The Fishin' Hole

Our (house-less) land in Granbury backs up to an old stock pond. Last week for Spring Break we caught about 40 or so fish - mostly perch - with Uncle Steve and ColtonCaleb. This weekend we're up here with Grandma, Grandpa, and James and Kristi and we were afraid it was too cold and windy to go fishing, but Gavin wanted to go, so we headed out this afternoon. Within a few seconds of dropping his bacon in the water, his Zebco 404 starting growling as he struggled to pull in what I thought was a pretty frisky perch, but it turned out to be...



And a few minutes later he caught this little feller:



Not trophy fish to be sure, but he sure had fun catching them. This was his third one:



And then as quick as they started biting, they stopped. We caught a few more perch but they just shut down completely. We threw them all back so that someday they would be trophy bass.

We'll be heading back tomorrow and hopefully it will not be as cold or windy so Grandpa can join us.

Video: Get the Hail Out of Here!

We were standing in the kitchen last night during a storm and out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of light and then I heard a loud crack. The next thing I knew it sounded like machine gun fire hitting the house - we were being pelted by penny-size hail! It only lasted a minute or so and I don't think there was any major damage, but I was able to capture some of it on video. Check it out:

When Seagulls Attack (Trying Again)

A lot of you sent me emails saying that either the blog entry was blank (it wasn't, it had a video embedded) or that you couldn't view the video because you weren't my "friend". It's true - you're not my friend and I thought sending you a video that you couldn't see would be the perfect way to tell you that.



But since I have a soft heart I'm going to let you have one more shot. If you can't see this video in your email, go to the website www.ronamy.com.

The story behind this video is that I found some footage on our flip camera from back in January that I think Reagan had taken. We were there for the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa and James had taken the kids fishing and they decided to feed the seagulls. Well the video was all shaky and even turned sideways. I was on a flight from Burbank to DFW this week and I thought I'd kill some time with the new iMovie software and see if I can turn it into something interesting to watch. This is the result. Enjoy!

Gavin and Kayci Go To Sonic

This weekend we headed back to Houston to help mom and dad continue to get settled into their new digs. It's slowly but surely becoming "home" to them and that's good. On Saturday we drove up to Brenham for Noble's first birthday and Kristi asked the kids to spend the night. They didn't have a change of clothes, they didn't have a toothbrush, and Keely didn't have her laptop - but what the heck. You can read all about their adventure's on their blog but you can see the results here:



They made a short video of Kayci and Gavin and their quest to get ice cream in the middle of the night (6:30 PM) in Brenham. (It's another video, so you have to go to the website to see it.) They did a great job and they're already planning their next production!

The New Target is Open! The New Target is Open!

After years of waiting, the Pflugerville Target is open! We eagerly rushed into the new shopping paradise only to find ... a regular old Super Target. I'm not sure what I was expecting but for some reason I was kinda let down. I guess the Target part is okay - but the grocery part is kinda ho-hum. They didn't have several things that were on our list.

But ... the shopping carts were awesome. I wanted to get two of them and race up and down the empty, perfectly stocked aisles!



Check out those wheels! Next up: Chick-fil-A. Oh yeah!

Time Machine Dec 2008: Modern Toilet experience

The long awaited Modern Toilet post has arrived. I am sorry it has taken me so long to post. I tried several times to post these back in December, but I am not very computer savy and for one reason or another I just could not get blogger to work in Taiwan at the end and considering I could not read Chinese I could not figure out what to click on to change the site back to English for me. But I digress.... One of the last outings I went on with the ladies was to the restaurant The Modern Toilet. I was really excited about going on this outing because I just couldn't believe it until I saw it. Here is the outside sign advertising the restaurant. The toilet was huge I don't know if you can tell that from this photo, but wow!



Of course we all took a group photo out front. Looking at this picture now makes me miss all of them.



This is the actual front door of the restaurant.

You could choose from various tables to sit at I took several shots because it just seemed so weird to see bathroom items in a restaurant.

The Modern Toilet stays in theme through out the restaurant including the sink to wash your hands.

The seats were a variety of toilets with beautiful seats. There were three toilets per side of the table.

Lunch! Doesn't it look good!

I ordered Thai coconut chicken. Here is my tray of food. The presentation of the food was so funny. The poo in the back was the cover to my soup. The toilet had a top and in the bottom it had a tea light candle burning to keep the food warm. The food was very good.

Here is the hot tea I ordered for my drink doesn't this make you just want to drink? Actually the tea was very delicious.

As part of the meal you get a dessert of soft serve ice cream served in an Eastern toilet. The taste was not the best but the experience was fun.

You could purchase a variety of items for souveniers but this one was the most interesting. You could purchase your own stuffed poo if you so desired. You could also purchase all of the dishes as well. If we had not already had our things packed out I would have bought some but since my suitcases were already overflowing I only bought a toilet magnet.

At the end of the meal I needed to use the bathroom. This restaurant was full of western toilets to sit on so I don't know why I was shocked to find only an Eastern toilet as an option in the bathroom.

After my experience I knew that I had to take the kids on Saturday. I just knew they would love it. We got up on Saturday and headed out to the MRT. I think I was more excited than the kids, but I knew they would enjoy it once they got there.

Here are a few shots of the kids at our table.

Here's a picture of Reagan and Gavin's food they ordered some kind of spaghetti dish. It was a little different than traditional spaghetti. Notice the shape of the dish though.

Keely ordered a cold drink and it was served in this urinal glass. How would you like to drink your drink from something like this? You could have purchased a souvenier glass that was basically a portable urinal, but I just couldn't do it and none of the kids were game either.

Here's a picture of one of the walls. I just loved the graphic. It is funny to see these graphics at a place you eat.

Here's a great shot of Keely trying to look disgusted by the dessert served in Easter toilets. She didn't really eat it she didn't care for the taste.

In the entry way there are a few photo op places. I guess they tried to set up a peaceful place for you to pretend to do your business. Doesn't Gavin look comfortable?

Here's Keely trying to look busy. She's such an actress.

Reagan couldn't do this without laughing. But isn't she just typical Reagan. When I see this photo I immediately hear her giggle in my head.

I took this photo out front at the end of our experience. These are some pretty cheesy photos.

Time Machine Jan 2009: Dancing with the Fooch!

We learned a long time ago that having smaller, more convenient versions of the digital camera is useful because you always have it with you to capture those unplanned moments. Video is the same thing and we've taken to carrying our new Flip Video Mino camera with us often. Back on New Year's Day we captured this little gem of our nephew Fooch dancing to the Peanut Butter Jelly iPhone app.

Forget Dancing with the Stars... I wanna see Dancing with the Fooch!

Remember - for videos you actually have to visit the ronamy.com website because they won't come through in email. Enjoy!

(You can read more about Fooch and his adventures here: http://www.andreanchad.blogspot.com/.

Time Machine Dec 2008: Taipei Feet

We have a little bit of catch-up to play with our blog postings. Once we made the decision to transition from Taipei back to Pflugerville late last year we kinda went head's down to make it all happen in a short period of time.

On our last weekend in Taipei as a family (I was leaving the following Monday to pave the way for the rest of the clan) the kids wanted to visit the local Chili's in Tien Mu one more time. I snapped this picture when nobody was paying attention and I've always liked how it captures a moment in time.



I've been playing around with an online photo editor called www.picnik.com and that's what I used for the effects and the text.

As much as I'm not a huge fan of Chili's, I'll miss these little outings in Taiwan. If we were having a rough week and just wanted some comfort food we'd head down there and have the Fajita Wrap or Buffalo Ranch Chicken sandwich. When you walk in, you could be at any Chili's in the U.S. - you could swear you were in the Hutto Chili's or even in Granbury! The menu was the same - the decorations were the same - the only difference was the Taiwanese wait staff.

And in all honesty - the wait staff in Taiwan is much better than their U.S. counterparts.

Enjoy the picture. I'll see if I can get Amy to blog about her experiences at the Modern Toilet restaurant sometime soon.

"No Dumping" Update

I need to post a follow-up to my mini-rant below on the City of Pflugerville. I got busy last week and forgot to do it. I reached out to the city and quickly got a response saying that the sign in question was "too high" and that they would lower it so it woudln't be visible from our backyard. Wow! So we are no "No Dumping" sign-free! Thanks to the city and their quick response!