End of September & Houston Trip...Oh MY!

So, mid September we were blessed with some beautiful weather.  Too bad it's super hot again. Come on weather!  Quit being bipolar.  It's October 14th and the high today is 98!  But, we took advantage of the pretty weather whilst it lasted.

We were silly and ate cookies when Momma wasn't looking.

ETMC had a Health Fair at our Church one Friday.  Brayden got to enjoy seeing the helicopter land right next to the Lighthouse.  He was super excited about it.

We were lucky enough to get to go visit our friends, Jess & Larry, in Houston towards the end of September.  We had an absolute blast!  We didn't get there till super late on Friday, but we made the most of our weekend.

We woke up Saturday morning and Larry got us all collates from the Kolache Factory.  It was delicious!  We went to the Houston Zoo on Saturday.  We got a blessing while standing in line.  A lady walked up to me after we'd been in line for about 15 minutes.  She said, "Excuse me, how many people do you have in your group?"  I told her, "Four and a baby."  She said, "Here have these!"  She handed me four park passes.  She must have purchased the season tickets and had guest passes that expired that day.  We were so excited and blessed by her!  We had lunch there, got to pet goats, and had lots of fun looking at all the different animals.  Brayden was well taken care of with all four of our attention on him, and he crashed as we walked out of the park.

After the zoo, we headed to Camping World to go dream about campers we would all one day own. The sales man asked Nick and I if he could talk numbers with us.  We said we were just dreaming, and his response was, "I make dreams happen."  Nick said, "Not today."  I don't think they would have taken an even trade for our pop-up for that Jayco Seneca we liked.  Ha!

After Camping World, we went shopping at the outlet mall close to Jess & Larry's house.  Our kid LOVES the Disney store, but I wouldn't expect anything less.  There was lots of "DUST!!" going on (translation: Dusty from Planes).  We shopped till we dropped then headed for sushi!  Nick & Larry went to get us Blue Bell, and we vegged out the house the rest of the evening.

Sunday morning, we all went to church.  Then we left from church to head straight to the Houston Astros game.  Let me tell you...game changer.  I never want to go to another baseball game without an air conditioned stadium!  It was heaven at 1:00pm!  Brayden LOVED the train that moved every time the Astros scored a run.  I felt sorry for Jess because he kept bouncing around in her lap.

Love our sweet friends!

AND, the most exciting thing happened while we were there.  Nick & I went to the concession stand to get lunch.  Brayden stayed behind with Jess & Larry.  As we were climbing the stairs, I did a double take.  I said, "That was Josh Lovelace!"  For those of you who don't know, Josh Lovelace plays piano for needtobreathe, my favorite band.  As we stood in line, I checked needtobreathe's tour schedule to see where they were that night.  They happened to be playing at the House of Blues in Houston.  I told Nick, "That was him!  Would it be weird for me to ask for a picture with him?!"  So, needless to say, I got a picture with him.  I walked up and said, "Excuse me, but are you Josh Lovelace?"  He responded (after swallowing the pretzel he was eating), "Yes, I am!" I said, "Oh, I knew it was you!  Y'all are my favorite band!  Would you mind taking a picture with me?"  He obliged most kindly.  I was rude and forgot to ask Nick if he wanted a picture, so we went back later for a family pic.  We had other Astros fans in the stand stop us and ask who he was.  Amazingly, none of them have heard of needtobreathe.  I do believe they've been living under a rock!  He was so kind and even talked with me on Instagram.  I had such a fan girl moment.  I think he thought it was cool too because I'm guessing not a lot of people recognize him without the rest of the band there.  He's not a front man.  The rest of the guys were staying at the hotel next to the stadium (I shamelessly asked), and they didn't join him.

After the game, Nick & Larry went to see where Larry worked while Jess, Brayden, & I headed to the restaurant to get ready for dinner.  We ate at Saltgrass, and it was scrumptious!

It was so weird to see coolers full of Blue Bell.  We brought two half gallons home with us.  We demolished the first one with in a week.  We're trying to make the last one last until this precious commodity is back in East Texas.

We headed back home on Monday morning.  The weekend was amazingly fun.  We can't wait to do it again!