Tis the Season to be Jolly

Today we had holiday fun with Sean.

This is the gingerbread house we made:
Well, that is what we were trying to make. This is how it turned out.Notice the lovely popcorn panel.

Our ginger sleighs turned out slightly better. Just don't breath on them or they will fall apart.
The combination of some bad icing and a humidity level of 100% made the "gluing" process impossible.

Earlier we tried to go see Santa at Bass Pro Shop, but so did everybody else. After waiting 20 minutes and not going anywhere, we decided to just do the craft and have his picture taken with the elves.Sean then posed in front of the fireplace. Which one do you think would make a better Christmas card? =)

Cruise photo from the other side

The Pasta's set sail on a three hour, I mean five day tour.

Thanksgiving!

I'm thankful I had time to upload a lot of posts, be sure to go back and look at the last few.

Thanksgiving day was me, mom, and dad.

Lots of yumminess all around.

Stephanie joined us for leftovers the next day.

Saturday in the Park, I Think it was a Week Before Thanksgiving

Sean tries to bulk up during a Saturday walk in Seabrook.

He walked a little, but mostly rode in style in his wagon.

Dave tried to put the wagon to the test on the skate park. Sean did not like that at all.

Welcome Eli!

Jennifer had little baby Eli on Nov. 18. He was a few weeks early but extra cute!

Elvis is in the Building

Ahhhh....

Sean loves Aunt Jo Jo, especially when she looks through the
Toys R Us gift guide with him.

Meow....Ruff

Barley Jean Snickers Pastalaniec


Spike the next door neighbor's dog.

Picnic

Grandma and Dziadziu took Sean to the park after school for a picnic.

Babies

Two people in my department of four are pregnant and due two days apart. Dad did cool onzie (SP?) cakes for the shower.If you don't hear from me Dec. -March, you know I will be at work pulling my hair out.

Homework Help

The whole family helped out with this ad for my Advertising Design class. My professor warned us not to use kids because they don't always do what you want. He doesn't know Sean! He was a real trooper. Dave was harder to direct than Sean. =)

Thanks family for the use of your shoes! Special thanks to Barb for getting up early and doing sprints for me at the track. I promise only to bug you 30-40 more times for photos in the next couple semesters. And just wait...I still have a video class to take. Wahahahahah!

Moody Gardens Aquarium

The Pasta kids went to Moody Gardens on Saturday, in the middle of a monsoon!

Sean was very excited about the penguins.
Looking at the penguin bellies.Penguin eye.Touching slimy things. Joe in Galveston jail, oops, I'm mean in a shark cage.
Barb and I then went to the seawall for a "race." Luckily it was in the evening and the earlier rain made it the most pleasant race we've had since April. Barb tried to get out of it by bringing two left shoes, but I had an extra pair in the car. =) I won a door prize...a $25 gift certificate to a running store!

Sean Spends the Night

Sean spent the night this week and we had a lot of fun. First we stopped to smell the flowers. Sean trying to find his princess.Then we talked about bats.



Even though it's not quite Halloween, we ate pumpkin candy. Well, first we played with the pumpkin candy. Only at grandma's house can you brush your teeth with pumpkin candy. Sean making a face that makes him look like Dziadziu.

Urban Hike

Joe and I head to downtown Houston for our second hike. It was the hike and bike train along Buffalo Bayou below downtown. This is a relatively new trail that is lined with lights that range from blue to white depending on the moon phase.

It was only a two-mile hike, but there were a lot of "hills" and stairs! Below are the stairs up to UH-Downtown. This is where we went up and crossed over to the other side. UHD has a lot of cool architecture. It is metal art deco. These metal towers by Wortham Center are lit at night. Each have a different theme. This was Texas agriculture. Yea kayakers! We saw many people braving the bayou. The renovation with 23 access points to the trail and a new boat launch has tried to get more people down to the area.

This was the best art work we saw. Metal canoes at several of the major entry points to the trail.

We did not see much wildlife, just some ducks, but we heard (and smelled) bats.

60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Houston

Joe has moved to Houston! Yea! I celebrated by buying the book "60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Houston."
We ventured out on our first hike to San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge on Saturday. I forgot my camera, so I will rely on Google Images to illustrate our adventure.

At the park, there are three trails and an auto tour to look at birds. We drove by the recommend trail and thought it would be too boring and hot. It was on top of a low levee with only one tree in the distance. We decided to tackle the wooded trail to look for some shade. We only got a few feet in when we saw....

Yikes! These are Banana Spiders or Wood Spiders. They are large and scary. At first there was only a couple on the sides, so I agreed to venture slowly on the trail, only with Joe going first and me holding on to his backpack cringing. But, there were just too many around. I could not handle it anymore and made him go back. We knew where to duck on the way back to get around the spiders, so we thought. We then realized how many more that we didn't see on the way into the trail. Eeeeek! Can you imagine that smacking you in the face!

The other problem was the mosquitoes!I had never seen so many. Every time we stopped to move around a spider web. We were swarmed by thousands of mosquitoes. I have to recommend BullFrog mosquito repellent/sunscreen. I didn't get one bite!

We ventured to the second trail that was by the river, but there were spiders there too. So we went back to the first trail that the book recommended, and it was great. Very hot, but we saw three pigs, tri-color herons, Carolina Wren, Mississippi Kite (a life bird for Joe), a caracara (pictured below) and a lot of other coastal type birds.

We also saw an alligator. When we first saw it, we thought it was a cute little thing about this big:

Then we realized that what we saw was only only the head, it was really this big:This is when Joe tells me that I can't outrun an alligator. Hmmm....there is only one tree on this trail remember. Luckily the gator is not hungry and stays in the water.

Our first hike was a success and look forward to the fall when the spiders die off and the temperatures cool. Only 59 hikes to go!

Biloxi!

Nancy, mom and I headed on a road trip to Biloxi this week.

We started the trip with a toast to Kathy with Oreos, cookies she always insisted that we get when we went on these trips. We were greeted with dark, scary clouds and a threat of getting hit by a tropical storm.
We were worried about the rain and not getting any beach time, but when the weather cleared up, we walked along the beach and nobody could pay us to get in. The combination of lots of jellyfish, mucky water and the presence of oil was a huge turnoff. Up and down the coast there were crews cleaning up the oil off the beach.
We were able to hit the pool a couple hours a day in between downpours. We were often visited by our friend the frog.We spent the rest of the time going from casino to casino. Our favorite was Hard Rock. They gave us lots of comps and had fun machines. Nancy did the best there, I won a lot at Island View in Gulfport. Mom...is lucky she didn't lose her shirt.

At the Beau Rivarge in Biloxi me and Nancy ran into David Hasseloff. Ok, maybe we stalked him. He is really tall and skinny, but not as good looking in person. He is there for a Gulf benefit that will air later this month.

It was a fun trip and maybe too easy of a trip to Biloxi. I hear the slots calling me.