Last night....catching lizards, eating snowpeas and soaking in the last little bits of sunshine.

 (there's a skink they really wanted to catch under this log)

Quinn and Baldy

His underside really is that blue....

She reads to him now!

I went through our massive book shelf and pulled out a pile of simple, shorter books that she can read aloud to Beck.  Both of them love this.  He is patient with her occasional stumbling as she emerges into a reader, and she LOVES reading to him!  A win-win and so cute to watch!

The Flood

The big news from H-town in the last week has been the crazy flood we had last Sunday night.  About the time Matt and I were heading to bed (midnight-ish), it started POURING, and the wind was howling like crazy, and soon ensued the hugest electrical storm I have ever seen in my life.  Our power went off after a huge flash to the transformer behind our fence, so Matt and I headed up to our bedroom, opened the window to let some cool air in and watched the storm, along with the very wet cat, who was mildly interested in the open windows.  There were several hours of lightning and pounding rain all through the night.  We didn't get much sleep, as much of the lightning was right above our house and very close.  We woke up Monday morning to Matt's office manager calling to say they'd canceled clinic since the power was out and roads all across town were flooded.  Quinn had actually been sick over the weekend and still had a fever, so she hadn't been headed to school on Monday, but school also ended up getting canceled.  

We enjoyed a morning home together with Daddy-made breakfast, books, and games.  In the afternoon the natives were getting restless and the rain had slowed, so we headed out to survey the damage...which was C R A Z Y.  Trees down all over the neighborhood.  

 My boys, surveying the street.  This pic doesn't do it justice, but it looked like a warzone.  Trashcans, limbs, branches, leaves, trash....everywhere.

 Just behind our back fence is a major road....which had turned into a river.

 The park was flooded, with water almost into the pool.

 The sheriff's office and fire department were doing water rescues by boat from a neighborhood just across the road from us.

 This is the road.

 People driving jetskis down the road.

 Pieces of plywood floating down.  You can see a neighborhood and stopsign in the middle top of this photo.  That neighborhood flooded.  :(

 The back entrance to our neighborhood was blocked off due to the road being under water.  We could still get out the front.

 We stayed dry and the only damage we had was that we lost one side of our fence, shown in the picture below.

 The kids found lots of creatures brought out by the rain.  Beck had 2 giant slugs.  That boy loves slugs.  The hole you can see is where the slug breathes.

 Of course a lizard from this girl.  You can see she still doesn't look too perky after a weekend of throwing up and fever.

 We saw floating islands made up entirely of fireants floating in the water all over.  It was kinda crazy.  Matt got into one before he saw it and got a foot full of bites.  Boo to that.

 The kids and I talked Matt into taking our canoe out.  We just walked out behind our back fence and launched it in the road.  Quinn had a lizard in one hand and a toad in the other the entire ride.  Beck had two toads.

 The captain.

 Here we are in the middle of the road....

 We paddled down a road that was under water to a nearby golfcourse, that was also under water.  We got out to run around a bit....

The road was under water for about 3 days.  Matt went back to work on Tuesday, but Quinn was out of school until Thursday, and our neighborhood school was out all week.  No one in our neighborhood got water in their home, though it was so close at the street behind us.  We had friends get water in their house, which is a terrible thing to have happen.....

My loves, tonight.

Her newest pet

Meet Baldy, Quinn's newest pet.  He's a common side-blotched lizard, native to Texas, about 5 inches long, with a broken off tail (we found him that way).  He eats mealworms and freeze-dried flies and he's got the prettiest blue throat and belly.  We're all quite fond of that little guy!  He gets wild and hyper after a few minutes warming under his light and he can skedaddle fast if you open his tank to change the water!  Luckily Quinn is faster and can catch him.  :)  Matt built him a supercool cage and he lives on our nature shelf in the breakfast nook.

My peeps in the wildflowers

So if you haven't noticed by now, my two are not really the "sit in the flowers and smile" type.  JUMPING is a lot more their style.  

 And this was all his idea.  She initially freaked out, but he talked her into letting him kiss on her a bit.

And yup, you know a headstand in the bluebonnets is gonna happen with this girl.  

The best part was when I freed them from smiling to go run around the woods next to the bluebonnet field.  

 Teaching him to do a cartwheel.  It went about how you can imagine.

 And in one of my favorite flowers...the indian paintbrush!

 She wasn't happy because he wouldn't do what she wanted.  Real life, folks.  ;)