Martin House Rainbow

Jordan and I have been busy beboppin' from one thing to the next so I've realized that it's been a couple of weeks since I last wrote a post!  I have some pictures to share as I recap our recent activities!

Let's see, two weekends ago we made a last minute decision to head to the lake.  If you know me at all, you know that I don't "wing it" very well.  I'm a planner and proud of it.  BUT, when it comes to the lake, even the most ardent planner has to yield to the draw of the lake.  

Dallas has been getting a lot of rain lately (which I love).  While we were at the lake we got hit with a few storms and I got lucky with some pictures.  The above are just random pictures from the "beach" and sunset at the lake.  Despite all the rain, the lake level has not come up.  It's going to take years to bounce back or some kind of crazy inland hurricane to get the levels back to normal.

This is another shot of the lake while the storm was approaching.  I think the water looks cool in this shot.  Kind of an eerie water surface.

Luckily, our little party was safe and sound under the pavilion during the rain storm.  And we had good food to boot!

Do these pictures make anyone else hungry?  Lake food is the best kind of food.

After dinner and after the storm, God sent us a little gift in the form of a double rainbow!  It's a little vague below, but if you look closely, you can see the second rainbow.  

I rarely use the panoramic feature on my phone but this turned out really great.  

The tree in the center of this shot is some gnarly native tree that always seems to look haggard yet he has evaded the ax because shade is such a precious commodity in the summer time.  

At any rate, even the haggard tree looks vibrant and green in the reflection of the sunlight.  

The next couple of videos are a bit off topic, but I wanted to circle back to my promise to share our videos from our indoor skydiving experience at iFly.  Jordan's video is MUCH more entertaining than mine.  He was trying to be such a good student that he would turn his head to see the instructor and almost do a barrel-roll in the wind tunnel.  We both had a lot of fun that day.

Above is Jordan's video; the end is the funniest part.

Above is my video.  It's funny how different the video is from the experience.  At one point I felt like I hit my knee hard on the glass wall but in the video you can't even tell that I bumped anything.  

That brings me to this past weekend!  Jordan and I got to take a rare tour through the Lockheed Martin plant with my Dad!  It was Family Day at Lockheed so they opened it up to the family and friends of employees.  The experience was awesome and it was really cool to learn about how these stealthy planes are created.  The only bummer I have for you all is that I was not allowed to take photos.  Sorry.  I have nothing but the brochure to share.  After seeing the facility with my own eyes, I understand completely why they would want to be careful with proprietary information.

Dad told us so many funny and interesting stories from his time at Lockheed.  Let me tell you, those folks know their business well.  We jokingly quizzed one of the supervisors in the body shop building (sorry Dad, I don't know how else to describe it) and this guy knew the precise color of grey that they use on the Lightning II (F-35).  

The F-35 is the latest model that the plant is building and there are 3 versions of it!

Each branch of the military needs to have certain features, so each variation does something a little different.  One version can re-fuel while in flight (cool), another version utilizes space by having a section of the wings fold up (very handy for a carrier out in the ocean). Lastly, another version has vertical take off and landing (for the Marines).  Each one of them has to be precise and costs a lot...like a LOT.

After Lockheed, we went to Fort Worth to hang out with Scott and Elizabeth.  We had such a fun little afternoon hanging out at this brew-house called Martin House.  It's very warehouse in style but they had a live band, lots of fans to keep visitors cool, and a taco truck in the back!  If you're looking for a leisure place to hang out (and is pet friendly), you should definitely check out the Martin House Brewery!

These are just a few shots from our afternoon hanging out with Scott and Elizabeth.  The top right is random but I couldn't resist our Raider power TTU ring picture.  A lot of years of school went into those pieces of jewelry...

As I said, the vibe at Martin House is very chillax.  I tried to grab a few pictures of the area to share with ya'll.

No, we didn't get a new dog but this little guy was so cute hanging out next to our chairs in the shade.  

We did some grilling after Martin House and enjoyed some yummy steaks!  Sooo good!

I've never cooked potatoes on the grill in foil but it turned out really great and was very easy.

Sunday evening I did a little baking.  My work takes turns making cakes for each other and it was my turn!  This is the easiest cake to make and I was glad it came out well. 

I learned that this style of cake is called a "naked cake" (without frosting on the side).  Apparently this is a huge rage right now for weddings.  I don't care what you call it, cool whip, chocolate cake, and strawberries is great!  It's very light so it's nice to eat in the Spring and Summer months.  In general, this is my fall back cake when I have no idea what to make.

I was also excited to use this cake server tool that my mom gave me. 

Well I'm off to go work on some paperwork.  The IRS is just insane.  We had such trouble with our taxes this year.  I don't have any problem paying my fair and just tax bill (that's a tangent discussion), but the IRS can't seem to get anything right.  If two college educated individuals messed something up (one of which has a master degree in Financial Planning) then the tax system is too confusing.  Seriously.

So here's my rant... We tried to pay using a routing number to our bank in March, but got an error letter (email is too high-tech for the IRS) saying that the "transaction failed."  Okay... maybe there was a typo on our part; that's why we buffered some time for ourselves.  We ended up paying our taxes using our credit card (before the 4/15 due date) and just this week, we received a letter (again snail-mail) that the funds were "misapplied" and that we need to pay again.  WHAT?  "Misapplied" or not, they took our money.  I'm not paying my taxes twice.  Now the IRS would like us to pay a penalty AND interest (on top of paying our taxes again).  It's so dumb and will take a while to clean up.  Just when we thought nothing else could go wrong, we realize that the IRS seems to have very little respect for the safety of our identity.  Why would you EVER send a letter with a full social security number on it?  WHY?  And how is it that this letter is dated MAY when we are still in April?  Something is seriously broken in the IRS.  So...there is my complaint for the week.  Ugh...adult-ing is hard work.

Happy APRIL everyone!