Summer continues to hurtle along and I’m getting really excited for our end-of-summer vacation! It’s hard to believe Emma is about to turn 7 and start 2nd grade. And Charlotte will be 4 shortly after that. Whew!
We’ve been home all of July, of course, and there has been plenty of fun. Our neighborhood started “Food Truck Friday” and although our vacations will prevent us from going to the June and August events, we had a blast at the July edition. There were food trucks (hence the name), a couple inflatable slides (one water, one not), and the whole event was at the pool so everyone could go swimming too. I really love this neighborhood. It’s the best.
A couple weeks ago we took a family trip to Ikea — always an adventure! We got a small bookcase for Jose’s study, and a shoe cabinet to wrangle the mess of footwear by our back door. As it usually does, the trip ended up taking up a good chunk of our day, but we all had fun. We even ate lunch there. Meatballs, yum.
But overall, I’ve been eating less this month in a low-key but serious effort to drop a few pounds. After Emma, I made it back to my pre-pregnancy weight without much fuss, but I never lost it all after Charlotte. For the last 3 years, I’ve hovered ~10 pounds above where I was before that second pregnancy, and I’m finally trying to get back there. Jose is doing a don’t-call-it-a-diet too, which is HUGELY helpful. I’ve lost ~5 pounds so far. Halfway there!
(Once I get back to pre-pregnancy weight, I’ll be ~5 pounds above my lowest adult weight ever, and ~10-15 pounds above what is probably the ideal weight for my height and build. Maybe I can get there??)
Mid-month, I joined Charlotte on her daycare field trip to the Lone Star Flight Museum. They used to be located in Galveston, and I had been a few times, most recently about 3.5 years ago when my brother was visiting. But since then, they’ve built a new location at Ellington Field, which is only minutes from our house! I hadn’t been since they moved, so it was fun for me to check out as well. Their new location is SO much bigger and nicer than their old place. We’ll definitely be back!
Last Sunday we went to Palm Beach at Moody Gardens for the second time this summer. I never have any photos of our fun there because my phone is always stored away in a locker! Our neighbors came with us and all three girls had a blast. They chose to spend most of our time in the wave pool and lazy river, which was fine by me.
Last Saturday was the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. As you would expect, there were tons of events in this area celebrating the occasion. I actually didn’t partake in much of it, but it’s been fun to read all the articles and listen to a bunch of podcasts telling stories of how we pulled that off 50 years ago. Pretty amazing.
(One podcast I came across rather serendipitously is 13 Minutes to the Moon. Highly recommend!)
One thing I was excited about seeing in person was this past Wednesday at work, on the anniversary of the splashdown, when Mike Collins spoke to the JSC employees! It was great to hear more about the mission from a guy who flew it, and he was surprisingly hilarious, telling a bunch of jokes and funny stories from the Apollo days. Jose came too, so it was almost like a date…but in the middle of the day…and at work! Ha!
Amidst everything else, I’ve of course been doing lots of quilting. (That’s my Beauty Burst quilt above getting the spiral quilting treatment.) At this rate, I’ll be done with everything on my July-September goals by mid-August! That’s fine by me though, as it’ll give me time to get started on a quilt or two that I plan to submit for next year’s QuiltCon. The only problem is that I have 4-5 ideas and have to choose! Woe is me.
I’ll also be teaching another class soon — this one on walking foot quilting at Sparkly Elephant in Friendswood on Friday, August 23. (It’s a flex Friday for JSC folks.) I’m excited for this one and hope for a good turnout.
August here we come!
July went fast! I didn’t know the Lone Star Flight Museum moved—that’s a shame but it sounds like it has nicer accommodations now!
I had heard that they had a lot of damage from Ike and while they did open again after that, I think they had been looking for another suitable location since then. And since so many of their planes still fly, it needed to be somewhere with access to a runway! I think Ellington is a great new location…and I wonder if they will actually get increased attendance, being closer to the “core” of Houston rather than down in Galveston.