Esther

There is a woman next door to the flip house. Her name is Esther. I don't know how old she is, but I would guess around 70 or so. I think she's from Africa. She hasn't seen her family that lives there in six years. She walks over, barefoot, everyday. I wasn't there for the first month or so of the project, but ever since i've been over there she comments about how hard we're working and asks why we are working so hard. She is incredibly religious and says that "God will bring the people" to buy the house. That always makes me giggle a little. It's not her belief that makes me laugh, but I always see this little comic God as a realtor. And that makes me laugh...

The last couple of times that I have been at the house she brings me food. Chicken, some potatoes, and veggies. She used to bring it to us while we were all working. She'd bring four little bowls full of homemade food. Now, i'm bringing it home. Some of it is fantastic and some of it is a little suspicious looking. She told me yesterday that if any of us ever want her to cook us something that we just have to bring her the food and she will cook it. She said that she has time and it is a part of her life that she enjoys taking care of us.

Today she came inside the house while I was painting the closet doors in one of the bedrooms and she told me that she cooks for us because she loves us and she doesn't know what she's going to do when we leave the house. She takes care of an older woman. "The old lady" as she refers to her. Apparently the "old lady" doesn't eat with Esther and that is why she has leftovers. It's very hard to understand her accent, but that is what I gathered. Esther is always smiling. She is always in the yard piling up leaves, taking out the trash, cleaning up around the house. I think a little part of all of us will miss Esther when the house sells.

Finished Product

So here is the deck in almost finished mode. Just some stain will complete this project and i'm fairly certain I will NOT be the one staining this thing. I have painted and re-painted. I have used a nail gun (scary) for the first time and learned a crazy amount of information about building decks. I also learned that fire ants like to make their home in sod. As we hand carried the new sod to the side of the house on Saturday I was bitten only twice, but they still itch and are red and welty. If that's even a word. I'm hoping to get some before and after pics of the entire house from Jeff. That way I can even see the progress. Everything is on the back of the house. The right part of the house was also added. All of the grass is sod that we put down in 100 degree heat. No one in Texas was putting in sod at that time. We had not had any rain and so we all took shifts watering the yard. Turning the sprinkler on and off and making sure we didn't get caught watering on our non-watering day.

Another Trip

So much to say, so many stories, they will have to wait as i'm exhausted, but here are a few pictures of my recent adventure to NY for a Yankee Stadium hello and farewell.

Yankee Stadium

Stories to follow...

Disney Cruise

On the 2nd we boarded a plane for Orlando. On the 3rd the Disney cruise left Port Canaveral and headed toward Castaway Cay, their private island. We snorkeled in the ocean, M raced crabs. It reminded me of the Turtle races in Longville. Two circles on the ground and someone releases all the crabs at one time and everyone yells as though it will propel their crab toward the outer circle. There were three heats and then the finals. Fortunately M's crab made it to the finals. Then it bonked. I think I should've massaged it's little crab legs a little bit more and he could've pulled it out. His crab was #5 if you can read the numbers on the shells. We boarded the ship again and by 5p we were out of Castaway Cay on our way to Nassau, Bahamas. We woke up in the Bahamas and it was quite a shock compared to the private island. There was only a tram on Castaway Cay. Nassau was teaming with three other cruise ships, people and mopeds everywhere. We went from our ship to a boat to go to the Dolphin encounter. It's an encounter because you don't actually swim with them. You stand waist deep in the water and they come up to you. We got hugs, kisses, a dance and did a trick with Dot, the dolphin before our time was up. I will post those pictures when I get them. We forgot any form of money when we left the cruise ship and had to have them mail our souvenirs to us! How pathetic. We went right back onto the ship after our encounter with Dot the dolphin. The next day we woke up in Castaway Cay again. I was happy to be back to the private island. We had a stingray feeding/snorkel. We were able to swim with them and pet them and feed em'. They were very tame and their barbs were cut off (like a finger nail apparently) so our risk of death was to a minimum. Before we had our stingray swim M dropped his snorkel mask in 15 feet of water in the ocean, so we had to do some treasure hunting. We found it and recovered it! It was a highlight. I shot M down to the bottom of the ocean with one strong heave to the backside. He shot down and back up with no problem! The next day we were back in port. It was only a 4 day and too short if you ask me. It did seem to go much slower than I anticipated and felt longer than it seems with me typing it all out.

We played Bingo, G sang some Disney Karaoke. There was a trivia in which my team scored 20/26. We came in second and I was mad. I missed easy questions. What is the oldest ride at Disney? My cruise brain picked Dumbo. It is the CAROUSEL! Then, how many dwarfs have beards? 6! Only Dopey doesn't. I will not ever forget these things. At least the other teams only let their kids answer, so my odds were better. The team that beat us had a 14 year old or something. I think they cheated.

Here are a few pics from the trip.

Disney Cruise

Deck

I've been helping build a deck for what seems like an eternity at this point.
I think this was day one. I will have to get more recent pictures as there is about 200 more square feet of deck that has been added.

Wright House

Mexico

I'm taking a break from cleaning to update the good ole' blog. So, I went to Mexico a few weeks ago, then I went on a Disney cruise and I leave on Friday to go to NYC to see the Yankees play in Yankee Stadium before they tear down a historic monument. I couldn't miss Yankee Stadium, it'd be a horrible tragedy!

So Mexico was fantastic! Sun, beach, good food and a pool. What more can one want in a vacation? The flight was delayed leaving Austin, so when we got to the counter the nice man upgraded us to FIRST CLASS!!! I have to say that I very much enjoyed getting to board the plane first and I was the one that had a book in one hand a glass of water in another while all the other peons boarded. Which made it that much more difficult to board the plane on the way home and walk past the people reading and drinking. It was fun while it lasted. The next few days consisted of sitting by the beach, walking in the ocean and then heading toward the pool for lunch and swimming. That was about it and it couldn't have been better. I did spot a Moray Eel in the rocks by the shore that was trying to get into the holes for some food. I was a little weary when getting into the ocean after that one. It was black and yellow and looked like a leopard. But less leg and more snake-esque.

Mexico