We're still here...

I know I've fallen down on my blogging duties lately, but I have a really good excuse - we went to Cabo San Lucas for my friend Jenny's wedding this weekend. I was going to have to go to Austin tomorrow, but that got changed and I'm so glad because I'm so tired. I took about 140 pictures this weekend and I can't wait to get those posted so everyone can see them.

My mom and dad kept Ellie and... she's walking now. She was taking 2-3 steps before we left, but she can do 5-7 now. We were so excited to see her when we got in last night.

I'm going to try to get a posting up by Wednesday, but no promises. Back to work... they switched my computer to Office 2007 while I was gone and it's made me grumpy. Change bad.

I can save you money.

On Wednesday, I attended a sustainability conference put on by the North Texas Association of Environmental Professionals, and it was fascinating. This whole post is a little nerdy so hold onto your pocket protectors. The topic of sustainability is like nerd crack for me. But I did want to share one thing that I learned at the conference.

I'm sure the last time one of your bulbs burned out, you went to the store and saw all of the incandescent light bulbs right next to the compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. They're the ones that look like cork screws. And maybe you even thought "hey - I'll do something great for the environment and buy one of the CFL bulbs", but then you looked at the price and saw that the incandescent light bulb cost $0.50 and the CFL bulb cost $4.00. What you may not know is that over the lifetime of the incandescent bulb, it will cost about $80 for the electricity to light the bulb and cool the room because of the additional heat it puts out. The CFL bulb? About $16 over the life of the bulb. Now multiply that by every bulb in your house. And the CFL bulbs last twice as long.

So if I told you that if you gave me $4 today, I'd give you $60 in two years, you'd do it right? This is the same thing. AND as an added bonus, you're doing something good for the environment. I'm not saying that you need to go out and replace all of your bulbs, but next time one of your incandescent bulbs burns out, consider buying a CFL bulb. Make sure it says Energy Star on it or else the same savings may not apply. They're sold at Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot. If everyone in the Dallas-Fort Worth area switched out just one of their light bulbs for a CFL bulb, that would reduce the need to build one additional coal-fired power plant. And trust me - we don't need more of those.

The rest of the conference was pretty good. This one architect talked about building green homes, which was really cool. The second presentation I went to was about future energy sources and this guy from the EPA spoke. I'm not kidding - he had Tourette's Syndrome. Added to this problem was the fact that he could not pronounce the letter "r". I was actually quite impressed that he was publicly speaking. Then at lunch we had the former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller speak to the group. At the end of her presentation, she asked if anyone had any questions and I wanted to raise my hand and scream "I have a question!! WHY DID YOU LET TO COWBOYS GO TO ARLINGTON?!!!". But I didn't want to be drug out of the luncheon screaming "Dude, don't taze me", so I kept it shut.

Going on the the background of all of this was me trying to figure out if the person sitting next to me was a man or a woman. You're going to think I'm making this up, but their name was Pat. I swear on a Bible. Actually, the name tag said "Patricia", but I think it was a man who added a "ricia" on the last part of his name. Pat was also carrying a purse, but that doesn't really mean anything these days since there's a man in Oregon having a baby.

That is the summary from my nerd conference. Have a good weekend.

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Update: I had a comment/question from Andy on mercury and CFL bulbs. Answer can be found here.

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Mullets. They're even at 20,000 feet.

Kyle's Wedding

I think I'm going to be doing pretty well if I squeak out another 2 blogs in April because we're so busy. I may have to resort to the newly-discovered cell phone blog to communicate. We have had a huge whirlwind of 5 days - Ellie came down with a weird virus, we drove to Memphis, Kyle got married, Audrey got baptized, and on Thursday morning Lee was a total dumb ass and drove off with the his keys on the roof of his car so I had to spend an hour and a half driving around Dallas to try to get him where he needed to go. Lee has a keyless ignition so the key only needs to be within a few feet of the car to start it. He threw the keys on the roof of his car and took off. When he got to where he was going, he could neither restart his car nor could he lock his doors. That meany I had to leave work and go home to pick up his keys (10 miles and two school zones), drive to him (35 miles), and back to work (20 miles). He's pretty sure that the keys fell off the roof somewhere along the highway because he heard a thud. I guess we will be sure if our house doesn't get burglarized.

I picked up Ellie on Thursday afternoon from day care, and she felt warm. She really didn't want to eat much at dinner so I went to get her ready for a bath and decided to take her temp. 103.2. I immediately called the doctor and told him that we were leaving in the morning for a wedding (of course) and he told us to come in. He told us that if she had a good night and was okay in the morning to go ahead, but if she had a bad night and woke up sick to stay home... so we almost missed the wedding festivities entirely. For the record, she was 19 pounds and 15 ounces fully clothed. She woke up like she was totally fine (and she actually was) so we went drove on Friday morning to Memphis.

Ellie was really great in the car and slept pretty much from Dallas to about 30 minutes on the other side of Texarkana. We had lunch and shortly after we got on our way, the person driving in front of us kicked up a retread and knocked it into our car. It made a loud thud but it was only after we got to Memphis that we realized the bumper to my car was dragging on the ground and the plastic part covering the undercarriage was hanging on the ground. We looked like the Grizwolds driving into town. I've called the insurance company and the car is going to have to go into the shop. Damn 18 wheelers.

It was there at the hotel that Ellie met her new bff for life, Audrey. I looked after Audrey and Ellie while Nicole got some things out of the car and Ellie tried desperately to see her new cousin. A short time later, Ellie was able to meet Miles too. Miles knew exactly who she was and was so excited to meet her.

Nicole and Wayne took advantage of all of the family being together and had Audrey baptized before the rehearsal. Ellie was at the baptism and the entire time, she tried to climb into the baptismal font. I think she thought it was a swimming pool. Afterwards, we took her back to the hotel so my second cousin, Katherine, could babysit for her. Katherine is so great and is a special ed teacher so she loves kids, but likes to march to the beat of her own drummer. I hadn't told Lee this. "Um, listen... about Katherine. I don't know how many tattoos are going to be visible so just be cool". Wrong thing to say to hypie the hypo. As it turned out, only two tats were visible so in my opinion, he sort of overreacted.

The rehearsal dinner was at a really lovely place on the Mississippi river called Currents at the River Inn. As we have sat for many years, all of the cousins dined at the "kids" table where many an inappropriate joke was told. My cousin Shannon, who is ten years younger than me, told me that when I was 21, she was too young to hang with me and Nicole, but now that she's 21, I'm just old. That's the thing about family - they'll give it to you straight. My uncle Gus was nice enough to drive all of us back to the hotel.

The big day was on Saturday and we started off the day with breakfast with the Erwins and then lunch with my grandmother and aunt. The wedding was really beautiful and Kyle and Megan were nice enough to ask me to read. The priest (who because we're Catholic is somehow related to me) was moderately irritated because I was a little tardy. Fr. Val, YOU try dressing an 11 month old. Because I was a reader, I had to sit away from Lee and Ellie. Ellie was pretty well behaved and waved at me during the wedding. So cute. I have some funny pictures of the reception, but I'm going to save those for another blog because this one is WAY long. Since Kyle got married during prom season and limos were in high demand, his and Megan were whisked away in a bright yellow stretch Hummer. Awesome. Because every girl dreams that she will be carried away from her wedding in something that looks like a banana on steroids. Kyle, I'd like to take this time to public apologize for Lee crawling into the Bananamobile and waiting for you and Megan. Inappropriate.

We left Memphis around 9:30 on Sunday morning for the long drive home. Along the way, Lee and I got into the conversation about how we are going to celebrate Ellie's first birthday. I want to do a party in the backyard for close friends and family. Lee told me he has another idea. He wants to do a combination First Birthday Party and wait for it... Texas Hold 'Em poker tournament. Not kidding. He wants to commemorate sweet Ellie's first year of life with a POKER TOURNY. I can just see the invitation - some cute little cartoon forest creatures sitting around a table smoking cigars. I told him "no" and now he's calling me "Buzz Kill" and "Power Down Tiffany" (he calls me that and then makes this noise like the nuclear power plant is shutting down). We're still in talks about the "theme" of the party, but if I have my way, it's not going to be Clowns and Casinos.

Ellie was really good the whole way home, but started to loose it about an hour outside of Dallas. She would be okay for a few minutes and then started squirming and whining. She was so glad to get out of that car seat and be back at her house. Lee picked up the dogs from the kennel and when Ellie saw them, she started squealing. We had them behind a gate in the kitchen and she stood there for a long time reaching out for them, laughing, and petting them. The "petting" mostly involves grabbing their ears and ripping their hair out. Lucy and Morgan are nice enough to stand there and take the abuse. She loves her dogs.

So that was it. What a whirlwind - it was fun.

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I just found out i can blog from my phone!

Jenny's Bachelorette Party

This weekend, I spent my first night away from Ellie. I traveled to Austin to celebrate one of Jenny's last weekends as a free woman. There's nothing like a full weekend of debauchery to help your body remind you that you're over 30. Also reminding me I'm over 30 - road tripping in my friend Kristine's car and sitting in the back seat next to her two and a half year old daughter, Mary Margaret, while she shows me how her lambie can poo-poo and tee-tee in the play toilet and watching Elmo and Dora. Back in college, we didn't take toddlers on road trips with us. And if we did, there's a good chance we would have been arrested for taking them to Mexico and selling them in exchange for beer money. But don't worry - MM wasn't sold for cerveza. She was dropped off at her grandparents house in Austin.

As soon as we left Dallas, I realized that I left my breast pump. I'm still nursing Ellie at morning and at night, so I sort of needed it. I told myself I could deal - I would just have to be uncomfortable. Then about halfway to Austin, I remembered that I had left my outfit for Saturday night hanging on my closet door. Awesome. So after dropping MM off, we stopped at Target so I would have something to wear. I'm sure Jenny and Kristine wanted to kick me because they just wanted to get there, but they were actually very patient. Jenny is good at putting outfits together so she grabbed some stuff and brought it to me in a dressing room. I sort of felt like I had my own personal stylist... but I don't think stylists usually shop in stores where you have to take a number for the articles of clothes you take back to the dressing room. I made it out of there with a black top, jeans, and a metallic belt.

We finally made it there around 9:00. We stayed on the south shore of Lake Travis in a house called Waterstone Lodge. When I grow up, I want to live there. It was right on the water and so beautiful. In all, I think that there were 18 girls there so it was a pretty big party. After dinner, Meg, Bonnie, Debbie, Jennifer, Kristine and I sat by the fire on the patio to drink wine and laughed hysterically at some college photo albums I brought. We really knew how to rock a jean jumper. The party continued onto the hot tub where we stayed until 3AM. There was one awkward moment where Meg asked us all who we were voting for. A headed debate ensued. After about 15 minutes, we finally had to switch the subject, and I told her that next time she's at a party she should stick to a less divisive topic like abortion or religion.

I tried to sleep in on Saturday, but only made it to about 8:30. I think I'm so used to getting up early every morning now that it's impossible for me to sleep late. We all laid out by the pool for most of the day and relaxed. I read my book by Chelsea Handler which kept on making me laugh out loud. After we all got ready, we had a lingerie shower for Jenny. Her sisters made this cute video of her future husband where they'd ask him a question and then pause it to see if she could guess what he would say.

Since we were pretty far away from downtown, we had a party bus take us to dinner at a fabulous restaurant in Austin called Kenichi. For some reason, we thought it would be fun for us to take some serious "modeling pictures" after we ate. I don't know where we come up with these weird ideas. After dinner, we started off on the patio of The Belmont, but it was a little lower key than what we were hoping for, so we moved onto Cedar Street Courtyard, a place with a live band and dancing. Since we had four pregnant girls with us, the bus got us around 12:15 and took us back to the house. I was in the back of the bus so I could see the road in front of us. I thought the driver was going to wreck trying to avoid the deer. Better him in the bus than us in one of our cars.

By the end of the weekend, I was EXHAUSTED. We headed back to Big D on Sunday morning. For all photos, you can look at my shutterfly account. Very sad to say goodbye to everyone, but we'll be together in two more weeks for the wedding. So where were Ellie and Lee during all of this? They drove to Tyler on Saturday morning to visit B.B. and Doc. According to Lee, Ellie got adventurous and tried some some bacon. I was so glad to see both of them when I got home. He was exhausted on Sunday night and went to bed at 9:00. Taking care of the little one is hard work (and acting like your 18 again is equally hard). We have another very jam-packed weekend coming up... Kyle's wedding. Can't wait to see the fam!