Garden Update

Wanted to update everyone on the flowers in our garden. Its a nice time of year here in Houston, and the flowers respond well to the warm weather, sun and occasional huge rain storm.

Here is the bougainvillea (two different colors actually) that grow on the trellis right behind the house. Without any fertilizer or trimming they have flowered beautifully this year (although the leaves are a little lacking - not sure if that is still from beating they took during the hurricane last year). They're beautiful to look at out the back doors because the colors are so bright.

The clematis also came out this year. Last year they only produced one flower between the 6 vines. The vines themselves look a little weak, but the flowers are beautiful this year. You can see 3 on this plant, and Raquel puts her hand next to one to give you an idea how large they are. Here's Raquel checking out the jasmine. They are easy to grow, we had them in Austin and they grew everywhere. If you look down the side of the house you can see the rose vines are way overgrown and in need of a good trimming. We've been so busy we just haven't gotten to it.

HOS Show Loot

Of course in addition to checking out the show, we had to check out the supplier tables where Raquel made sure to support the show with some of the leftover cash she brought back from Brazil. We got some beautiful plants that are currently flowering. Hopefully we can keep them healthy and they will flower again next year.

HOS Show

HOS? That's right! The Houston Orchid Society hosted one of the annual American Orchid Society shows here in Houston this weekend. Raquel had planned to help with the show, but because of her trip home and the baby slowing her down, she didn't get to help much.

That didn't keep us from attending though, we went yesterday for a while to check out the cool displays of orchids. Below are some pictures of the different orchids we saw. Raquel says that this is the time of year for Phalaenopsis (or "falopsis" in Neil's vocabulary) to bloom so there are a lot of them there.

More Family Pics

A couple of more good pics of Raquel's family.

Time at the Beach

Of course a trip to Brazil isn't complete without spending some time at the beach. For the Easter weekend, Raquel and her family were able to get away and spend some time relaxing at the beach close to Fortaleza.

Here are Cassia, Raquel and Renata relaxing under a palm on the beach.

Valberth (Renata's husband) is hard to distract, even at the beach he is working on his studies. You have to admit that he does it in style though, check out those shades.

Renata found this cool hotel by the beach. It was very hot in Brazil but it was cool and breezy by the ocean.

Here's a shot looking from the hotel grounds out onto the beach. (Check out that beach babe in the pic.)

First Shower

Raquel just completed a week's worth of vacation in Brazil, where she visited her family and just generally hung out and had a good time. The day she got there her sister threw Raquel her first baby shower.

Here's a few of the partyers.Renata made up balloons to model the baby clothing on. Here Cassia is showing off baby's first swimsuit and flip flops.Here is a shot of the entire group.Even Pedro got in on the action.

Cabinets

We continue to slowly make progress on our bathroom. Last night, the carpenter delivered the cabinets.

We got cabinets baby!!

Denise's Birthday

It was great to see a good friend today and celebrate her birthday. When you think of us, think of Denise, she's a good friend Raquel made while working at Exxon. Denise organizes the game group that we participate in periodically, and she's been diagnosed with breast cancer. She's currently receiving chemotherapy. Please pray for Denise.

A Husky in the Bluebonnets

Last weekend we took some time to get out of the house and go out to Brenham. We went to the rose emporium, had a nice lunch at the local sandwich shop (Must Be Heaven), stopped for ice cream at the Blue Bell Creamery (the ice cream is really fresh there), and admired the wild flowers along the highways.

Here are a few shots of our fun day.

This is Raquel's new favorite rose (Cherokee Rose). The bramble here at the entrance to the rose emporium measured at least 20 feet wide by 40 feet long, and you can see behind her it was about 12 feet high and covered with flowers about 3 inches across.

Shower Progress

We've made a little more progress in the bathroom. The shower is further along now, Neil has put up the tar paper, most of the hardi-backer on the wall, and hired a guy who did the shower floor.

We got a shower floor baby!

Spring

We've been piling up some pics for a while, meaning to get them onto the blog but just haven't gotten the chance lately.

With all of the work going on inside the house, we haven't done anything with the garden yet this year, but some of the flowers are coming out really well anyway.

Here's a shot of the azaleas up front from a couple of weeks ago.

A few of Raquel's orchids are blooming for us this year.

The bougainvillea plants in the back are flowering also, and I tried to include a picture, but every time I load it blogger is twisting the picture sideways.