What we've been up to...

Well... I'll have to come right out and say that it hard for me to remember what all we've been doing... Luckily Hal has taken pictures and blogged about some of the things, on his photo blog (which is awesome!) http://halbradbury.oxyhost.com/

First of all, finding a house...
It's going very frustrating! We found a house we wanted (3 bed, 2 1/2 bath, awesome kitchen and master suite, in a good area, everything!) and were told by the bank that they wouldn't finance it. Because... it is in a neighborhood where all the houses have a paved driveway, and it only has a gravel driveway... (the like 30 feet from the road to the garage)...
So, we found another one we liked, and made an offer on that one, and were out bid, so we didn't get that one either.
And once again, I'm off to find another house! 3rd times a charm, right?

And on the weekends, rather than just sitting in our sad little apartment, we go out and play tourist! There's TONS of things to do here in Houston! (Most of them cost money, but *sigh* sometimes we get to do things for free!) Last fall when we came down to interview for the job, we went to the zoo. (Hal has pictures from it on his photo blog, post Houston Zoo.) We went to the zoo again last weekend. I love the zoo! It makes me dream of a day when I'll own my own zoo! (I'm well on my way already!)

We've also been to the Houston Space Center (NASA). It was not quite as fun as we were hoping for and super crowded, but we went!

We've been to museums (the Holocaust Museum and an art gallery museum).

We've driven out to Galveston to go to the beach and ridden a ferry. (Galveston ferry)

We went to see the USS Texas Battleship and some other monument, and rode another ferry... (Monument State Park)
I really like the ferry rides! :)

And Mom and Dad Bradbury came down for an Army medical conference thing -- is it bad that I'm not entirely sure what Dad was doing? Hmmm... -- and we got to see them, and go to Moody Gardens, which I really enjoyed, and would like to go again after they're back up and running all the way! (Obnoxious hurricane anyways! Just closed everything down! Breaking things! Jeesh!) I'm sure we did other things, but that's the only one that comes to mind right this moment... It was really wonderful to see them again though!

On April 1st, we got to go see Les Miserables performed here in Houston (at the Hobby Center). It was awesome! Hal absolutely loves Les Mis and has always wanted to see it live! So, we jumped on the chance! Funny thing about that... Hal's so familiar with the music from Les Mis that he's been dreaming it... I'll wake up in the night to find him sort of singing-humming in his sleep... Less now that right after we went, but still... "Do... hear... people sing... angry men... music... slaves again..." Cracks me up every time!
We'll be going to see Rent at the end of the month, and I'm really excited for that one! I love Rent!

We go take walks in parks and Hal takes pictures with his newly acquired cameras... I'd say new, but the one is most definitely NOT new! He's been taking pictures with film lately, and loving it! The whole manual focus lens thing, and the waiting to get them developed... it's a lot of fun for him, and he's been enjoying it!

What else have we been up to.... hmmm... I know there's more, but there's a small sampling!

House in Wichita Falls pictures...

So, I'm going to try to get back to blogging! Slowly but surely I'll get caught up to what's current...

I mentioned working on our house in Wichita Falls...
You can see more pictures of our house in previous posts, like this one: Pictures of our house.
I'll be posting a few of them here, anyways, but just in case! (I apparently don't do well with before and after pictures, or even actually have the pictures that I think I do! So, I apologize, I'll try to do better next time!)

Starting with the outside... when we bought it, it had a giant, huge, stinky in-the-way bush by the front door... it would prevent the door from opening, "knock" on the window in the wind, and be stinky!
So, we ripped it out. (Well, I cut it to bits and then the missionaries ripped it out for us, but... it was gone!)
I painted the overhang and part of the front of the house... it's not a great job, but it looks better! It might be more obvious in person, but I was proud! :)

When my brother, David, came down to help us with our house, he did the most amazing things!
This is what the bathroom looked like before...
He made my bathroom look oh, so pretty!
Granted, it's still (re-painted) white, but I've read houses sell better painted plain colors, like tan, white, off-white... And it just so happened, I had white paint! :)
He replaced the tub, tiled the floor, fixed the leaky toilet (which unfortunatly, sprung another leak later, so I took the tank off again and fixed it... hopefully for good!). And he removed the old sink & counter and put in a new one, and removed the old ugly mirror & lights, fixed the wall, and hung new ones! (Sorry, no before picture of this one!)
When we bought the house, the dining room had carpet, which I didn't really care for...
And the kitchen had this wall oven and counter top range, that we removed.

David also laid some flooring in my kitchen and dining room.
We were planning on just replacing the kitchen sink and counter, BUT the sink wouldn't fit into the existing cabinets, so we had to replace those too! Ugh! It looks mighty pretty if I do say so myself!

After Christmas, Hal came up from Houston with a friend from work, Anita and her husband Nino, for the weekend, and Nino trimmed (around the floor) in the dining room and kitchen, and they helped us pack up the house and drive it all to Houston! They were life savers!

One of the other things I did (after Christmas) was work on the half bath... which involved removing the tank from the existing toilet, removing the water-saver device that didn't work properly and prevented the toilet from flushing, re-assembling the toilet (my first one ever!). I did not remove the bowl from the floor, though! 'Cause there's no way I was going to mess with that if I didn't have to!
I replaced the faucet for the sink, and the valves that ran the water to it, because they leaked! And in the process of working under the sink, knocked it off the wall onto myself (we were both fine!) But I did have to re-attach the sink to the wall! Whew! And I re-attached it properly! Grrr!
This is the before/after shot of the half-bath... Everything you can see in it look exactly the same... sorry, I didn't take pictures of the faucet! (You're not missing much!)


I do like to tell stories!
Funny story about our old bathtub... One day in October or sometime right around there, I climbed into our bathtub to take a shower. And I'd swear, I felt it move! Well, it apparently DID move at some point, because it appeared to be sinking, in comparison to the floor and the wall... big cracks appeared around it, where the caulk around the tub had pulled away from the sheetrock surrounding it... Hmmm...
As scary as it is to have your tub drop an inch or two, I wasn't actually all that worried... it's not like it could go anywhere! Our house was built on a slab foundation, which just means it's sitting on a concrete floor. (Think of your garage or basement... imagine a tub sitting on the floor... not really anywhere to go, just a little obnoxious and scary when it moves!)
Anyways, when my brother removed the tub, he discovered why it had dropped. (And I'm really sorry to say I didn't take pictures of it!) We had a metal tub, probably the tub that was dropped in in 1961 when the house was built, anyways, there were bars running along the bottom of the tub to support it. And they had just rusted up and partially crumbled away! And the tub slowly dropped down... Tee hee... Not entirely certain HOW metal bars on the bottom of a bathtub rust off, but such is life! It amused me!

Stupid Dani story!
While David was laying tile in the bathroom, I was watching him smear the adhesive glop on the floor, before setting the tiles on it, and I decided that the gray goop looked a bit like clay! Okay, so it looks a LOT like clay! I wanted to play in it...
My brother, being the nice guy that he is told me that he didn't think it was such a good idea to play with it. It is cement after all... This "cement" word didn't scare me though! And I pestered and bugged him 'til he said "Look! Play with it if you want, but it's not a good idea!"
So, I proceded to smear it all over my hands and squish it and play with it... It was a blast! I had so much fun! Until it started drying and hurting... At which point I asked my brother what was going on, why it hurts...
He looked at me (in the typical you're being an idiot fashion) and informed me IT'S CEMENT!!! Cement has lye and sand in it. The lye was burning me and the sand was probably imbedding itself in my pores. Ummm... Oh...
So I went to wash, and lucky me, my hands hurt and itched for weeks! I had some really terrible looking red bumps all over my hands (I concerned the people at work. They thought maybe I'd gotten some horrible disease...)
Lesson learned: Cement is not a good idea to play with bare handed! Maybe next time I should wear gloves... ;) OK!! OK!! I won't play with it again!

Whew! So that was just lots of information! Sorry! I tend to get a little long winded! :)
I'll try to post again soon!

Checking in...

Hi everyone!
Boy, it's been a while, huh? (Sorry about that... we're alive and well! I'm just a slacker!)

Hal started his job in Houston on Dec 1st. He came down for a week, then drove 6 1/2 hours home for the weekend, then came back down for 2 weeks (staying in a hotel this whole time). Then we went home for Christmas.
In the meantime, I was working my job in Wichita Falls, and working with my brother David on my house. (He did a most fabulous job of re-doing my bathroom! And I love the floor and counter in my kitchen!) Thanks David! I'm awfully sad to move out of my "brand new" house!

Christmas in Idaho... was COLD! Suddenly I remember why it is we moved to Texas... To get far far away from the *brrrr* cold snow! It was wonderful to see our families! We love you all! We had lots of fun hanging out, talking & laughing, playing games, and enjoying the children and animals! (We've got some adorable nieces and nephew!)

Once we got back to Texas in January, Hal headed back to Houston, and I followed a day later, after taking care of some business (picking up accumulated mail, etc...) in Wichita Falls. I was here for a week, finding us an apartment and getting us moved in (not much stuff to move in, just what we had in our hotel room.) Then I left Hal here in Houston, again, and headed back to pack and work on the house a bit more. Two weeks later, we rented a giant (26 ft) rental truck, Hal came up for the weekend with some friends from Houston (a wonderful lady he works with, Anita, and her awesome husband Nino) to help pack the truck, hang trim around the newly renovated rooms, and drive back to Houston, where we unloaded our giant truck. Boy, we've got lots of stuff! *Sigh* One of these times we move, I'll just leave it all behind, I swear! :) Ok, probably not...

I stayed in Houston for a couple of weeks, lazing around, hanging out with Hal, dreading going back to finish up the house... Then I went back to Wichita Falls, where I spent two weeks working on my house and being sick. Amazingly enough, I finally finished and got the house listed "for sale."
On impulse, after another long day of working, I packed up the remainder of my belongings and started my drive back to Houston at 6 pm... It's a six hour drive, in good traffic... I gotta say, I was a bit loopy and tired when I made it - safely, I should add!

So, for anyone keeping track, Hal and I have, since the beginning of December, lived apart for 3 weeks, together for 3, apart for 2, together for 2, apart for 2 and now we're back together again! We decided we'd rather be living together, than six hours apart. It's awful!

It's kind of sad to be leaving our pretty house! (It wasn't pretty before, but now it sure is!) But we're excited to move again, and start a new chapter in our lives. That's my grand ol' summary of what's happened in our lives lately!

I'll post pictures of my pretty house soon!

Surprise!

We're moving!

To Houston!

Hal has been offered a job as a design engineer with Oil States in Houston, TX. And he/we have taken it. So, we're going to be moving to Houston! It sounds like it will be an awesome job, actually designing things! (Which is good!) We're excited!

He starts next week...

So, I guess that means we're going to try to sell our house in Wichita Falls, and head on off to Houston! Well, we're heading off to Houston either way, so hopefully it'll sell! Whew!

Pieces of news and adventures

So, I never feel like anything much is going on here... and then I start rambling and come up with all sorts of stuff to say!

I don't know that I've ever mentioned it, but I started working (as a temp) as a receptionist at a company called Burk Royalty back in June. Anyways, I've been there ever since. They offered me a "full time" job (which I find a funny term 'cause I was already doing 40 hours a week, but now I'm on their payroll, not the temp agency's) about a month ago. Neat, huh? Anyways, they're "in oil", which apparently to some people means a whole lot, but to me... not so much... it seems to be that they manage oil things. They find the fields where they think there might be money to be made by drilling for oil or minerals, take care of buying/leasing it, hire someone to drill a well, and then proceed to manage the resources (oil and money) we get out of it. Anyways, I'm slowly learning all about the oil industry. It's a pretty good job. Fairly relaxed and mostly very slow paced...

We've both gotten new callings at church. I've been released from my calling in Young Womens and I've been called to be on the enrichment committee. (Hurray! I get to got to Relief Society!) Hal's been called to be in the choir. I'd heard a rumor that if they didn't get some people to start coming regularly, they'd starting making callings, but I thought it was kind of a joke...

We did go on a couple of "outings" with our new camera last weekend. We took our ferrets to the park. As I'm sure ya'll can probably imagine, we've got hundreds of pictures of our wonderful ferrets, these two are my favorites from our latest excursion. The top one captures the ferrets perfectly. I can almost hear them thinking what is it? To chew? To hide? To play? And bonus! All three are in it! And this bottom one... well, I was following Rocket, who had to wander away, and Cocoa was stalking me! It was too cute!

And we went to Sikes Lake or Midwestern pond or whatever it's called and saw some ducks, geese, and swans. We saw a yoga texas goose. (My very favorite!)
And I attempted to chase them...
*sigh* Sadly, I'm not very committed to it, and they can tell. They don't even budge! They hiss at me though...


Also, and kind of my biggest news, I've started taking a new drug (well, new for me) for my migraines. It's called Topamax. It's... entertaining, to say the least. The side effects are WOW! But I haven't had a migraine this week... or maybe I did and I just didn't care? Not really sure what's been happening... Hmmm... jury is still out. More about that a different day, just wanted to share!

Alien brains

On Saturday, we were out running errands and drove by the waterfall and noticed the bright red color. Of course, we had to go home and get the camera! Usually when the river is muddy, they turn off the waterfall. (It's a man-made waterfall to replace the waterfall that used to be around here before it was washed out a really long time ago!) The dirt/clay is red here, and when it rains, the red sediment rushes into the river... coloring it red, not just murky brown. (Hence the reason the Red River is called the Red River... it's red!) It's really gorgeous!
Anyways, Hal posted a whole bunch of pictures about the day on his photo site, and it seems silly to repeat all the photos, so I'm going to focus on my favorite parts of our walk by the river!

First of all, I was walking out to a bank on the river while Hal was taking pictures of a spider web, spider included, with dew on it. It was a really pretty web! As I was walking out, this little brown leaf in front of me started fluttering along the ground. And then I realized it wasn't a leaf. It was a little tiny frog! He lept over the edge and landed down below. I thought he'd went in the water, but I still looked and looked for him on the river bank. I finally found him and Hal took a picture of him. Can you see him?
I wanted so bad to climb on down there to try to catch him. But Hal pointed out it was probably a bad idea. Slick river mud, gross water... bad combination! So I didn't get to try to catch him.

A little later, I was checking out the river (again) and I saw the most wonderful thing! This green brain!
And then I climbed out (onto the rocks) and fished it out of the river. Isn't it cute?

I'd never seen anything so green alien-like and lovely! So, of course, being me, I wanted to do two things with it. (1) Take it home and (2) break it open and get out the dinosaur egg or alien baby or whatever was in it!

Hal said he'd really rather I didn't take it home. And he didn't really want to break it open with me.

So, I conceeded. I didn't take it home and I broke it open myself, right there on the river walk. My wonderful husband took pictures of the whole occassion.

Sadly, there was no dinosaur egg. And there was no alien baby in it. Bummer, huh?
But it did look kind of like an alien brain!
I totally looked like it should be edible! It had this pineapple-like texture and I think it smelled really good! Faintly familiar...like I'd smelled it before!And I'm kind of embarrased to admit this... but if it hadn't been soaking in the river, I might have tried to taste it! It looked totally edible! (Even if slightly brain-like.)
I had a blast tearing it apart! It was super fun! And it made my hands smell totally yummy!

The only draw back was that it made my hands sticky! I was so confused by that! The outside wasn't sticky before I started tearing it apart. And the inside wasn't very sticky, either! Hmmm... My hands felt kind sticky like I'd been trying to climb a very pine-gummy pine tree. (Done that before!) At least this stuff washed off! Unlike pine gum...

When we got back to the car, I was just standing there minding my own business, smelling my hands, when Hal decided to take a self-portrait, reflected in the car windows. Hence, this: Here we are all distorted by the reflection with me sniffing my fingers. Hal laughed really hard after he took this one. (Here's a picture of both of us Nickie! Your wish has been granted! ...probably not quite what you had in mind, but...)

After we got home, I researched what in the world this green brain fruit was (I googled "green fruits" and immediately came up with a picture of it! Weird, huh?! I never have such good searching luck!)

"Whether it is known locally as Osage orange, mock orange, Osage apple, hedge, hedge apple, naranjo chino, bois d'arc, bodark or bow wood, it is the same distinctive tree." - Jim W. Grace

Wikipedia (love that wikipedia!) says: "The fruit... is roughly spherical, but bumpy, and 7-15 cm in diameter, and it is filled with a sticky white latex sap. In fall, its color turns a bright yellow-green and it has a faint odor similar to that of oranges." Hmmm... fruit! And filled with latex sap! That's why I was all sticky! And it has an odor similar to oranges! That's why it was so familiar!

"The fruits have a pleasant and mild odor, but are inedible for the most part. Although not strongly poisonous, eating it may cause vomiting." Good thing I didn't eat it, huh? My inclination to taste something that smells good is probably one best repressed.

I'm totally fascinated by this tree! Apparently, they come in male and female trees (weird, huh?) and only the female trees can bear fruit.

And I'm sure the squirrels in that area, who apparently love the seeds from this hedge apple/osage orange fruit thingy, are very grateful to me for breaking it open and leaving it on the sidewalk for them! Yes, I left it smack in the middle of the sidewalk. So everyone else could see it, too!

Look at all this information gleaned just because I found an alien brain in the river! And now all of you get to hear it, too! Lucky people!

BRRRRR!!!!

I just have to share...
It's so incredibly cold outside today! 55 degrees! Holy Moo!! (He he he! That cracks me up every time! Moo!) & I know some of you are going to look at that and go, "so what are you complaining about?" But it's just downright cold feeling! I feel like I should bust out my coat! (Just FYI, it's colder here in Wichita Falls right now than it is in Victor, Blackfoot, or Pocatello. According to Wunderground, we're all in the 50's but we're colder than all ya'll! Does that make us the winner or the looser?)

On the bright side, it's warm in my office today, so that's good!

Pictures and more pictures!

Now that it's cooled off a bit (you know, 85, not 105) we've started going outside during the day again. And we got Hal (well, us, but Hal's the photographer) a new camera, so we have to try it out!

Here's some of the fun things we've done:
By the way, these are just some of the tons of pictures Hal's taken. More of them are posted on his photo blog. These are just some of my favorites out of the bunch! He's so good! I'm always so impressed! If you have time, I'd recommend clicking the pictures to view them large size, there's lots more detail that way!

1. Visited our friends the camels. They weren't quite as happy to see us as last time. Only one came to the "door" to greet us.
(Nice teeth, huh? I think he needs a dentist!)


2. Drove up to Lawton to visit the buffalo on the Wichita Wildlife Reserve. We successfully spotted 2. But we saw some prairie dogs...
(They're so cute! I want one! Hal said if I can catch one, I could have one. 2 problems: 1. That would be illegal. 2. I can't really catch them. They're too sneaky!)
And we went up Mt. Scott (tallest point around! 2,464 ft.) and took some pictures off of that.
(There were so many birds circling! It was kinda creepy!)


3. Drove up to the Wildlife Reserve again, to try to see more buffalo. First we stopped in Medicine Park (a little town outside of the park, Oklahoma's first Cobblestone community). We saw Bathlake and lots of other fun stuffs!
(Both pictures of the "lake", but in the bottom one see the cute squirrel? He was trying to run away from Hal, and found me on the other side of the grass. Poor guy! )
(Cute praying mantis, huh? I had some of these once.)

(These three statues were all in and around Medicine Park. We loved them!)

(This top one is only important to show you where this bottom one is... It's some sort of water treatment dam thing. BUT I found the perfect place to go sliding! Look! (below) You could just slide on the moss! You would have to lower yourself over the guard rail down like 20 feet and slam into the junk at the bottom, but, hey! I've known people who would do it!)Then we headed into the park, where we spent hours trying to find some wildlife! We saw prairie dogs,
(Awwww! Below: He's eating some bread that some kind family was feeding them. Cute, huh? It's what drew the coyotes, too.)
coyotes,
grasshoppers,
some longhorn cows (not pictured), and finally on the way out, a buffalo.
If you haven't noticed, we go to the park to see buffalo, and end up seeing... well, not buffalo. Lots and lots of prairie dogs, though!


4. Went to a couple of parks and picked a few pecans (for bringing up at Christmas for show and tell) and hunted for some "huge" acorns one of the ladies I work with said are there. I didn't have luck with the big acorns, but I found some "regular" sized ones. I love acorns! They're so cute! I've got a whole collection, but I'm not sure what to do with them now...
(Above: This was actually taken up by Medicine Park, but it fits better here. These particular acorns are small ones and have STRIPES! Cute! And I'm in a picture Nickie! Tee hee...)

And we saw more animals and such!
(Aren't they just too cute? I love that both of them have the same foot off the ground.)

(What is it? I think it's some sort of cross between a goose and a turkey. We've seen him before, or one like him. Eeeewww, huh?)

(Don't look now, but he's in goose territory. Notice how he's very leery? All the trees right around there have tons of nuts on the ground around them, and the rest of the trees in the park have zero to be found. Coincidence? I think not!)
(How many pictures do you have to take to get a squirrel blinking? Lots! But isn't he cute?)


5. Trips to other parks at other times to take random pictures. One of my favorite is this:
(It's a bunny! In the dark! Cool, huh?!)


All in all, we've been enjoying the slightly cooler weather!

Hal's new photo blog

This is Hal posting. I just finished putting up a new blog website. The link is also over on the right hand column.

Also, I plan to upload .zip files with photo collections, and flash applets that aren't compatible with Blogger, so the photoblog is going up on this website:

halbradbury.oxyhost.com

I will be trying to implement comments, subscriptions, RSS-feed and other components so that I can blend in with all the Blogger accounts.

PIctures!

Hi, everyone! This is Hal today. Dani never posts new pictures, so I've got a couple for you. This is the rubber chicken that she was so excited about:
And this is poor Cocoa's stump where she lost her fingernail: