Much to share

So it's been nearly a month since my last post. I have some good reasons for that, but a lot to share with you all so let's get to it!

At the end of June, I had a nice visit down in Houston with my parents. Kevin had to work so I went alone to see the family and get some of my old things out of their house since they are selling it. It was originally going to be a say-goodbye-to-the-house-trip, but the sale fell through and the house is back on the market. I had a great time with them eating Mexican food, shopping with my mom, and seeing some extended family including my cousin, Alex, who has been living in Turkey for the last year as a missionary with Campus Crusade. She made us an authentic Turkish meal and shared some stories and pictures about her time there.

The following week Kevin and I left for our much anticipated vacation. We flew to Burbank and spent a few great days hanging out with Kevin's "Gram".


Gram, doing what she does best...cooking Italian food!

Gram and Kevin at lunch

Gram is going to be 91 next month and she is still so amazing. I think our favorite part of seeing her was hearing her stories of what she was like when she was younger and of her talking about Kevin's "Pop".

The weather in L.A. was pretty warm but still so much more comfortable than it has been here in DFW. We had 100+ temps for what seemed like forever, and the cool L.A. breeze was welcome. While we were there we also got to visit our good friends, Mark and Faleena and their two-week-old baby girl, Caitlin. She slept nearly the whole time we were there and finally starting waking up after I got to hold her for a bit. So cute!


So one last thing about our time in Burbank... Gram is really into making ceramics. She has been going to a ceramics class for years, and her house is filled with all kinds of ceramic doo-dads. She also sends us stuff for our house and garden all the time. So right next to her T.V. was this huge ceramic Siamese cat with really creepy eyes. We were teasing her about it and it became this big joke so we started taking pictures of it. Stupid I know, but very funny at the time.


Well that was about all for our time in Burbank. We saw some good fireworks from the street outside Gram's house and we got to spend a little time with Kevin's cousins, Frankie and Michael. So after 4 days with Gram, Michael drove us to Long Beach so we could catch our cruise ship and start our official vacation...I'm going to make another post for the cruise...