Lessons from Waterfowl

So you have seen what Becky did over Thanksgiving, and as much as I enjoy chilling on the couch, I would prefer that couch to be in a duck blind or on a fishing boat. Unfortunately, I checked out those locations during the holiday and there were so such furnishings to be found.

The airboat that got us in and out of the blinds, I think everyone will be using these once global warming gets on with its business

Mike (Longmire) decided this year that the company needed a morale boost. He discovered this after hearing that the employees had divided themselves into two factions; one felt the original high-minded goals of the company had been abandoned for quick profit, the other believed that he had become cold and distant. Nevermind the reasons, he took 10 of the best shooters he could find, and then immediately told most of them their services would not be needed, and took whoever wanted to waste some gunpowder on a hunting and fishing expedition to Seadrift, Texas. (I cannot find a pic of everyone together so you will have to image but it would include Mike Longmire, Ben and Mike Judd, Big and Lil' John Sanchez, Nick Travassosossos, Jared Kimzey, my brothers Shane and Stoney and me.)

Stoney, Nick and Kimzey in a blind

While there we hunted with Capt. Kelley and his guides and stayed at their wonderful accomodations. We were told the hunting and fishing were quite slow, but apparently these guys dont know what slow really means. I've had a dry spell of about 4 fishing trips without a fish, with these guys a slow spell was 15 minutes.

Big J with a keeper redfish

On the first two days Mike decided to take some crackshots with him in his blind, so me and Judd went along. He quickly realized this was a poor decision. The first day we managed to get 6 ducks between us, but not for a lack of trying because we went through 90 shells and scared the hell out of a lot of birds. The second day was much of the same, we even had a flock of suicidal tree ducks that came straight to us at the pace of a sloth and we only managed to get 1 of them even though we had time to reload.

So day 3 rolled around and Judd and I got booted from the bosses blind. So I went with my brothers and Nick, who I figured would be at least as bad shots as I was. I was wrong, we mowed down ducks with reckless abandon, getting our limit within a couple of hours and having to watch dozens of ducks fly around us within a stones throw after that.

The fishing was pretty good, although I didn't get to go on the boat named "Junk" which always managed to bring in the most fish (and stingrays for that matter) but I caught some redfish, catfish, sea trout and hardheads.

Me posing with a blue cat that I wish I would have caught

Me posing with a few of the fish I did catch but was too late to get a before picture with

We had a great time everyday and got to come back to the lodge with massive and delicious meals ready for us prepared by Capt. Kelley's wife (Wendy is her name I think, or maybe I'm thinking of that girl that sells square hamburgers... either way).

Thanksgiving

Well, my Thanksgiving week is over. The one I have looked forward to for months. It always leaves you with a little bit of a hollow feeling to realize something you have been thinking about for months is over. But it was a wonderful time and I got my fair share of holding babies.  

   

Harmony and I doing one of her favorite pasttimes (walking around the room). 

 

Beebers (Stephen to the lay-person) and I lounging around.

(Top) Cousins meeting for the first time.  

(Bottom) Harmony so comfortable she's drooling.

If you are noticing there is a lot of brown couch in these pictures, its because that's where I spend most my time when I am home. We did go out shooting (I shot my first black powder rifle) to try out Steve's new .22 Walther, and various shopping excursions.  But our living room is my favorite place. We mostly sit and talk, laugh, and have discussions for hours in that room. Once and a while, we'll pull out a board game or head down to the media room (they have a projector and a huge big screen) to watch a movie or try out Wii Fit. 

 

Dad, Seaweed (Sarah), and I once again on the couch (just to prove my point :)

There is also a lot of watching babies now that we have them to watch. Harmony is 3 months old and so she is quite fun to watch. She laughs, smile, and "talks" constantly. It is absolutely adorable. Little Cameron is one of the sweetest little guys in existence. He's just a couple weeks old right now. I can't believe a baby can be so good-natured. He rarely cries and when he does it is so quiet he had to be in the same room with us or we couldn't even hear him. 

 

Dad and I fighting over who gets to hold Cameron (something that was quite a common occurence). 

And, of course, there was Thanksgiving dinner which was delicious . Last year,  the pumpkin pie I tried to make was a little umm...inedible. This year, everybody agreed the pumpkin pie I made was tasty (Dad helped - he didn't want to risk it) . Turns out, sugar is a key ingredient. Who would have thought? :) 

There is no way I can post all of the pictures that I have. Maybe I'll talk Ben into teaching me how to make a link to all the pictures I have. In the meantime, here is one of the entire motley crew (except for Jared, of course, darn him and his duck hunt).

On the top nearly breaking the couch in half is Jonathan, Sarah, Stephen, Matthew, and me.

Jenn is in front on the arm cushion by Sam and Cameron.  Mom and Dad are in the middle and then the other little family Ben, Tara, and Harmony are on the right. 

Whew - that's a lot of people. And getting bigger with time I am sure.  I remember back in the good 'ol days every time my mom said she was having a baby, I was delighted. I loved taking care of them and every single one seemed to add something to the family we didn't have before; good and bad, but mostly good. I feel the same way now as it keeps growing. The old cliche is true - the more, the merrier. 

My Turn

First of all, my first nephew, Cameron Joseph (Sam & Jenn's baby), was born yesterday at a whoppin' 8 lbs. 6 oz. We were happy to get him here well and screaming his head off. I'll probably be posting some pics of him soon as I will be going to see him and my neice in a couple of weeks.  I am, of course, more than excited about that. In the meantime, I haven't posted in a long time, so here I go.

Before I go any further - due to popular request - here is a video of my favorite duck, Alfredo. I know I've done a real nice job of posting it a month late. I'm sure the two of you who requested it have been checking every hour, on the hour, for it. :) 

Next up, Halloween. We neglected to get pictures of our annual pumpkin carving contest, and the 4 minute video of Jared making corny jokes and taping me carving (but not surprisingly, is actually mostly footage of the cats) is a poor replacement. But I did a skeleton pirate (my school theme this year), and surprise, surprise - Jared did a cat. 

You may have noticed a theme for the year. It mind as well be the year of the cat because it certainly is for Jared. He actually got me the collar, ears, and tail for my costume and told me to be a cat. Not my idea. As for what he was, that is still widely speculated about.  What he was telling people is that it is what he'll look like in 20 years after living in Texas. So, I can see the camo, the fat belly, and the grimace. But the mohawk? I think most Texans would agree that is a bad idea, maybe a mustache instead. The very next day Jared had me cut it off with this unbelievably horrible pair of scissors. I told him to go to a hair cut joint, but he said it was a waste of money. He's funny like that sometimes.

But onto the new stuff, speaking of spending money. Here is our new bedroom set. We ordered it about a month ago, and it has finally come in. We are pretty excited about it. We are going to change the bedspread because there is far too much brown in the room. We are thinking white/navy bed now with gray walls. But probably not for a while. As you can probably tell from all the posts, we have been spending quite a bit of money recently - computers, entertainment systems, Wii's, Nintendo DS's, finishing decorating the office. So the month of November has been deemed "save as much as we can month" because next month is the most spending we do all year long. 

Bedframe, nighstands, and ottoman (the one Meowfish is sleeping on).

As you can see, the cats are big fans of our new bedroom set. They have been doing nothing but sleeping in there (the office used to be their favorite - which is the only fully decorated room in the house). I think it just shows they have good taste. They're classy.

Our new dresser

Halloween

So we dressed up for Halloween for the first time in a long time.  Ben and Catherine were having a costume party and you weren't allowed in without a costume so this is what we came up with.  We were going for cheap and easy.  As you can see I (Jared) look nearly the same as in the last blog.  I just stuffed my waders with some pillows to add a few pounds and then for kicks cut my hair into a mohawk (which suprisingly is still there this morning I figured it would just wash off with everything else).  

Becky is a cat in case you cant tail (she does have a tail but you cant see it in the pic).  We didnt get any good pics from the rest of the night, just some blurry shots of Kellen's Hooters uniform being stretched to its limits and since he is still in the job market we wont post those.  So enjoy these pics until I can catch some more fish and spice up this blog.

I'm over here...or am I over here?????

Due to the massive amount of requests for more fishing/hunting related posts on this blog, I (Jared) have to do some posting of my own.  First off fishing.  Since consulting with my fishing coach (John Sanchez) and discussing baits (chicken livers) and tactics (cast and wait), I have become the reigning catfish champion of our subdivision.  There is no official tournament, but I am sure that I have caught the biggest cat in the pond.  

  Lake record holder.

Unfortunately I do not hold the record for most turtles caught in an afternoon (one) which is currently held by Kellen, and I'm not going to even try to tackle the Bluegill record Becky set.  I'm not sure where this fishing section of the blog is going so I'll 

end it there.

I have no pics of Kellen's turtle so here is one of his fish.

Next on the agenda, hunting.  This Thanksgiving while Becky goes to her parents to sit around and eat a fat store bought bird that is surely chock full of steroids (and butter if they know what is good for them and follow Big J's secret recipe (which will not be divulged here)) I will be out with the rest of the Longmire Well Service crew on a duck hunt/bay fishing trip in San Antonio Bay (which is not very close to San Antonio).  As such I have been getting ready for the trip with some sporting clay shooting on Sunday with Jason and Eric (geologists from UH) and more recently with a trip to Bass Pro to get some supplies.  So I bought a bunch of stuff and each piece of clothing seems to have a different style of camouflage, so I will be either super invisible or stand out like a horse in a cathouse.  (If you can spot me in the picture below then the answer is probably the latter).

  Ok I think I wore out the parentheses key so I better finish up. Later 

(Update!!!: It has been brought to my attention that the lake record for Bluegill is being challenged by the 10 year old neighbor kid who taught Becky how to catch fish, he has amassed a much larger tally, but has been filing them under "regular fish".  We'll give you more information as the story develops.)

Cleavage and Killer Ducks

Now that I've got your attention...we'll start with the killer duck. If you're interested in 1 min and 25 seconds of watching a duck snap at my hand, go ahead and let me know, and I'll include the video in my next post. Otherwise, here is my friend Alfredo; we're friends with benefits actually. He gets bread from me, I get to pet him. I named him Alfredo because he looks Italian and is clearly part of the mafia. Or would be if there was a duck mafia. Actually, him and Dark Wing Duck are close associates. Anyway, Alfredo followed me around, nearly snapping off my fingers and refusing to leave me alone. I can't say it's the first time I've been attacked by a duck, Alfredo has had predecessors, but so far he is the best. They can be ferocious. Perhaps that why Jared is going duck hunting next month (which I still think is a little harsh). 

As for the cleavage, Jared and I went to the Renaissance festival this past weekend. I knew it would be fun. I've been wanting to go for years - this time I just got the tickets and told Jared several months in advance there was no choice about the matter. He accepted reluctantly knowing all the things I do but don't want to.  When we were walking up, I noticed massive amount of cleavage and belly fat spewing out of tight wench and gypsy outfits.  So I knew it would be great, and Jared and I were laughing before we even got into the gates. Actually, Jared was already pretty horrified and kept commenting on the crazy people. But I love crazy people. It's one reason I chose psychology as a major, so I was delighted. I already starting to look at costumes that I want to wear next year.

It took a while, but even Jared starting enjoying himself; mostly due to this massive turkey leg. And then he did an ax throw - poorly, I have to say. He didn't even get one in the wood. Followed by more food. I was feeling pretty sick by the end of the day due to the funnel cakes, rootbeer floats (Black Cow), and sausage on a stick. But I did like how everytime I bought something they said, "Thank ye, m'lady." That almost made the outrageous prices worth it. 

I don't know why he think this face looks tough, but its the one he makes when that's what he's trying to indicate.

We also went to several shows - belly dancers, jousting competitions, falconer's exhibition, and a mud show where this guy actually ate a handful of mud. It was horribly disgusting, but the show was funny.

The jousting competition - there was some nasty splintered wood after the brawl.

But I have to say the best part for me is pictured below. I knew I would have a good time, but I had no idea my life long dream was about to come true. I've loved elephants as long as I can remember, and that day - I got to touch and ride on one! When I saw the opportunity, I  just looked at Jared and said, "I don't care how much it costs - I'm doing it." Here I  am paying no attention to anything but the elephant. I couldn't get over how he felt. 

 The coolest elephant ever.

The point here is that it was a good time. Next year, there will be pictures of me in a renaissance style dress to look forward to. :)

Turning 26...

Not the greatest. I've never been one to get depressed on a birthday before. But being closer to 30 than 20 was slap in the face.  Jared tried really hard to make it fun for me - he took me to a really nice restaurant - Masraff's (apparently a favorite of the elderly Bush's), and bought me my favorite dessert - an ENTIRE Godiva chocolate cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory.  The natural consequence of that fateful decision, all but a tiny portion of that has been consumed this week, mostly by me. I also was spoiled with this particular item which I have been wanting for a year. 

He did cheer me up immensely, I was laughing and having a good time by the end of the evening. But I better get to updates - Jared is having a great time with school. A little too good - I tell him. I hassle him about the progress on his thesis nearly every day. But I think he prefers his bowling league to writing papers. Go figure. :) His friend, Kellen, came back from his field work in Switzerland and they lovingly decorated his office beforehand. 

I'm sure Kellen appreciated posters of Hannah Montana and Zac Affron (what a dream boat :) 

Let's see, we still go fishing on a regular basis (last night, I almost caught a catfish so huge he broke my line before I could reel him in) and I'm getting back into school. It was a hard week, but I'm enjoying it more now. I think I'm finally starting to understand why people can stay in teaching for more than 2 years. Some of it is really fun and then other parts are really challenging. But I love a good challenge - so I appreciate that too, a lot of the time. It feels different teaching this year than it did last year. The stress is still there, but nothing is as hard.

Okay, enough. To end this thing, I'll throw in a picture of me wearing Michele's birthday present (my apron). She wasn't sure I'd like the pink - but actually I love it. Pink and purple used to be my favorite colors after all...

Gone Fishin'

We've had several people say that they didn't believe that we've caught catfish given our past experiences with fishing. Well get ready for the proof. I told you we went fishing in our pond and I finally took some pics. 

This was my first catch of the evening - I caught him after about 30 seconds of fishing. Bluegill are like that. We were told by the neighborhood boy that he had caught 6 regular fish and 2 catfish. Jared and I were rather amused because when we asked him what type of fish were regular he said, "I don't know. Regular." So I'm guessing that's the bluegill variety. I have to admit though, these little suckers might be harder to catch than catfish. They are tricky little buggers.  They will snatch your bait more than you will snatch them. One in particular really ticked me off and stole my bait a half dozen times - I never did catch him.

This is my last catch of the day - as you can see quite a bit bigger than the first. He was harder to reel in but he was a hungry fellow so it didn't take long for him to bite. 

And here's some of Jareds. He made off pretty good as well. I think he caught something like six catfish in one evening. Three of them were tiny tykes, and the others were pretty good sized. 

Here is Jared posing with one. Undoubtedly, it flopped to the ground and escaped his hands while he was attempting to pose like this. They always did, especially the little ones. They had some tough back fins. 

Down below is probably one of his bigger ones. Don't let the looks deceive you, it was probably close to the size of mine if not bigger. The camera angle is just not the best. Anyway, for those of you who are bored with this fish talk - not to worry. I'm not going to turn this into one of those blogs that tells wild fish stories and posts only pictures of fish. No matter how much Jared would love that. Sorry, Jared. :)

Post-Ike

When we heard that there was a mandatory evacuation, I jumped at the chance to go to Arizona. So we took the 14 hour trek to Arizona once again, this time with both cats (I took one alone in December when Meowfish was still a little tyke and we didn't have Abakles). I was more than happy to make the trip, I was incredibly sorry I hadn't gone in the summer to see all my friends back there. People there seemed to think I was crazy for wanting to do it. Apparently, I could of stayed MUCH longer since I still don't have school. But Jared is back in school already, so I get to blog about it instead.

Meowfish (Abakles in the carrier) enjoying a nap on the way to AZ. I don't know what is up with that cat, but he always has the weirdest sleeping positions. He probably actually enjoyed being so smushed. 

Funnily enough, this one and bunch of others with Meowfish in weird positions on the way home are the only pictures we took of the trip. But it was really great, I was lucky enough to see quite a few of my friends, and even my Grandma Layton. In fact, Jared's mom threw us barbecue and we had quite a few of Jared's friends (and their families) come over. 

When we got home, my stomach was churning as I looked at the neighborhoods around us and saw the roof, window, fence, and plant damage. Not to mention the electric poles lying on the ground - we already had guessed we wouldn't have electricity. But we we got home, much to our surprise and happiness, we hardly had any damage. Of course, the electricity was out - but nothing we couldn't handle.

 Jared posing with some of the damage - as you can see he is smiling because it was not bad at all. It did pummel the gate he had worked so hard on though.

For the next couple days, I had a lot of time to ponder how lucky I am. With the electricity out, I found myself actually liking to browse Walmart (one of the stores with electricity) - something I had previously despised. I sat in front of each food I bought and thought about how long it would last or if I could eat it all now, skipping the frozen foods section entirely. Ice was limited. Gas was limited, we had to (still have to) think about our usage of gas constantly. But going to bed early and the heat was the hardest part. I liked not having the TV or DVD player. It was kind of nice to talk to Jared and do shadow puppets on the wall. It was also hard not knowing what was going on unless we happened to be in the car listening to the radio. Luckily, Jared's school had electricity so we could charge our phones and check on email on occasion. And we went fishing at our little community pond A LOT. Only yesterday, did I finally take some pictures though. That's a whole other story though, one I'll save for a later time since this blog is already getting ridiculously long. 

And I figured out what I forgot in the last blog - the best news of all. I'm an AUNT! I have the most adorable niece ever. Look for pictures on Ben and Tara's blog. There are a ton - she's a cutie. Here's just one.

I love this one because you can really see her chubby cheeks and her eyes are open.

Pre-Ike

Before the last blog, it had been a month since I blogged. I was under an uncomfortable amount of stress thanks to the first weeks of teaching, so I let it slide. But there is a lot to catch up on, so I decided to split the time periods that I've missed into pre-Ike and post-Ike, Ike being the reason that I even have a chance to be writing this right now. But before I do that, I've noticed that pictures of the cats have been mysteriously absent in all my posts. So here you go.

This is one of our personal favorites. In fact, it is our wallpaper. If you're wondering why he's behaving that way - look below.

My friend Kristin had come back from Norway (my teaching partner last year) for a couple of weeks, and she brought her chocolate lab over. As you can see, Meowfish did not take kindly to it. Also, we celebrated Meowfish's 1st birthday on September 1st. We had to take a rough guess as he was found on the street when he was about 4 weeks. I took some boring video but no pictures. But we sang to him, gave him some fancy cat food, and a few presents. It's really quite ridiculous. 

Also, we went to the zoo sometime early in September. Here are some lovely pictures of me by a huge elephant's butt. We look remarkably similiar (for those of you who don't know elephants have always been my favorite). I was pretty impressed by the zoo, it was pretty large. It seems like I'm skipping something before Ike, if I ever figure it out I'll let you know.

 

It feels like Christmas

The electricity is back up. And I haven't been this excited for awhile. I only went without it for 72 hours, since we took a trip to Arizona (I'm so glad we decided to do that), but that was enough. It was actually really fun in some ways, but going to bed at 7 pm, no air conditioning, and no refrigerator, stove, microwave, washer/dryer, etc. is a little rough. If you don't know (which I assume you all probably do), Ike hit Pearland, and hit it relatively hard. Though there wasn't flooding bad enough to ruin homes, it was definitely a lot of rain. Roofs were missing, powerlines were lying on the road, windows knocked out, fences were down, supplies are low (still even - with a few scattered business up and running), and electricity has been absent for the entire week. We were really lucky, with only some partial fence damage. Also, on the bright side, I've caught some of my first fish this week. We have a little neighborhood pond, and on Wednesday I caught a little bluegill. Today, I caught one within a matter of seconds. But nothing else for the rest of the night. The fish were just stealing my bait (I was using bagels). But right as we were about to leave (we heard the electricity was back on), this whopper of a catfish grabbed my bait and tried dragging me into the pond. He fought bravely, but in the end, I won. He ended up being probably a little over 2 lbs, but Jared thinks he's the biggest one he's seen in the pond so far (he's caught quite a few himself). I was surprised how exciting it was. I always thought fishing was a bit boring, but I was sitting out there for 2 hours really enjoying myself. Anyway, there are more adventures and a few pictures of come of the wreckage and talking about the week's experiences to come. But I was so excited about having the internet, I just had to post something tonight. 

Our New Mac

So tomorrow is the first day of school with the kids, so to distract myself from the barfing feeling I'm getting in my stomach, I decided to blog.   I hassle Jared about blogging everyday, but he doesn't seem to care very much. Instead I'll post this picture - that should make us even. While my nose looks slightly big, Jared looks like something out of a horror movie  - a goblin perhaps. We've been having a lot of fun with the camera on this thing. It has all kinds of crazy effects. And the screen on the computer it is huge. 

Now I'm finally starting to get adjusted to the Mac. For the first week I was doing nothing but moaning over it. There are quite a few differences. Like no Ctrl+C. But mostly my moaning was over the fact that we didn't have Microsoft Office on it for the first week or so. And then Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are funky looking. But I'm getting used to it. 

 Last weekend we went down to the beach with a bunch of Jared's friends and hung out playing on the waves, reading, and playing card games.  Besides that, I have been moping around going on about the loss of my summer. In a few weeks that should be out of my system and it will be business as usual. But I have a reason to be mopey this time I think. My brother and his wife, Tara, had their first little baby on Friday. A little girl - my first niece. My first time to be an aunt in fact. So I am miserable about being trapped here now, right when I have some place I want to go so badly. But it's okay - I'm already planning my Thanksgiving trip to soften the blow. I'll be sure to post a picture when I get one. 

Oh, and Jared got a job offer from both Marathon and Shell. I'm really proud of him - but not surprised. He is a pretty smart guy after all and certainly a hard worker. But I'll let him tell  you about it if I can ever get him this thing. 

Shopping Trips and other Scares

I took a picture, because I told Jared nobody would believe that I went on a 6 hour shopping spree. I know. Me. I hate shopping. But believe it or not, I did it. If there's one thing I pride myself on it's efficiency. So apparently all I need to get shopping is a budget, a list of things I need, and a motive. The motive came from my kids last year who one week said "Mrs. Hamilton, you always wear the same 5 outfits over and over again. And the same earrings everyday. And you never wear your hair down." Leave it to kids to be rude (some would call it honest) without knowing it. Well, they weren't exactly right, but they were close to it, and I realized that I had gotten lazy.

So I decided to go out and get some work clothes before school hit again. I went to an outlet mall (the only way to go when you want the best clothes for the money), but it was nearly an hour away. So I knew I had to hit it hard. At the end of the day (and a couple stops to put stuff in the car) I had 8 tops, 5 pairs of paints, 3 pairs of shoes, hair accessories, a swimsuit, sunglasses, earrings, necklaces, and a new purse and wallet. Right on budget. I bought all of these from 9 stores all over the mall, and I had literally shopped in every store that I thought might have anything resembling work clothes. It was one of my proudest moments. Jared guessed I would give up after hour and come back with maybe a top or two. So he was quite impressed as well.

Okay, so I'm exaggerating a little. But I was tired. As you can see, the cats were more than happy about the shopping trip. They love all shopping trips because of all the bags they get to play in afterwards.

This week was a good one because we had a day off for Tropical Storm Edouard. The news had us all worried, and the grocery store and gas stations were a nightmare the day before. But it turned out to be just some rainy weather with really nice temperatures and no traffic. And, of course, a day off where I got to devour my new book and spend some time with Jared. So it was a good time. I was disappointed though. I thought I was going to see my first real storm, but no such luck. Oh well. There is always next time.

Jared is off on a field trip this weekend, so maybe I'll get him to blog about it when he gets back. He told me when I started this blog that he would do it too, so he better get cracking. Yeah, Jared this is a dare. Your turn to write. The few people that read this are sick of me. :)

The Rest of the Weekend

So here we are a week later, and I'm finally finishing up with last weekend just as a new one is about to start. But by now, I don't really feel like it. I'd rather go on and on about the books I've been reading. But I won't, since that's not where everybody's interest lies. It is mine though. During the summers especially, I have always devoured a book or two a week (just ask poor Jared - who luckily likes the Wii almost as much as I like books). However, Michele pointed me to this website that apparently tons of people are on called goodreads.com. I like it because I always want to know what to read next, and now I have tons of suggestions from everybody I know. There is a certain book I am quite excited about getting my hands on this weekend. Anybody who is a Stephenie Meyer fan should be running to the store as her 4th book in the whole vampire series is coming out today at midnight - I have it pre-ordered, so I don't need to worry.

Anyway, enough about that. I said I wouldn't go into books. Back to the point. This past weekend we also stayed at the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Now, I've heard that San Antonio and a little north of there has landscape similiar to Italy's. And this riverwalk is on (who would of guessed?) a river. So while we were there, I told Jared I was pretending to be in the Venice, Italy - which is one of my big dreams. But Italy or not, it was still really nice. They had great music playing, good food, and a really cool atmosphere. I hear in December they put up lights everywhere. I bet that is even more beautiful.

If you look really closely, you can see the water behind us at the Riverwalk. And a restaurant to the right.

And, of course, we had to stop by the Alamo. Because what would a vacation to San Antonio be without the Alamo? Jared didn't seem to see why it was so important to go and tried to talk me out of it. But it is sort of the "symbol" for Texas. And if you care nothing for history or the fate of the men who died there, then the least you need to do is glare at it. Since it is the biggest tourist site in the state - San Antonio has a lot more things (Sclitterbahn, Six Flags, the Riverwalk, Sea World, the wax museum) that might have been given to Houston since it's much larger (and closer to the ocean) if the Alamo wasn't so famous. So we went and listened to a speech and looked at it. There was one building we didn't go inside because the line for it wrapped around 2 blocks. But it was still pretty nifty. Everybody says that they are always shocked by how small it is. But I think it just has unfortunate placement - it is smack dab in the middle of the city with huge, tall motels and buildings - really it just seems small by comparison. Because it's really not that small of a building. It seemed to accommodate a LOT of people in fact.

You can almost tell how hot it is.

Sea World

This year for our anniversary, we (well, actually I - and Jared went along with it) decided to go to San Antonio. I really wanted to check out the Sea World here. I've been to the San Diego one a couple of times and loved it. So we went this weekend. For those of you who haven't been - I highly recommend it. There are a lot of cool shows and even roller coasters. It's amazing what they can get the animals to do. Jared's personal favorite was Uncle Max. He is in the show with Clyde. Unfortunately, Clyde himself decided not to participate in the show about halfway through despite prodding. I'm not sure whether he forgot his lines or is just sick of showbiz, but he just jumped in the water and starting swimming around and completely ignored the trainers. More than likely, he was actually sick. Because after the show he did some rather gross things to the pool.

Clyde before he decided to quit for the day.

I really don't know if I'm allowed to show you the video we took of Uncle Max. But he's a pretty humongous walrus. I think Jared thinks he identifies with him because he's been complaining about being a walrus himself. The internship he is in feeds him free (and expensive) meals constantly - and if you know Jared, you know he's not very good at resisting food.

Good old Uncle Max.

I love all of it, but one of the more fun things we did was feed the seals. Here they are - you can tell why the the chunky ones are fat. They fight dirty for their fish. Sometimes they sound like you think a seal should, and then sometimes not.

Anyway, here some more random pictures of various other things we saw.

A shark ready to bite my head off

Jared with a Budweiser Clydesdale

Of course, we also saw dolphins, penguins, otters, the Shamu show (OF COURSE!), etc. but I have a tendency for my blogs to fill up entire pages, so I will leave those out. I have to include a blurb about the western show we saw though. They don't have this at the other Sea World and basically they save animals and train them to be in this show. It's was pretty cute but what Jared and I were really interested is how they trained the cats. Having these guys ourselves (and for anybody who has a cat) training them seems impossible. Though we did notice the cats did seem to have the hardest time sticking to their task in the show (they were so interested in the audience).

A good example is this cat who usually "square dances" but he was looking straight at us and was so distracted by the audience, they couldn't get him to do ANYTHING. However, they were successful with all the other cats (and skunks, pigs, dogs, and geese).

It was definitely a good time though it was so hot and humid and FULL of people. But it's the summer, so I didn't expect anything else. I'll give you an update on the rest of our weekend later.

Call for Fishing Experts

Okay, so we have been fishing twice now. Jared has been three times. And all we've caught so far is a few of these.

Michael Judd with his "catch".

What is sad is I think Jared is starting to get a little envious of the people that are even catching sticks. Last weekend we went to Lake Conroe (which is a much bigger and better lake than Lake Houston). We bought a fishing license for me and even a guide to help us figure out where the fish were. But it didn't help. Of course, we didn't realize Conroe was for people on water skis and huge recreational boats on the weekends. That probably doesn't encourage the fish. But our bait sure didn't either - not even a bite. Right now, I'm thinking our cats may have an easier time with getting the fish.

Even funnier, Jared is now building a gate for a boat trailer he doesn't have. He's become pretty obsessed with this boat thing. It's pretty much all he talks about. One really cute thing he's doing is naming the boat after me - The Berms. Now, I don't know how I feel about an old, scratched up boat with many, many years behind it being named after me, but I'll take the good with the bad. After all, Jared spends 90% of his time thinking about it, so maybe somehow that trickles down to me since its named after me.

Jared building the boat gate. We had to rip up all the plants right there in front to do it. I'm sure two gates (one being a double gate) will help the resale value of our home. ;) Ha.Ha.