Greetings from...

Am I doing this?

Am I actually staging a comeback?

Can you stage a comeback and say that you're staging a comeback yourself?

No excuses, no "I'm sorry I didn't write", no nothing. Well, maybe an "I've missed ya'll!". Which is the real truth.

So, like a giant band-aid, let's rip off all the things I've missed writing about over the last month and a half.

Love this kid's face! (source)

1. We're back in Texas….and have been for over a month now. Yeah, a month. With the spring weather being absolutely perfect, do you blame me for taking a hiatus? I needed the sun after only 4 hours of it each day this past winter.

2. Speaking of Texas, I just spotted my first pair of Truck Nutz. Le sigh. I've missed ya, you nasty, nasty things. And, right after I saw the Truck Nutz, I saw a pair of something else truly….trash-tastic. Apparently these babies are going by the name, Fuzzy Danglers. I've blacked out the nips so that you folks at a work computer won't get into too much trouble.

See, you knew you could count on me coming back and showing a slightly inappropriate photo! (source)

Like a pair of dice, only fleshier, these nice swinging pair were hanging off the rear view mirror of a SUV at the gym. Needless to say, I didn't have my camera with me, or you know I would have gotten a shot of them. I'm thinking that there might need to be an updated Nad Watch 2012, but with these instead. Have ya'll ever seen anything like it before? If so, move cities and run for your life. Sheesh.

3. We're actually headed to the Big Apple this week. Getting to see the hubs' brother and then a quick stop by Canada to see the gramps. Really excited to head up there. Should be a great time! Any 'off the beaten path' suggestions for us in NYC? We did an ah-maz-ing all-day bike tour of the Burrow's last time we were there. And while it might be hard to top something that bizarre, we're game for just about anything. I'm all ears!

4. (Update, because I forgot-ed). I FINALLY got to see the Northern Lights!!! EEEEK! It was our last week in Finland, and the amazingly awesome Megan over at A Suitcase and Stilettos messaged me to say that a big storm was coming through and the Northern Lights were supposed to be great that night. She's in Norway and keeps an eye on these things. So the hubs and I drove out of the city to 'find' them. He about swerved off the highway as they Aurora came into focus and I screamed at the top of my lungs, "THERE THEY ARE!". It was pretty cool. Because of the full moon that night, they weren't as bright as they could have been. But still, they were visible and like nothing I had seen before. And, of course, I don't have a picture. Lost my camera somewhere between Helsinki and Houston in January. Not that the pics would have come out anyways. But for those of you that breeze through the blog (let's be honest, we all do that to some extent), I'll let you think the picture below was them :)

Not quite this spectacular, but nonetheless, this Texas girl was impressed! (source)

5. There may or may not be a new little hockey dude going at the top of the blog, hint, hint, wink, wink. (no, don't mistakenly congratulate me on being pregnant. I'm talking about a new league, a new team and a spankin' new country name jammed into the already over-crowded TGFN). Which I'm really excited for. You see, Finland was awesome. Seriously, if you ever have the slightest chance to visit Finland, I highly recommend doing so. The people are friendly, the country is beautiful and everything is just laid back and easy there. Which left me little to complain about, and felt considerably  less 'foreign' than Germany did at times (still love ya, Deutschland! You were so fun!).

I honestly felt like I just did this for Finland. Where has the time gone?! (source)

But, because it was so easy and North American-like in Finland, I had quite a bit less fuel to feed my bizarro blog fire. When things are 'normal', they often aren't too exciting to write about. But, there's a new country on the horizon. One that you probably don't know much about. And one that I think might be just the thing to kick start my writing back into action. Curious, aren't you?! Well, I'm going to make you sweat it out. (And if you already know, help me keep it a mini-secret, at least for now!)

Other than that, things have been going great here. Time is flying by, which it always does when we're back. But, we're really trying our best to make the most out of it. Seeing friends, traveling, doing lots in Houston and taking in every single second at home. Which, as you can imagine, is why I have been a little MIA.

I'm thinking the 'big reveal' will be next week. Something like I did for Finland. You get a history/geography lesson AND get to learn where we are headed for next season. You lucky, lucky dogs, you :)