The Good, the Bad, and the Quirkiness of Texas

The GOOD:

• We have an awesome house to stay in while we are here for nearly 3 weeks.
• We also have the free use of two vehicles.
• We found a street named Madeline, although it might have been spelled wrong.

• The town we are staying in has the most amazing recreation centers with game rooms,  indoor and outdoor pools with large water slides, diving boards, etc. They also have full workout facilities including an indoor track. The guest pass daily price is $3. 

• We are watching the world's sweetest and most easygoing dog, Penny. She is a mini Australian Shepherd and I have a feeling Tom may want to get one soon. 

• We've attended two different wards, both of which seemed great. 
• There are at least 1/2 dozen LDS attorneys at the Richardson office of Tom's firm. (There is approx. 1 in the OC office-TOM)
• We visited the Dallas Temple, which is the Temple I received my endowment from 18 years ago before my mission to Russia. 

The BAD:

• I have had the worst cold sore ever that has caused me to feel rather rotten! Blah!
• Madeline has been completely out of sorts and super bossy!  And she repeats the same thing over.  And over.  And over. And over. And over. Again.  Any suggestions how to help her grow out of that? (she blamed it on Texas)
• It's hot as hades. 
• Running sucks here, because it is already 85 degrees by 6 AM! It's way too hot for me! Seriously, when you are dripping sweat after 100 ft, it's problematic!
• I'm pretty sure I'm going to gain a thousand pounds while here because of the whole hot as hades problem that prevents outdoor activities and the fact that I love Tex-Mex. (o; 
• I didn't talk to my Dallasite friends before buying plane tickets to come out and as a result missed the memo that I wouldn't be able to see them much while we were here. I need to plan better next time. 
• Frankly, we've been bored. I plan to change that this week. 
• Cars do NOT stop for pedestrians at crosswalks. 

The QUIRKY:

• Have you ever seen a HIGH SCHOOL football stadium in Texas before? Well, they don't mess around. This is an example of one of the local stadiums that cost SIXTY MILLION dollars to build!!! Where do they get that kind of money at a public school?

• You can attend the local Cowboy church which includes free vittles! The son of one of Tom's coworkers attends regularly and usually goes bull riding after the sermon at the church. No joke. 

• This is the lovely path by the house we are staying in. I am surrounded by power lines when I walk or run. Oh you got to love the buzz of electricity!

• This may just be a Dallas area quirk, but they believe in putting garages on the BACK of your house that you get to via an alleyway like this: (Yes, having a driveway in back does mean you lose half your backyard!)

• The stoplights hang sideways:

I'm sure I'm missing some obvious things, but that's all for tonight. We are anxious to get back to California soon.

Beach Day

Going to the beach with friends is an amazing perk to living in California. We headed to Calafia where the water was reasonably warm and the waves were perfect for boogie boarding. We had a fabulous day!

Alli, Tricia, me, Betsy and Julie

Andrew and Carter riding the wave

Madeline looking like a real California girl

Madeline and her friends
Summer, Madeline, Claire, Audrey, and Savannah 

Random Thoughts, Events and Pictures

• I am loving summer so far. It's been busy, but fun!
• We head to Texas next week. We are doing a house swap with another family again.
• We had three extra kids all last week while our friends were in Hawaii.
• I taught a RS lesson on Sunday and I *think* it actually went well. I was less stressed about teaching than I normally am.
• I joined a random fitness challenge that's supposed to motivate me to lose 4% of my body weight over the next four weeks. We'll see if I can do it. My workouts have been great, but I really, really like to eat!
• Both kids are now taking piano and swimming lessons. Madeline is also taking Irish dance classes. We wanted to put Andrew in a team sport for the summer, but our schedule is so crazy, we decided to wait until fall.
• Andrew has been at scout camp all week. I think he likes it even if he won't admit it.
• I have a goal to walk at least 20,000 steps a day except on Sundays.
• I had a tension headache most of last week. Ugh!
• I haven't been grocery shopping much lately, which makes making dinner a bit of a challenge.
• I am trying to find a good summer routine. I'm not sure it'll happen though since we'll be out of town half the summer.
• Having a pool in our neighborhood is such a blessing. We've been spending as much time there as possible. I love that my kids have become great little swimmers in the last few months! The kids especially like it when Tom joins us, so they can do things like this:

• Tom, Astoria and I ran in a local 5k race on the fourth. This was Astoria's first race ever and she did great! She even kept up with me for the first half, which was amazing since she hasn't ran much in the last few weeks.  I got a PR by 34 seconds, which made me super happy! My goal is to be sub 27 minutes in my next race. I was so close this time.

Tom, me and Astoria

This is me at the finish line of the 5k race. Yeah, I look like I'm not going to make it much longer. 

• We enjoyed a nice pancake breakfast at church after our race:

I love these two! Me, Laurelun and Betsy at the fourth of July Pancake breakfast.

• Today we explored a local zoo. It was small, but fun!

I'm not sure why they have a random car stuck in the mud either, but the kids enjoyed playing on it!

Nathan, Madeline and Talon hanging out in a giant egg

Nathan, Talon, and Madeline

Betsy and I became great friends with a little monkey. (o;