I'm back!

Ok, so I'm a terrible slacker at this blogging thing! (And most other things, but we won't talk about those!)

I'm been meaning to post forever! And just haven't... Sorry for all of you who have been wanting to read my ramblings... :) I'll try to to better!

So, when we last left off...
We've moved from Wichita Falls to Houston, and were trying to sell our house in Wichita Falls. And were trying to buy a house in Houston.

Well, after forever (like 4 1/2 months) of having our house for sale, we finally got an offer! So, we've managed to sell our house in Wichita Falls! Hurray! So that's gone! We no longer own a house!

And after getting frustrated and failing miserably at trying to find a house to buy here in Houston, we gave up, and found a big house to rent. It's bigger than our house was in Wichita Falls, and much bigger than the apartment we were renting. BUT it does have stairs! Which as we're learning, might not be such a good idea for us, since we both have "bad knees" that creak and snap and crackle as we go up and down the stairs.
It is nice to have our stuff with us again, not locked away in storage... and BOY do we have LOTS of stuff!!!
One of these days I'll take pictures of our house so people who like to see where we live (Nickie!) can see us and picture us here. (I really will do it sometime Nickie! I keep meaning to, I just keep thinking "I just need to organize this and put this stuff somewhere else first...")

So, no house buying for us. Which is probably for the best, since we're not sure that we really want to stay in Houston, and selling houses is almost as stressful as buying houses! (For us anyways...)

So, we moved into our rental house (here after referred to as our house) at the beginning of July, and a couple of weeks later (July 25th to be exact) left to go on our somewhat regular trip to California. We really like San Diego area, such wonderful weather! And happy people! The first summer we went there, it felt so warm and wonderful... Which coming from Pocatello, ID, where it's either too cold or too hot all summer, never a nice wonderful 75 degrees, was a great change. And this time, coming from Houston, TX, it was so cool and wonderful. 75 to 80 degrees feels fabulous after 100 degree days with 75 to 90% humidity... (Apparently we're having an extraordinarily hot summer here in Houston. At least that's what we've been told...)

In southern CA, we got to see one of Hal's friends from high school Tanner, his sweet wife Chandra, and their energetic hilarious son Parker. Tanner picked us up at the airport and we got to hang out with them all afternoon! It was great to see them again! And I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with Chan and playing with Parker! He's a fabulous little kid!

We visited the beach & played in the ocean and got lovely sunburns.

And we went to Seaworld twice (two visits for the price of one special) and got lovely sunburns.

...Seeing a pattern here?...

We visited old downtown San Diego and visited our favorite shops there -- a candy shop and a rock shop -- and ate disappointing Mexican food. We picked wrongly I guess... but by the time the plate is sitting in front of you and you see it and go "this isn't what I wanted!" it's kind of too late!

We visited Balboa Park and went to the botanical gardens to take pictures of flowers and went to a photographic gallery that had an Ansel Adams display, which was wonderful!

We went to Claim Jumpers for dinner and gorged ourselves on their fantastically huge slice of chocolate cake... Mmmmm...

We went to the farmers maker in Oceanside and got some yummy produce (green beans and grapes... mmmm...)

We went to this little Mexican place in Carlsbad Village (at least I think that's where it was at) called Cessy's taco shop, and had a delicious burrito. Hal said it was very similar to the burritos we used to get at Rolberto's in Pocatello... mmmm.... (The little bit I ate was good but very cilantro covered, hence why I only ate a little!) Now we know why we haven't been able to find those same kind of burritos here in TX... its a California style Mexican burrito (in Idaho)... And we had some of that delicious soft serve ice cream (for really cheap too!)

What else did we do? Hmmm... that's all that's coming to mind right now... but we had a blast! It was great to go away from home (and our computer games!) together for a little while.

We did have to be careful how long we were in the sun though, even slathering ourselves up with sunscreen we kept burning! Which led us to our discovery... Even though its warm and sunny here in Houston, nobody ever goes outside. Why? It's too hot! Verses in so CA, it was wonderful and everyone is always outside... I can't wait until fall when I get to be outside again! :)

That mostly more or less is what we've been up to...
Hopefully I'll do better at blogging! And I'll post a few pictures of our trip and our house soon!

In pet news...
For those of you who care, a while ago (like June or something) my mouse, Tilly, who I got last spring, has died. I was a bit sad and bummed. She had seizures or something like that all day. It made for a very sad tearful day for me. I don't watch animals suffer well at all! Tragically and luckily she didn't suffer for very long. My wonderful husband gave her a proper city burial for me, so that I didn't have to. (I zipped her a a plastic baggie and he carried her out the dumpster...)

In other animal news...
Yesterday it rained. And the baby frogs and lizards hatched! We caught two little tiny brown baby frogs (at least I assume they were babies). They were like the size of my little fingernails! They were so cute!
And I caught tiny green lizard that was on the front of our house. I kept them for a few minutes and then decided I wouldn't be able to find bugs to feed them, so I let them go... But we caught them! :)

I think that's all the news I've got for now!