Forbidden Gardens Katy, TX

If you are ever in the Houston, TX area, the Forbidden Gardens in Katy, TX are a must. The site was built by a Chinese businessman to show children Chinese History. It is not advertised very well and there is not a sign at the street. My sister saw it on the Travel Channel. It is a fabulous place and they will be adding more exhibits.

When Dariel and I went it was very hot. Since it is mostly outdoors, it can be extremely uncomfortable. But we still enjoyed it. New Year's weekend my friends Ed, Kathi and Ginny came down from Boston to get out of the snow and watch the Patriots lose to the Texans. I think people will start paying their way down since the Texans are not that great, and they have only seen the Patriots lose when they have been here. The weather was gorgeous and perfect for visiting the Forbidden Gardens.

Part of the entertainment of the weekend was taking them to the Forbidden Gardens.

Here are the full scale Terra Cotta Warriors.

Here is how the Terra Cotta Warriors looked when they were unearthed in China.

This is a 1/20th scale of the Forbidden City.

One of the exhibits that shows how homes were built.

One of the air conditioned exhibits, a model of a seaside village.

This is a must see for the Houston area. So rich in history!!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Wow! What a year! What a week!

I'm so far behind on my whole life. I think it has to do with kittens and the house that is a maintenance nightmare. We have been remodeling forever, but I never have time to do it. The bathroom floor in the master is partially done, but kittens have been living in there forever and first it was hot and now it's to cold to cut tile outside.

The new kittens are adorable, Layla, Kieran, Kyara and Kiley. The K cats are all black. Kiley is the only one that is still skittish, but she is getting better.

So this week it SNOWED IN HOUSTON. Wow! Again for the second year in a row, first time ever for 2 years in a row. But at our house it did not stick for the second year in a row. And don't get me started on Global Warming. Global Warming is caused by the ozone layer being destroyed. So it causes extreme heat and extreme cold. The problem is that it is melting the global ice caps during the extreme heats.

Then Texas has to play a game that makes you quit breathing. Hello Texas. Bill desperately needs a new National Champs Polo shirt. He has holes in his old football and baseball one because he wears them all the time. And the last time I checked, I was the one that graduated from Texas. He is a Lamar Cardinal. They have not won national champs in anything.

Now Christmas is 2 weeks away. I do have the cards that I need to address and print out letters. I have some shopping done. Bill's kids are done! One of my sister's is done. But that is it. Oh well. It should not be too hard.

And Ed and Kathi will be here soon for Kathi's beef tour of Houston and the Patriots v. Texan game. I'm still deciding what we need to do while they are here. Forbidden Gardens is a must.

And surprises will be had all throughout the season. Bill will be doing his Christmas bird counts starting next weekend, I think.

I have used my mixer like crazy this year. How was I supposed to know how wonderful one would be? And making all of Kimmie's recipes have been fun. Her taco soup is referred to as Kimmie soup.

Looking forward to seeing Kimmie at Christmas!

Time to address Christmas cards now!

HOOK 'EM! We need that National Championship.

Fallon's Shower

Oh my, it's been a long time since I blogged. It's been crazy with the house, work, and kittens. And nothing exciting has happened.

Bill's niece is having a baby and there was a shower for her in Beaumont this weekend. So I told her I would make cupcakes and cookies. But I didn't tell her what they would be.

A while back, Allison, the fabulous cupcake baker, mentioned she made pink lemonade cupcakes. Since Fallon is having a girl, I thought this would be perfect. So Allison graciously shared her recipe with me. And told me where to get the cute toppers. Of course, she didn't tell me NOT to go the night before Halloween, and me, not thinking, pulled into Party City on Halloween Eve. I was however the only person on the baby aisle.

So here are the cupcakes in my new carrier. What a terrific carrier.

Here is a full picture of the carrier. Great investment.

The cookie idea was stolen from Kimmie, chef extraordenaire. My favorite niece is the source of many of our recipes. In fact today I asked Bill what he wanted for dinner and he said "Kimmie Soup", meaning the taco soup that we got the recipe from Kimmie. My cookies do not even compare to Kimmie's but Bill's family did not know the difference. NOTE TO SELF: Never again do cookies and cupcakes during the week. One or the other.

Here is my cupcake tree. The cupcakes looked adorable on it.

Everyone loved the cupcakes and cookies. The cupcakes got rave reviews. In fact, one of Bill's sisters had not tried one yet, eventhough she had it in her togo box. His other sister said, at least taste the icing right now. Lori did and her eyes just lit up.

Bill ate cupcakes after we got home and we got his seal of approval. This is from the person that likes sheet cakes and chocolate chip cookies. Boring, but that is another story.

I also took a dozen cupcakes to the vets office. I talked to one of the techs today and she said they loved them. In fact the vet took the leftovers to his kids!

So a big shoutout to Kimmie and Allison for their ideas!!

Kittens are growing up

Here is Bianca and Shaylee. They became its this week when they were spayed. They are best buddies as you can see are in the same bed. They are completely mad at me for taking them to get cut open. But they are doing great. But the vet said Shaylee, the fairy princess, became the royal pain and they had to sedate her after she woke up from surgery. She had enough and was ready to go home. Bill picked them up and said Shaylee was very wobbly.


This was Shaylee before her surgery. She is just so cute.



Here is Shaylee and Keagan. They are buddies too.

Keagan is a full grown cat almost. He is 6 months old now. He is the softest cat we have. He also has his Longhorn ears and tail on. He is like a ragdoll. He loves to be picked up and just flops in your arms. He just puts his head on my shoulder and goes to sleep. But if Bill picks him up, he bites Bill's nose.

Mimi is getting married

Next Saturday Amelia, aka, Mimi, is getting married. Mimi is the daugther of my good friend Adina. I was there the day she was born, so I will be there the day she gets married. She is a very unique person and her wedding will show that. Above is her wedding invitation that I had framed for a wedding gift to Mimi and Johnny. She has said the wedding is turning into a music fest, so I can't wait.

Mimi started calling herself Mimi when she learned to talk and it has stuck. When she in the 6th grade she organized a boycott of the cafeteria food. She called the newspaper and had them show up. She has always been a leader and forward thinker!

Best of luck to Mimi and Johnny.

Lack of curb appeal

Anyone that knows me, knows that I don't make many sweets. However, Bill loves sweets, so now I'm making more than I have in my life. For the kickoff of football season, I decided to make Bevo cookies. Well, they taste great, but look like they were dipped in velveeta. Yuck.

And I did teapots and cupcakes. Those unidentifiable blobs are supposed to be cupcakes. I got the dough too thick.

If you want to see the cutest cookies ever, go to Kimmie's blog here and here. As you can see, I didn't even come close.

Customer Service or Lack thereof

Lately I have had the worst luck with Customer Service.

I love tea, all kinds of tea. One of my favorite loose leaf teas is Teavana. We are lucky to have several locations in the Houston area. One of them is at the Galleria, right across from my office. So I went in to get some tea. But wow, have their prices gone up. And now that I'm underemployed, I am being careful with what I buy. So I asked for 2 different teas, 2 oz each. The girl waiting on me, goes and starts filling up the bag. I said, I asked for 2 oz. So she dumped some out and says is this ok. I stupidly assumed that it would be close and said yes. So when she rang it up and it was way over what I thought. Ends up one was 5.6 oz and one was 3 oz. I said to her, I asked for 2 oz. She said well I showed you the bag. I was so mad that I just left with the tea after paying for it.

My sister Becky went in the next week and asked for 2 oz. The girl started filling it up and said is that OK? Becky said is it 2 oz? She just shrugged. Becky made her weigh it and it was 3 oz. So she looked at Becky and asked if she had to take some out. Becky said yes she asked for 2 oz. So after a lot of sighs and groans she got her tea.

I complained to Teavana by email but of course have not heard a word.

* courtesy of the Teavana website

Next I got to deal with Netgear. I have a Netgear DGN2000 which I love. It's a modem and wireless all in one. No more of one not talking to the other. This device has never dropped a connection. Ever. Bill has 2 of his desktops hard-wired into this. I am wireless at the back of the house.

Suddenly ports 2, 3 and 4 go out. So I get online to customer service since blasting Bill off his stupid game requires an act of congress. We finally go as far as we can online, so I start calling their customer service at 5 am. This is when Bill is getting ready for work. They say they have 24 hours service. 2 days in a row, I stayed on hold for 30 minutes then went to a mail box that said they would call me back. Well, by that time I would be at work. So finally I had to throw Bill off his computer and talk to India to resolve this. Of course the girl is reading the script and I'm 4 steps ahead of her at all times. By the time we get off the phone, she has now broken port 1 too. So we can only use the wireless while we are waiting for the replacement to arrive.

Of course I had to pay to get the replacement underwarranty. We can send in the unit and pay postage and wait for them to mail us one, meaning we will be out of service for the length of time it takes. Or I can pay $16.95 for them to mail us one and we'll mail our back when we get it. Of course, it's 2 day service, and there is a weekend in the middle of it. Or we could have had it overnighted for about $35. I choose the $16.95. I would not listen to Bill for 4 days of no internet. Remember Hurricane IKE? No way.

* courtesy of Netgear

Next up is customer service at HP. I used to work at HP. If we got India on the phone for the internal help desk we would hang up and call back till we got Mexico. So I get online and pretend to be Bill. He's helpless with problems. His gaming computer would just crash after it was up for a few minutes. So I get online and "talk" to them. On this one, by the time I get off the internet, the computer won't even come up at all. He had me go into the setup and of course it crashed so it's in limbo somewhere. So this was a weekend, so they sent the box to us, I packed it up and took it to Fed Ex by the office.

Meanwhile, Bill has my desktop. It is the only other computer of our 8 that will run his game. This would be the same desktop that does all of our movies, loads books from the library, has the software for printing the movies, has all the books for loading the iPods and iPhone. See comment above about listening to Bill without his game.

Since Dell has lousy DVD drives, I'm doing books and movies on my external dvd writer.

* courtesy of HP

The redeeming service is ATT. I went into the store to upgrade my iPhone. I walked out 15 minutes later with my phone working perfectly.

* courtesy of Apple