Tribute to Towel Animals

On cruises and other all-inclusive resorts, the person in charge of your room creates a different towel animal every evening.

Here is a bunny, which because of a certain Easter candy is Hooch's favorite word to say.

A monkey. When we ask Hooch to say monkey, he says "Ooh, Ooh, Aah, Aah"


Elephant. Hooch does not say elephant, but does use his arm as his trunk and makes an elephant noise.

Here is a bat. Hooch does not know anything about bats.

I am not sure what this animal is. I think Tracy thought it was a dog. If it is a dog, Hooch would say "doggy" or bark at you. If you don't think it is a dog, let us know what your guess is.

For those of you who follow this blog for the pictures of Hooch and not so much to hear about our vacations and love of towel animals, there are Easter pictures that might find their way to the blog sometime soon.

Spring Break '09 - Caribbean Cruise

It's a LONG One.

As a graduation present (no I haven't graduated yet) my parents took Tracy and I on a cruise. I feel like I should preface this post by saying that there will be no pictures of Hooch. So, if he is the reason you frequent this blog, there will be little to no mention of him in this post because he was not with us.

Anyway, I will attempt to cover the trip in one post.

Day 1: We flew to Houston early Saturday morning and spent the day at a very large mall in Downtown Houston.

Day 2: We took a bus to Galveston (about 1 hour), which was where the boat was docked. We left Galveston around 5:00 pm.

This is the boat (Voyager of the Seas). Although this picture is not in Galveston, I thought it would be nice to start with a picture of the boat.

Day 3: We spent all day at sea, making our way to Cozumel, Mexico. I don't remember specifically anything we did, but we probably played shuffle board and miniature golf, and I consumed a few soft-serve ice cream cones.

Here is the sunset as seen from our balcony.

Day 4: We woke up and we were in Cozumel. We went to Passion Island, which is a little island about 45 minutes by boat from Cozumel. It was nice and relaxing.

Here is a picture of some type of structure in Cozumel. I can't remember if this is just a monument or if it is a lighthouse, it is hard to tell in this picture.

Day 5: We arrived in Roatan, Honduras and were off to our zipline tour. We waited on the busy street for about an hour while the rest of our group showed up. Though it didn't start great, the actual zipline tour was a lot of fun.

Here is Tracy. She makes the yellow helmet look good.

This is a picture from the boat looking at the little town. The water is so clear.

This is a secluded beach in Honduras as seen from one of the roads we took to get to the zipline area.

Day 6: Thursday we arrived in Costa Maya, which is in Mexico yet very close to Belize. We visited the Chacchoben Mayan ruins. We also got a Mayan history lesson. After we visited the ruins we went and had lunch with a Mayan family. The food was great.

Here we are sitting on the steps of one of the temples.

Here we are in front of another temple.

Tracy opted to scale the side of the temple in lieu of using the stairs.

Day 7 & 8: On our way back to Galveston we spent two days at sea. The first sea day was nice and sunny, the next was overcast and windy. We spent our time playing more shuffle board, mini golf, and reading. My dad and I played golf in the golf simulator. And I ate some more soft serve ice cream.

Tracy decided she would use her temple scaling skills on the rock wall (yes, the boat has a rock wall). I did not attempt to climb the rock wall, I would have failed miserably.


Tracy then decided to go ice skating (yes, the boat also has an ice skating rink). Again, I was not confident in my ability to stay on my feet on ice skates. I designated myself the all-time picture taker.


Here is Tracy on our balcony.

Day 9: We arrived back in Galveston on Sunday morning. We took the bus back to Houston and then toured the Space Center Houston/Johnson Space Center while we waited for our flight later that night.

Here is a model of a space shuttle.


Here is Tracy working in the kid version of Mission Control.


This is an area where they plant an oak tree for those who have died in accidents.


Tracy with the crew of Apollo 8.


Here she is again with the crew from Apollo 13.


Here I am ready to go home.

Before and After

So I hope this post is worth the "anticipation." Here are some shots before we cut Charles' hair.

The last "brushing."

Mommy having fun during bath time.


Here are some shots after the haircut, but before church.

Oh and here is the Parmesan chicken dinner.
Disclaimer: I apologize for not fixing the red eye; sometimes I cut corners.

Anticipation

Some people are good bloggers. Some people make their spouse blog all the time. It funny how when you stumble upon a new blog post you think to yourself, Ooooh a new one! Well, I am a poor blogger and I make poor Chad do all the blogging. So I thought I would give everyone that "Ooooh, a new one!" feeling and do a little blog post. Being true creatures of habit the Bacchus family doesn't stray much from our daily routines hence the lack of blog material. We did try a new Parmesan chicken recipe, Tyler Florence's ultimate Parmesan chicken. It was awesome. We also got crazy one night and cut Charles' hair ourselves. As you can see from the last post, the professional wasn't very successful in cutting much hair last time. I was impressed she got anything cut. Well, we went short. I think we did a pretty good job. Charles was even okay with most of it. Where are the pictures you say? Please see the title of this post. I am currently away from the camera and do not have access to any pictures. But I will get to them, in time. But here is a nice picture Tyler.

Now for a little anticipation for the Bacchus Family. Chad and I are currently 16 days away from a 7 day cruise to the Caribbean with and courtesy of his Mom and Dad (thanks). While I am getting more and more excited, I am also beginning to stress a little. Nine days away from my baby. I am actually more worried about my parents than Charles. And how do you pack everything you "think" your child will need for 9 days anyway? Here is a nice cruise ship I found online. See the balcony on the side. That is where we'll be.

Disclaimer: Chad did not read this before hand so if there are any grammar or spelling mistakes, I apologize.

Hooch's 1st Haircut

I believe that it was right after Christmas that we took Hooch to get his hair cut. We had attempted to cut his hair before, but had never paid someone to do it. We weren't quite sure how he would react because he isn't really all that fond of strangers, especially when the have hair clippers that make a weird noise.

Here is a shot of Hooch before we went in. This is essentially his "before" picture.


We arrived a little early, which allowed Hooch some time to play with the toys. He was having a good time and even liked sitting in the haircut chair. It didn't hurt that it was a fire engine with a steering wheel. He likes to pretend to drive. As you can see, the lady is coming with the apron so his enjoyment was short-lived.

He didn't keep the apron on very long and once she turned on the clippers, he tried to jump out of the fire engine. Luckily he was buckled in. We even gave him his pacifier, which he is not supposed to have, and he still would not calm down.


We also tried candy and other snacks, but to no avail. He did not like getting his hair cut. Notice how he is pointing to the ground. That is his way of saying, "Get me out of here!" For all the lady had to put up with, I thought she did a pretty good job.


Once we got him outside he was fine and was able to enjoy a Tootsie-Pop; one of his favorites.


Here is our attempt at an "after" picture. This was right before we put him in the bathtub. Not too drastic a change, but enough to make his mom happy.

Hooch Pictures

Here are the promised pictures of Hooch. These are just random shots from the past few months.

Hooch loves to look at himself in the mirror. He sits on our plastic filing cabinet and admires his good looks.

Here he is playing with Lambert. He is giving him Eskimo kisses.

He also likes to climb under the end tables. He thinks it's funny when we get down there to pull him out. He also likes to try and sit up when he is under there. He doesn't quite understand that he is too tall to do that.

This is his smile face for the camera. The necklace is Tracy's but he thinks it is his. He gets it out of her drawer and puts it with the rest of his toys.

The updates will continue within the next week. Stay tuned for Hooch's first haircut experience.

Quasi-Update

I thought it was about time I checked in. It has been awhile since the last post despite the fact that there are plenty of things to blog about. I guess the combination of being lazy with more pressing things to get done make for an oft-neglected blog. Anyway, I will try to be less lazy and post some pictures by the end of the week.

One of the main highlights of the past few weeks was getting the flu. If you haven't had the flu, I would recommend staying away from it. Charles started our family off when he vomited in the middle of the night. He was sick for a few days, but seemed to be feeling okay when I got sick. I have had my fair share of flu-like illnesses, but this time ranked up there with some of my experiences in Brazil. Tracy was the last one to get sick, and to our knowledge we were successful in not spreading our flu. We stayed home from church, school, and work to ensure we did not spread the illness.

Other than that, we have been trying to adjust to life without holidays. Tracy is back working her normal full schedule, and I have started my last semester of law school. We are excited for me to be done with school, yet a little scared of the task of preparing for and taking the bar exam. We are currently counting down the days until our next vacation. I believe we are about 60 days away.

Finally, I feel like doing something that I haven't ever really wanted to do; talk politics. I promise not to drag it out or get too preachy.

I guess there was some big thing happening in Washington D.C. today. I heard something about an inauguration of Barack Obama. I wasn't really sure what it was, but almost all the tv channels were showing it so I thought it might be important. In the end, I thought he gave a really good speech. I liked that he was straight-forward with America in outlining the challenges we face. I also liked how he placed a great deal of responsibility on us as Americans. I feel like it is our responsibility help solve our problems. We are all too good at being problem identifiers when we should be problem solvers. I hope President Obama continues to expect us to do our part. I think it will make us a stronger nation if we are forced to take responsibility and figure this mess out on our own, without a government bailout. Anyway, just thought I would share some thoughts. For your viewing pleasure, I will include a picture of the inauguration.

Here's hoping he meets expectations (establishing world peace and fixing the financial crisis).