picture link on the left a look.

We have had our share of hurricanes to welcome us to Texas, as we approach our one year anniversary of the move. The latest is Ike, which appears to have it's path headed right for us. Luckily we have family to the north that have already prepared a room for us! Kenny is ready with boards for the windows so we can be ready pretty quickly. It's always nice to know bad weather is coming a week prior. Much better than the tornadoes that swoop in unannounced.

Jacob went back to school and is settling in nicely. The first week was a bit of an adjustment, but he is in the swing of things now. There are some back to school pics over on flickr, click the link on the left. It's still outrageously hot, I can not wait until I can write about some cooler weather. Maybe in November! We do get to go to the beach a lot, so I can't complain about that part. More sun this past year than I experienced over 3 years in Germany. Why they do not use solar power more here is a mystery to me.

Summer has been flying by, we have had a lot of fun. There has been a steady flow of visitors which keeps things interesting. We've been to San Antonio a couple times, one of which was a trip to Sea World. We also spent the weekend in Austin. Most other weekends included a trip to beach, usually the north end of Padre Island National Seashore. There is always a new critter to find at the beach, or some sort of shell we haven't seen before. Jacob loves going to the beach, and is quite the explorer. He has been staying busy with a summer camp on the days we work, which includes swimming, bowling and field trips. It's hard to believe we only have a month left and then school starts again. I don't think Jacob is quite ready to go back, but maybe over the next month he will change his mind.

Right now we are experiencing our first hurricane here in Corpus Christi, Hurricane Dolly. We are getting the north edge of it, so it hasn't been too bad. Lots of wind and rain, but we needed the rain. It's centered quite a bit south of here so we are lucky. We got out of work a little early in order to get home while there was a break in the rain, there is more forecast for tonight. The tide is really high, and the waves are huge out at the beach. But we are doing fine here.

I added some new pictures from our trip to Sea World and some of our beach trips, check them out.

So, I guess I should face up to it, I just don't have the time or the desire to blog anymore. The blog will still be here, and I do add pictures which are linked in the sidebar. But now I won't feel guilty about not posting anymore. Summer is here and I plan to spend my extra time hanging out with Jacob... he's getting so big. Next year it is second grade for him! He already wants to ditch Mom & Dad and go play with friends, so when we can spend time with him, we do. It is blazing hot here, and has been most of May. I'm almost scared at what July & August will be...actually I'm not. Because I will be inside in the air conditioning! Did I mention our awesome garden Kenny built? It is now giving us cucumbers, tomatoes, and many types of peppers. The melons should be ripe in the coming months too. But really, tomatoes in mid-May? That is amazing. It's all the sunshine we have I guess. Off to bed now, check out the latest pictures over at Flickr.

It has become apparent to me that no matter how hard I try to get to blogging, it stays at the bottom of my "to-do" list. There are too many other things that take priority over it. I hope to get back to it more regularly, even if it is just short entries. Part of the problem is that there were much more interesting things to blog about in Germany. Texas doesn't provide as much adventure in the normal things, while Germany provided adventure in almost everything. That being said, we are still learning about South Texas culture. It is different than anyplace else, that is for sure. Tacos for breakfast, driving on the beach and sandals acceptable everywhere!

At the very least I do keep adding new pictures from time to time, so you can always click on the Flickr bar on the left to see some of our pictures. I'll try to write a little more often, but no promises.

So, we finally are feeling a bit more settled. It was quite the whirlwind to get to this point, and I am ready for some boring weekends instead of having so much to do. We found a house quickly, and we were actually able to close in about 2 1/2 weeks. The house is very close to Jacob's school, and we are very happy with it. It was ready to move in, we didn't need to do any "work" before settling in. Of course there are things we want to do, paint, change flooring, landscape etc. But all those things can happen later. It was nice to be able to move right in, we even negotiated for all the appliances so we didn't have to go out and buy those also. They had nice ones in place, so it was a good deal for us. We closed on a Friday, had some new furniture delivered on Saturday, and Monday our container arrived. That was a nervous moment, as we sawed off the lock (it had corroded shut) on the container. We had no idea how it would look when we opened it --- would it be tossed around and smashed, would things be missing? When we opened it, it looked exactly as it did when we closed it in Wolframs-Eschenbach! We were so relieved, and couldn't believe the lack of breakage. I think this was our best move as far as damages, everything was in great shape. It took us a few hours to unload, and then a few weeks to unpack! We also got all of our things from storage in Tennessee, so we ended up with a houseful of furniture and stuff. We have sorted out quite a bit that is going to end up in a yard sale, we really have acuumulated too much over the past 13 years. We have a new motto -- NO MORE STUFF! It must have a purpose in order to enter our home :)

That is only some of what has been keeping me off the blog, I'll try and catch up over the next few days. I do have some new pictures on the photosite, click on the sidebar to see them.

Our old photosite is offline now, but I have updated the link on the left to take you to our new page on Flickr. There aren't a whole lot of new pics over there yet, but take a look if you have time.