Home at last! You don’t realize how long the Florida panhandle is until you have to drive it. It was a long, long trip and we aren’t planning on doing it again any time soon. It was fun seeing everyone and we want to encourage everyone to come and see us in sunny Florida.
The trip back to Orlando is underway! We are all ready to get back home. Today we made the first leg back to Mobile, Alabama. Nothing eventful happened, just a lot of driving. We had dinner back at Chuck E. Cheese to kind of bookend the whole trip.
Today was a day of rest and packing. It’s our last full day in Houston and so we just spent the time around the house and corralled all of our stuff into the appropriate containers.
The picture from today is from our picnic back on day 5 of our trip.
While we were driving into Houston, we saw that Schlitterbahn, a water park in New Braunfels, had opened a new water park in Galveston. We always heard that Schlitterbahn was a great park, so we had to try it out. So, we packed up the kids and headed down to Galveston today. We got there right as the park was opening and got a great parking space right up front. We also were able to go on some of the water slides several times with no line. We pretty much rode every ride in the park. Abby’s favorite part was floating down Torrent River, a lazy river that you just float down on an inner tube. Emily’s favorite was the Guada Loopy, a tube ride that went into the dark. She said that she also liked when her hair got wet. Isabelle’s favorite part was the Wasserfest Kid’s Area. She didn’t do much riding, but she liked splashing in the water and climbing all over her parents while they sat in the shallow water. We finally left after staying for six hours. We were all pooped and a little sun burned in a few areas.
This morning we all headed to church to see Kinley baptized. It was at the 8:30 service, so the attendance was a little thin, but that really didn’t matter. We all sat at the front of the church while Christina and Mike stood up with Kinley while the Dr. Pennington baptized her. The ceremony went fine.
In the evening, Jennifer and I met George and Heather at Fogo de Chão, a South American restaurant. The best way to describe the restaurant is a parade of meat. It starts with a giant salad bar and then you head back to your table. There’s a disc on your table and if you leave it on the green side the people walking around with meat will stop at your table and offer you some. If you leave the disc on the red side, they will not bother you. It was a unique experience trying all different cuts of meat and it all tasted very, very good.
One more restaurant craving this morning: breakfast tacos from Taco Cabana. Breakfast tacos in general are non-existent in Florida. There’s something about eggs and bacon wrapped in a fresh flour tortilla, which is mouth watering.
In the afternoon I headed to my friend George’s house. From there, we headed to Minute Maid Park in order to go to see the Houston Astros take on the Atlanta Braves. It was one of the fastest games I’ve been at: two and a half hours. Astros were down 4-0 most of the game and came back, but still lost 4-2.
While at the game, they showed the weather forecast on the Jumbotron: a tropical depression is forming in the gulf and is heading right for Orlando. Fortunately, it should stay a pretty minor storm and it will have blown through before we head back to Florida.
The picture today is again from the family reunion. My cousin Paul has climbed onto the bounce house’s slide to play with the kids.
Another trip into Clear Lake to eat at Han’s Mongolian Bar-B-Q was on tap for today. Once again, we have to go eat at restaurants we miss now that we’ve moved. It’s amazing how it tastes exactly the same as it did five years ago when we lived in Clear Lake.
One other thing that we have the opportunity to do while we are in Texas: stock up on Texas Longhorn memorabilia. Jennifer bought a handbag and I got a medallion for the back of my car, pajama bottoms, and a Houston Texans coach polo.
Today was the final stop on the Texas Trip 2006: Houston, Texas, Jennifer’s parents’ house. It was a tough ride. We left Lindale after lunch and hit Houston right at rush hour traffic. Isabelle and Emily slept for the first hour, but then Isabelle screamed for the last three hours of the trip. She’s just not used to be strapped down in the car for so long. We made it safely and everyone was glad to finally see us again.
Today’s picture is from the family reunion a few days ago. It’s my cousin Paul’s youngest: Hayden.
Today we packed up everything and finally headed into Texas: Lindale, Texas, to be exact. Where I went to high school and where my grandparents live. My Aunt Marci was there and my parents followed us in their car. Once there, we celebrated Isabelle’s first birthday. We had a big lunch, opened presents, and then dug into the bear cake.
One of the bonuses to a trip back to Texas is you get to go to all the restaurants that we miss now that we live in Florida. One of the places I was really looking forward to was Rudy’s Bar-B-Q. They have several of these back in Austin and they happen to have one in Tyler. However, fortune was not with us. A lightning strike closed down the restaurant, so we had to settle for another Bar-B-Q place.
After dinner we headed down to the park in Hide-a-Way Lake. The girls had fun on the merry-go-round and a big slide. We got a pretty good laugh because when Emily went down the slide, she would build up a lot of static electricity and all of her hair would stand straight up.
Happy Birthday to Isabelle. One year ago today, Isabelle was born. We are going to be having a party at MaMaw and PaPaw’s house tomorrow, but today was Isabelle’s official birthday. We spent the day baking the traditional one year old bear birthday cake. There was enough left over for cup cakes, so we had a “mini party” for Isabelle.
Frenchville 