Ron Tarvin, REMAX, WHP Katy/Cypress TX Luxury Homes for Sale, Family homes too

My wife and I are members at the Houston Zoo. We take our daughter, who turned two in June to the Zoo about once a month.

Anyway, we went to the zoo this weekend and were saddened to learn about the passing of baby elephant, MAC. Mac was born in 2006 (the same year as my daughter) and we have loved watching this little elephant growing up.

Mac ultimately died from the elephant Herpes virus. This has evidently been a problem at this particular Zoo (although admittedly, this is the first personal experience that we have seen).

Mac was 2 years old and on November 9th, he started showing signs of the virus. The vets were called in and the anti-viral medications were started. Mac bounced back for a couple of hours and responded favorably but in the end, it was fatal as it is over 90% of the time in Asian elephants. Mac died the same day that the virus was identified.

This comes on the heels of the zoo adding a new baby and momma elephant, TUCKER and TESS, but Mac will be missed by zoo regulars.

So it all comes to a conclusion today (provided we don't have another FLORIDA 2000 type debacle!).

The important thing is to get out and vote!

If you need any information about how to vote or where to go to vote and you are already a registered voter you can visit these sites below depending on what county you reside!

Harris County Voting Information

Fort Bend County Voting Information

After voting, you can go to STARBUCKS COFFEE and ask for a Tall BREWED COFFEE and recieve one for free! It was a promotion to be tied to having voted, but it is illegal to reward or give an incentive to vote so it's a freebie just for the asking. Krispy Kreme has a free donut promo too, but there are not that many around this area!

Well, It's that time of year.

The retail no man's land between the HUGE Halloween selling season and the HUGE Christmas selling season. You know, Thanksgiving...the forgotten Holiday!

I like Thanksgiving personally.

I like the idea of coming together to give thanks as a family for all of the blessings we have receieved over the year.

I like the idea of a feast.

I like the idea of the family getting together to have fun and for the kids to get together with their cousins and aunts and uncles and such...

I like the idea....but the actual event is usually something just this side of CHAOS!

So as we were shopping Saturday night, we went into a store to find my daughter a new outfit...she's two. We went into the store and what should be playing but CHRISTMAS MUSIC.

Only one day outside of Halloween and there we jump to CHRISTMAS!

Don't get me wrong. I love Christmas Time. I love the sights, the sounds, the fun! I'm even ready to get into the Holiday Spirit. I'm ready to put out the decorations and the lights, but I try to have one thing that the retail population doesn't.

A little self restraint. Yep. I'm ready to start decorating and all that comes with it. I'm ready for Egg Nog and Wassaail (a family tradition to make this great drink and sip with the whole family!). I'm ready for Christmas Carols and even for shopping.

But I think I'll wait...because I know by the time January 1st rolls around, I'll be so SICK of it all that I won't believe I ever thought I wanted to start early!

What a great Halloween weekend!

My daughter turned 2 at the end of June and so this year, she was really able to enjoy the festivities. We did the traditional Trick Or Treat around the neighborhood with the rest of the family (we had 4 adults and 5 kids ranging in age from about 3 months old to 5 years old!).

The thing that really amazed me was how so many neighbors got out and participated. They were actively sitting in their yards and handing out candy...some dressed up to do so and one stretch had a "haunted house" setting with live monsters walking around (even a chainsaw guy!). They toned it down for our group but we could hear them scaring the heck out of the older teen crowd as they came through.

Over on Benbury, they constructed a real haunted house that was really scary (not suggested for the small children but it scared the heck out of my wife and her sisters!)

Anyway, what a great neighborhood! We ended the night early back at our house, with my two year old handing out candy to all the trick or treaters that came by!

I've often heard it said that you can not control things around you but you CAN control the way you react to things around.

Nothing could come closer to the truth than what we just went through with Hurricane Ike. No way, no how could we influence Ike. All we could do was respond to Ike.

I'm not trying to make light of anyone that has had damage from Ike, but some of my neighbors had the right spirit. Ike came through and destroyed their beautiful trees and yard...they suffered pretty heavy (superficial) damage as Ike roared through.

So they thought it worthy of an award and for this month, it's so very fitting and appropriate: