Archive for 2008

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Texas Tradition

It’s tradition to take photos in the blue bonnets. For some odd reason they only seem to grow on the side of busy highways, except for the crazy guy who plants them in his front yard in Southlake, only to spend all his time on the front porch chasing people away.

We were on the side of a highway, actually where two meet, but it was off the road quite a bit.

Illianna was far too interested in the flowers and grass to actually look at the camera, but I figure I’ll have many years of blue bonnet photos where she’s looking at the camera. Only one where she’s actually fascinated by the flowers.

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Busy Busy

We’ve been busy with lots of firsts lately. This weekend we managed to make it to the zoo. It was Illianna’s first time. I wasn’t sure she’d enjoy it just yet, but she sure did. There was a lion who was not in the best of moods and kept pacing back and forth and roaring. She *loved* that. Here’s this big intimidating lion giving it his all and she’s giggling at him. It was so cute. I now know a new noise to make to get her to giggle.

There was also this cool avery that had tons of birds flying around. You could go in and feed them. Ryan took Illianna in while I stayed with our stuff. When the birds would get spooked they’d all fly from one end to the other and the wave of ooooh’s and ahhhh’s from all the kids watching was adorable. Here’s a photo of Illianna checking out the birds.

Today was our second week of swim class. Illianna loves it. With her love of bath time, I thought she’d enjoy swim class. Illianna was chatting with another little girl, Sophie, during class. They were cooing back and forth. Sophie started splashing and giggling and then Illianna started kicking and giggling back. I wish I had a video camera. I did manage to get a pic of us after class.

We ran to Target just a little while ago and she successfully sat in the basket. I don’t have a shopping cart cover just yet. I actually went there to get one, but I’m not sure if it’s truely needed. I understand it’s supposed to help keep germs at bay, but kid are going to get germs and get sick. I don’t know if the hassle of having a cart cover is worth it. I think it would be easier for me to carry wipes and just disinfect.

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For Grandpa

For Grandpa

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She hasn’t mastered making the Longhorns sign yet.

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TSA…..Thousands Standing Around

Anyone that travels these days knows the TSA is a huge joke. The rules constantly change, even from screener to screener. Sometimes I take my DVD player out, other times I dont. Sometimes my cane gets passed through several times, other times it is ok to go with me through the metal detector. The sooner we replace the TSA with either trained chimps or Skynet , the better. To illustrate my point, here is a thread from FlyerTalk :

So it just took me 35 minutes ‘to case clear security to get to my vegas flight. And I was the only one in line!

DFW A terminal

Tsa: id please
Me: that is my id ‘pointing to my PASSPORT
Tsa: sir where are going?
Me: las vegas
Tsa: last time I checked a map, las vegas is in the US!
Me: and?
Tsa: well then you don’t need a passport to go there
Me: and?
Tsa: so your passport is not valid id for this trip
Me: excuse me?
Tsa: yes I need a government issued id
Me: my passport is government issued, its issued by the government of the netherlands, would you like me to show you where that is on a map?
Tsa: that government is not recognized by the tsa. And I know that the netherlands is in norway. So I need to see a drivers license.
Me: the government of the netherlands is not recognized by the tsa? That’s dissappointing, im sure my queen will be absolutely distraught to hear that an id checker at the dfw airport is not recognizing her as a legitimate government. Its a good thing though that the tsa doesn’t set foreign policy, and that that’s left to the state department. Have you informed condileeza rice that the tsa is now deciding what governments will be recognized by the us government? Are you guys the jokers that decided to regonize kosovo as an independent state?
Tsa: condeleeza who?
Me: So my passport really isn’t going to work? And you need to see a drivers license?
Tsa: yes
Me: well here’s the problem ‘ I hand him my dutch drivers license ‘ see this is also issued by that government that you don’t recognize.
Tsa: hmmm…. Don’t you have anything that’s issued by the government in the us?
Me: I have my greencard but the problem is, like you said las vegas is in the us, according to the map you just checked, the same one that told you the netherlands is in norway. So since I don’t need a greencard to travel to las vegas, my greencard won’t work either even though it was issued by the dept of homeland security, the same part of the us government that the tsa is a part of.
Tsa: yes that’s true. Ok so you don’t have any valid id for travel in the US?
Me: apparently not, since my passport and drivers license is not recognized by the tsa and my greencard is not valid for travel within ths us.
Tsa: ok well you can travel without id, you’ll just need to go through additional screening.
Me: great
Tsa: I need a male assist.

Ten minutes later

tsa2: hi sir
Me: hi
tsa2: im going to go through your bags and then wand you, is that ok?
Me: sure
tsa2: sir what’s this? ‘pointing to my passport’
Me: that’s my passport
tsa2: but you told the id screener that you don’t have id
Me: that’s right
tsa2: so you lied to him
Me: no
tsa2: no?
Me: according to his requirements I did not have id that met his requirements for travel.
tsa2: huh?
Me: since im going to vegas, apparently my passport is not valid for traveling there, because accoridng to his map las vegas is in the us and since its in the us and I don’t need a passport to travel there, my passport is not valid for travel.
tsa2: huh?
Me: exactly
tsa2: ok?

There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…… Toto I don’t think we’re in Holland anymore.

One less moron on our countdown to everyone in the US…..

[Original Thread]

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Big Girl Bath

Illianna took her first big girl bath this evening. I’m probably going to go back to using the tub in the sink for a bit longer. It’s much easier to clean her while standing at the sink, and she’s still a little wobbly at sitting up, but man oh man did she have fun in the tub. While I’d love to share photos of her naked in the tub, it’s probably best I keep those for family and future boyfriends. I think she is just the prettiest naked baby ever. I cannot believe she’s already going to be 6 months old tomorrow! She got her first tooth too! It just broke though yesterday. She’s been a little fussy today because it’s been making more progress cutting through. My little baby is turning into a little girl.

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Still Snowing

I’m worried it will quit snowing any minute so I probably jumped the gun to take this comparison photo, but just in case we wake up tomorrow morning and it’s all melted.. here it is.

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Snow!

More Snow!!! It’s supposed to keep this up for a while.

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Texas Weather

Here’s a picture I took out the back window a couple of hours ago.

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While it may not look like much, snow in Texas is rare not to mention in March! About 5 years ago when we first moved into the house it snowed on Valentine’s Day, and we thought that was late in the year for snow. I’m worried we’re going to miss out on a Spring all together and go straight into Summer. I hope not because Illianna has lots of cute little clothes to wear, but I am armed with two different sized swim suits.

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Happy Day

Today was such a fun day! The weather was great… sunny and 70′s. We started out the day doing some gardening that was long overdue. You can tell I didn’t get out there much last year. Illianna wore a cute little outfit with flowers on it and a sun hat while sitting in her swing watching Mommy and Daddy play in the dirt and the doggies run around. Missy Moo’s time was cut short due to her morning nap, but we got the front yard done.

We then cleaned up and headed out for some toy shopping. I’m all about quality over quantity for toys. I think toys should be educational and developmental, not just brightly colored noise makers. We hit up a couple of the boutique stores in Ft. Worth and scored big time.

We found a hand puppet. OMG Illianna LOVES this puppet. She was laughing so hard and so long in the store. It was adorable! One husband went to go get his wife so she could see how much Illianna was laughing and how much fun she was having. We also got some little stacking pond pals by Lamaze. We have quite a few of their toys. I’m really impressed by them. Ryan and I don’t just go buy any toy, we spend hours ‘literally’ playing with everything at the toy store before we buy anything. Illianna liked the play table set up with Brio trains. She was holding herself up ‘albeit a short period’ and playing with the trains.

Today actually marks a milestone for Illianna. She can now sit up by herself. She’s been working on it for a while now, but today I plopped her down next to Tiki and she sat there all on her own for at least 5 minutes. While I didn’t take a photo of her sitting with Tiki (I thought about it) we do have photos of a proud mama holding the growing baby girl.

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Mess Pot

Thank goodness you can bathe them…

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