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.