Why do things like this always happen to Darla?

Darla's face is twice it's normal size.

If you can spot the bumps all over Darla's nose then you can tell that she got into a little fight with none other than Fire Ants. Poor little Dar!

These are the biggest moths I've ever seen.

More fun creatures

This wonderful little cockroach decided to live in our pantry...that is until we found him and then he got to go swimming in our toilet.

Today at gymnastics Bree got to practice somersaults, the rings, and the uneven parallel bars. She loves doing this stuff...and continues to practice at home all over the couch.

Bree's Gymnastics

Web-Cam shenanigans

We were having a little fun with the webcam settings and wanted to share the hilarious results, although the first picture of me is a little frightening...

Super Fast Bree

Bree notified me that her arm band made her super fast, so I wanted to share that with "y'all"

Lake Somerville

Well, with our focus on trying out all the local swimming holes, we made a trip to Lake Somerville (aka Somerville Lake). It's about 35 minutes south of college station and is actually a reservoir. We've been told it is the place to be for boating, and as such, has a lot of accidents and crashes. While we didn't get to see any of that live, we did witness the sheer number of boats swerving and speeding across the water. The water was extremely warm, and the top foot of water or so was almost hot-tub warm. Definitely not the refreshing dip in the lake that we're used to. The kids loved it and the dogs swam and played in the water almost all day, so we even got some relax time when we returned (a rare occurrence these days). The water and beach were similar to Lake Bryan, but it was less crowded and we could drive almost to the water's edge.

Play Dates!

Bree had two play dates with Helen Hindman, the daughter of one my fellow interns. They got to go to downtown Bryan and have story time at the library, then the next day, they played dress up and had dance time at Helen's house. Bree was so excited to have a friend to play with, and Lib liked the adult interaction at mid-day. It was an all around success.

Can you spot 2 lizards in this picture?

Click on the picture to blow it up and look at the far right vertical brick

These little lizards are all over our house. We've caught 4 or 5 inside the house. They are only a couple of inches long, but fast little buggers. They love to sit on the warm brick of our house at night.

Initial Post

Well, this be the initial posting. We are here and doing well. Two weeks down, 50 more to go :). Lib has been working tirelessly to make the house our home, and she has unpacked all the necessary boxes and hung the decorations, made curtains for the kids rooms and helped me decide how to decorate my office (more on that later). She has been managing fights between the kids and depressed dogs, and could probably use a break by now. We feel somewhat confined to the house, since it is over 100 outside a lot of the time and only cools down to the upper 70's at night. It doesn't matter what time we venture outside, we return with streaks of sweat down our bodies and it dripping off our noses. We recently found a dog park that has an enclosed section for dogs under 18 inches tall, complete with trees, a pond and a painted fire-hydrant. The wieners love it and come home exhausted when we visit. It has become a great outing for all.

We got Bree signed up for gymnastics classes and pre-school, to try and zap some of her energy, since she seems to have an endless amount. She is really excited about it, but has some hesitations. She told me earlier tonight that she is nervous about "walking on the beam". I assured her that there will be people to help her. Her pre-school teacher seems to be a nice woman, and is a saint for dealing with little kids for that amount of time.

I started at Texas A&M two weeks ago. I have loved it! My fellow interns are a great bunch, and we seem to mesh well. Two come from Texas (Texas Tech and University of North Texas) and are familiar with the culture and such. The other intern and I (she's from Arizona, but completed her grad work at Auburn) simply follow their lead. The first four weeks of my internship are trainings and meetings, and 40 hours of sitting on my duff listening to folks is exhausting for some reason. I have an office that I can call my own. My name is even written in Braille on the plaque outside my door. I'll get some pics of it on here soon, but we recently furnished it with returned leased merchandise from Aaron's furniture rental. They had some stuff on clearance, and so two trips with the Trailblazer later, I've got a place for me and my clients to sit!

I'm going to try and comment on food experiences at some point in each post. So far, I've had bakery sandwiches, Kolaches (which are a Czech food, like pigs in a blanket), great BBQ (twice), and fantastic Mexican. Oh, and these great pizza rolls from a local pizza joint. Food seems to be a passion of the staff at the Counseling center, so I think I'll fit in just fine.

The short of it all is that we are doing great, and hope that the future includes trips to fun places, festivals and fun with family and friends. We'll keep you posted!