Tales from the Treviños: August in Review

Thank goodness for pictures! All I remembered from August was Jimmy's birthday but turns out we did a little more than that!

The beginning of the month was full of train riding, pushing and dancing to the train's song (which is evidently the theme melody to Thomas the Train). Nathan wasn't the only one who enjoyed the choo-choo train!

We also have a bunch of birthdays in the month of August, especially on Jimmy's side. Lolo, Popo, Jimmy, Allen and my dad all share August as a birth month. The most important one (in my house anyway) was Jimmy's, and Nathan and I wanted to do something special for him. However, as per usual I was unorganized and unprepared for the most part. We planned an at home dinner for Saturday night. Jimmy made Papa's Spanish rice, and jambalaya and we had toasted baguettes with goat cheese, kalamata olives and sundried tomatoes to hold us over. We did manage to get scratch made pancake batter mixed up Saturday night for some birthday morning blueberry pancakes on Sunday. As evidenced by the pictures, I am not a very good pancake flipper-over, but they did taste really good! Nathan even ate one although he was unimpressed by the blueberries and ate around them. I was surprised since they are by far his current favorite fruit!

Birthday boy (looking a little sleepy) and his biggest helper coloring some pictures.

We had agreed that the iPad was going to count for several special occasions, and this was one of them, but Nathan did color a card for daddy. So all in all the big 3-1 was pretty laid back. That's two birthdays in a row where I didn't do anything extra special to celebrate...sorry, honey. Better luck next year, honey!

The rest of August was uneventful. Hectic at work and a visit (or two) from Jimmy's mom and grandparents. I'm not sure who enjoys their visits more, them or Nathan! We are very fortunate they spend the time and effort to come up and see him so often. Notice I said "him" as in Nathan...because they certainly don't come to see us! I've long ago decided that I was just a womb and am now the means to keep the mortgage paid and the lights turned on. And my mom is no better, so don't think I'm being unfair! Oh well, maybe I can get some extra hugs once I'm carrying baby number 2 some day (which is not right now so no one get excited).

We also got a visit from Uncle Cantrell as he prepared to move back into his dorm at A&M for the fall semester. Nathan was mesmerized by his deep voice but eventually warmed up enough to actually sit in his lap for some reading. While Cantrell was in town I decided to make Dad's gumbo recipe. Dad used to make this pretty regularly (when the shrimp were on sale) and it is the best gumbo I've ever had. Grandma Bryan would say it is really her recipe, but Dad did something to it because their two gumbos did not taste the same. I've been wanting to try the recipe for years but have been kind of afraid to mess it up. When something is so perfect in your mind you don't really want to ruin it with your rookie gumbo making skills. But I decided to go for it anyway and it turned out A-Mazing! The roux didn't burn, the shrimp had great flavor (despite using the "wrong" shrimp boil) and the okra wasn't slimy. My only error was using too much shrimp...but Cantrell assured me it wasn't really a problem.