Last weekend we traveled to Shreveport to see my parents’ new house. They recently moved into a smaller patio home and this was our first opportunity to see it. We met my grandparents and Aunt Marci in Lindale on Friday night and then headed over to Shreveport on Saturday morning. Since we were all together, we celebrated my birthday a few days early. Jennifer amazingly smuggled my gift, an acoustic guitar, all the way from Houston. I didn’t even know she had hidden it in the truck while we were driving. We had a good time spending time with my family, it was one of the reasons we decided to move back to Texas so that we could visit more often.

Since I had received a guitar and I haven’t played an instrument since sixth grade, I signed up for lessons. Starting on Tuesday, I’m going to have weekly lessons at Smack Guitars in Missouri City.

On Friday, Jennifer took the girls to Geopalooza at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Abby has shown an interest in geology recently and so, we thought this would be something she would want to go see. They looked at all different kinds of rocks and got their very own geodes at the end. They also explored the  Butterfly Center and had a great time.

This weekend we went and looked at a couple of rent houses over in Sienna Plantation, the area we would eventually like to buy a house. We figured this way if we did buy a house in the area, the girls wouldn’t have to switch schools. The houses were smaller than we were wanting to buy in Houston, but about the same size as the one in Orlando. We decided on one that had three bedrooms upstairs for the girls and a small play room. We figured that upstairs would be the “girls’ domain”. Downstairs was pretty compact, but enough room for us. We figured it was good enough as temporary space for the next year, so we went ahead and put in an application for it. We are now waiting to hear back if we are approved. It’s going to be tough paying rent and a mortgage for the house back in Florida, but we figured it’s time that we move into our own place before school starts.