Back from Texas!

We spent the past three weeks with family and friends in Texas. The first week was in Houston with Scott and Angie- Scott (Elder Briggs) was the missionary that baptized me back in 2000. Derek was able to do some work for them such as building a riser for stadium seating and starting a secret playhouse under the stairs. We also were able to peruse the Houston scene - we ended up going to the fine arts museum, the children's museum, the museum of natural science, the aquarium, the zoo, the space center, and to the beach in Galveston. We were able to see my friends Zeina and Alan, who were my calculus study group at UT Austin, and their new baby Jonah. Also, Angie decided to have her baby Keller 3 weeks early while we were there. After Houston, we went to visit my Aunt Lou and Uncle Ray in Austin and went to the Salt Lick with them (one of TX's premier BBQ restaurants). We saw the old German town of Fredericksburg and climbed Enchanted Rock with Bindi (her first hike). I almost forgot the blue bell ice cream factory in Brenham, TX, and we ate Krispy Kreme with my old roommate Lindsey in Austin. We're kind of obsessed with Krispy Kreme since they closed down all the Krispy Kremes in our area. Anyway, after that we went down to see my dad in San Antonio. We found a really awesome Mexican restuarant with him called Taqueria Datapoint. We went back to Houston and picked up my mom from the airport (she had gone to visit her family in Singapore)and took her home to Longview. She watched Bindi for a few days for us while we went and enjoyed Dallas. In Dallas we went to Six Flags, Hurricane Harbor, saw Toy Story 3, and went to the temple. It made up for a lot of dates we had missed this past year. In Longview, we went to my favorite restuarant the Butcher Shop. It was supposed to be a mini-high school reunion, but only my friends Tiffany and TJ showed up. We saw them again the next day at Bindi's first birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's. Their two kids James and Jade were there along with Bryan and Maria's two kids (Bryan was my childhood friend) Sean and Natalie. Jade actually had the same due date as Bindi but was born two weeks later, so it was a joint birthday party. Yesterday we left from the Dallas airport and came back home. But tomorrow we'll be making the big move to Sacramento and I start school on Tues. Vacation is over!