Pinkies up

Two Saturdays ago our mom and I toured an English garden. We met a very handsome cat and a proud peacock, ate currant scones with strawberry jam and enormous pieces of layer cake - chocolate for her, peanut butter for me :), drank strong tea in pretty teacups, and admired all of the wild, growing things. It was all quite ladylike and civilized and I told Gayle I felt like Anne of Green Gables :)

And this has nothing to do with English gardens, but last month we celebrated our 18th anniversary. So, here is our formal portrait of the old married couple :)

Summer deck series

Our parents have a deck that overlooks the backyard and provides a lovely view of the trees and hills and mountain beyond, and I plan to take a bazillion pictures of what I see as the summer rolls on.

A road trip

In this case, it was a road trip at the speed of light: we left Texas on May 17th and rolled into Washington on the 19th, which is 2100 miles in 2.5 days, which equals two 12-hour days and one 8-hour day and three sore rear ends. Jan did the vast majority of the driving in the moving truck and Brent did all of the driving in our very vintage Honda; they are both troopers to the nth degree. We spent the first night just outside of Denver and the second in the middle of Boise; on our last day of driving we decided to be really luxurious and sleep in until 5:15. We zipped through three previously unseen states (Oklahoma, Colorado & Wyoming) and Jan & I are now well-versed in the best truck stops thanks to Brent :)

A birthday selfie! The middle-aged woman flanked by two youngins ;)

Onward & upward

The husband of my youth is now the husband of my middle age. In other words, we have left our 30s behind and now reside in the strange and wonderful world of the 40s. Also, for the record, I think this business of one's 40s marking actual middle age is rubbish; in lots of ways we're both still waiting to feel like grown-ups :)

I spent months thinking of ways to celebrate our birthdays (bubble soccer! a trapeze class! a slip n slide football battle!), but in the end, we decided a change was in order. And so, at the beginning of April, we secured positions with a mobile hearing testing company that will allow us to travel all around the country and Jan Michael left his career at AT&T. We sold or gave away most of our things, waved a teary goodbye to everyone we love in Texas, and are now back in our old Washington stomping grounds for the next two months. On August 1st we'll leave for company headquarters in Illinois, and after orientation & training, our new adventure begins.

And now the springtime edition of some of whom and what we miss from the Lone Star state:

I guarded my heart for a very long time against appreciating anything at all about Texas (just because it wasn't WA, which is beyond ridiculous, I know), but then I came to my senses and when it was time to go, I grieved leaving the very dear people who have permanent places in our hearts. We have family now way down south and we are both so thankful. 

Spring

Just a few pictures of what spring looks like in these parts :)

Now, a update from the aging chronicles: We will turn 40 soon [ only in body; we are much younger in our minds :) ], which means we've decided to become acquainted with running up the hill outside our neighborhood. It is long and steep (or at least it feels that way while we are huffing and puffing) and so far we're able to manage two times up in a row; our goal is ten. Running is my exercise nemesis, but I have very fond memories over the years of slogging along while Jan Michael zips on ahead and the sun shines up above and the music of our youth blares in my ears. It's the sort of thing wherein the actual doing of it is kind of miserable, but the after is worth the ick, and it makes me happy that we can do it together :) 

WA

On Saturday I flew home after two weeks in WA. It was a doozy of a trip, nothing at all what any of us expected (life is often like that, isn't it?), but in between the really hard things, there was a huge amount (too many to count) of really lovely things, too. And I am thankful for it all.

A Dallas Saturday

About 3 weeks ago, our friends Ken and Lisa (with whom we lived during our first month as Texans), delivered some sad news: they are being moved to Atlanta. AT&T seems to be making of a habit of transferring people half-way across the country without consulting me, and I think it's dumb.

Anyway, we've been trying to fit in time together while we still can, so on the last Saturday of January, we spent a few hours exploring the city. We parked on the West Dallas side of the Continental Avenue Bridge and walked across it...

into the Arts District. We meandered around the water gardens at Fountain Place...

before turning around and marching back over the bridge. All of this walking made us feel justified in eating brunch at Smoke (blueberry pancakes with vanilla poached apricots and apricot nectar syrup AND whipped cream!), after which we drove to the Bishop Arts District and wandered around some very fun little shops and boutiques:

I was all for making ourselves comfortable at the Dallas Grilled Cheese Company (I do not see how a restaurant with fried bologna sandwiches and caramel & sea salt milkshakes could ever be a bad decision), but my companions were still full from brunch (amateurs!). I didn't pout about it for too long, though, because it just means we'll have to plan another trip that way before Ken & Lisa fly the coop :) 

It was all around such a lovely day, and a wonderful way to wrap up the first month of the new year.

Trapped In A Room With A Zombie

Last month, our friends Ken & Lisa announced their plans to take us on a mystery excursion and wondered if we were free January 9th. They were awfully stingy with information and would only tell us to wear comfortable shoes and that we would be indoors.

I tried and tried to guess what in the world was going on, but not once did I think of anything even close to resembling this:  

There were 8 other people who had signed up for the same time slot, and just as the sign says, the 12 of us were locked in a room with a (real, live!) zombie and had 60 minutes in which to follow clues, solve puzzles and find the key in order to unlock the door and get us to safety. 

Every 5 minutes, an alarm would sound and the chain keeping the zombie at bay would be let out 12 inches. By the end of the hour, if we'd not found the key, the chain would be long enough so that he would be able to reach every nook and cranny in the room, and we would be dead. 

We all worked very well together, but in the end, we just weren't quick enough and were...ominous music!... eaten. The whole thing was great fun and we would totally recommend it to anyone who enjoys thinking games and who also doesn't mind a little bit of good, clean fear tossed in for kicks :) 

We also had some time to have pictures taken with our zombie afterwards - he was much kinder and more soft-spoken in real-life as opposed to his snarling, crazed alter-ego :)

I should add that I was cornered twice during the hour and would have been devoured on the spot if not for my heroic husband, who jumped in to distract the zombie, which allowed me to scamper away. Chivalry is not dead yet :) 

A Christmas surprise

Jan Michael's gift to me this year was a (wonderful, thoughtful, made-me-cry) surprise overnight stay at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, which  included tickets to ICE!, the hotel's (amazing, made-me-smile-until-my-cheeks-hurt, magical, C-O-L-D) winter wonderland. 

Our room was on the 9th floor and faced the atrium, so this is what we saw while we sat on our balcony during the day:

And this is some of what we saw while we wandered around in the atrium:

There are four restaurants at the Gaylord, but we decided to be fancy-schmancy and order dinner from room service - which we'd never done before and wouldn't mind doing again :) 

And here was our bird's eye view after dinner from the inside:

And the outside:

Now, about ICE!: Upon entry everyone is given an enormous parka, which is necessary because it's a brisk 9 degrees :) And then you're let loose to zip down slides made of ice, throw snowballs, and ooh & ahh over the ice sculptures (all two million pounds worth!). This year's theme was Christmas Around the World, which reminded us of It's A Small World at Disneyland... with slightly cooler temperatures :) 

The last sculpture was our favorite:

I love looking at all of these pictures again & again; what a tremendous gift to be given something we were able to experience together :)