351 - Missed a few...

Haay :) My daughter is here! I've missed her so much! Of course, it was nice to not take care of someone for a couple of weeks, but I'm so happy she's here now. Something was missing without her here. And Biddy is far happier with Chelsea here. I'm sure Bids wants James here, but that won't be for awhile.

Since Thursday:

Friday i went to work, had a bunch of meetings did a bunch of work, and came home to clean up so that things would be pretty and sparkly for when Chels got here.

We drove out to Hobby airport, which is about 20 - 15 minutes away, I left early because I know I get lost all the time (Which I did a little bit, but not too badly). We didn't wait long, but I gotta say, Hobby is not an 'up to date' airport. I like it better because it's so close (25 min opposed to 45 min) but its sort of like going back in time. The waiting area is sort of a corner of the airport with some seats shoved in it. No monitors, so no clue which flights are coming in. It looks as if they've tried to retrofit all the security stuff into the airport, so it's all a jumble of security equipment. When you get off the plane, Southwest airlines doesn't have a bunch of baggage claim belts, just two, and you have to wait until you see a number show up over one of them, maybe your stuff is there. Maybe it isn't. heh.

Unfortunately one of Chelsea's bags wasn't. I wouldn't have stressed too much, but apparently her father told her to put all her meds in her checked baggage rather than carry on. argh. Of course the one they lost is the one with the meds. I know that you get the bags back pretty quickly, but it did sorta freak the kiddo out. I filled out the stuff and asked them to put a rush on it because of meds.

We left and of course Hobby is not in a nice pretty area, so poor Chelsea's first view of Houston is the bad section of South Houston. heh. Then it started raining like a MF'er. We're on I-45 with psychotic rain, and all I want is get off the road... so I take an exit figuring we'll navigate through the city rather than the Interstate. Unfortunately, the exit I take is the exit for I-10, with no damn way to get off! OH.. and there was road work going on, so it was a parking lot. grr.

We finally found a place that pointed towards "downtown", well I may not know a ton of places in Houston, but I do know downtown, so I got myself there, got to point out my office to kiddo, then made my way to Randall's to pick up something for dinner (I was taking kiddo out, but she wanted to get to her house and see her kittens, so we put off the whole 'out to eat' thing til Sunday.

Chels was super happy to be here, Biddy and all the cats were happy to see her. She seems to love her room (although I'm sure she's having some issues and feels scared right now, which is only natural... lord knows I'm having the same issues!) We ate, she ran around looking through the house. I was so happy that she liked the place :)

Saturday:

Saturday was fun. We had to wait around a bit for the bag that they finally found in Orlando, that kinda miffed me, but it got here around 1pm and the fact that we got it back made me happy. heh. We went to Randall's again to do some food shopping, Target, Ikea... we were pretty much done after that. When we got home Ray was sleeping. He decided he needed a nap. Chels and I worked on her room for quite awhile, moved things around and made it more "Chelsea-ized." We were supposed to go out to eat, but he woke up at 10, and even though the places around here are open late, we were tired. We ate and went to bed.

Sunday:

Today was really good. We went out to the Aquarium, which was way fun. That's not really Ray's thing, so it was just the Chelster and I. We went up in a huge ferris wheel that really gives you a great view of the city. We went on a train ride that takes you through a HUGE shark tank. It was pretty cool. There was some big saw tooth shark thing that ended up laying right on the top of the tunnel over Chels and I. We liked that. When we were done there we took a drive down Main street to the museum district (which is SO pretty) then up Montrose. Chels asked if we could see Westheimer (super cool shopping district that leads up to the Galleria) and back home.

We sat around for a bit, then went to Firken and Phoenix English pub. Very cool. Houston has been named number one as far as restaurant's, and for the most part they're all ultra urban and chic... but we really wanted something a bit more homey and comfortable. We really liked this place. Had great food, the waitress was simply adorable, and it wasn't all that costly (they make a kick ass Grasshopper too!)

We came home and are now slacking. Love the slacking!!

I'll get back to actually writing daily tomorrow (hopefully!) I have to go to UPS to pick up some final packages that we had Chels send. I'm looking forward to that... some of them are my clothes! yay!

PS. Odd Texas Observations:
People are nice here. Not nice like in NH, nice like ... genuinely nice. Everyone. From the convenience store to the big stores. It's unsettling. I need a 'dial a grouch' hot line to feel more at home.