This and That

Is it just me, or does life seem REALLY busy right now?

Our ongoing "Operation: Transition Tulsa" seems to be going veeeeery slowly, and I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe because Tim is at the office for 10 hours a day (and 5 hours on Saturdays), which postpones any opportunities to discover Tulsa's fun places as a family? Maybe because I'm still in the friend-making/town-mastering process myself? Maybe because our apartment has central A/C, so I really like to stay home? (Haha!) Maybe because all the work of finding doctors/dentists/babysitters/everything is exhausting me? Maybe because unpacking/decorating is taking forever? Maybe because our impending student loan repayments are causing significant stress? Maybe because I really like just going to Target, the library, the playground, and the pool over and over again with Weston, instead of anywhere else? (Luckily for me, he's all about the simple entertainment.)

I don't know. But I feel like it's taking a lot longer than usual to find our niche here and get busy having fun. And part of the problem is that we haven't been able to try very many restaurants yet. In general, the more fantastic restaurants I discover, the happier I am. So, that's something, I think, that Team Anderson can work on. :-)

Fortunately, we did have some fun family time recently, where we visited Tulsa's River Parks, which is a trail network along the Arkansas River:
I really likey the green here (even if the river is brown):

Weston got to bum a ride (literally) for part of the way:

Eventually he requested his sunglasses so that he could be smooth and chic like Tim:

Along the way, we passed this statue entitled, "Pheasant Eludes Bobcat," or as Weston liked to call it, "Kitty":

Thumbs up for River Parks!! We will be back for a picnic one of these days (hopefully before temperatures reach 115 degrees):

Afterwards, we were thrilled to try a much-hyped Mexican restaurant, El Tequila, mainly because we heard that it was a dirty, authentic greasy spoon. Haha! In fact, it's quite clean and pretty nice, at least compared to the questionable little taquerias that are all over L.A. Anyway, I took pictures to document our experience, but unfortunately, El Tequila did not cut the mustard for these L.A.-expats.

There were chips and salsa (pretty decent):

There were tacos in crunchy, Taco Bell-style shells (boo); burritos with spaghetti sauce on top (at least that's how it tasted - boo); and enchiladas filled with hamburger (boo numero tres):

Tim and I LOVE tamales, so we ordered them on the side, and they were actually pretty tasty (I think the pork was seasoned with cinnamon, among other spices). However, they apparently only make pork tamales, so when we ordered chicken tamales, they just took a pork tamale and topped it with chicken chunks (haha):

In a last-ditch effort, I persuaded Tim to let us get the churros for dessert, because you can never go wrong with churros, right? The answer is right, because they were good. But I think the dessert should have been called CRAZY Churro SUGAR Explosion!!!!!!!! instead of "churros" (alright, that picture doesn't look very crazy, but believe me, it was very big and very crazy before we tucked in):

Weston got to enjoy a lunch of bland French fries and a hot dog in a stale bun, but at least he got to top it off with some Crazy Churro Sugar Explosion:

Yep. I take pictures of everything you do, Weston.

We've also had some fun with friendlies over the past week. We went to a Memorial Day barbecue, where Weston spent 95% of the time standing in the kiddie pool with a little plastic water gun:

Fortunately he allowed enough time to devour a hamburginner (that's Westonese for ya):
I hosted a playdate at our apartment, which was attended by six children. And as you can see, it was a good playdate (that's Mr. Andy there):
And I did some babysitting for new pal Kira, which was more like "play/eat/watch Toy Story 2, repeat over and over again". That's Dawson, Katelyn, and Weston:
They had a good time:
So, there are SOME interesting things happening, and hopefully there will be more to come, once we feel like we're really here and really settled and organized (spatially and mentally). :-)