Houston

Last weekend Cody and I packed up the girls, Axel, and about a dozen Disney movies and made the 5 hour trek south to Houston. Cody's brother, Casey and his family live there, and it was Casey's birthday on Sunday. Casey's wife, Bree, invited Cody to go to a baseball game with him for his birthday. Luckily, the LA Angels were playing in Houston that weekend (Cody and Casey's favorite team) so it worked out perfectly!

A sign at the Hi Ho gas station on the way down…Emplooye's must wash their hand :)

We left Friday afternoon and got to their house in the evening. The girls did pretty great on the drive down and ended up all falling asleep. But when we got there, they woke right up and were more than excited to play with their cousins! They were all running around and chasing each other and loving every second of it. Especially Axel :) Casey and Bree were so nice to let up leave him at their house - since we don't have anyone up here to watch him and we couldn't bring him to a hotel. The first night when we left to go to the hotel, Bree said Axel just sat, staring at the front door until 1 am! Just waiting for us to come back and get him. Poor dog!!

The next day was an adventure. I always get so excited to sleep in a hotel and then when I actually go (with children) I realize how awful it really is. No one sleeps well, there's not enough room for everyone to be quiet and not bother the ones that are sleeping, etc. Charlotte woke up REALLY early and of course didn't want to go back to sleep. So by the time everyone else was awake and ready to go play, she HAD to take a nap. I finally woke her up around 1130 because we were wasting our only day there!

We finally got over to their house and all went to the Houston Natural History Museum. It was so fun! They have a butterfly exhibit where the butterflies are just all over the place and can land on you. It was so cool and so pretty. We sat really still for awhile, trying to get them to land on us. I have a thing about anything with wings/buzzing/fluttering in my face, and I swear for awhile they kept going right in my face. It was so hard to try and stay super still with them doing that! Chloe kept saying -Mom, are you scared? Why do you have a scared face if you're not scared?

They even had a huge waterfall that was so pretty, even if Charlotte was trying to get in it the whole time.

I also loved the dinosaur exhibit they have - I am not really a fan of dinosaurs…I mean, Jurassic Park's great, but that's about it as far as my love for them goes. But I have always really loved dinosaur exhibits! I just think they're so cool looking. Unfortunately, when we got there, Preslie's whining about being so starving had reached an all-time high, so I took her to get some food in the lobby. Luckily we still got to see a few things before everyone else was done.

After the museum, we needed to get some dinner before the guys went to the baseball game. Casey wanted to go to Jason's Deli, so we found one on the map and started off. It was right in the middle of downtown, which apparently only cares about feeding corporate Houston, because it's only open M-F.

While we were walking there, I was pushing Preslie in the stroller and holding Chloe (Because they had both fallen asleep in the car and were grumpy and tired) and this man completely walked RIGHT into me. He was not paying attention at all, so when I saw he wasn't going to stop, I stopped. He still walked right into me (from the side, not the front). Then, he looked at me, and SO rudely said - Watch where you're going!!

Picture by Bree

By this point, I was sick of people yelling at me all day (i.e. my children), so I said back, Me?! You walked into me! Then he went off! He was totally yelling and saying I ran into him and to watch where I was going. Then Cody started yelling at him saying- Are you kidding?! It's a lady and two kids! Open your eyes!

It was insane. He kept yelling as he walked across the road and was so crazy. I wanted to go back and go all Bruce Lee/Carol Brady on him so that after I beat him up I could tell him how important it is to treat each other kindly.

Because Jason's Deli was closed, we found another place around the corner called Bombay Pizza. Its an Indian Pizza place that has almost 500 positive reviews on yelp and apparently was on the Food Network! It was awesome! We had "The Slumdog" with chorizo, pepperoni, chicken, jalapeños, beef, onions, cheese and "bombay sauce." Super yummy.

On our way back to the car, in the SAME spot as the crazy man, there was a crazy woman! She was staring at Cody the whole time we walked past her, like crazy lady staring, and then I turned around to see if she was for real, and she was GLARING at me. Luckily nothing happened, because she seemed a lot more insane than the other guy.

We dropped the guys off at the baseball game and went back to Casey and Bree's. We hung out and Charlotte was losing it the whole time, she was SO exhausted but had no where to sleep. I went back and picked up the guys and the Angels won! Woohoo! We had cake and ice cream to celebrate Casey's birthday and went back to the hotel.

Picture by Cody

The next day we had a big pancake breakfast that Casey made and hung out for a little bit before going home. The drive home was more crazy and hard than the drive there - it seemed the girls were whining the whole time and especially Charlotte - we stopped at a gas station and she had completely soaked through ALL her clothes. So I was the awesome mom that was changing her diaper on the sink (why all gas stations do not have changing stations I will never understand), while Chloe and Preslie were using the only sinks available to "wash hands" (just stand there with the water running because they couldn't reach), while there was a huge line of others waiting to wash there hands, and finally some women lifted them up to wash their hands, and I just took Charlotte out, with no clothes on, in the pouring rain.

It was awesome :)

But other than the drive home, we had a blast!! The girls absolutely love being with their cousins and wish they could be with them every day! I hope we can go back and see them again soon, and stay more than only one day!!!