The "Big" Slide

It is officially summer (as of 630 am 6/21/2010). Well the Caughran Family hasn't waited for Summer to officially start to hit up the neighborhood pool. Of course anyone that is in Houston knows that it has felt like summer for more than a month or two.

Since it is ridiculously hot and too hot to play in the back yard for very long, we have been taking the boy to the pool. The pool has a kid area and then two nice big slides. Howdy (BC's Cousin) went down the big slide last summer. We didn't think that BC was tall enough, but after talking with a lifeguard, they said as long as he had a life jacket on, they would let him slide (note I would like him to go without the life jacket since my kid is no wussy, but rules are rules).

Pics of the pool from www.fallcreekhouston.com


Once we borrowed a Coast Guard approved life jacket, BC and I headed up the stairs to the top of the big slide. Lisa waited at the bottom to catch the boy as he came out of the slide. Here are some pics of him on the slide courtesy of Michelle Purtle.











Once he got a taste of the adrenaline there was no turning back. The slide is all he wanted to do for the rest of the time at the pool. Lisa has even gone back to the pool since then without me and the slide is what he wants to do, but it is too difficult for Lisa to climb the stairs with him and she is too pregnant to slide. So he has to stick to the small slide when I am not there.

Here we are after a nice day at the pool.



BC enjoys the pool so much that he makes it known that he wants to go to the pool every time we drive by now.

Quitting the Poison

If you know me or know my mom or siblings, you know that we drink a lot. It makes me think of my KA Koozie quote "We may drink a lot, but at least we drink a lot". Now to be clear, in my family I do not mean we are drunks and drink a lot of alcohol (although we do drink on occasion), I mean we drink a lot of fluids all the time. Also to be clear the KA Koozie quote specifically refers to drinking alcohol.

I always need something to drink. Every Sunday on our way to Church, I stop to get a drink from the gas station. Before we go places, I plan where to get a drink or get a roadie (Again not an alcoholic Roadie). My sister always has a big gulp-like cup with her and my mom always carries a large water bottle.

In college drinking was also a big part of life (even the non-alcoholic drinking). We had Snapple machines in the Dorms and I would just destroy them. My flavor was always the first to run out.

Now that I am in the real world, I don't drink Snapple (too expensive) but I do drink cokes. I drink so much that I can't have cokes in the house (they will be gone too quickly and we wouldn't have money for diapers if we always kept it stocked). Everyone knows that I drink a lot that even my in-laws make sure that they have cokes for me at their house. (Thanks MEEEEM)

What is awesome is that my office keeps two large sub-zero frigs filled with different kinds of Cokes (DP, Sprite, Diet Coke, Sprite Zero, Diet DP plus others). So now I drink tons of cokes a day (Sprite Zero and Diet DP to be exact). Everyone tells me they are bad for me, but I drink them anyways.

A month ago, Sprite came out with a promotion to collect green tabs and submit them to Sprite and they would donate 10 cents to habitat for Humanity. So I started keeping my tabs to send off. (note I never sent them off) What I didn't realize is that once I started to save the tabs, I was able to see and count how many drinks I had in a day (at least at work). I average 6-7 a day.


Here is a pic of about a month worth of tabs.

For Lent I gave up Candy (we have a drawer filled with Candy at work) and Diet DP. I switched to Sprite Zero during that time. Well Lisa has been bugging me about my Coke habit (Pop Habit for midwesterners) and I think I am going to go cold turkey.

For the last two days I have not had a Coke or Candy from the drawer while at work. It is going to be tough, but I guess water with Crystal Lite will have to do.

Panama Pictures (Some)

Panama Photos from my Cell Phone

Picture of the locks in the Panama Canal. The ">" shaped structure in the middle right of the photo is the actual Lock.


It is hard to see in the Photo, but this is a ship in the canal (after being lowered in the locks) and there is very little space on either side of the ship.


Wild Green Snake that was on the tower that we climbed in the rain forest.


A view from our Hotel


A "spiral" building that is being built. Note the Spiral is just an optical illusion.


Some of the skyline. There was a lot of active construction.




The following are pictures from in our hotel.






There were tons of Concrete/Steel buildings and it seemed like each one was an attempt to out due the last when it comes to size or Architecture. I would really like to see how the Spiral building looks once it is completed.

Random Stories

There is no one story of the past couple of weeks that can carry a whole post, so this post will just cover some of the highlights. The last story is the best.

Some administrative notes: We got the Panama pictures last night. We just need to go through them and post them.

Altima:

The Altima is no longer an outside dweller. In a past post I mentioned that I park in a parking garage now, well I am now back in the garage at home. It has been about 3 months since I let my side of the garage get out of control, but it took a 3 day weekend to finally motivate me to clean it up. The Altima is very appreciative to be back in the garage. I think it just takes me two days to build up to doing major cleanup at the house. Every other weekend, after 2 days I am ready, but then it is time to go back to work.

Panama:

Panama was awesome. Our hotel connected to a mall and casino, we visited the rain forest and saw wild monkeys, lizards, hawks, crocodiles, and snakes. We took a boat to Monkey Island and took a Gondola to the top of a hill/mountain above the canal. We visited the locks of the canal as well. We even saw an open Bennigan's. For those of you that are unaware, Bennigan's went out of business in the US. Needless to say, everyone else on the trip did not agree with me that we should eat at Bennigan's.

Bday:

Colin had his second bday and bday party. Lisa needs to post pictures of this and a synopsis. Get to it . . . btw, where is a post on your trip to Israel?

Running Bug:

I have the running bug again. After partially tearing my Achilles in December, I had some procedures done to my ankle, took a month off and now I am back on the road. Did my first 5k race this past weekend. The Astros Race for the Pennant 5k. Not a fitting name since we are one of the worst teams in baseball. I did decent. 31st in my age group 196 overall (out of 2500). The race was on an overpass that had hills and being born and raised in Houston, the only hills in town are overpasses and I have very little experience with hills. They killed me.

Best Story:

Lisa went to the Grocery store yesterday to pick up some food for dinner and the rest of the week. We are going to be grilling this week. While she was checking out, the check out lady (who I assume is around high school age) notifies Lisa that Little Colin is up to something in the cart. Lisa turns to investigate and finds that Little Colin has pushed up the side of his shorts and pulled out his b**** and was playing with them outside his diaper in the shopping cart. Lisa does what any Mom would and stops him and tells him not to do that at HEB (Does that mean it is okay elsewhere?). I would have just laughed. Lisa said it was the first time she has ever been truly embarrassed by Little Colin's actions.

That's my boy.