Merry Christmas!

Amazing Ashley Allen...

Our good friend Ashley visited us last week. We had a blast visiting and hanging out. Visitors always force us to actually go sightseeing, so we also squeezed a bit of that in. More on her visit on the next post, but we had a blast. As it always is, her amazing talent is demonstrated here. For my Texas friends, look her up (http://www.ashleyallenphoto.net)! As I said last year, and the year before that, anyone who can clean up this rough crew is pretty special...

Houston is done

Well, we closed out the Houston trip successfully. Sunday was a great time. It started early with Berryhill's meeting up with Gina and drinking a cold beer. For the record 9:30am Houston time is 3:30pm London time, so it was clearly beer-thirty. After a great visit with G-money, we went to the Texans game. Without question, it was one of the best games we have been to. Down to the wire, we stayed until the end, on feet, yelling and cheering. SO FUN!


Capitol Grill was the perfect ending. I do miss a good Texas steak!

Monday we were able to get our fangs cleaned at the (greatest ever) dentist. Then we tested our newly cleaned teeth on sushi at Fish. Of course overeating was in order since it would be our last meal in Houston. Again, Scott's frequent travels paid off and we flew back to London in first class - truly the best way to fly internationally.

A huge shout out to John Kim for his generosity in letting us camp at his house. We are so lucky to have such great friends and we miss them dearly. As great as London is, it is without our friends...


Honorable mention:
Scott's godson Braden who is now over 6 feet tall!


Braden's daddy Paul

We ran into the Barrow family leaving the game - such cute kids!

Houston for the weekend

Scott and I returned to Houston this weekend for a work function for his job. We are only in day 2 of 3, but so far we have had a very busy, fun time. Our friend John Kim has graciously provided the comfort of his (beautifully redecorated) home as our base.


Last night we went to the Firm's Christmas party. It was so fun seeing so many friends, most of whom I hadn't seen in over a year. Especially fun was seeing JP Smith, who is recovering from a burn. While the injury was a serious one and has caused a great deal of pain and even a week in the hospital, the fact that a grown man was cleaning a grill with gasoline provides me a little giggle. Boys. Young or old, they see no danger...

Some of the things I have realized being back:
Houston is hot even in December and even a couple of weeks prior to Christmas. Yesterday was 75 degrees. The air conditioner needs to be on in the house to sleep comfortably. Imagine what August will be like!

There are restaurants everywhere here. All guarantee to expand your waistline so that you fit in nicely with the rest of the Americans.

It is a strange sensation after living overseas for over a year to be able to hop into the car and actually know where you are going without turning on the GPS sat nav.

We have only lived in London for 6 months, but already, Scott and I found ourselves going to the wrong side of the car and even driving on the wrong side of the road.

It is simply amazing how cheap things are here. From real estate to meals to clothing, cheap cheap cheap! I... must... not... shop... anymore...

I didn't realize how much I missed college football until we watched a few minutes of it yesterday. It is intriguing how something so simple can be so entertaining.

And unfortunately three days is not long enough to see enough of our friends. But we have still a day and a half left so we will busily cram in as many visits as we can (between the Texans football game, miscellaneous health check ups, and a few cocktails).

I miss the kids (who are in London), but I cannot imagine dragging them on the 10.5 hour flight and adding their jet lag to mine. Without question, they will only make that trip when we move back.

Now, off to play with our dear friend G-money!