We left on Wednesday August 8 from Salt Lake at 9 am, got down to Houston about 4 pm, and then just kind of relaxed that night. The next day we spent part of our morning making food for the reception the next day. It was fun and didn't take too long with all of us doing it. We spent that night at his friend Jeffrey's house playing games (YES WORLD! I PLAYED GAMES!!! Be amazed....)
Friday we went to the church to set up for the reception in the morning. We recruited a few helpers, with the promise of chocolate milk and kolaches (it's basically like a breakfast thing with a hot dog/sausage type thing with cheese and other things inside of a dough. They're really good!).
Aaron and Scotty were surprisingly good at getting those vines to look good on the backdrop...hidden talents? I think yes.
David was pretty good at it too. Luckily for the overall look of the backdrop, I was simply a supervisor.
The reception went off really great. We had a good turnout of people and I got to meet a lot of the people that I've only heard about so that was really great. His siblings there in Texas all came so that was a lot of fun too. We opened our gifts back at his parents house after and got some things that we really needed/wanted so it was awesome.
Saturday we were talking about going down to Galveston and maybe going to the beach and to NASA, but we had been up kind of late the night before so we decided instead we'd rather sleep in. We went to lunch at a New York style deli called Kenny and Ziggy's to celebrate his brother-in-law Scott's birthday. It was AWESOMELY good. The portions were really big. I only ate half of my sandwich and about half the fries because it was so big. But that's good because that meant I had lunch the next day after church all taken care of. And it was amazing. David got a brisket with gravy on it, which I had never had before, but really liked too. He also had lunch for the next day.
Also, only because his brother-in-law Tom wouldn't take no for an answer, I tried my first ever Reuben sandwich. And I was pleasantly surprised. I thought it would taste less than awesome, but I was wrong, and while those words taste nasty coming out of my mouth, I was really impressed with the sandwich.
The rest of Saturday was really chill. We went shopping, had a little birthday dinner for Scott and his nephew Declan, and then hung out with his friends some more. It was a lot of fun.
Sunday we had church and I ran into a kid I knew in high school up here who is on his mission down there. It was a really good surprise. We both kind of freaked out a little when we saw each other. That was one of the highlights of my trip, just because I haven't seen him or talked to him in a while. So that was really nice. After church we just hung around the house, ate the rest of our meals from the day before, and then played games with Scott, Angela, and his parents before going over to Jeffry's house again to see his friend Stephen who had just gotten home from his mission the day before.
Monday we drove up to Austin with his mom, Angela, and nephew Bradley to see his sister Lori and her family, and then, leaving everyone there, David and I drove down to San Antonio to see the Alamo and just kind of check out the city. On our trip up to Austin, we had a little stowaway:
This little lizard decided he wanted to travel with us. Didn't notice him on the front of the car until we were pulling out of the driveway, seeing him pop up there made me squeak a little bit, though David will tell you it was a really loud squeak, which it probably was, not because it was a lizard, but because that lizard was on the windshield of the car..... Then he disappeared and I thought he'd just kind of hopped off while we weren't going very fast, then, as we were getting onto the main freeway leading up to Austin, he popped back up. And hung onto our windshield wiper like that for a good hour or so, before he disappeared again and we never saw him again...........
After getting to San Antonio, we checked into our hotel and walked the few blocks down to the Riverwalk where we took a tour on one of the boats.
I forgot to take pictures while we were on the boat, so this will have to do.
After that we realized we were pretty hungry, so that meant it was time for dinner. We decided to eat at this Mexican place there on the Riverwalk. It was pretty good. I was happy with it.
This is where we went, to Casa Rio. It was right there next to the river and so we decided to sit outside, also we decided to sit out there because to sit inside was like a 20 minute wait so we decided to take our chances of being hot, but getting our food faster. I think we made the right call.
There was a mariachi band that was walking around, playing songs. They come to us and asked if they could play us a romantic song, but we declined, mostly because we were almost done. But it was still a really cool experience because I've never seen a real one before.
That night we walked back to our hotel, and walked past the Alamo, but it was closed so we decided to just come back to it in the morning. These are just pictures of the outer walls that I took on our way back to the hotel.
The next morning, after being so rudely awakened by the cleaning staff at 9 banging on our door and, even after we said to go away, they tried to get into our room, we checked out and went over to the Alamo. It was a really cool experience. It's something I've always wanted to see and I was glad to be able to. Here's a few pictures that we took.
We really wanted a picture by the super old cannon. So we both got one.
This tree was crazy! It was really old and gnarly, the branches were hanging everywhere. Here's a couple closer looks at a couple of the branches.
They were supported by metal poles! WEIRD!!!!
I just really wanted a picture of the squirrel.
After the Alamo, we were walking back to our car when, lo and behold!, we found this awesome place!
So of course we had to stop in and get some. It was delicious. I got Rocky Road and David got a berry sorbet. It was really good.
We had been told about a really good breakfast place to go to by someone at church on Sunday, so we decided to give it a try. It was the Magnolia Pancake Haus. He said it was really good and that the wait times on the weekends were crazy. Well, we went at 10 on a Tuesday morning and still had to wait almost a half hour. All the while I was thinking, this better be worth it.
IT WAS! It was so good. Most breakfast places all taste pretty much the same, but this place was really a cut above the rest. I got an omelet with goat chesse, baby arugula, and a creme fresche on top. I was really impressed with it. It doesn't sound like it would be good, but it really was amazing. David got the hash and it came with pancakes. It was really good hash and the pancakes were divine! They were so light and fluffy, they didn't taste like pancakes you get anywhere else. I loved it. The only downside was the biscuit that I got, it was really hard, but the rest of the meal was fantastic.
Then we drove back up to Austin to pick up his mom, Angela, and Bradley, then drove back down to Houston. That night we took Stephen, the one who'd just gotten home from his mission on Saturday, to see the new Batman movie, because he's just as much in love with Batman as David is (maybe even a little more if that's possible...), and after went to Denny's for the midnight breakfast? Ha. It was fun.
Wednesday we had decided to go down to NASA and the beach, but again decided we liked sleep more and said we'll do it next time we're down in Texas. So we basically spent all day Wednesday hanging around the house, playing with Bradley, watched a couple movies, packing up our stuff, and just relaxing. We went laser tagging that night with his friends but I twisted my ankle and put some pretty bad pressure on my knee the first round, so I sat the second one out.
Thursday was just basically just us getting the last few things packed up, suitcases loaded into the car, and hanging around a little bit before going to the airport. We met his dad for lunch at Whataburger, I think you spell with an H but I'm not 100% positive, which is a really good fast food restaurant that they only have down there right now, well, it's moved into New Mexico and Arizona a little bit but it's still mostly just a Texas thing. Then we flew home.
It was a really great trip. I had a ton of fun and wasn't even really that hot. I was surprised and happy about it. Yeah, it was a little humid but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be so I was happy about it.
This week school started, so that's been fun. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole big school thing, I think I was spoiled with a small school for so long, but it's something I'll need to get use to.
Our schedules are pretty close to the same, so we can drive down together everyday except Friday, for right now.
I'm taking Organic Chemistry 2 (because I got a lower grade than I thought I should have last semester), Analytical Chemistry and the lab, Freshman College skills (Because I needed a really easy filler class that was at least 3 credits to get my up to full-time 12 credits and this was the one that was the easiest and fit my schedule the best), Chemistry Literature (Which I haven't gone to yet because it's only on Fridays and he cancelled class this last week for some reason or another), and Chemistry Seminar (Which I only have to go to really every other week because those are when he has seminars scheduled for so that's lucky). It is mostly just a lot of reading and so that's what takes up the majority of my time.
David is taking Statistics, Linear Algebra (which isn't seeming like the Linear Algebra I took last year because none of the stuff so far has been at all familiar), Business Law, Accounting, and Doctrine and Covenants. He has a lot of quizzes each week, so that takes up a lot of his time, but he has some downtime in between classes and things so he's able to get a lot of it done there on campus. He's still working at Mail Services at BYU but he's been trying to get a position where I work, because he'll be paid more and it'll be easier for us to coordinate schedules (and we won't have to be in Provo by 7 every day, even when we don't have classes until 10 and noon). They said they'd be hiring the next permanent employee, which is the position just like mine, this month so we're keeping our fingers crossed.
Speaking of work, it's been really good. It's really easy, the people I work with are really great, and I love the flexibility of the hours. It really was a blessing to find it and to have it all work out the way it did. We were very fortunate. Hopefully luck will smile twice and David will get on there too.
Well, that's it for now. Sorry it was so long and that it took me so long to get it all put up. Now I know how to get my pictures from my phone to my computer so I should be more on top of it from now on.
Happy Labor Day everyone!!!!!
It was so great to spend some time with y'all, even in HOT Texas! And that pancake place sounds delish (like my reference to Thoroughly Modern Millie?). So glad to have you in the family, Kelsi, and it's nice that you've taken on blogging. Good luck this semester!
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