Austin has seen about 11 inches of rain in July. Not bad considering we only had about 18 inches all of last year and every single day in July was over 100 degrees in 2011. And by “not bad,” I mean this has been an AWESOME July so far. What makes it better is that Connor and Josie love to play in the water, pool, puddles, they don’t care. And it’s a little cooler outside for them to be able to enjoy the days. It cracks me up how people use weather cycles to further different agendas as though we are significant enough to change these cycles. Don’t get me started.
Josie has quite a little memory on her. First of all she knows all the different animal hosts and puppets in the different Baby Einstein dvds we have. Her favorite is Baby Noah and she loves the flamingos. So when I went to Tampa for a business trip last week, I picked up a little beanie baby flamingo. Josie LOVES it. She sleeps with it now and carries it all around the house. And before I left for my trip, Josie was nice enough to help me with my luggage. When the baby sitter came by on Saturday night Josie was explaining that daddy got her the flamingo and brought it on the airplane. The flamingo has “Florida” on it and I told the sitter about that. Josie immediately corrected me and said I got it from Tampa! Nice work sweetie.
Also, Sunday night was supposed to be Nita and her girlfriends and the kids for a trip to see theater in the park. The play was “The Sound of Music” at Zilker. While they were doing that I took Josie out on a daddy daughter date. We had a great time and then the rain came down in buckets again. By the way, if you haven’t done it, you might consider a UPS back up. It’s an Uninterruptable Power Supply that can run several devices for a couple of hours with a power surge or electrical outing. It was designed for computer systems, but I figured why not protect your TV, DVD, Surround sound, Blue ray, etc.? AND, it keeps the little ones from freaking out if the lights flicker because the movie keeps playing. So there’s that. Technically if your electricity went out for an extended amount of time you could plug a couple of fans (or heaters) into it. I don’t sell them, I’m just saying.
Anyway, Josie and I went to Jims for dinner and then came back home while the flood waters were rising. But during dinner she was such little chatterbox. Her vocabulary is blowing up! And one of her funny mannerisms is that she will not excuse a lack of understanding. I’m not saying she doesn’t tolerate fools, I mean when she says something you must repeat it back to her to confirm the message was received loud and clear. When repeat it back to her and then answer the question or comment on the statement, she smiles. When you don’t understand she’ll repeat it, over and over and over and over and over and over again. She will not let you just say, “Oh, yes sweetheart, that’s great.” Bullshit, you better say it back and annunciate when you do it. So in the restaurant we identified all the art, the koala bears, butterflies, cows, etc. She was an absolute hoot. I really enjoyed our little date, we even had peach cobbler ala mode and she led the mealtime prayer. And Josie was calling it a date all day, it was pretty cute. The nice man at the register offered to walk out with us with an umbrella. No thanks, my kids like getting wet. No one is worried about melting at the Martinez house.
Back to the storm. It was actually kind of scary at a couple of water crossings near the golf course. In fact our signature water hole was so full and having so much water funnel into it that it was overflowing the overflow channel. It looked like the bottom of a waterfall with really violent foam and some pretty choppy rapids. It was beautiful to watch but the sounds easily let us know that it wasn’t a good idea to stick around. I snapped a quick picture with my phone, but should have taken a quick video to capture the sound. Any idiot who might have tried to cross the cart path from tee to green there would have easily gotten swept down the chute. I’m glad none of our members are that stupid (or didn’t think about it). So after the picture we got home and watched a show. I wanted to watch the girl with the dragon tattoo, Josie wanted a Baby Einstein. Guess what we watched?
Connor came home a bit, well let’s say moist. That boy had more costume changes this weekend than a Milan runway model. Connor has been jumping in puddles and getting hosed off in the back yard(s) almost every day for the last week. Sunday when we went to the grocery store he asked if he could go to Abuelita’s house instead. So we dropped him off with a change of clothes and went shopping. When we went to go pick him up he was dripping from head to toe, completely naked, and was reenacting the Chris Farley maniac scene from Tommy boy. When Nita brought him home (by the way of course the play was rained out) he’d been playing outside in the storm at her friend’s house. At least he had pants on. Wait, did he have pants on? I’m not so sure he did. In any case, the kids had a wet fun weekend and I sure did miss them while I was out. But everything heals…even the Earth. Yep, call me crazy but I have a feeling that the cycles will continue with or without higher taxes, cow farts, and aerosol deodorant. This year, well I guess we’ve got some puddles to jump in.
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