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By Amber, on November 27, 2011, at 8:48 pm 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? Continue reading A Texan Thanksgiving
By Amber, on September 15, 2011, at 10:00 pm 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.
By Amber, on September 13, 2011, at 10:35 pm 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?
By Amber, on July 7, 2011, at 10:00 pm My Thursday night spinning class was cancelled after months of very low attendance — recently there have been anywhere from three to six of us, when there used to be at least ten. It was actually going to get the axe a couple weeks ago, and then a dozen people showed up in what turned out to be a freak occurrence, so it got a temporary stay of execution. I used to go to spinning on Tuesday and Thursday nights, but then Toastmasters took over Tuesday nights, so now I have none!
I’ve been thinking about what I can do with those extra couple hours on Thursdays. One obvious possibility is to get started early on my Thursday night posts! Did I do that tonight? Of course not — I took a nap. So here are some more pictures from around my parents’ yard.
I grew up in Virginia, where the cardinal is the state bird (as in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia). I never would have guessed there were so many cardinals in Texas, but that is probably what I see most when I watch my parents’ birdbath. They also have a roadrunner that visits, but he’s sneaky. My dad and I tried meep-meeping from the pool, but no luck. Next step, I think, is to set up some giant wooden boxes stamped ‘ACME.’
There are quite a few pretty wildflowers that sprout up in unlandscaped areas outside the fence, such as this vervain:
..and this silverleaf nightshade:
I found this live shotgun shell in the woodsy area (the neighborhood is located on the builder’s old hunting grounds; my father found a gym bag full of these):
..and this ironclad beetle:
If you walk far enough, the trees open up to this meadow where nobody has built yet:
Pretty, isn’t it?
By Amber, on July 5, 2011, at 11:05 pm We got back from our weekend a little later than planned, but it was worth it.
We had a nice 4th of July, which included swimming, burgers and cake. Even though most of Texas is in severe drought and nobody can buy or sell fireworks, my parents’ town was determined to put on a fireworks display, and we were able to see them over the treetops. It was a fun and relaxing day!
I am squeezing one more day out of the holiday tomorrow, but Mark has to work, so I suppose I’ll be getting to bed as well!
By Amber, on July 3, 2011, at 8:00 pm I hope you’re having as much fun as my family is!
I’ll check back in on Tuesday if I haven’t completely worn myself out with all this fun. :)
By Amber, on June 23, 2011, at 11:00 pm Just a few snaps from macro-stalking in my parents’ yard last weekend!
By the way, if you read me at my actual site instead of a reader, you may have noticed that I am a little behind on 365 uploads. It seems that flickr’s psychic upload service is on the fritz, but I hear it’ll be fixed in a jiffy!
Oh, also? I am definitely my Toastmasters club’s new VPPR. Hooray! Looking at the list of the other new officers, I am confident that it is going to be a very good year.
By Amber, on June 2, 2011, at 10:08 pm An assortment of critters spotted around my parents’ house, starting with a curious squirrel:
A painted bunting:
A lizard hiding in a rockpile:
Those were cute and all, but things are about to get a lot less cuddly. Follow the jump if you dare. Continue reading Hill Country critters
By Amber, on May 31, 2011, at 10:00 pm At first the meeting convened and everything seemed to be going as planned:
But pretty soon the attendees got rowdy…
 …and eventually the weapons came out:
 It’s Texas, what did you expect?
 How was your holiday weekend?
By Amber, on April 24, 2011, at 10:05 pm Just got back from a delightfully disgusting three-day gluttony extravaganza (including an Exhibition of Fancy Swimming) at my parents’ beautiful new estate in Hill Country. I think I ate my weight in carbs, and as luck would have it, I have no gym clothes clean for tomorrow. Oh well, guess I’m sleeping in!
If I can pull myself out of this carb coma by Tuesday, maybe we’ll talk NASA. I have to say, I am really going to miss those doughnuts tomorrow morning.
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