All good things must come to an end.....

Vacation week is over. Lee had to go back to work (although he has already emailed me today that he wishes he was home with his sweet family). We had the best time with Grandma Linda and Aunt Amy!

Grandma Linda really enjoyed the pool!



Aunt Amy planted us a vegetable garden! She also planted many other beautiful things all over our yard. Amy is the talented artist of the family, and she is working as a landscape gardener. Here is a pic of the garden. Some of these plants came from our Thai hairdresser's garden. Some pretty exotic stuff like Lemongrass and lemon basil!



We all enjoyed a morning swim, then breakfast by the pool:




Amy and Analese really bonded, and Amy styled Analese's hair into all these great up-dos!



Grandma, Mariele and Amy. Mariele was very temporarily sucking on that paci!



Analese really enjoyed going through Aunt Amy's purse and playing with all of her make-up! She even got to wear mascara (as if she needs it. She already has the longest and most gorgeous lashes)!







We had a pool party last night:



We went shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond and Garden Ridge yesterday. Amy picked out and Grandma bought us all of these fabulous decorating items for the area around the piano. It looks so great! And Analese was pretty proud of her ring pop too! And she had another pretty up-do, courtesy of Aunt Amy:





Amy brought us another original piece of her art work. This is a nude that she did in charcoal from a live model while she was in school. It is entitled "Simple Lineage" and it is now hanging in our dining room!



Today Mariele is half a year old! I still have to take some nice 6 month pictures of her. I will post them later after I take them.

A few Sea World photos

See...I wasn't gone long. I have a tiny window of opportunity here to use hubby's computer while kiddos are napping and hubby is otherwise occupied.

Sea World was great, albeit a bit hot (105). We probably could have spent another couple of days exploring if the kiddos were a little older and more tolerant.

Here is Mariele when we took an air conditioned lunch break:



Here is Lee (and Analese - can't see her - she is on the other side of Lee) riding the kiddie coaster called the Shamu express. Analese loved it! She calls it the Shamu track (train tracks):



Mariele hot and tired - poor baby. She did SO well and was so good and extremely tolerant:



Analese got to play kiddie games (guaranteed winning games) and she won two frogs and a whale!







Then Analese got to play in the fountains and in the kiddie water playground. She had so much fun, as you can see from the photos!




Here are me and my girlies (I was so freakin' hot!)



The last thing we did was let Analese feed the dolphins!



We got good video (too big to upload here) of the Shamu show and the Sea Lion show. It was really a very fun day!

And maybe I should blog from this computer more often. I think it has a faster upload speed than my laptop!

Be back in a few days, but will tweet now and then also.

Forced blogging break

First of all, I am having a terrific time on vacation week. We went to Sea World and I took lots of pictures and video.

Second of all, I am blogging from my iPhone right now. Reason for this is the Mac Genius sent my computer off because the logic board is fried. If any of my computer addicted family will move their butts from the desktop computer then I might be able to get on and post some photos later. But I don't have alot of time anyway because I need to get ready for family coming in to visit tomorrow through the weekend.

So hopefully be back soon!

ABC's of Me!

Got this fun idea from Kara's Blog!

The ABC's of Me

A - Age - 34

B - Bed size - King

C - Chore you hate - Mopping floors

D - Dog's name - Don't have a dog, but have cats: Dudio and Tabatha

E - Essential to start your day - smiling baby

F - Favorite color - blue

G - Gold or silver - Gold

H - Height - 5'3

I - Instrument you play(ed) - piano, baritone

J - Job title - Mommy (used to be Medical Technologist and Microbiologist)

K - Kid(s) - Analese & Mariele

L - Living arrangements - In a house

M - Mom's name - JoAnn

N - Nickname(s) - Mel, Mommy

O - Overnight hospital stay besides birth - strabismus surgery when I was 4

P - Pet peeve - Way too many to list!

Q - Quote from a movie - "I'm busier than a one armed paper hanger" Steel Magnolias

R - Right or left handed - Right

S - Siblings - 1 brother

T - Time you usually wake up - Between 6:30 and 7:00 am

U - Underwear - Uh, yes! - nursing bras lately!

V - Vegetable that you dislike - mushrooms

W - Ways you run late - When Mariele GERDS (spits up) on me or when she blows out of her diaper.

X - X-Rays you've had - teeth, chest

Y - Yummy food you make - veggie burgers

Z - Zoo favorite - river otters

Anyone else want to do this?

Our attempt at Mother Baby Portraits

I really wanted to capture Mariele's "babyness" - her perfect round, bald head and all of her cute baby chub, as well as the love that I have for her. Man, I really need a photography studio and lots of technical photography knowledge. I am so lacking in that area. But hubby followed my directions the best he knew how and these are some of the passable shots. Pic overload!

EXTREME Makeover - the Pimp my Piano Edition!

Today was the long awaited reunion between me and my little piano! They took it away on April 8 and brought it back today. So a little over 3 months for the complete overhaul. But I do think that it was well worth the wait. A little background on my piano. This is the piano that I learned to play on in 1982. So it is about 27 years old (pushing antique status?) Definitely an heirloom! This piano moved once in Arkansas, then from Arkansas to Colorado and from Colorado to Texas. Poor little piano had enough! Next time we move we are crating this thing!

Here is my poor, pathetic little hooptie of a piano before. Please don't laugh or make fun of it. It triumphs in the end!






We drove down to see it on May 7th. They had it stripped down to the bare walnut wood:





We noticed that the piano actually has a beautiful wood grain pattern that was hidden by the original finish. From there we chose a stain and finish for the piano.

We visited on the 11th of June. I was completely awed by the transformation. But we realized that the keys really did look old and yellow. We opted to have them replace the keys. At the time they told us it would take an additional 7-14 days. For whatever reason it took an additional month, but still....totally worth it! Here is the finished piano in the shop (minus key replacement):



And here is the finished piano with brand new keys in my house! Now we have to get a decorative mirror to go over it. I also need a doily for the top so I can put my piano lamp there. Of course the first thing I had to do was play it, although it was pretty out of tune. We are supposed to wait 4 weeks to have it tuned since it needs to acclimate. It has been through sprayers at the shop. This was a great Mother's Day gift and I am so incredibly happy to have it back in my home all restored and beautiful!