Rain?

As of tomorrow, it will be three weeks since the last time we received rain at our house. This is unusual since we live in Houston and we usually average a little over 5 inches for May and June (each). As I type, the sprinkler is going in the back yard to try and revive our dying grass. We bought a sprinkler when we bought our house three years ago and have probably only used it 2 or 3 times since. This is now the second time in a week we have watered. Since the forecast is looking very dry and hot for the next week, it looks like we may have to get into the habit of watering. So much for the saying, "It rains somewhere in Houston everyday!"

To Drum Another Day!

Evan got Guitar Hero World Tour for Christmas and while we have played it some since then, we have been playing it a lot in the last couple of weeks. At first we were just playing different songs and taking turns playing drums, guitar, or singing. Evan is one of those people that is just good at video games and so it came as no surprise to me that he was really good at the guitar. I am not one of those people but I still decided to try and play the drums on most of the songs. I was terrible when I started but I am improving the more we play. For the record, I am still playing on "Easy" but in my opinion it is all about having fun.

Last week we got serious and started doing band play with Evan on guitar and me on the drums. I love to sing but I don't feel like I am playing a video game when I am singing. Also, I thought the drums would be more fun even though they would be more challenging. Evan is a lot of fun to play with because he doesn't get mad at me when I mess up or cause us to get booed off stage. For the record, every time we have been booed off stage has been because of me, not Evan :) We are both very competitive but still able to have a lot of fun with it.

Last night we were playing and I started to get frustrated because I was consistently missing the note every time I was supposed to hit the red drum pad. Since I am right handed, I hit all the drums/cymbals with my right hand, except the red drum pad. I told Evan, "I think there is something wrong with my reflexes all of a sudden!" After starting three songs over because of my "poor" playing, Evan sat down to see what was going on. He was missing the red notes too! He did some more trouble shooting by playing in the Wii Freestyle mode and came to the conclusion that the red drum pad was not responding. Honestly, while I was disappointed that it was broken, I was more interested in the fact that there was nothing wrong with me!

Evan did some web research into fixing the problem since the warranty expired a while ago. Evan is VERY good at troubleshooting and fixing things. I was confident that as long as it didn't involve soldering (only because we don't have the materials) Evan could fix it. Sure enough, after taking it apart and applying a little electrical tape to reconnect the wires to the back of the drum pad, it was fixed!

Memorial Day and Shrimp Burgers

I promised more posts come the end of May and here they are! Since my last post, a lot has happened and plans have changed. Our move has been postponed and it looks like we won't be spending the first part of the summer in D.C. No worries :) God has really done a work on me since I was a teenager in the area of adapting to change. I used to really stress when plans changed or when there wasn't a plan at all. While I still struggle some with the second scenario, I am improving on the first. I'll have to post an update as to our moving time-line later when we know more. As for now, we're just enjoying the beginning of the summer.

Over Memorial Day weekend, we had a great and relaxing time. We watched movies, played on the Wii, slept in, and did some shopping. We really enjoy cooking together and I love trying out new and somewhat intimidating recipes when I know we will have the time to do it together. There was a recipe for shrimp burgers in the April issue of Southern Living that looked really good but like one of those recipes that I would tear out, put in my recipe binder, and never fix. Never fix because of the prep that was involved and good shrimp can be expensive and it would take a lot of planning. I decided Memorial Day would be a perfect opportunity to try the recipe since we didn't have much else going on. We went to the grocery store in the morning, did all the prep stuff after lunch and then had them for dinner. They were pretty good and the sweet and spicy tartar sauce definately had a kick to it. I don't know if we'll ever make them again but it was a lot of fun! Here are some pictures:

[caption id="attachment_232" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Amy making the patties"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_234" align="aligncenter" width="242" caption="Evan making his shrimp burger"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_235" align="aligncenter" width="320" caption="Enjoying our shrimp burgers"][/caption]