We are 30!

How can it be? Sarah and Joe are turning 30 today.

Where oh where has the time gone?

Happy Birthday!!!!! Love ya!

How to fish……with a ghost

Al has tried many different types of bait as he tries to fish here. As with most fisherman, they all have their favorite bait and everyone tells you what you SHOULD be using. Al usually uses fresh shrimp (that you could eat, but are a little on the small side).

One thing that many say you should use is the ghost shrimp. On any day you can see fisherman hunting for their ghost shrimp along the water.

They do this with a “shrimp sucker”.  Various bait shops around the area will sell you one for $24.99.  Al tried to make one a couple years ago that didn’t suck. (Ok, maybe it DID suck, but it didn’t suck when it counted) So this year he broke down and bought one.

It’s pretty easy actually, if you find the right hole. You walk along the beach and find this:

Suck up the sand into to the tub, then expel it and hopefully there is a shrimp or two in the sand.

And try to get the shrimp before the waiting gull gets it.

You put them in a bucket

And fish!

We found this one covered in eggs.

We threw it back to let it make more ghost shrimp for next time.

Regrettably, the ghost shrimp didn’t do the trick on this day, but it was a perfect day to sit on the beach anyway.

As I was writing this this morning, I did a quick search online to find out more about them, and found out that there is a 20 per day limit on “hunting” ghost shrimp, and you can’t do it at all down the beach a few miles.

http://www.nps.gov/pais/naturescience/ghostshrimp.htm

Good thing to know!

TTFN

Texas update

We arrived two weeks ago, and I have been reminded several times that I need to update the blog. But we really haven’t done anything exciting to write about! So I thought I would just put a few of the photos that I took the last few days to let you see what you’ve all been missing. :)

Al has of course been fishing as often as possible.

Unfortunately it was too windy a few days last week, so he couldn’t fish. But plenty of people found things to do in the wind.

It was a perfect day for kites.

Maybe a little wind surfing?

We went to a nice quilt show.

I never tire of watching the dolphins and seeing the other local wildlife.

This morning we went for a walk and found this:

Everywhere around town you can see these perfect sand balls. They might be on top of a sign, or in the corner of a local bar, or on the beach. They are perfectly round and by the same person. Last year there was an article in the local paper about the guy. He just enjoys doing them. Whatever his reason, I just enjoy seeing them.

Happy Birthday!!

Today is our baby’s birthday.

Except he’s not a baby anymore. :(

Happy Birthday Matt! Love you.

FINALLY….the Reveal!

We have been in the house now since right before Thanksgiving, and it’s finally finished enough (and I’m finally getting around to it) to show it off.  We had everyone over for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lauren said that having everyone together in the new house felt like we had rented a vacation home somewhere because it was so nice and comfortable.

We don’t have the outside stairs done yet, so the only way up is the basement stairs (which are still in the finishing process) through all of the boxes that are still unpacked. :)

But when you get up the stairs you are greeted by this:

My favorite room in the house.

We used the old porch all the time, so we just made it a couple feet bigger and put the kitchen in it.

I absolutely love how it turned out.

Since we had a galley kitchen before, we had to purchase a couple cabinets for the corners, but you can’t even tell which are old and which are the new ones.

This empty space on the far wall will have my office/work things eventually. It will be a great space for future families to do homework or have a small office area.

Right next to the kitchen is the laundry/pantry (my second favorite room). It’s not real big, but we used every bit of the space.

As you go down the super long hallway

here is the first bathroom

And a bedroom (we will use this as office storage and crafty things). Right now it’s a catch all of things I don’t know where to put away.

And a bedroom

And another bedroom. We will use this as the grandkids room. It’s really nice to have this one at the end of the hallway. The adults can be in the living room and the kids clear at the end of the hallway and it’s nice and quiet.

And the master bedroom (I’ve never had a master bedroom before!)

The master closet

And the master bath

I love the floors in the master bath (given to us free!)

And the main room. In case you missed it before, these were 100 year old barn beams that we turned into flooring. This photo really doesn’t show how beautiful they really are. Love them!

I still need to unpack many many boxes, and get pictures hung, but overall I think it turned out great. As with anything, there are a couple things we would have done differently, but overall I love the way it turned out. Especially since we came in around $10,000 under budget!  What do you think?