Houston - Day 1

Houston
June 8-14

We had Jon’s Birthday party on Saturday night – hardly something we could miss! So we went, and tried to leave early, which ended up being about 11:00.
Of course there were things to do once we got home – a couple more items to pack, some toys to put away, and, of course, the babysitters mess to clean up after.
But, that’s another story.
Anyway, our flights were scheduled to leave pretty early in the morning. Matt’s and Asher’s not until 8:30, but Tessa and I were departing at 6:10.
We didn’t get to bed until about 1:00am, and both Matt and I slept through the alarm at 4:30. We woke up at 5:00 and were on the road at 5:35. We got to the airport at 5:55, and the computer refused to let Tess and I check in for our flight.
It put us on standby for a 7:26 flight to Denver, with just a 33 minute layover there before another standby flight to Houston.
Now that our flights were only an hour apart we were able to meet up in the terminal. Matt stayed with the kids while I bought a couple of books in the airport store and some breakfast for myself and Tessa. Without him I would have just sat in the waiting area the whole time – my bags were far to heavy and awkward to take anywhere that wasn’t completely necessary.
Because of the new charges for additional baggage I decided to carryon everything except our two suitcases. So I was carrying my carry on (Becki’s large Louis Vuiton monogram bag – absolutely adorable and I couldn’t resist taking it – but it has a long, thin leather strap to carry it over your shoulder with, and the thing cut into me in the most uncomfortable way…) my laptop bag, Tessa’s carseat and Tessa’s carry on bag – a darling Hannah Montana bag that she picked out from Target to take on the trip.
Tessa was an angel on the first flight.
When we got to Denver we had to switch gates for our connection. We were in the same terminal, but on opposite ends of the airport. I think we took 6 or 7 moving sidewalks to get there, it was so far away. My 150 pounds of luggage were seriously weighing me down and I was stressing about getting to the gate in time, plus getting on the flight! On one moving sidewalk I tossed my hair to the side to try to find Tessa and induced the most severe “stroke” I’ve ever had in my life! I took another couple steps, automatically, after it happened – then slowed to a stop and just stood there. Thank goodness we were on a moving sidewalk, lol! It took me a couple of minutes to recover, and even after that I could feel where it hit for another day or two. Kind of scary!
We got to the gate about a minute before boarding and checked in with the agent, who got us the last 2 seats on the plane. She was very sweet and helpful – a welcome change from most airport personnel! She said “I’m not sure I’ll be able to seat you together…” and I said “I’m not worried about it. We weren’t together on the last flight, either, and someone switched us. She’s still little enough that no one wants to sit next to her.” And she said “Aw! I’d sit next to her!” and I said “yes, you would – for about 2 minutes!”
LOL
We boarded immediately and Tessa was great all the way to Houston, again. We sat next to a woman who was on her way home. She had two boys, a 5 and 7 year old, and she was very cute with Tessa – colored with her and let her talk her ear off.

Matt and Asher had arrived before us (they were on a direct flight from Delta) and had collected there bags. We met them in the hallway on the way to baggage and Matt helped me with all that carry on weight – thank God!

After collecting our luggage and getting the rental car we headed out to the hotel. The drive through Houston was uneventful, despite the several warnings we’d had about the traffic! It was no worse than Salt Lake, and it never was through the whole trip.

The hotel was a big disappointment. It was old, outdated and dirty looking. We decided to stay there for the night, but check out in the morning. Then we decided on a restaurant for dinner – Matt wanted to try Pappadeaux, one of his dad’s favorite places, and headed out. The address was on the same street as our hotel, so we didn’t mapquest it for directions. Big mistake! We drove around for about an hour, trying to find the place. We even stopped and asked a gas station attendant, who had no idea how to help us. We later found out that the restaurant was just one street down from that gas station.
We ended up at a Pappadeaux that was miles from our hotel, and miles from the original location we’d been trying to find. It’s a chain, thank goodness, and there are several in the area.

After dinner we stopped at a grocery store for milk for Asher, then back to the hotel to bath the kids, shower and get to bed.
That night we found a hotel online – a Hyatt Suites – that looked good. Then we settled in to watch a movie on HBO about the 2000 presidential vote. I fell asleep about halfway through, but Matt watched the whole thing. It was really interesting – he filled me in on the rest the next morning. We were 20 when that all happened – old enough to know what was going on, obviously, but not really old enough to care about every detail. It was obviously a familiar story – one we knew the outcome of! – but still very intriguing.