Businesses to Avoid

There are several companies that I refuse to do business with.  Here they are:

• DELTA AIRLINES
• Overbooked our flight, but at least flew us first class to Munich. 
• Found a news story about how their sandwiches had needles in them.
• That's it, but that's enough for me.  Being purposefully overbooked on a flight is really enough to set me over the edge.
• Dollar Car Rentals
• Selecting from the available rental cars at IAH - one of the cars looked like it had been in a wreck with strange dents and scratches along the left side of the car.
• The car we DID pick seemed fine, but ended up having reliability issues starting.
• Our exchange of rental car could have gone much more smoothly, but as it stood, we were happy to have a working, albeit stinky, car for our 10th anniversary vacation.
• Mountain Star Lodge in Austin/Lakeway, TX
• They had the most awful customer service to our friends, Brent and Tracy.  They rented a house on their property.  Upon arrival, they found mouse droppings ALL over the rental, particularly in the soap dish and bed linens.  When they complained to the manager, she gave them a tremendous amount of attitude and basically told them they were gecko droppings and therefore sanitary.  When Tracy tried to stand up for herself, the manager basically said she could either check in or check out.
• Our hotel sink had a huge hunk of tile missing from the front of it.
• The water pressure was pretty crappy in the shower.
• The breakfast is horrible.
• Our friends got locked out of their room because the bracket on the inside of the room closed on the knob on the door (you know, the extra security measure they usually have at hotel rooms).  When they asked for assistance at the front desk, they even had a TOOL used in that situation so it must happen often.  However, the front desk person didn't help them at all.  She basically gave them the tool and left.
• I asked her what ended up happening to our friends who couldn't get in and she basically went on a HUGE tirade about another set of clients who were complaining about the price of the hotel.  Uhhh....that's NOT what I asked about.  But thank you for speaking unprofessionally about a guest to another hotel guest.
• Considering they are as expensive as the four star Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental hotel smack in the middle of downtown Austin, this place is an absolutely awful value.

That's it for now.  More on Austin next.

ATX Via College Station, TX - WHOOP!

My parents graciously watched Michael (took some arm twisting...NOT) while Brian and I ran away to Austin for Brent/Tracy's long awaited wedding!

We had a super fantastic time reliving old memories!  It was a much needed vacation that we enjoyed immensely!

First up - a trip to College Station

{insert college station exit image here}

We drove by our old stomping grounds, Zachry, only to find a brand new building in its place.  We couldn't believe they totally renovated Zachry.  Then we drove another 50 yards, and Zachry appeared BEHIND the new building.

WHEW.  Room 119A, where we met, was still in tact.  We wandered around the old building and couldn't believe how we did not notice how "old" it was when we were there.  I guess that would have involved us looking up from our books, calculators, and engineering paper.  Or had something else to compare it to!

Well, we took a picture of us outside of it in remembrance of many hours spent there:

{insert pic of us outside of Zachry }

We then wandered to the "something to compare it to" building, which is the new Jack E. Brown Engineering building.  Most of the 6-7 floor building is used for Chemical Engineering purposes.  It even has a CLEAN ROOM!  WOW!  I was pretty excited about that.  For those who do not know, a clean room is what they call the manufacturing/fabrication facilities of memory.  Multiple layers of filters above the ceiling and below the floors keep particles from contaminating the wafers, which kill the memory chips.

After wandering around the campus, I thought it was so funny that as a college student, I felt like it was SUCH A LONG walk from one place to another.  As a grown up now, the campus isn't as big as I remember it in my memory.  AND the sidewalk next to the Chemistry building is A LOT cleaner than it used to be!  :)

We then had lunch at Freebirds and came back to a rental car which wouldn't start.

Many phone calls later, we were going to have to wait 3 hours for a tow truck to switch out our rental car for us.

Luckily, Brian tried the car again, and it started.  So we drove to Austin Bergstrom (my favorite airport by the way) and switched out our car.

For the record, AVOID DOLLAR RENTAL CARS at all cost!  While their customer service representative was very helpful in the event of our malfunction, the 2nd rental they gave us reeked of smoke.  They also promised it would be clean and ready to go when we got to ABI.  They also promised we wouldn't have to wait a long time at the kiosk. But it took us nearly 40 minutes to switch out our car.

Might I also add that Chantelle, who helped us with exchanging our vehicle out, was mighty lucky that I had a pretty craptastic and stressful week.  Right before my vacation, I had to have to this talk to myself:  "Phuong, just because things don't work out how you would like them to work out, does not mean you get to be disrespectful and take it out on innocent bystanders."

So by the time our rental car didn't start, I had already hashed things out with my lab (although I was nicer to them because I need to have a good relationship with them), the UPS customer service people. and Armstrong Cable at 10:00pm the night before my departure.  Chantelle escaped the stressed out me.

I can say all this because my blog is locked to the public.  In case you are wondering why - I have a photography business.  You google my name, and my personal blog pops up.  I'd like to keep my personal life personal.  Thus, I locked my blog.

ATX coming up next!

Rehoboth Beach, DE - Pronounced REHOBUTH

On June 15, 2012 - we decided to take one of Brian's Summer Fridays Off to visit Rehoboth Beach, DE.  Since we only live 2 hours away, it is silly that we have never gone before!

We met a MOPS/Bible study friend, Heather, there.  Her family owns a cute little cottage there!  Her son, Gabe, is really fun and SO super smart.  He's been reading since the last year and he's only one month older than Michael.

Not too happy about the hand holding, but they are 5 so I'm not going to stress out about it...yet

The waves were HUGE HUGE HUGE that day. 

Michael ran away from many of them:

Then there was time for getting buried in the sand:

Might I add - HAPPILY buried in the sand:

The sea was angry my friends, and it was SUPER SUPER Windy.  We used our umbrella for wind shelter instead of sun shelter. It was SERIOUSLY warm there in that shaded part under the umbrella:

We spent the whole day walking to and from the beach, exploring the boardwalk, playing in the sand, splashing in the water!

Heather was a great host!  It was awesome to just park at her house, and walk to the beach.  We even got to shower at her house.  It was so convenient!  And of course, she was great company along with Gabe.

We stopped at a BBQ place and had semi-mediocre BBQ at exorbitant prices.  Then, stopped at Rita's before heading home.

Judging by this picture, Michael had a good time:

Fun Family Field Trip!  Unfortunately, my closest Hobby Lobby in Dover was closed by the time we drove by after 8pm.  :(

Bows and Arrows!

Michael asked me for this crazy bow and arrow set with soft squishy arrows at a specialty toy store - It was $30.

$30 is a toy for Christmas, Michael.

Well, a friend of mine had it at her house and she said she got it at the local huge awesome grocery store for $19.

SOLD - Let's buy 2 - one for Abbey and one for Michael to play with.

I meant - one for Brian and one for Michael.

Here is Brian taking aim:

Very unusual choice for artillery replacement:

The boys taking aim:

First target practice:

I made a HUGE target practice that consisted of 6 rings made out of pool noodles.  Found the idea from Family Fun and it was a HUGE hit!  Never took pictures of it though...

Pest Control

I know the cynical parent - might think the "pests" I am talking about would be the kids in the backgrounds of this picture.

But I am not the cynical parent.  Nope, not today.

Chopsticks can be used for multiple applications other than eating.  We have used them to grab many a thing in tight spaces.

Brian Mr. Miyagi-ed this crazy looking spider.

It is worth it to enlarge these pictures if you want to really get a good look at things.

I LOVE how the kids wanted to get in the background and do silly things. It is so awesome to have them around!  Thank God for my Nifty Fifty (50mm f1.4) and the ability to shoot pretty open.

This one of Abbey cracks me up.  And then my photographer-nerd self gets distracted by the awesome hexagonal bokeh at the top of the image...ooohh...laaaa....laaa...