We were home from Utah for 2 weeks before we left to Houston. We scheduled this trip when Southwest was having their deep discounted fares so we could go see my brand-new niece and nephew (Sydney and Dean) before Dan was back in school. Funny thing was we thought Sydney was coming to Utah for Christmas and Dean wasn’t but turns out Dean was born a few weeks before Sydney and he made it to Utah while Sydney didn’t! Anyway, we were so excited to see some more of Dean and meet Sydney for the first time!!
We hadn’t flown for a year, since Sophie turned 2 (and started costing us a ticket), she was SO excited to take her Dora luggage and fly on the airplane! She says, “fly in the airplane, WOOOOOOO, fly so high in the sky!” (While illustrating a plane taking off with her hand.) Here she is waiting to get on the train at the Denver airport, another sought after mode of transportation! She got lots of smiles and waves as she walked through the terminals pulling her own luggage, Sophie was the picture of a model passenger. She was elated to be able to use the escalators, since we didn’t have a stroller for the first time ever.
Our fun way of getting to Houston alone made the trip worth it! But we had a great time visiting family once we got there too. :)
Jenny had found some “toys” including her Halloween costume which was a very big hit with Sophie, she really likes cats. Here she is showing me her tail and ears, she wasn’t interested in smiling for a picture, only showing me her costume specifically.
When Dean entered the room it was a big deal, I thought, that she wanted him to wear the cat ears and tail. What an honor! Luckily Dean was comfortable enough with his masculinity to pull it off.
Two other “toys” that were BIG hits:
Nice work Jenny, turns out you have a very fun house! Indoor stairs are something my girls rarely see, and in this quantity, unheard of! They were elated to mop the Kendall’s floors at any opportunity.
I’m not certain of the order of events, but seeing how it doesn’t really matter… I will just do this in the order I come to the pictures. Dan’s Uncle Willis and Aunt Wilma live in Houston so we gave them a call; they were more than willing to meet up with us the next morning and wanted us to come stay at their house too! Such friendly people. They took us out (minus napping Sophie) to Pappas’ Bar-B-Q (pronounced “PAAP AS”, not papa’s) for lunch. When we saw them in Utah last summer, Texas BBQ was Willis’s chosen topic of conversation (mostly any kind of food and how it’s bigger and better in Texas) so we had to take him up on the offer.
After lunch they drove us around to brag, I mean show us all the cool things around Houston we had time to see. Dan was happy for the chance to get some more stories from Willis about Dan’s Grandpa. Dan’s been really interested in learning more about his Mom’s parents since he never met them (they died young) and enjoys talking with the few people who are around that knew them (just his mom and Willis).
As soon as we got back we hurried up to meet little Sydney!! Jenny and James live close to down town (and work out of town) while Jason and Nicole live North of town and Jason works in town! Silly. But they both have beautiful new homes, made me excited for the day (in the very distant future) when I can own a home of my own. I think I will be more of a suburb girl since I have older kids that will benefit from the bigger yard and safer neighborhoods. Although the convenience of living downtown will definitely be missed… anyway, back to the topic at hand, SYDNEY!!! Holy cow is she cute. I just wanted to kiss her little face off!
After Sydney and I got acquainted we ate dinner and the guys were ready to watch the BCS championship game… and the girls were ready to go shopping.
Dan: “You’re taking the kids right?”
Me: “Nope, you guys can watch them while we go shopping.”
Dan: “Uhhhhhh, we’ll be watching the game.”
Me: “I know you can do it.”
And then we left, with NO children! Thanks guys. Jenny, Nicole and I had so much fun shopping together, with some great laughs. Jenny and I both bought some finds from the clearance rack, I do love Kohl’s! Nicole was unsuccessful at this venture but did find something at the mall in a different shopping trip. I really enjoyed that short get-away. The girls were in good hands.
Friday we went out for Tex-Mex, I was most excited about this. I really like Mexican food and was disappointed that I didn’t get any Tex-Mex when we were there 2 summers ago. The restaurant was called Chuy’s and it was totally awesome! They have a thing for Elvis with a whole shrine for him and everything and it just so happened to be Elvis's birthday! So we got free birthday cake, Elvis masks, Elvis tattoos, and non-stop Elvis music!! I really liked the food, I had a chuychunga, and it was reasonably priced to boot!! So great. I wish you could see the ceiling in this photo, it's covered in hubcaps!
Plus I got to go change Sydney’s cute little diaper and pretend like she was my baby for a minute as all the waitresses ooohed and aahhhed over her. What can I say, I’m a fraud. I think my girls are cute as ever but they don’t get the attention like they did when they were newborns. I think people realize how brief that small baby time is and it needs to be appreciated!
We had a quiet afternoon at the Kendalls playing a card game called scum (I was president the whole time, it was pretty awesome). Truth is, we playing again a different day and I was scum or vice-scum the whole time, I’m all luck, no skill. Thanks for humoring me everyone and playing a game together.
Saturday morning we met at a mall North of Houston. Right inside the doors there was a double-decker carousel! $1 a ride, we couldn’t say no. James took some cute pictures for us.
Then it was off to the play area until the boys’ movie started. It was a really cool place, a huge castle with slides and bridges, basement and all sorts of stuff. Funny story about the play place… They had a small area made for toddlers but it was full of older kids anyway. It was below ground level, blue with little mounds so it kind of looked like water. Sophie laid in it and kept yelling, “Mommy, I’m getting baptized! Look Mom, I’m baptizing!!” So embarrassing, guess it shouldn’t have been but I felt pretty silly with all the weird looks I got as I tried to shush and distract her. Sophie asks about when she can get baptized and go inside the temple all the time, it’s different in public. :) Sorry no pictures of the newborns, they were safely tucked away and asleep.
We managed to shop a little with 4 kids while the guys watched Sherlock Holmes. I think we did pretty good! I was really enjoying all this girl time. Jenny and Nicole are a lot of fun.
We were tired! Everyone came back and had a nap at the Kendalls, no one was as cute at the babies.
Although Jason looked pretty cute with his blanket pulled up just like Nicole’s nursing cover. I don’t think Jason appreciated this picture.
After church Sunday morning, under direct orders from my mother I took some family photos of the Kendalls and the Quincys. Most of them are on James’ camera and on their way to me via DVD now, including the much anticipated cousin shot. I wish I had some to show you because it was so funny, as we were trying to get all 4 kids positioned, happy, not hurting each other at the same time, I think it was James who said, “I think your mother has requested something impossible!” I love to take pictures, these are kind of bland since they were inside. But that’s ok, the people are not bland!
The Quincy’s treated us to a delicious dinner and a little RockBand, that afternoon before we had to go back and pack our stuff. Thanks guys!
My girls sure loved seeing the babies, especially Tessa. As I have been editing pictures and editing this post Tessa smiles and points at the babies. She even says, “bub Dee,” for baby Dean, but she loves Sydney just as much, her name is just harder to say. :)
Thanks Jenny and James for letting us invade your privacy (quite literally, since Sophie slept in James’ closet,) and for drives to and from the airport. Thanks Jason and Nicole for sharing Sydney with us and letting us spend time at your beautiful home. We love you all!!
Anybody still reading?? Good job, your attention span is longer than mine, and you can read this plug of mine…
A small plug for visiting family individually:
I prefer “one-on-one” visits compared to our “mass visiting” home to Utah. Yes it is great to get the whole family together, and we will continue to do that. But every once in awhile I think it’s nice to spend time with a smaller group so you really get to “see” them more and focus. The same thing goes for when people come and see us here, I think we get more quality time. Anyway, I’m so glad we were able to go.
