Houston Trip!

Hello, so we just got home from out wonderful trip to Houston. We went down to see Gary's sister, Cheryl and her family, and Gary's brother, Mark and his family. We had such a great time. Madi LOVED having a live-in playmate for a week and the rest of us enjoyed catching up on everything. We stayed very busy pretty much the whole time.

TUESDAY: We arrived safely and Mark picked us up at the airport. Madi and Jackson did so well on the plane. I was relieved when we landed. We got to experience rush hour traffic in Houston. Mark took us to Cheryl's house and everyone was there to greet us. We had some great pizza from a little joint by Cheryl's house. After dinner Mark's family went home and we all crashed.

WEDNESDAY: Today we originally were going to take off on our own and head downtown to the Houston Zoo. Mark gave us free reign of his van and put his GPS thing in it so we could find our way around. Gary LOVED that GPS thing. That's now on his list of things to buy at Cabela's. We decided not to do the zoo because that would put us in rush hour again coming home and we didn't want to deal with that. We ended up going to the Woodlands Mall. Madi enjoyed playing in the children's play area and after that we went to a Children's Museum that was there. Madi had a lot of fun using her imagination and running around. After that Gary, Madi, Jackson and I went to dinner at a seafood restaurant called Papadeauxs (spelling.. sorry.) Some of our friends who have lived down in Houston recommended we check it out. It was good food, thanks for the tip everyone. After that we went home, put the kids to bed and watched the movie Transformers. Okay, honestly, I thought it would be a lame movie, but it was really good. You should rent that if you get a chance.

Thursday: Today Cheryl was kind enough to take us down to the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston. There we went to the Pyramid Museums. There is an aquarium museum and a rain forest museum. Those were so great and Madi had a blast! After that we hit the beach for a few minutes so Madi could play in the water. On the way home we stopped and got some take out from this fajitas restaurant that we had heard a lot about, Lupes. Everything everyone had said was very justified!!! Now they make a great Fajitas! Thanks Cheryl for helping us try the famous Lupes! We headed home and enjoyed the rest of our evening.

FRIDAY: Friday we tried to relax because we were leaving early Saturday down to San Antonio to go to Sea World. We had a nice day and Friday night we went over to Marks for a BBQ and to go swimming. We had a great evening over there.

SATURDAY: WOW, what a big day Saturday was! We had so much fun! At Sea World the first thing we did was feed the dolphins. That was a lot of fun. I had never been to Sea World so I felt like a little kids doing all this fun stuff. So we got to feed the dolphins, feed some birds, feed some sea lions/seals, and we got to see Shamu! That was so great. You grow up seeing Shamu on TV so it was great to see that show. We went on some great rides. Madi's favorite was Journey to Atlantis. I was surprised she went on it three times. It's a ride where you go down a steep hill and get really wet. Mark even brought rain coats for us to wear. There were two others rides we liked too, the Great White and the Steel Eel. Those were great rides and it was fun going on those with all the nieces and nephew... After a long and fun day we headed out and got home around 11:30ish..

SUNDAY: Today, of course, was great. All we did was relax. We were all hammered from Sea World so we were happy for the day of rest. Madi went with Aime to church and got to go to Primary. Cheryl is Aime's teacher so Madi enjoyed being with Cheryl too. Sunday afternoon we packed our bags and headed over to Marks for the rest of the trip. We got over there and watched movies and played games. We also had our weekly tradition of brownies and ice cream. Gary likes to do this every Sunday and honestly, I really can't complain..

MONDAY: Today we got in as much swimming at Mark's house as we could. A big storm was moving in so we swam early. After swimming we went to lunch with Karin and Natalie. We went over and drove by the Temple. What a beatiful temple. It isn't your typical temple, but I loved it. After that Karin took us to this local bakery she loves. We went in and ordered a bunch of stuff to take home and sample. It was fun to just take one bite of everything. Very good dessert!! Thanks Karin! Monday night Mark's family, Cheryl's family, and our family went to a BBQ joint and had some great BBQ!! I wish we had better BBQ restaurants here in Utah. That was the end of that day..

TUESDAY: Today Gary got up and went fishing with Mark and Darin. Mark has this boat that can go through pretty much anything so they went to this swampy lake. Gary had a lot of fun. They managed to get stuck once in some weeds, but did great other than that. The things that really grosses me out and when they are going down the side channels of the lake they go through a bunch of dead weeds that are pretty high and when you go through them ALL the spiders get on you.... You could NEVER get me to go do that. YUCK!! You guys are crazy. While the men were out fishing Madi, Jackson, Karin, Natalie and I went to a little place called the Old Town Shops (or something like that..). At there shops there were great little stores. I got some cute stuff to decorate the house and I let Madi pick out some toys and the great toy store. Thanks for taking us Karin! After the guys got back later that night Mark and Karin introduced us to one of their favorite Mexican restaurants and it tasted great!

WEDNESDAY: Well, today we needed to pack up for good and head home. Karin and I ran over to the Old Town Shops again so I could pick some stuff up that I didn't the day before and wished I would have. Gary took the kids on a walk and had fun with them. We made to the airport just in time and got on the plane to come home. Again, the kids did great on the plane. We were happy to come home. Gary's Dad picked us up at the airport and we went to their house to pick up Casey. Dave and Gae were nice to watch him while we were gone. Thanks guys!

Well, there you go! I hope this wasn't too long.. Check out the slide show I have put together and some videos from our trip! ON the slide show there is a link that says "view all images". Click on that because it shuffles through all the pictures while you're looking at the videos and stuff so you might miss some pictures. I have to say that I put a lot of this together Thursday night and it was pretty late so hopefully everything makes sense. Have a great day!!