My friend Shasta and I gave our husbands tickets to the NCAA Final Four games for Christmas. This year the games were in Houston.
Had to take a picture of Travis in front of the Planters Peanut vehicle. We also saw the Oscar Meyer Wiener vehicle. You know that hot dog in a bun car that totes around from city to city....
Jeff was in charge of the camera for the games. He didn't get one single picture of the players in action. Figures.
He and Travis went to the first two games and then Shasta and I went to the final one with them.
While the guys were at the first two games, Shasta and I went to this gigantic mall. We were there for hours and only saw half of it. Now I have to say that we did see a movie in that time and get a pedicure, but still, it was massive!
Funny story about our pedicure. We went into one of those nail places that are in every mall. We sat down to get out feet and toes done. Our feet and toes only.......... or so we thought. They start to do our pedicures and other ladies kept coming up saying things like, "You get eyebrows waxed." It was a statement, not a question. We would say no. They would say again, "You get eyebrows waxed!" We'd say no again and so on until we both ended up getting our eyebrows waxed. Then they said, "You get hands and nails done." Again, it was a statement, not a question. And we said no. "YOU GET your hands and nails done!" Same thing over and over until we both ended up getting our nails done too. They put my hands in a hot oil treatment (keep in mind that they are still working on our feet this whole time) and then they go to put Shasta's hands in hot oil. She says, "Oh my wedding ring is stuck on. It won't come off so I can't put my hand in the oil." They say, "Okay!" and plunk her hand in the oil anyway. Shasta looked at me with a look that said, "Are you kidding me?" We thought they could speak English but apparently the only language they were fluent in was Vietnamese. Then the lady starts saying to Shasta, "I wax you lip." Shasta went through the same bantering with her. No, she would say and the lady would say, "Yes! I wax you lip!" Finally Shasta just had to get stern and say NO! Then this little Vietnamese girl comes up to me and asks if she can see my tattoos. I tell her that I don't have any tattoo's and she looked at my like I had just sprouted wings. "Well when are you gonna get one????" she asks. I tell her that I'm not going to get one and she simply cannot conceive of it. She then proceeds to tell me that she has a tattoo. I said, "honey, how old are you?" She says seven. SEVEN! I told her to show it to me because I thought she was full of it. She then told me that the doctors at Texas Children's Hospital told her that she was too young to have one so they covered it up for her. She said it was of a dragon and proceeded to tell me exactly how a tattoo is given. I then ask, "Where is your mother?????" She points to the lady doing my pedicure, who has seemed oblivious to our conversation. I asked her mom something and the little girl says, "She don't speak no English, she only speak Vietnamese." No kidding, I figured that out when I told her she was hurting my feet and she just kept at it until 3 of my toes were bleeding. In the end the girl confessed to just be teasing us about the tattoos, thank goodness. Needless to say it was quite an interesting, and expensive trip by the time we were through at the nail salon. And Shasta is still picking wax out of her ring.
On Sunday we decided to take a little drive down to the George Bush Library. We got in a little car accident on the way. This poor little Chinese family hit into us.............. that is to say that they hit into us AFTER we ran a red light. This was their car.
And here is the damage to our rental car. There is seriously something to be said about driving around a big gas guzzling car.
The way their streets are set up is confusing. Their light rail system runs down the center of the streets and the train stations are in the middle of the road blocking your view and when you want to make a left turn you have to drive on the train tracks. There is also a completely separate light for the left turn. We found all this out AFTER our wreck. I don't know if you can tell from the picture but it's a little confusing. I guess there have been hundreds of wrecks, literally hundreds, because of how confusing it is. The police don't even come for them because there are so many. But the passenger of the Chinese family was really upset and in shock, so the police and ambulance and a firetruck all came to check her out. In the end, no one was hurt and no one was issued a ticket. After the tow truck hauled off the Honda, we hopped in our car and we went on our way.
Because of the long delay at the accident, we didn't have much time to spend at the George Bush Library. It was really neat though.
They had his car that he used to ride in.
There were all kinds of photos and clothing and memorabilia.
They had his personal boat that they would take fishing and all kinds of things from the war. They had Manuel Noriega's mug shot and the hand cuffs that were used to extradite him to the States. There was a body target of President Bush full of bullet holes that the enemy used to target practice with. There were a lot of his personal photos and other personal things from Camp David and such places on display
This is an exact replica of the Oval Office. It was the same dementions and set up with the photos in the same order and everything. Sadly my pictures aren't great because we couldn't use a flash in the Library at all but it was really neat to see.
On Monday we decided to go to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"Houston, we have a problem..." Travis decided once we got there that he didn't want to see it after all. He was afraid that it was more focused toward kids. So we left.
Then he got R E A L L Y hyper! He honked and laughed at people all the way back to the hotel. He was making me laugh so hard!
This was a really fun trip! I loved Houston! The games were fun and the restaurants and sightseeing were awesome!
