Hiatus

It should come as no surprise that I've let this blog fall by the wayside, as of late.  I could blame it on our busy schedule with working, playing, schooling, exercising, cooking, cleaning, playing.  And that's just what I'll do.

Life has been steadily chugging along.  Annie turned 3 in January.

I joined Troy in the 30's this February.

We began (and I totally take more credit than I should for this) raising bees this spring.  This is Troy's new hobby and it's been a great learning experience for the rest of us as well.

Isaac turned 5 this May.  He will be starting kindergarten at the end of this month.  He is super stoked and asks everyday if it's time for school.

Orry turned 7 this June...  Man.  I can't believe that my life journey has included at least one kid for 7 years now.  He will be going to the second grade and I assume that he's excited to go, but he hasn't verbally expressed it yet.

We finished the school year with a good report card.  Our summer began with some trips to Louisiana and ended with a "Mega Trip" (as Troy would call it) across the country.  The summer isn't over quite yet.  There are still a couple of weeks until we start back up again.

We've had pretty good success with our backyard garden this year.  We've had a few cucumbers, lots of greens, too many tomatoes, and are still waiting on our carrots and beets.  I do believe the bees (and Troy) deserve the credit here.

We've enjoyed watching skunks and cattle birds in the early morning hours.

Summer 2013

Our memberships to the Houston Zoo and HMNS are still going strong.  The park nearby has also become a place that we frequent, often in the evenings when it's a tiny bit cooler.

I hope to keep this blog more up to date in the days, weeks, months to come.  It will be easier at first since there is much to tell about our "Mega Trip".  Hopefully our life will be bursting with excitement that I just can't contain and this will be a good outlet for that.  Until then, I hope you all have had an awesome summer!

The Land of Plenty

Houston is a big city.  The Land of Plenty.  On any given day, there are handfuls of things to do. Yesterday was a prime example.

HMNS had a dino day going on.  There was a farmer's market, an International Festival, a British Festival, a couple of movies playing at different outdoor venues, and the AHA Houston Heart Walk.

There was no way that we could have done all those things.  Let's not forget that weekends are a chance for finishing that long list of things that should have been done during the week.  Like recycling, grocery shopping, and buying new shoes.  So we could really only choose one special thing to do.

Lucky for us, the choice was easy.  We had a few filters that the event had to pass through in order to be chosen.  Firstly, we wanted to do something on the southwest side of town.  We wanted to meet up with some lovely friends in that neck of the woods, so that narrowed it down to two things: the farmers' market and the International Festival.  Secondly, it had to be cost effective (i.e. free).  The International Festival was free.  The farmers' market was technically free, but you know that we would have spent money on ugly tomatoes and local honey.  And finally, it had to be kid friendly.  The International Festival won since it was put on by the Fort Bend ISD and meant to educate children and showcase the diversity of the school system and community.

The kids had a great time.  They had "passports" and collected stamps.  They collected little knick knacks (which are knick-knacking up my house as we speak...) from various countries.  We even squeezed in some arts and crafts before we had to move along on to the next tasks.

Recycling was next.  And then the kiddos finally got to meet little Miles.  And lastly, I managed to get our grocery shopping for the week done.

But we never could have packed our day clear full.  Nope, not this last Saturday.  There was no way that we were going to miss the LSU/Alabama football game.  And boy, are we happy that we didn't!  Troy and I just love a good football game.  We especially love a good LSU football game.  And hopefully our kids will love LSU football as much as we do.  And according to this article, they are likely to.

So we donned our purple and gold, and we got our shoutin' voices ready.  We were ready for the fight.  I'm sure that if you watched the game and weren't invested in the team like we were, you probably would have found it to be a little boring.  There were no touchdowns and the score stayed tied for most of the game.  But me, I'm invested.  At various times throughout the game I was holding my breath and wincing.  At other times I was jumping and screaming.  During overtime, I was doing all of the above.  My kids were trying to sleep and pleading with me to stop yelling.  Oops.  But in the end, we won by 3 points.  Not much, but it was plenty enough for me.

Geaux Tigers! #1!!!



I can't wait for next week.  I don't know what's in store, but I'm pretty sure that we'll find something to do!

Rain or Shine

Over the past few months, our days have been nothing but sunshine.  The heat has kept us indoors.  But we don't mind one bit.

We still get our outdoors time.  It just happens in the evenings now.  And we've pretty much put trips to the zoo on hold until the fall.  

Yesterday we decided to venture out into the city to find a couple of places that we were excited to check out.  One of them was the Texas Art Asylum, a shop that sells used art supplies at big discounts.  The other was Canino Produce, a Mexican farmers' market.  So we headed out, with a vague sense of directions and an almost full tank of gas.  

We struck out.  We found neither of the places!  I blame it on the lack of directions, the lack of physical addresses, and leaving our phone at home.  Defeated, we started to head home.  Then it started to rain.  Soon after we found ourselves driving by the Houston Zoo.  It wasn't the ideal time for a zoo trip, a Saturday in the rain, but we decided to go anyway.  Maybe it was so the trip wouldn't be such a waste of gas.  

We had a great time.  It was only raining slightly and the rain helped to keep the temperature down.  The glorious rain also helped to keep the crowds to a minimum.  

The kids seemed to like it.

The birds didn't mind either.

And the carousel ride offered some shelter from the drizzle.

And just to switch it up, we spent the evening indoors.  Another free dinosaur night at HMNS!  We saw the new Mosasaur fossil that will inhabit the new Paleontology hall.  We saw our favorite paleontologist, Dr. Bakker.  We saw the one of the newest dinosaur discoveries, the Dracorex Hogwartsia (can you guess what the name means?) skull.  

Beckers! Get with the program...

And since there was a DJ at the museum, we danced.

We drove home to find our flowerbeds watered and our gas tank empty.  It was a great day thanks to the rain.  

Me vs Us

I love spending time with my family.  And by that I don't mean grocery shopping together, going to doctors appointments together, or just hanging out at home.  I mean getting out of our ordinary setting and doing things that we don't normally get to do together.  Today we did our routine things, church and errands.  We also took advantage of free admission to the HMNS Butterfly Center (did I mention that we like free things?)

My favorite: Rice Paper butterfly

The kids and I have visited the Butterfly Center a handful of times over the year.  Troy, on the other hand, hasn't been since our first trip there.  So he was delighted to get to explore and learn some and I was delighted to have an extra set of hands in a place that doesn't allow strollers.

I love the weekends.  I love the time we take to have adventures together as a family.  But I also love me.

Baby Boudreaux bump!!

I think it's important to love yourself.  And I think it's important to take the time to treat yourself right.  So between all the family business, I took the time to treat myself, and a best friend, to a pedicure.

Now I feel that I should preface all this by saying that I love being a mom.  I love what my kids have done for me.  I love my husband and my married life.  I love how much I have grown as a person over the past five, almost 6, years.  Overall, my life is great and I'm quite blessed.

Now, I'll continue by letting you know that being a parent can be downright hard sometimes.  Making the best decisions for them with your limited knowledge of the world.  Dealing with the small everyday stresses that can pile up and weigh down on you like a monstrous burden.  Needing an extra hand or lap at the most trying times of your day.  And being married isn't always a walk in the park.  There are arguments based on differences of opinion and arguments that stem from hungry bellies.  Sharing all of your extra free time with someone else can really start to not feel like free time after a while.

My tired dogs

But no one said that it would be easy.  No one said that we wouldn't struggle to make it through the day, much less the next five decades (if we are so lucky). But no one said that you couldn't have a time out every once in a while.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy getting away, even if it's only for a few hours.  I forgot how much clarity I get when I take some time off.  I really encourage you parents of young ones to treat yourselves right.  Love yourself.  Take time to relax by yourself.  Take time to do something that you love to do, but don't have the time to do everyday.  Get to know yourself away from your kids.  I bet that you will love who you are and your kids will reap the benefit of a more balanced and relaxed you.

So tell me, what is your favorite thing to do to just get away and relax?

Don't Mess with Texas!

Houston, TX.  Fourth largest city in the United State of America.  The Bayou City.  Home to what might be the largest urban bat colony that doesn't migrate in the winter.  And now it is home to the Beckers.  We are the Tex Becks.

Houston has been good to us.  We came here for work and have found plenty of opportunities.  When we were struggling to find a diagnosis for Isaac's disease, we found the Texas Medical Center.  We have made friends and found a great church community.  Diversity and friendliness are just a couple of things that we love about Houston.

As all things, with the good comes the bad.  We really dislike the traffic here.  It's a concrete jungle where people rely to heavily on their cars and not enough on public transportation (which is lacking and probably the reason that people don't rely on it).  It's a dirty and sometimes violent city.  Open spaces with green grass and fresh air are hard to come by here.  

So today we hopped on over to Fort Bend County.  A neighboring county, Fort Bend is home of the George Ranch.  Here, a piece of Texas history has been preserved so that future generations can get an up close look at what life was like for early settlers of this land.  The historical park sits on 500 acres of a 23,000 acre ranch.  Wide open spaces are easy to come by here. 

The 1890's Victorian Mansion

Walking with the sun on our backs, we explored homes from the 1830's, 1860's, 1890's, and 1930's.  That's 100 years of preserved family history.  We saw cowboys on horses roping cattle and longhorns.  We caught a glimpse of the bulky dresses the women wore and felt the heat they would have had to endure.  While the majority of the park focuses on generations of wealthy families that were not the norm of the time, we still managed to learn about what the majority of folks probably went through during the times of sharecropping.  

The park also has blacksmith demonstrations and historical re-enactments.  Many common farm animals live on the grounds, as well as common (to the South) reptiles that like to prey upon them.   We had a wonderful time learning more about Texas history and the cowboy lifestyle.  The boys had open spaces (although due to drought, they weren't technically green) to get their wiggles out.  I can see a stick pony in our future, as well as a couple of cowboy hats.  I heard a "yee haw" or two in the gift shop.  

"Beware of Alligators and Snakes"

I hope that no matter where our path takes us, our kids will develop a sense of state pride for whatever state they end up calling "home".  I certainly have a strange love for Louisiana.  Troy loves his home state of Idaho.  For now we will work on loving Texas.  Learning about its rich history and culture.  

Just Go With It

It's no secret that in our house we fly by the seats of our pants.  We like it that way.  Most of the time.  So when I say that we came to Houma this weekend to spend the night and then turn around and leave the next day, it shouldn't surprise you.   It doesn't surprise me.  It may stress me out a bit, but the end result, a great time spent with family and renting out a property, is well worth the quick trip.

Over the years I've learned to "just go with it".  I've had plenty of practice.  When we decided to move to Korea, we had a little more than a month to prepare.  Same with our move to Houston.  We mulled the idea over in our heads for a while, but we made the final decision quite close to the departure date.  Our life is so exciting...  Those examples are much more stressful to deal with than the ones that follow here:

Not our yard...

When your child pulls down his pants to pee in the yard, whether it's your yard or not, you just go with it.

When your child pulls all the toilet paper off the roll, without a shred of remorse, you just go with it.















Sometimes there's no reward.  Sometimes you hit the jackpot.

Our reward, besides the ones listed previously, for taking that quick trip to Houma was coming home with an awesome table!  My dad even made it with detachable legs for easier storage!  The kids love it and it already bears the marks of their love (pink color pencil).  I guess I'll have to paint it before the "real" playing begins.   But having kids is like continuously flying by the seat of your pants.  Eventually it becomes a common placed occurrence.  Although, sometimes a dead lizard can get a rise out of you.