Ferry to Crystal Beach

My, I've been away from my blog for what seems like forever, and now I've forgotten how to do things! And we have finally managed to kick out all the gremlins in my computer, and many tears and dollars later, have installed Windows 7 and peace reigns in my home once again! (I am miserable without my computer!)

Well, all that aside, let me share with y'all some pics from our ferry trip across the gulf waters from Galveston Island to Crystal beach. It was a lovely day, and we'd read about the ferry, so decided to try it for ourselves and do a bit of exploring.

It was great fun! We were fortunate not to have long queues, and were able to drive the car straight onto the ferry, the boys seemed rather intrigued by this idea, and as soon as all the cars were on board, we hopped out of the car and stood outside to check out the scenery. We passed the battleship and submarine museums that we decided we have to visit next time around. And were joined by some friendly dolphins who were playing very close to the waves around us, it was great, and the kids really loved it. It took about 20 minutes to get to the other side, and once there, we drove for a while till we came to Crystal beach. It wasn't as pretty as we'd thought it was going to be, but it was very quiet and peaceful! Naturally the kids moaned because we wouldn't let them swim, but we figured they would probably only last in the sea momentarily before moaning they were too cold!

(CLICK ON COLLAGE TO ENLARGE PHOTOS)

Then, it was time to hop back on the ferry and show my mother around Galveston some more. However, it seemed that we had timed our trip to coincide with a Halloween motorbike rally. We were convinced that every biker in Houston descended upon Galveston that day! And eventually it just became too much, getting around the town was a nightmare, and some of those bikers were just downright scary! We didn't fancy getting on the wrong side of some of those dudes, I can tell you. So we made our way out of there as soon as we could, and found ourselves in Kemah.

But that's tomorrows story...........

A.W.O.L.

Yes, I have been AWOL for the last few days, please accept my humble apologies. We have had a week of sick family members (myself included) and once again my computer has decided to take a few sick days of it's own. I am now thoroughly irritated with it, and my current answer is to throw the darn thing out the window!!

I'm sure sanity will prevail, however.

Or maybe not......

Anyway, computer woes aside, I am now quickly typing this to let y'all know I am alive and kicking, and will hopefully add more later. Got a lot to tell y'all about....out weekend trip Galveston, and Kemah. And my sons 6 birthday, and my last Koeksusters meeting.

So stay tuned.... I will be back!

Lavatory laments.

If you are prone to a weak stomach and toilet talk, then stop reading and go have a cup of tea, and come back tomorrow! Today I'm sharing with y'all my lavatory laments.

It's gonna get ugly!

No, this isn't a post about my bowel movements, but rather about the very sad state of my blocked toilet this morning, and my even sadder attempts at trying to unblock it! Let me start by telling y'all that I am convinced the toilets here in the US are not built to flush more than a few sheets of toilet paper at a time, and that's one-ply to boot!

No matter where we have stayed since our time here, whether it 's been in the apartment, hotels or here in the house, the toilets are all the same.......those darn things just keep getting blocked! I now have a wonderful, black, rubbery toilet plunger-thingie ready for the next emergency. And so far, it hasn't failed me yet!

Until today.

Today no amount of plunging and sweating and grumbling under my breath could dislodge whatever was down in there. I tried, I waited, I tried again, I waited. No, it ain't gonna happen, I thought. So what do you think I did next?

That's right, I went to my old faithful, and Googled it!! Don't you just love Google? But I have to admit that I've never Googled a question like how to unblock a toilet before. I just wanted to get some other advice, before resorting to an expensive plumber or drain cleaner. And I could not imagine the wealth of advice and tips to be found on this subject. It seems it's a common enough problem alright, which further confirmed my suspicions about the sensitive toilets here. And it was there I learnt about something called a toilet auger. Now, I had no idea what this gadget was, but everyone was giving it rave reviews, so that sold me! Off I went, with mother in tow, to find a toilet auger at Lowe's.

I was expecting a few items stuck in a corner of the store somewhere......this is what I found....

............ a whole assortment of toilet unblocking products. It was like looking at the breakfast cereal aisle in Wal-Mart! What variety...what choice.....wait a minute we're talking about toilet drain cleaners!!! Well, there was every kind of cleaner imaginable. I found the one I was looking for, amid laughter and amusement between my mother and I, come on.....some of these things looked like instruments of torture for crying out loud! Next, I had to find a pair of long-sleeved gloves, if you know what I'm talking about! And off we went back home, to put our new purchase to good use!

I had to dress for the part. PVC gloves, old clothes and even contemplated wearing my hubby's gas mask (more for effect I'll admit!). And soon I was winding and pushing, and winding. To cut a very long, and not so pleasant story short, I eventually heard the sweet, sweet sound of gurgling water, as the blockage miraculously shifted, and I could once again flush away. What joy!

I could rest after a good scrubbing down later, and enjoy a cup of tea, knowing that I had conquered the commode, or latrine or whatever you wanna call it!!
I am the toilet auger queen!!

Just some chit-chit.

Following on from our interesting day on Saturday, we decided to try out the children's Theatre on Sunday. Now I'm a big theatre fan, and it seems I'm passing on my love to my children. They loved to go to the theatre in South Africa. So they were very excited about our upcoming theatre trip, to see Robin Hood!

Now the actors are all children, some as young as 5-6 years old, but they were jolly good. The older lead actors were about 16. They danced and sang through 2 hours of merriment. And we all enjoyed it. Now the kids want to go to next production of Aladdin, so it seems they're hooked!

To change the subject a tad, today I went to the hair salon. Nothing that exciting I know you must be thinking, well yes, that may be so. But I just happen to hate going to the hair salon. And in the past 8 months since arriving in the States, I haven't stepped a foot into one. So yes, you can only imagine the current state of shapeless nothingness my hair style has been. In fact to call it a 'style' would be wishful thinking! So like it or not, it was time to pay my local salon a visit. I looked something like this.........



...............really!!!

I think the reason I hate going to the salon, is mainly because I'm never sure how I want it cut, and then 9 times out of ten, I walk out looking nothing like I wanted to! Is it just me? Does anyone else ever feel like this?

Anyway, I ventured in and an hour later emerged feeling much lighter! Oh yes, it did feel nice to have a good trim! I can't remember the last time my hair was this short, but I do love it. Should have done it ages ago!!

The end of a thing, is better than the beginning thereof!

What words can I use to explain the festival we went to last Saturday.....I'm just not sure!

I was trying to post this last night, and add some photo's, but alas...I ended up deleting the photos from my camera BEFORE downloading them onto my computer......don't ask....I have NO idea how I did it, and I ended up battling with Picasa the whole night! Thus no photos today! So you are all going to have to use your imagination, as I am not going back to take more photos! One trip to the Texas Renaissance Festival was enough for me, and my mother, and my children!

Let me elaborate.

I had searched the Internet for fun, family events over the weekend, as Hubby was studying for his exam he finally wrote yesterday (that's a post for another day). So we needed to get out of the house in order for him to have some quiet.

I had found the Texas Renaissance Festival, and it was supposed to be a pirate themed weekend, which I thought my boys would love. I was advertised as being fun for young and old alike, as people dress up in the theme, and there was supposed to be rides and fun things for kids to do.
Well...... we bought the tickets (which were not cheap either), and off we went, early Saturday morning. There were crowds of people streaming in, and a lot of them dressed up in costume. At first, all seemed well, until we got further into the park. And my mother and I started to see some VERY scantily clad ladies (young AND old, mind you) parading around very casually, in medieval theme (i think it supposed to be anyway). We though it might get better, so we started to look for things for the kids to do, and found about 4 sparse games that were geared to young kids. Like a "cage" that the kids were supposed to crawl through. That's it, no prize, no excitement, no surprise at the end, just a crawl through a cage. And it cost $3-00 per child.......to climb through a cage????

We moved on.

The next thing was a round about, that cost $3-00 each, but looked a tad fast for my young ones. So we looked some more.

The only thing my kids went on was a log that they sat on, and were given pillows to knock each other off the log. It lasted 1 minute and cost $4-00. I know I shouldn't have paid that for it, but by this time all I wanted was for the kids to have a little fun, and feel like I was getting my monies worth for the tickets we paid for. Oh, and they went on a "ride" that was manually pushed by a worker there.

So, needless to say, we were very disappointed, and I really felt like I had wasted my money! And we weren't the only ones, as many other families were leaving when we were. We were on our way out, when we saw a parade of quite a few of those scantily clad ladies who must have been in some competition of some sorts. But when I say scantily clad, believe me they were barely dressed. It left little, if nothing to the imagination. Which might have been fine for all the adults standing around watching, but I didn't like it for my 6 and 8 year old boys let me tell you!

We left, and ended up at good ole "Incredible Pizza", and for those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's like a mixture of Magic Company, and Pizza Hut combined! Great fun for the kids, and a whole lot more family friendly! No wandering half naked maidens around there I can tell you!

Later in the evening My mother and I had been invited for supper and games at a couple in our church, and it was great to meet some more American folk, and just had some good ole fun! We had a really wonderful time, and came home exhausted, but happy! As the saying applies to us, the end of the day was truly better than the beginning!