It's OK To Play With Your Food!!

I got the Pop'rs that I won in Veggie Mom's giveaway at Eat Your Veggies in the mail over the weekend while I was gone!! We tried the taco flavor out tonight since it was "taco night" and they were a hit! The Pop'rs are a lot like Pop Rocks, which were a huge hit with me when I was growing up! I can't wait to try these out on my little picky friends!!! Thanks again Veggie Mom!!!
Lesley & I got back from our weekend trip to Houston around 3:30 yesterday afternoon and we had a really fun time. We were able to have 2 visits with JP - 20 minutes Saturday morning & 20 minutes Sunday morning. He was really glad to see us and was in a really good mood on Saturday and a little down on Sunday. He was telling us about different people that he feels "turned their back on him" when he was looking for help before he went to Houston in 2005, but I tried to explain to him that he was not doing well then and people are not normally willing to help someone who wasn't helping himself. I'm not sure if I made an impact on him, but my sister emailed me last night to say that he CALLED her last night! That may not sound like big news, but he hasn't called anyone but me in 18 months since he has been in jail. Overall, he looked great and seemed to be doing pretty well. I emailed his defense team when I got home after he told me one of them visited with him last week and found out that the trial will most likely happen as planned in December. There are also some other things going on that are positive for him, so we'll see what happens. I will be glad to know the outcome and to be able to plan our lives accordingly!

Our trip itself was a lot of fun. We got off to a late start because of Baton Rouge traffic. I picked Lesley up at 5 and what should have been a 4 hour trip took us 6 hours! It took nearly 2 hours just to get out of Baton Rouge!!! We were not able to meet Kim & Shayne in Lake Charles for dinner because it would have been 9pm before we got there!! So, it was about 11:30 when we rolled up to our hotel. We stayed at a new hotel that is in a shopping mall and was a bit fancy for our tastes, but we stayed there and tried to fit in, although I'm sure we seemed like the Beverly Hillbillys to the people at the hotel. Being that the hotel is built on top of some of the mall stores, for safety's sake, you can't just go inside the hotel without your room key/card after a certain time at night. And then, you don't just walk into the hotel lobby like one would expect, but instead, you walk into a room that seems to be some sort of waiting area/storage room, then take an elevator using your room card to the 2nd floor, where the elevator opens up into the lobby. Which is what you really expect to find when you walk on up to the hotel in the first place. So, it's 11:30 pm and we wander up to the hotel lobby, which isn't really a lobby, but just a locked waiting room, then we wander around trying to figure out where to go or what to do. The brains of the operation, Lesley, decides to read the sign on the door. I'm sure I would have thought of that sooner or later, but yeah, so anyway, the sign says to use your room card (which we don't have yet) to get in or ring the bell for service. Ummm, ok, so I ring the bell and the lady asks my name and I have to try to explain what it is I want. "Yeah, um, we can't find the lobby of the hotel." She asks if I have a reservation, then says she will buzz us in, then we should take the elevator to the 2nd floor where we will find the lobby. And sure enough! The elevator opens and there is a hotel lobby! We get checked in, get our room card, and the lady tells us that you have to use the room card to take the elevator, so we get in the elevator to head up to the 4th floor. After the elevator door closes, I try the card over and over and over in the slot thingie, and nothing happens. Lesley tries it a few times, then we break out in the giggles because it's been 5 minutes and when the elevator door opens back up, the lady will realize we are still standing in the elevator trying to figure out how to use the card!! So, then the elevator door opens and we see the lady looking at us! Lesley waves and the lady realizes that it is still US in the elevator trying to figure out how to use the card!! She had to come and show us that we were inserting the card upside down! We were quite embarrassed and went on up to our room. We were ready to go to bed since it was so late, so I turned on the air conditioner and went to get in my bed, then the a/c went off. So I turned it up to high and went to get in my bed, and it went off. So, Lesley went to try to turn it on and it would go right off. And it wasn't cool in the room, so we really wanted it to come on. We searched high & low for a button or switch to make it stay on. We were getting ready to call the lady in the lobby who no doubt already thought we were idiots, when I saw a note on the a/c unit that said, "the thermostat on the wall works along with the fan on this window unit." It took us a few more minutes to find a thermostat on the wall, and by then we were in fits of hysterical laughter, but we did manage to cool the room off and go to bed!! Here is a view of the mall outside of our window and the cool room we had!



We visited JP Saturday morning and then went to my sister's house to visit her, my brother-in-law, Kevin, and my great-nephew, Elijah. Kevin, raises homing pigeons, so Lesley got the pigeon tour while we were there.


We went back to our hotel and were VERY lazy all afternoon, then went to walk around the mall and found a Starbucks!! Then Donna, Kevin, & Elijah met us at the mall for dinner at the Red Robin. And yes, we saw the Red Robin! Wooooo!!

We visited JP again Sunday morning, then headed home. And I might add that while gas in Baton Rouge is $3.50 per gallon, I bought gas in Houston for $2.92 per gallon! What's up with that???


We were going to have lunch with Kim & Shayne on our way home Sunday, but Kim wasn't feeling good, so we'll have to make another trip soon!! It was a fun weekend to spend with Lesley and it was great to see JP! I doubt I will get back over there before the trial date.

The diet is going well. I made sure to eat everything in sight over the weekend so that Lesley didn't feel pressured to eat my low-carb diet. And then today, I had a low-carb Slim Fast for breakfast, peanut M&M's for lunch, and a king sized Reeses Peanut Butter Cup for a late afternoon snack. I'm pretty sure I lost some weight, but that may have only been from throwing away the bags of garbage that all the food came in. I may have to reassess my diet in the next day or two.

Work was good today. I saw a few kids, did a Why Try group, got some paper work taken care of for some of my kids and was relatively productive. I have meetings all afternoon tomorrow, so that will keep me entertained.

I hope you enjoyed my weekend story! Have a great night! I have to get busy catching up on my blog reading!!