Jason's family left a few minutes ago (I wrote this last week), and our apartment feels so empty. No bags or wet towels or blow-up mattresses filling our tiny living room. Just lonely. I guess goodbyes make me a little fearful, because I don't want there not to be another time...another visit. Maybe I am being dramatic, but maybe also realistic. I always want the people I love to hear from me-just in case there isn't another time-how dear they are in my heart. So girls - please know that you are all so precious to me, and thank you for coming to visit us!
For any of you who don't know, Jason's two little sisters came to visit us by themselves this past week, and Jason's step-mom, Regina, and his sister Rachel, drove out to visit and pick them up at the end of the week. On Sunday I drove to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to get the girls; on the way, I stopped in Lafayette to spend the night with my dear friend, Jessica Lovelady. After a refreshing visit with her, I took some pictures of her adorable house while saying goodbye to her kitty cat, Maury. I'm pretty sure he was pleased to see me go.
The zoo was wonderful! However, after eating lunch, walking through just about every exhibit, and searching for the bears (which were sleeping by the way) that Brayden so desperately wanted to see, we were all pretty exhausted, not to mention hot. We had to get home! Later that day, (after a nap) we headed over to Shelley's house to play. Brayden and "the girls" had a pretty good time playing in the back yard and at their neighborhood splash pad.
Wednesday morning, we got up to go ice skating! I love ice skating (and really enjoyed it in Montana earlier this year), so I was pretty excited to find a place to skate so close to home. While skating inside a rink is never quite as fun as on an outdoor iced-over pond, we did have a really good time!
After initially clinging to the side for dear life, the girls quickly moved away from the wall and skated on their own; I was so proud :) Towards the end of our two hour block everyone else got off the ice and we were the only ones skating in that huge rink for about thirty minutes!
Later that day, Jason got off work early, so we went to the Incredible Pizza Factory for dinner!
Mary Grace hit the jackpot on one particular game several different times and won a ton of tickets. It was hilarious, because she just kept on winning over and over again. One of the pictures above is her waiting while the machine printed out all of her hundreds of tickets!
Thursday morning, we went to the Children's Museum in Houston.
Definitely my favorite part of the Children's Museum, and probably Sally and Mary Grace's favorite too, was this huge climbing structure in the middle of the museum! They climbed up and down it several times, and I climbed up once. I probably would have spent way more time on it except for the fact that I was carrying my purse and a bag full of shoes....which made me feel a wee bit claustrophobic.
After the Children's Museum, we drove by Rice University to check out an exhibit at their art gallery. The show was done by Andrea Dezso, and it was absolutely fantastic!
Next we drove to Discovery Green in downtown Houston. Several people told me they had a great "splash pad" (which apparently is the new name for water play areas in public places with no standing water...see wikipedia), so we decided to go check it out while we waited for Jason to get home. Um, it was not quite what we expected...being from the country, we're used to a bit more water and wide open spaces....(cue picture of Mary Grace on the rice well from last summer in Benoit, Mississippi)
We decided it was more for younger children, but it was still nice to know about for future reference.
Here we are eating our little peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with apples, raisins, and fruit roll ups.
Mary Grace looks to be enjoying herself, while Sally sits back to watch. (Mental note: save Discovery Green for the younger kids)
That night, after coming home from the park and doing a little swimming in the pool, Jason came home and we went to our FAVORITE restaurant, Lupe Tortilla (I think we may drive people a little nuts talking about it so much). Also we took a couple silly group pictures, but I'm only posting the semi-serious ones.
Saturday morning we all got up, ate breakfast, and cleaned up the apartment a little bit because Regina and Rachel were coming!!! Once they got here, we went shopping in the First Colony mall and later ate dinner at BJ's Brewhouse. Sunday morning, instead of going to church, we decided to stay home from church. Jason and I got up and got doughnuts for everyone for breakfast. As if they hadn't been driving enough already, we decided to take them riding around all through the countryside. Our first stop was a Buc-ee's Gas Station in Wharton, TX. This link will take you to pictures of the actual Buc-ee's store we visited if you're interested in seeing how serious they are. You probably can't tell by the picture, but they're kind of a big deal here in Texas. :) They pretty much have everything you might ever need (or not need, depending on your point of view). This is the stuffed bear near the entrance to their outdoors store (where Regina bought us a couple awesome fajita pans in which we will practice making beef fajitas just like Lupe's until we have perfected it like an art).
After touring Buc-ee's, and making sure everyone visited their amazing bathrooms, we headed to a miniature horse farm Jason passes on his way to work. You might not be able to tell from the picture, but these horses are definitely small-scale.
Our next stop was the Glen Flora Emporium, truly one of my favorite little antique places, located in the precious town of Glen Flora! Some furniture was purchased :)
Lastly, we stopped by our church in Richmond to take a few pictures.
We went to Lupe's again for dinner just to be sure Regina and Rachel got to eat there too. Monday morning it was Starbucks for breakfast; then shopping, lunch, and heading home. Although it's always sad to see them go, we're already looking forward to their next visit!
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