Somethings are the same here as Houston, others NOT EVEN CLOSE! We went to the pool party and thanks to the heater that had the water at 87 degrees and still heating, Robert and the kids swam for over an hour. Robert said it wasn't too bad as long as you never got any part of your body out of the water. I was a little chilly on the deck when the breeze would kick up, so I have no idea how they weren't cold. We did have a really nice time.

Met some nice people, although a homeschooling discussion got uncomfortable with a public school teacher in the group and the ministers wife was strangely pushy and made me pretty uncomfortable at times. Everyone else was really really nice. They all brainstormed on doctors for me, which included their birth "horror" stories, of course. Another group brainstormed where to buy organics around here....consensus is that you drive to Amish country to get the best produce in the country, sounds good to me! Another group of the men brainstormed on where we could find Tex Mex. Most decided that Tex Mex and BBQ were not worth eating outside of Texas (I agree) but another were staunch advocates of the open market down town, claiming that every subclass has an authetic food booth down there. We'll see. All in all, it was nice to get out and socialize.

We left the pool party a little earlier than planned because we realized we were going to freeze if we didn't go change into long pants and sweatshirts and grab blankets for the fireworks. Can you believe that? I posted pics above for proof! It doesn't get dark here until almost 10 so it was a LATE night and got down right chilly willy by the end, but it was really fun. Our very nice next door neighbors had given us the skinny on best place to watch the fireworks and hten surprised us later by showing up to watch with us. That was nice. Brian, nice neighbor guy, is in the last pic with Robert and the kids. Joshua loved most of the fireworks, although he was tired and cranky and done with the really loud ones by the grand finale. Leah about jumped out of her skin when they began and was in my lap in about a millisecond. She curled up in the Mommy fetal position and watched about 10 minutes cautiously, but then went to sleep. She kept me warm, so I was ok with that. The show was one of the best I've ever seen, so all in all, it was a great day for us.