Life Lately January/February/March 2023

I haven't written a "Life Lately" post since December. The reason is two-fold: 1) there hasn't been much to share beyond Avalanche and our quick trips to WDW, San Diego, and Houston, and 2) it's been a very stressful couple of months for a wide variety of reasons.

School was completely insane, particularly in March - competitions for Battle of the Books and Challenge 24, Math & Literacy Family Night, Book Fair, and what felt like no less than a million meetings, among countless other things. Even though we are heading into testing season, April looks to be a much more reasonable month and I am very grateful for that!

The biggest non-school news is that my mom moved into an assisted living facility at the end of February and so far, things are going well. It's about 20 minutes from our house and it gives me some peace of mind that care is available around the clock. It's been a very emotionally challenging transition and I'm still learning how to let go of control because I'm no longer the one managing things for her day-to-day. I worry about her all day, every day and I don't think that part will ever get any easier.

this look melts my heart

from one of my awesome students

outfit for Rainbow Day at school

outfit for Multicultural/Heritage Day at school

only 5,000 miles from my goal for my car

the 2023 Caldecott Winner is
an absolutely fabulous book!

As far as Avalanche goes, he's had a busy three months since joining our family...he has stayed at a kennel three times, he's started going to daycare one day per week, and he was groomed! He's got such an agreeable personality that he happily goes wherever we drop him off, and other than not liking getting bathed and dried at the groomer (he was fairly dramatic - a side of him we don't see at home), his behavior has been stellar at every turn. Here's a collection of pics of him from March:

best friends

we left him alone at home for the first time
for about 20 minutes and he just stayed like this
by the door the entire time

his paws before (scruffy) and after (perfect)
his grooming appointment

I'm now able to hug him - the best time to do so
is when he's about to get out of the car -
and don't let his face fool you...
he leans right into me every time and I am
the happiest person on earth!

Happy Tails to you!

Houston 2023

Last weekend, we took a super quick trip to Houston - not only to take advantage of the Southwest Companion Pass, but also because we were able to book a very cool tour there!

We were scheduled to leave at 6:00 am on Saturday morning, so we took Avalanche to the kennel on Friday night. After going to bed early, we received a text from Southwest at 1:00 am that our flight had been canceled due to weather and that we'd been rebooked on another flight leaving at 5:15 pm.

Not great.

1. Avalanche spent an unnecessary night at the kennel.

2. An already short trip was made even shorter by 12 hours.

3. The car rental office at Houston-Hobby airport closed at 7:00 pm and we were not scheduled to arrive until after 8:00 pm.

4. Our boarding positions on the rescheduled flight were C44 and C45 and if you know anything about Southwest, you know those are TERRIBLE.

If it weren't for the aforementioned tour that was already paid for and that we'd been looking forward to for months, we probably would have canceled the trip altogether, gone to pick up Avalanche, and called it a day.

However, we decided to make the best of it and go anyway. C called the car rental company and worked out being able to pick up a car at Houston-Bush airport (which was open much later) but still return it to Houston-Hobby airport.

We went to the airport a little early and used two of our credits to upgrade our boarding positions to A11 and A12, which allowed us to get the pair of aisle/middle seats in the exit row with no window seat (a compromise on my part because I only ever like to sit in the window seat, but we didn't want to risk having a stranger sit between us because the trip was already off to a bit of a rocky start!). The flight was pretty uneventful and we arrived in Houston right around 8:00 pm. We took an uber from one airport to the other (a 40ish minute ride), checked in at the rental counter at 8:55 pm, and then waited until after 10:00 pm - more than an hour! - before they had an available car for us. Such an aggravating experience!

Thankfully the remainder of the trip was amazing! We went to The Color Factory, which was very cool, and also to the whole reason for the trip: a VIP Tour at Johnson Space Center! If you know us, you know we love all things space and this tour was beyond incredible! The highlight was being able to go into the historic mission control room and let me tell you that I shed more than a few tears because I was so overcome with emotion. I would take that tour again in a heartbeat!

After the tour, it was pretty much time to head to the airport for our flight home. What a crazy quick trip, but still a super fun time!

Happy Tails to you!