Houston, Tx

Hello All,

This post has been a long time coming...we were in Texas for two weeks and I just didn't have everything I needed at hand to post some pictures like I wanted to. We are home and I am back at my computer, so I will fill you in our activities of the last two weeks.

Gloria wanted to go to Joe and Jamie's in Houston for a 1 or 2 month stay. She has always driven herself down there - by herself - with her birds and her dog - straight through - taking her about 20 hours. This time, Dave and I offered to take her down in Dave's van and then we would go back and get her when she was ready to come home.

We started with a side trip to Indianapolis to see Dave and Jodie's Emma peform in "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe." She trains with YAT (Young Actor's Theatre) in Indy and she was given the award for the "young actor of the year" with their program. She proved to us that she is a great performer and we had such a good time spending the evening there.

Gloria, Dan and wife Tami, Jodie, Myself, Amy, Dave, and EMMA



 

We left Indy about 9 pm and hit the road for Houston.

This is the van, packed up with the three large bird cages and the dog cage. Gloria held "Doggie" all the way there. The trip took us 17 hours. It was cold outside so we didn't even stop long for bathroom or meal breaks as we didn't want to leave the birds for too long of a time in a cold van. The birds were covered up and were pretty quiet all the way, except for the occasional squawking outburst of "Goodnight, Angel!" or "Mom!" or "Dog-gie!" or any number of things the birds say.

We arrived at Joe and Jamie's and enjoyed two nice days and nights with them. It was a great opportunity to spend some time with them and getting to know Dean and Benjie. Dean is a senior and Ben (as he prefers to be called) is in 7th grade.

Then we left Gloria there, and Dave and I headed to find a place on a beach for a much-needed vacation for us. He has worked the last 10 years for IDOT and could (would) not get away in the winter, in case it snowed and he would have snow plow duty. So this year, his first winter of retirement, he promised me some beach time. We found a very nice little condo in Port Aransas, TX. We stayed there for 6 nights and had the good luck of being there on the warmest week of the winter so far, and one day it was stated on the news that we were in the warmest place in the USA for that day.







We drove down to Padre Island National Seashore on the last day, when it was a bit windy and overcast.

After our week away, we returned to Joe and Jamie's in Houston and found that Gloria was ready to return home with us. So we stayed one more night, and then packed things up and headed for home. Again, it was a 17 hour trip, we had good roads, and all the animals survived the long drive.

A couple of random photos of "Baby" and "Doggie."

On our last evening, Jamie's friends cooked us a "real" Mexican dinner. We had a good time spending the evening with them.

So this was a long post.

I, for one, will set a goal of doing more posts in 2013!