Jason's 27th Birthday Adventure

To celebrate Jason's 27th birthday, I planned a full day of fun things for us.  Nothing too out of the ordinary, but stuff I knew Jason would enjoy. 

I presented each activity via a page from his adventure book right before it was time to move on.  (Cheestastic?  Yes... but hopefully fun as well.)  As you can tell, when he woke up, I made him breakfast.  (He chose boiled eggs & fruit.)  Then he watched part of the Tour de France before we headed to Barnes and Noble to pick him out some birthday books. 

The big part of the day was going to No Label Brewing Co. out in Katy.  We've been meaning to make it out there for months now, but have never found the time to do so.  It's such a small operation and they've only been around for less than a year, but boy do they make some yummy beer.

It's a family owned operation.  See that guy up there under the flags?  That's Brian Royo, part owner, giving us the low down.

I think there is some weird law that doesn't allow breweries to advertise where they distribute their product, so I caught this super secret picture from behind the scenes.  The white board shows what bars they are in and which brew is at which bar.

Oh, did I mention that the brewery is located in an old grain mill?  Pretty crazy digs.  Also crazy... the hundreds of people that show up on Saturdays to sit out in the heat and drink beer for a couple of hours.  They are kid and dog friendly, and believe me, there were plenty of both.

Doesn't 27 look good on Jason?

After the brewery tour, we quickly stopped by Katy Mills mall before meeting up with Sal & Nicole for drinks at Taps. 

We went to dinner at Zelko Bistro in the Heights and it was very good.  After that, we were pooped so we just headed home and went to sleep.

So, there you have it... Jason's 27th birthday adventure.  :)

Mmmm... Steaks

On the eve of Jason's 27th birthday, we grilled yummy steaks.  I almost didn't make it home from work in time for dinner, but luckily I did.

Because these guys were gooooood.  Mmmm... and see the tomatoes topped with basil and mozzarella?  Delish.

Jase... stop making that mean scrunchy face!  It's ruining my picture.

Meanwhile, Radar and I chilled on the sideline.

All done!  We paired the steaks & tomatoes with baked potatoes.  (Mine's topped with a little Ranch, cheese, & avocados.)  Thanks to my wonderful husband for being such a great cook!

Today, Jason's 27th birthday adventure.  Hooray!

Gardening During a Drought

I haven't posted many updates on our spring garden.  Mostly because it hasn't been that impressive.  I think we got our plants in the ground too late (should have started in late February instead of March) and then it's just been way too hot for our plants to actually produce much harvest.

We have, however, tried to keep it somewhat alive just in case it decides to start doing something spectacular.  Before we headed to Rockport last week, we decided to invest in a timer and a soaker hose.  They've actually worked quite nicely. 




It's especially helpful that the timer has two separate hose nozzles.  The green hose runs to the raised garden beds and is connected to the soaker hose and the grey hose is used to water our potted patio plants.

We snaked the soaker hose throughout the plants.  It runs for 80 minutes every evening.  That seems to keep the plants happy.

Our tomato plants sure have gotten big.  Too bad we have only gotten a few measly tomatoes out of them all summer.  Our pepper plants have a few peppers on them right now.  Our swiss chard is still managing as well.

Basil is doing great (on the right), along with the mints (on the left.)  The two huge plants in the middle are the eggplants.  We have gotten three eggplants, but unfortunately they ripened too quickly and we never got to eat them.  They have a ton of flowers on them right now though, so we are hopeful to get a few more out of them.

Radar says, "hello."  Or rather, "please rub my tummy."  He is the laziest on Sundays.

Rockport, TX

Sorry I posted pictures of a beautiful sunset last week and left you hanging as to our location.  Well, last week we headed south to Rockport to spend the weekend with Jason's family to celebrate his mom's 50th birthday.

We stayed at an amazing house on Copano Bay...

We fished.  At night...

And during the day...

Jordan won for best catch of the weekend...

I enjoyed watching the wildlife...

While Jason enjoyed killing it...

Hehe.  Circle of life.  The birds enjoyed the remnants...

Jason and Jordan caught bait fish...

While Debbie and I took pictures of crabs...

  

But most importantly, it was a wonderful time to just sit and relax.



Ahhh...

Two Projects (& Baby Birds!)

I'm all about marking things off of lists, but two projects I'm glad Jason & I didn't tackle this spring: 1) sodding the backyard and 2) installing gutters.  Because after being in a the middle of a marathon drought, I'm not sure either would have done us any good. 



Weed filled backyard.

In fact, Houston recently implemented water conservation measures. As an odd numbered house, we are only allowed to water the lawn on Wednesdays and Saturdays between the hours of 8 pm and 10 am. I'm not exactly sure what that means though... for instance, am I suppose to water Sunday morning before 10 am, or Saturday? Are my neighbors going to call me in if I have it wrong? Oh the pressure!

Gutterless roof.

Also, the city has been having issues with water line breaks due to the dry ground settling and cracking pipes. Our neighborhood alone has had two pretty bad main breaks in the past few weeks. Each one ran for days because the city didn't have enough crews to service all of the breaks around the city. As a result, our water pressure has been noticeably low.

If only we could divert the water from the water line breaks to our yards and trees. Speaking of trees, there has actually been a grass root effort to save the city's trees. Even in public spaces, residents have been using 5 gallon buckets with small holes in the bottom to water the trees. I'm hoping our pecan tree out front survives, because it is home to some pretty cute little guys.

Do you see what I see?

Isn't he a cute little fellow?  Not sure if he has siblings, but he does have two very protective parents.

There's mama!

Yep, we have a pair of blue jays living in the yard.  They've been friendly (so far) to us, but I've heard stories from neighbors about them dive bombing them if they're too close to their nests.  I'm just glad I got a few pictures in.

Needless to say, we could use some rain 'round these parts.

Ramblings

Oh goodness, two weeks have flown by and I've completely neglected my blog.  Guess we haven't done too much around the house that's blog worthy.  So what has happened the last two weeks?  Hmmm... well Jared (Jason's bro) visited a few days.  Oh, and a new Whole Foods opened up in town.  It's pretentious and expensive, but everything looks so pretty and yummy, it's hard to resist (especially compared to our neighborhood's Kombat Kroger.)  Last weekend, we picked up cheese, prosciutto, cantaloupe, and a goat cheese & tomato pizza and had Sal & Nicole over for dinner.  It was delish.  Yesterday when we stopped by for a few groceries, Jason got a 5 minute lecture about the different types of organic toothpastes and how one or another might interfere with his homeopathics.  He nodded like he totally understood, and then turned to me and said, "I don't even know what homeopathics are."  Yup, that's about all that's happened in our exciting lives.  Other than watching old episodes of Northern Exposure & X-Files, we haven't done much.  Tomorrow we'll celebrate the 4th with friends (yes, I realize tomorrow is the 3rd, but it would be silly to say we're celebrating the 3rd of July), and then I have Monday off.  Hooray.