Happy Times

If you're paying attention, dear reader, you will notice I have taken my blog from myspace and transferred it to this superior site. I like this format and layout. I like how much customization I can put into this. Honestly, I just use myspace for blogging and random messages to friends. So, that's why I have so many posts in one day.

Anyway, what a BRILLIANT vacation we've had home to Houston! Buddy and I left Harlingen at 7am on Christmas morning to drive to Houston to surprise our respective families. We have spent the week at Buddy's parent's house, doing our usual whirlwind tour of the city and things we miss so dearly about living here. It was a great surprise for his mom and mine. Buddy's mom actually physically shook, she was so startled to see Buddy in her house after we'd just talked to her and she thought we were in Harlingen. My mother's reaction was very similar. She took a good 45 seconds before she got up to hug me because she just couldn't wrap her brain around what images were being presented to her eyes. I adore surprises like that!

When we tried to surprise Granny & Paw-Paw, the joke was on us! I phoned their house on Tuesday before we planned on the hour long trek to their house to play out our little joke. Their absence on a day not usually reserved for Granny to get her hair done made me think to call Richard & Linda. I'd JUST missed them as they had flown up to Al's ranch north of Dallas. It's a good thing I called first or we would have been REALLY confused! As it ended up, we joined up with uncle Richard & aunt Linda, my sister Mandy, my 2nd cousin Jan, her Twins and Granny & Paw-Paw for dinner at their house on Friday night. It was a great time!

As it says in my biography on the right, I'm a big city boy. Houston has a city population of 2.1 million with a metro area population of 5.3 million. There are 90 languages spoken frequently in Houston. There is a vast amount of culture and FOOD! We miss eating a large variety of food, so we've gorged ourselves on French, seafood, Italian, Vietnamese, a kosher deli, more seafood and (of course) Paw-Paw's dinners. We intentionally didn't eat any Mexican food all week. We get so tired of that living in the Valley. It was nice not to have any.

Houston also has a huge arts and entertainment scene. It has the 2nd largest number of seats in a theatre district in the US. It is one of only five US cities to have permanent professional resident companies of the major performing arts: opera, ballet, music and theatre. While we couldn't go on any excursions those places, we took ourselves into a couple of artistic adventures. Wednesday we planned a trip to the MFAH to see the "Dogs in Art" Exhibit. We knew about it because it was cosponsored by Starbucks, who is Buddy's employer. The exhibit is a chronicle of the most famous and important pieces of art centered around dogs from the Renaissance through modern day. I learned a lot while we were there and the pieces themselves were cute, breathtaking, fascinating and thought-provoking all at the same time.

While we were there we also saw that the MFAH (Museum of Fine Arts - Houston) will be the only American museum to hold the French Impressionist collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art while they undergo renovation. The exhibit will be on display February through May before it leaps the pond to Berlin.

Our other museum excursion was unplanned. We were on our way to the Galleria to go to the Movado store to have my watch examined when we saw a sign for the Smith Family Gem Vault at the HMNS (Houston Museum of Natural Science). Well, I like jewelry and Buddy likes ANYTHING blinky and shiny, so we just did a random exit off 59 on Greenbriar, drove down Rice Boulevard (which is art in and of itself) and took a wander through the museum. We saw pieces in there that blew my mind. Besides having several pieces that were once part of the Russian crown jewels (ca. 1790s), there were modern pieces as well. I'm talking 300 carat yellow sapphires set in platinum and flanked with white and GREEN diamonds. The collection also contains the world's largest cut piece of aquamarine with a total weight of 10,385 carats. It was truly breathtaking.

Today we took the dogs to a dog park in town off Allen Parkway. Both dogs got to run and play with other dogs, chase sticks, etc. Chloe spent a lot of time chasing other dogs toys and drinking their water. She's selfish like that ... she gets it from Buddy. *g* Then we took them to Memorial Park and did one lap around, which was three miles. All four of us were tired! After we finished, Scoot couldn't even get in the car. She was soooo tired! She crawled up her front legs inside and Buddy picked her back legs up to get in. She's gonna sleep well tonight!

We're leaving to go back to the Valley tomorrow morning. I want to get home early, get laundry done, get settled and mentally prepare myself for going back to work. Maybe sometime this week I'll find out something about my job. I certainly hope so.