The good news is that both of my comptuers and my nifty little portable external hard drive all now have their own identical copy of all of my digital photo albums so, should there ever be a crash, I'll be fully covered...hopefully.
Anyway..Houston. We spent about 5 days in Houston, and it was just as hot and humid and exciting as I remembered. As you may have derived from my previous post (or not), I was on campus on Friday to attend a class pertaining to my upcoming internship. The class was interesting enough, but the best part was when I found out that I would NOT have to attend the Saturday class after all. Yippee!
After that pronouncement, the rest of my trip was gravy. Here, then, is our mini-tour of the Best of Houston:
Friday eve, we joined our "old" friends, the B's, for a ballgame at Minute Maid Park, where Pumpkin scored (and ate) the tallest chocolate cupcake I've ever seen! Meanwhile, Tere and I spent a majority of the game catching up and probably only watched about 3 of the 9 innings, hehe. Make that 3 of the 15 innings. The Astros weren't able to get the job done in 9, which, for us, meant that we had to either miss the post-game fireworks or have one over-tired little boy on our hands. Naturally, we chose the former, and even though we missed the fireworks, we loved going out to the ballgame, singing along to our favorite Texas song, and especially, going out with the B's again. It felt just like old times. :)
The next day, we met up with our "even older" friends the Moles for some Star Pizza. Take a look at their website. Pizazz not required b/c the pizza speaks for itself! Anyway, enough gushing. Everyone knows that we miss our Star Pizza. Below is a picture of Pumpkin playing a sit-down version of "follow the leader" with Bri at the aforementioned Star Pizza. For those just tuning in, QT & I have known Bri pretty much since the day she was born, and we couldn't get over what a mature and lovely young lady she's become. She's a great kid and smart too! We've known her parents since the dawn of time, and we still maintain that Bri must've been switched at birth b/c there's just no other explanation (of course, our theory is totally messed up by that pesky little "looks just like her dad" thing, hehe). Incidentally, I'm still waiting for the Moles to send me copies of their pics, and I can't post a picture of them until then b/c sadly, mine did not turn out well at all.
Moving right along.
Sunday morning, we jumped onto a light rail train, which ran right past our hotel, and headed over to Hermann Park. QT read on the Chron.com that the miniature train ride at Hermann Park was going to be closed down for renovations, and he wanted to ride it before that happened. From the light rail stop, it was just a short hike over to the mini-train stop, but I want to take a moment to point out to our Colorado friends that hiking in Houston is NOTHING like hiking in Denver. It's hot and extremely humid in Houston, and walking (and breathing) outside is considered an extreme sport by most (hehe). Breathing the air there feels a bit like having a ball of warm, wet cotton held over your nose (or in your nose, whatever). I was surprised to find that I was having a bit of trouble catching my breath at times. When we first moved to Colorado, I expected to experience shortness of breath due to the high altitude, at least until I acclimated, but I never expected to have to go through that in Houston! My Houston! I'm confounded.
Pictures 1-2 are of a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Pumpkin and QT waiting at the light rail station a block away from our hotel in downtown Houston and then standing in Hermann Park after we'd just arrived(with the light rail train in the background). The 3rd picture is a rider's view of the miniature train, and the last picture was taken at the end of our adventure, while we waited for the train to take us "home."
By the time we got back to our room that afternoon, we were wilted, drenched, starving, and badly in need of a nap (and showers), but we didn't care! We were buzzing in happy anticipation of our big date with (who else?):
The Wiggles!
stay tuned
