Eat, DINK and Be Merry » Family

Red velvet rodeo

Amber — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 01:46:49 +0000

This weekend we brought my sister with us for our last rodeo visit of 2012. I had a very specific food checklist and completed it in this order: sausage on a stick, fried red velvet cake, fried cookie dough. Yes, I did the cookie dough last time, but it was worth a repeat. Enough so to supercede fried oreos.

Watch for my friend Natalie’s take on fried red velvet, but here’s my assessment: solid 7 or 8, but not a game-changer. Would be better with more frosting, or a post-fry frosting schmear. Would eat again.

We minimized our visit to the livestock, but stopped to admire the chickens.

There was plenty of livestock at the actual rodeo events. It was the second to last night of the whole rodeo so we got to see some championship shootout rounds, which meant we got double the rodeo for our money! BTW, can you spot the amateur in this collage?

Obviously it’s the kid with the camera in her face, but the calf scramble is no joke. Torn shirts and torn jeans are common results!

This time the concert was Brad Paisley. I don’t know his music, but it was a pretty good show. I left my telephoto lens home this time, so my photos of his alter ego were better than my photos of him:

Also, did you know that ladies love Brad Paisley? It’s true. Every time he stepped from the stage onto the dirt, the fence instantly looked like human flypaper.

Ah, rodeo, I will miss you for the next 11 months. Why haven’t I bought a lifetime membership yet?

Happy birthday to Heather!

Amber — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:05:06 +0000

She probably won’t be thrilled that I used that photo but I think it’s good, so ha! Trust me, Heather — I have a feeling the bull riders will like this one.

My sister is on the climb out of a couple of the hardest years you would never hope to have. We’re all so glad to have her here in Texas where we can get together frequently for our favorite f-words: food, family, and fScrabble. Mark likes food and family but isn’t so fond of fScrabble, so he brings his own favorite f-word.

Happy birthday, Heather. I couldn’t ask for a cooler sister and I’m so glad we live much closer together now. Can’t wait to introduce you to the Houston Rodeo! Bull riders optional.

Joyeux Noël et bonne année!

Amber — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 23:13:14 +0000

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season. I am going to spend the rest of 2011 enjoying the family instead of stressing over what to blog!

Think I can remember to take a photo every day for the next six days? We’ll see…

Fall comes to Houston

Amber — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 01:36:46 +0000

So we’re four days from the first day of winter, but better late than never!

There are some beautiful autumn colors on my drive to work, as well. We’ve had the odd 80-degree day here and there, but the weather has mostly been cool enough to enjoy long sleeves, tights and leather jackets. We got the car back from the body shop this past week, so now I’m ready for another arctic blast that will let me enjoy the seat heaters! Also, Enterprise gave me a substantial discount for the rental car being dirty and smelly, so hooray!

I can’t believe the holidays are just about here. My work days are as busy as ever, which I generally like, with the exception of staying 90 minutes later than usual this past Friday. I have a three-day week and a lot to try to accomplish, and then I’m off for the rest of the year. Mark and I are looking forward to seeing his side of the family for the first time in over a year.

I also have a Toastmasters speech to prepare — our last meeting of 2011 is this week. My topic is bad PowerPoint habits. I am starting to think that PowerPoint may be my life’s passion. What exactly does that say about me? I don’t want to think about it. I’m just going to go back to devouring these books.

Burning out my fuse

Amber — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:43:28 +0000

Aren’t things supposed to slow down as the holidays approach? So why do I feel like I’m running ragged at work every day, running to the next social event, then running home to do it all again? It’s mostly pretty good, it’s just very different from the way December usually goes for me!

Anyway.

I don’t know if it’s just first-born behavior or what, but occasionally Mark will do something that will make me say, “My god, I married my sister.” Nowhere is this more apparent or irritating than in their complete disregard for lyrical accuracy…which is why I am currently in so love with this commercial:

Mark would like me to tell you that he didn’t know the actual line. I would like to tell you that he didn’t care.

A Texan Thanksgiving

Amber — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 02:48:34 +0000

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving! Mark and I drove out to Hill Country to visit my parents and my sister. Most of us don’t especially care about the whole turkey thing, so we had another seafood boil. (Dear Williamson County: we know there is still a burn ban, so we did not use fire.)

(Maybe we used a little.)

Observe the festive tablecloth.

I usually stay behind the lens when we all get together, but I made an effort to get into a few photos this time!

Okay, that’s enough nice pictures. Want to see what it takes to get them?

Somewhere there is a great photo where I am a very young child, making the same face in an otherwise nice family portrait. If I ever come across it I’ll do a side-by-side.

A room of her own

Amber — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:56:48 +0000

What a whirlwind weekend! I spent lot of time with the important Fs: friends, family and food! If you asked Sweet Pea what the best part of the weekend was, she would tell you it was the beautiful Bakhtiari rug that my parents brought her — er, brought Mark and me. They bought it about a decade ago and it doesn’t match the colors in their new home, but it does perfectly match ours! Of course, Sweet Pea doesn’t care — she’s busy loving the fact that she is finally allowed on carpet, which is not the case elsewhere in the house.

She likes that rug so much that she didn’t wake us up by serenading us the way she usually does on weekend mornings. She doesn’t need us for entertainment anymore — not when there are so many little patterns and fringe pieces to pounce on!

I hope you had a nice weekend. Today after our customary enormous Sunday brunch I made another bracelet, and this time I documented the process so I can share it Tuesday or Thursday evening. I also have a random beauty product review to share.

Let’s go get ‘em! Have a great week!

Last summer splash

Amber — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 03:00:21 +0000

A few snaps from last weekend out at my parents’ place, a final hurrah before the pool gets too cold for those of us who did not grow up swimming in the Puget Sound (that would be everyone but Mark). There were the usual sights:

The usual ridiculously good food — observe Mark, eating my sister’s homemade steak sauce:

And these buttery s’mores bars that my mom baked with dark chocolate and powdered chipotle (they didn’t last long):

And then there was the dove. Apparently it’s dove season, and those poor dumb birds keep flying into my parents’ windows and dying. One struck right after Saturday’s dinner, and my sister objected to our father’s intent to throw the carcass in the trash. I agreed to help her bury it out in the bone-dry dirt, but I told her that she would have to pick the bird up and I would do the digging. This was the gear she assembled for dove disposal duty:

Note the work gloves, paper plate, saran wrap and tissues. My mom asked, “What’s the beer for?” Heather’s reply: “For me.”

And of course, in a thread from a tale as old as time, Dad was the one who buried that dove.

Widowmaker

Amber — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:35:30 +0000

My sister and I were sitting on chaise lounges by our parents’ pool this weekend, a small iron table between us. “There’s a spider under the table,” she observed. It was hanging beneath the corner closest to me, inches away but minding its own business. Spiders kind of freak me out for some reason, but this one was so uninterested in me that after I made a mental note to come back with a camera, I proceeded to read and doze for several more hours.

When I finally grabbed my camera at the end of the afternoon, this was the only shot I got before the spider tucked up tight beneath the table and hid from view:

The next day, the spider was back in its spot and I seized the opportunity to snap away. Hey, wait — does something about this spider seem funny to you?

Oh. Okay, then.

I have to say, I liked her company better than that of the scorpion I found in the guest room. Is my parents’ house dangerous, or what?

Birthday crab boil

Amber — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 03:04:26 +0000

All my mom ever wants for Mother’s Day or her birthday is crab and family time. This year we schemed to bring her both in a way she didn’t expect — with a crab and shrimp boil in her own backyard!

I had a hard time narrowing down the photos for this post — there are just so many great shots of my family enjoying the time together. I am convinced that if you want to have a successful party, all you have to do is throw some food into the biggest pot you can find, mix some drinks, and watch it all come together.

Follow the jump for more!