Monday, April 21, 2008

Back at the Homestead

After a long long drive to Texas, we've finally re-established ourselves at the Bice homestead in Spring. The girls who were so excited to be back in Texas promptly began asking us when we were going to be going back to St Louis. I guess the grass really is always greener.

While the girls rediscovered the joys of having your own backyard (it's like your own private park), Erin and I rediscovered the joys of home ownership; namely cleaning, repairing and yardwork. After a week of effort and about 20 bags of pinestraw, the place is starting to take shape. I installed a new garbage disposal, rearranged the living room to Erin's specifications, and bought Olivia her "big-girl-bed". The girls, as can be seen below, assisted in beautifying the front of the house.




Monday, April 07, 2008

Nice out; Madelyn and Olivia take a hill


What happens when the winter suddenly rolls back for a day and spring decides to make an appearance in St Louis. Park time-that's what. The girls and I headed over to Forest Park which is conveniently located across the highway from our digs here for a little frolicing. Frolic we did. We found the biggest hill we could find and proceeded to engage in some heavy duty rolling and the obligatory photo-ops.








Saturday, April 05, 2008

Fighting off the malaize

Ok...as usual we are taking our time in putting on new posts around here. Not that there hasn't been anything going on since a month ago. Just another case of trying to keep up with everything after staying up all night.

The first event that deserves mentioning is Madelyn and Olivia's great teaparty adventure. One of the girls in Madelyn's preschool class had her fifth birthday and in honor of the occasion held a teaparty. As you can see below, the girls were more than ready to put on their finest for the occasion.




By far my favorite has to be Madelyn giving herself the fish hook. Why? Who knows; she's just creative like her old man in that way.

In other news, I just recently got back from my trip to LA. Now the stated purpose of said trip was to attend the ACI spring conference (read American Concrete Institute, for those of you tend to glaze over when I talk about such things), and I'd say the trip was very productive. The more newsworthy portions of the trip was, of course, linking up with Kaboom for dinner at the Stinking Rose-a garlic infused restraunt that I think I still am reeking of-and rocking the crowd with our massive karaoke might at The Brass Monkey. Ok, truth be told, Kaboom did most of the crowd rocking, but I think I held my own with a very strong rendition of "Santa Monica" by Everclear. No word yet on offers from any labels.

Finally, the biggest news our family's long overdue return to our home in Houston. Next weekend (Apr 12 & 13) we will be making our way back home to the friendly confines of Spring. We're excited to get back into our house (I'm less excited at tackling my backyard after such a long period) and begining the work we've got planned for our house. Once we've settled in we fully intend to fire the grill up again and resume our near weekly barbecuing. Look forward to seeing everyone soon!