What is it with Snakes?

So we get home from dinner last night, watch a movie, and crawl down into bed. I am hopping in when Kenan jumps back and says "Ummm..." Guess what - there was a SNAKE in our BEDROOM. It was little bitty and he thinks it was a King snake, so it's actually a shame we killed it - they eat venomous snakes. But still - really? A snake in my bedroom? I literally nearly stepped on it. And that's the second close encounter I've had this week. Last Saturday I was walking around the block and I didn't notice a snake until I had almost stepped on him, too - he was making his way very quickly across the road. Kenan and I figured out later that this is what kind it was:

It's a Yellow-Bellied Racer and they are perfectly harmless - they eat rodents and stuff like that. They get fairly big, though, and the one I saw was probably about three and a half or four feet long.

Also, a friend of ours at work who also lives in Boerne found a four foot coral snake (the seriously deadly kind) in one of his plants right next to his house last week.

The moral of the story? I like snakes just fine as long as they're not the kind whose bite will do me harm, and even then I don't wish to see them - especially INSIDE my house.

Sheer Delight

This was just too adorable not to share. Below is what Madison looks like when we take her for a ride on the ATV:

You really can learn a lot from your dog - in this moment, she is perfectly happy. She isn't worried about where her supper is going to take place or what's going to happen tomorrow (tomorrow is a dim and distant future) - she is just delighted to have her face in the breeze and be sitting with her mom and dad. World's best puppy dog!

Even More Garden Progress

We never dreamed our garden would grow so well - now we are experimenting with different kinds of pesticides because while it's growing like wildfire, we have some insect critters that are determined to eat us out of house and home! Here are pictures from last night:

Wow!

Look at those tomatoes!

Our first red strawberry already!

The cilantro has grown into a tree! I picked some the other day and Kenan used it to make me fresh salsa - YUM!

That's a red pepper - we planted both red and green

The onions and garlic are doing very well :)

El Rey (The King of Country)

For Kenan's birthday, I took him to the George Strait concert this past Saturday. It was a wonderful show, and we were so glad that Brad and Erin were able to come with us. Here are a few pictures:

On the way to the concert

I wouldn't mess with those tough girls ;)

At the Alamodome

The birthday boy!

Garden Progress

Wow, are we ever impressed with our garden. While we were on vacation, our plants were hard at work. It has definitely helped that it's rained the last ten days out of ten or something like that - couldn't be better timing.

Such progress!

Look how tall the tomatoes are already! (the plants closest to me in the picture)

OK, so we were a little overzealous in our planting because we weren't sure what to expect in terms of what percentage of the seeds we planted would actually grow - looks like we'll have to thin these carrots out a tad :)

Look at our baby tomatoes! We also have the beginnings of bell peppers and blueberries

Look how well our Iowa potatoes are doing!

Hot Tub Time Machine

Couldn't resist it...

Vacation

Kenan and I went on vacation to the U.S. Virgin Islands (St. John, to be specific). Here are some pictures from our wonderful getaway:

This is the view from our hotel room - it's right on the beach

A view of Great Cruz bay

At the beach-side cafe enjoying our first day in the sun

Kenan enjoying the beach - as you can see, it was white sand and blue water that you could see down at least 20 feet, as we discovered on our snorkeling cruise

So here's the deal with the native wildlife: there are wild iguanas, cats, and chickens all over the island, but the local government requests that you not feed them because there are centers specifically designed to do this and keep the population under control. There are lots of iguanas in particular on the Westin property because there's so much vegetation. Hotel employees feed them every day at 3 and invite guests to come watch because so many show up. I'd say we saw about 30 at once when it was chow time. 

Feeding frenzy

Kenan wanted a picture of me with them but this was as close as I would get

Relaxing - notice the Kindle. I brought it and never touched a paper book the entire time. I really love it.

On the boat headed out to snorkel (both above and below)

Relaxing on the beach some more :)

So a funny thing happened - we went on a fishing trip that was tons of fun, but the way that you find the fish is to follow the water birds, so we did - and once we hooked one. It ate the bait fish attached to one of the poles and we had to reel it in to free it. Our guide (Jay) did a great job and was totally casual about it - happens all the time

He flew away and was fine, but he didn't learn much because he kept coming back

A 25-pound snapper

A "hound fish" - the Caribbean version of a gar

The biggest fish I've ever caught - a jack. I just want to point out that the gloves are NOT because I wouldn't touch the fish - they were because he has sharp fins, thank you very much

A couple of lucky nurse sharks got the leftover bait fish after our fishing trip was finished. What was funny is that they showed up out of nowhere right where the boat was docked - about fifty yards from where we had been swimming all week :)

With Jay, our hilarious fishing guide

It was a great vacation! Monday means work again but I'm trying not to think about it...