Thursday, April 12, 2012

Sprung

Spring has sprung, and with it has come softball and school breaks and vacation days spent in search of good food. Meap is enjoying softball this year, and is proving to be her father's daughter--she can actually hit the ball, and catch it, and throw it! So impressive. 

I offered to put her in a softball camp this summer, but she said she'd rather do volleyball. When I asked her why she said, "'Cause it's indoors!" Makes sense to me.


During spring break we hit up the Reggae Hut for some Cajun shrimp and jerk chicken, and then went to the Museum of Natural Science with the rest of Houston. I *almost* got a butterfly to land on Meap's headband, and we watched a cool show at the planetarium about the Northern Lights. That's the only item on my bucket list, by the way--to see the Northern Lights. That's the only reason I'd ever plan a vacation someplace cold!

Pop and Baba came to visit the next week and got to see all sorts of cool stuff: Meap's performance as Ima Hogg in her school wax museum, the annual PE show (my absolute favorite of all school shows--the first grade hula hoop war is a showstopper), Number One's pottery class, and Meap's Bible-reading in chapel. And one day, I took off work so we could drive to Austin just for lunch:


It was totally, totally worth it. We stood in line for an hour and a half--the weather was amazing, thankfully--and ordered a little (ok, a lot) of everything. The pulled pork was okay, but the ribs were amazing and and the brisket was the best I've ever put in my mouth. SO GOOD. And the owner was nothing like I'd expected; for some reason I had it in my head that he was like the Soup Nazi of Austin BBQ, but he couldn't have been nicer. He chatted with Baba about the best places for barbeque in Nashville and I'm pretty sure she invited him for dinner the next time he was in town.


Easter was a wonderful day--beautiful weather, church outdoors with friends at Jones Plaza, lunch from a food truck, and free snow cones for dessert.


Now the jasmine is blooming, and I wish I could capture that smell in this blog. It smells like happiness and new life and hope, and if I could bottle it I'd be a millionaire. It's probably best, though, that it comes and goes so quickly. I don't take it for granted, and it's a good reminder to breathe deeply and enjoy this time, every minute of it.