A weekend with extended family

Our niece L asked if she could bring some friends to the lake house to celebrate her birthday weekend and kick off spring break. She's a kindergarten teacher in Round Rock ISD, so Lord knows she's always in need of some downtime from the madness of herding littles.

The girls arrived mid afternoon on Friday and got settled. While here, they enjoyed a couple dinners out at some of the fun and interesting local restaurants we recommended. I whipped up brunch for them Saturday morning. My sister, L's mother, got her a fun martini themed cake to celebrate hitting the quarter century mark.

On Saturday, I took the girls out for a cruise in our boat to tour the lake. After returning to the dock, I broke out the floating mat for them. Then we launched a couple of the kayaks. The water temps were still in the upper 60s, but warmer air temps and bright sunshine made for a beautiful day on the water.

As luck would have it, L's brother G decided to come spend the weekend with my sister. So we got to take him out to fish Friday before the girls arrived. Surprisingly, the husband reeled in a fish when he threw a line off the dock before we even cranked up the boat. Fortunately for the fish, but not the guys, our winds picked up and seemed to scare off the fishies. Bummer. Nephew G was happy he got in nine holes of golf the following afternoon before heading back to the hill country Sunday. He was on the golf team in high school, so he was well versed in standard course rules and etiquette. The husband went along to drive our cart and keep him company. All in all, it was a lovely weekend with extended family.

Random spring bullet points

⦿  a sure sign we've officially entered spring is the massive pollen dump taking place right now

⦿  I thought the neighbor had installed a fishing light down at his retaining wall

⦿  turns out it was just a bunch of pollen floating atop the water

⦿  favorite hill country landscaping plant I'll miss are the mountain laurels that burst forth with beautiful purple flowers every spring

⦿  these were currently blooming along the side of our back porch

⦿  another harbinger of spring is the reemergence of lizards and geckos

⦿  little man Finn killed a T-rex sized gecko on the back porch recently

⦿  then he proudly pranced around the back yard with this fresh kill in his mouth

⦿  I didn't get a video/photo of the gecko murder or corpse, which I'm sure you're happy to hear

⦿  but I did make a video of him on the hunt for another lizard or gecko in the back yard's landscaping bushes this week

⦿  file this under the tab "unique things Texans have to move from house to house"

⦿  to quote that famous 70s Saturday morning philosopher, Bugs Bunny... that's all, folks!

Last hill country volunteer day

One of the things I'll miss most about living in the hill country is the time I've spent volunteering at a local group home for girls. For the past five years I have enjoyed sharing my time at our monthly Chicktime gatherings. I always sponsored and led either the March or April gatherings. We've decorated cookies, celebrated Easter, learned about San Antonio's Fiesta, made friendship bracelets... the list goes on and on. I was also the official snack lady every month for a couple years. 

So I planned my doctor's appointments and cleaning out the hill country house for it to coincide with a final Chicktime gathering last Saturday. For this last spring month, I hosted plant day. Since I have a mostly brown thumb, we read books about plants, learned about the carnivorous Venus fly trap, and did a variety of plant related crafts. The girls were as intrigued with the bug eating plant as I imagined they would be. It was a wonderful way to wrap up a final meaningful day with these girls who are so deserving of our time, care and attention. Next up for me, in addition to volunteering to teach Sunday school to the elementary crowd a couple times each month, will be prepping to help with Vacation Bible School at our new church. I hope you're all continuing to find ways to be the hands and feet of Jesus in your local communities, too!

Yet another moving day

The husband and I have been back in the hill country all week prepping for a last big push to finish cleaning out the house and barn so we can hand over the keys to our realtor and get it listed. Plus I needed to return for a final round of annual health checks. Fun stuff like a mammogram and EKG. We had left the husband's little SUV here at the hill country house for the past couple months, so we also needed to get that to the lake. We made final visits to a few of our favorite local restaurants. I kinda thought I'd be sad about this final goodbye, but I've already closed the door on our life here in the hill country. And I can hardly wait to get back to the lake to all of my new friends and activities.

A spin on the lake

The law student and her boyfriend came for a visit last weekend. The countdown has started to her graduation in May, and we're so excited for her to complete her legal education. Oh sure, we're proud of all her hard work to earn her JD. But we're especially happy thinking about the "raise" we'll be getting as we ease her off the parent payroll once she takes the bar exam and starts working. But I digress.

We were having some really pretty weather, so we took the pontoon boat out for a spin. Opting for a morning ride, it was a bit chilly when we picked up speed. The daughter, with her 2% body fat, ended up snuggled down on the front cushions to get out of the wind. I think our highlight of the ride was spying some white pelicans on the water. Since we only see the occasional stray gray pelican from the Texas coast (the Gulf of Mexico is about 200 miles from us), I think these white pelicans were just migrating through and took a rest stop on our lake.

Soup season on the wane

I knew it was just a matter of time before I pulled out the shorts. Sure enough, when we took the boat for a spin this afternoon our temps were in the low 80s. I'm not quite ready to do the biannual shoe swap since my feet are scary scaly and dry, with unpainted dragon toenails that could probably dig taters (as my granny used to say). So I threw on a pair of what I've called boat shoes my whole life instead of the old flip flops I keep out year round in my closet.

Now that the husband is retired and we've got his parents moved into our neighborhood, we've been trying out new-to-us restaurants. He chose a local Italian place recently where we really enjoyed their fresh, warm bread with seasoned dipping oil and the caprese salad. After a really good start, I was disappointed that my chicken piccata and his pizza were bland. 

I'm not one of those gals that loves to cook. I can cook, and don't mind doing it. But I mean seriously, is there anything wrong with eating out once a day if you can afford it??? (Don't answer that!) This week I whipped up a big pot of beef and vegetable soup to share with the husband's parents. That's mostly healthy. But then I made some cheesy jalapeño cornbread to accompany it. Not so healthy. Especially when I brushed it with hot honey butter after I pulled it out of the oven. Calories schmalories, y'all.

Texas' season within a season

We've settled into milder temps lately, which is pretty common for Texas. We'll usually have a few serious cold snaps, but always return to the moderate temps. Calling this time of year winter is really kinda lost on us. But I digress. In the last few days we've had several mornings begin with clouds and/or fog, but then it eventually lifts for afternoon sun. In the video below, you can see the obvious line where the clouds were being blown out to make way for clear skies.

With these comfortable temps, I've found myself sitting on the back porch to read or work on my laptop most afternoons. And thus I've enjoyed the parade of boats on the water. In chilly weather, it's just the hardy fishing folks out doing their thing. But yesterday, I spied the trifecta of a pontoon, wake boat and fishing boat when the Fahrenheit climbed well into the 70s. Unfortunately no sailboats have been spotted this week, because they're my favorite.

With the nice weather, I've been able to take our dogs on longer walks through the neighborhood. When we were passing by a little canal-inlet sort of area recently, I looked out and saw ducks on the water. No surprise there. But upon closer inspection, I realized that what at first glance appeared to be a duck off by itself was actually a nutria paddling towards open water. 

For those of you who aren't familiar with nutria, they're an invasive species. Initially imported from South America in the late 1800s for the fur trade, they're now found across large swaths of the US. Nutria are considered pests/nuisances here in Texas since they undermine the banks of ponds and lakes with their destructive burrowing. When the husband was growing up, his pawpaw would turn him and his friends loose to help weed out the nutria population on their farm so they wouldn't destroy the ponds for their cattle.

As you can see above and below, nutria look like the ugly cousin of a muskrat or beaver. They're often called swamp rats or river rats. The term rat is appropriate because they have these long, skinny rat-like tails. And get a load of those bright orange front teeth. That's the stuff of nightmares, y'all. I read that these teeth grow continuously throughout the nutria's life. It certainly provides a horrific visual for that idiom "long in the tooth". Poor guy could use a good whitening toothpaste and some of those bleach strips to get his chompers presentable. But I guess the lady nutrias don't mind.