Texas for the Holidays!

I went to Texas for Christmas and pretty much the rest of the year. I got to hang out with Chris and his family. I took my camera to intentionally take pictures and being the horrible 'take pictures of everything' person I am, I realized I had not gotten a single picture until the fourth day in Texas. So I grabbed the camera and we headed out to the Aquarium in Houston and I got a few photos and a few after...

Okay, so I was able to take a photo of Chris and I before we took off to Texas, but otherwise all the others are from 4 days into the trip...

 

Downtown Houston

 

Chris and I in front of the pretty neat water fountain near the entrance of the aquarium

They had an exhibit of the Louisiana Bayou and we came across this crazy thing, and then it surprised us and snatched a poor turtle and of course I had to take a picture because that's some cool stuff!

Chris checking out the really cool coral reefs

Pretty!

Chris liked the jungle theme

At first we were like "how pretty, a glitter fish!" and then realized they were piranhas!

We were in awe over the lion fish

We were confused because we were at an aquarium, but oh my that white tiger is a beauty!

Chris giving the tiger a high five, me looking a little frightened but happy

We paid 5 extra dollars to see this silly 360 degree shark tank, we thought it'd be cooler, but this Saw shark was pretty neat!

So I had to take a picture of this because if you look closely you'll understand why. HAHA! And they paint this on kids?!

Another view of Downtown Houston

Chris's family took us to this AMAZING Tex-Mex restaurant called Pappasito's.  Best fajitas I've ever had. Anyway, Chris and I went back again for lunch and instead of taking pictures of the food, I took a picture of this beautiful senorita which reminded me of a pin-up girl which I am obsessed with, but I'll save that one for another post

Last time Chris and I went to Texas we were able to go out to lunch on our own and I just wanted to take a picture of him. Again, we were able to go out to lunch on our own, so to live on the tradition I wanted to take another picture. I know he's smiling on the inside :)

In honor of being together, Chris's mom and dad took us all out to a really nice dinner at a really nice steak house called Del Frisco's. We all dressed up and had a nice, delicious dinner. I wanted a picture of us dressed up looking nice, but again didn't take any pictures during dinner. I guess I was enjoying myself too much to think about bringing out the camera.

Last day in Texas we all went to BBQ of course. It was absolutely delicious, but I think I was more excited because it was called Rudy's and was a silent homage to my dad who resides in Arkansas. I took a picture and sent it to him right away. I'm also glad the food was AMAZING because I'd be bummed if it was called Rudy's and was only mediocre.

Dinner in the airport, before we knew we'd be staying in Phoenix for another day.

Yes, I am weird. Hot soup!

So after sitting on the plane for about 30 minutes on New Years Eve (we should have taken off 30 minutes prior) the pilot informed us that our plane had been cancelled for the night due to extremely heavy fog in Orange County and that the airline would give us a voucher for a motel room. Great. Just what Chris and I had planned. We spent another 45 minutes trying to get a flight the next morning on New Years Day, and things weren't looking too good....like we weren't going to leave Arizona till 6PM that next day not looking too good. Finally with a few strings pulled here and there the lady was able to book an 8AM flight to Long Beach, but again we were a bit nervous wondering how the fog went. After we sorted out our next day flight, we went down to get transported  by shuttle to our swanky motel. We waited about 20 minutes before it came, saw it and climbed in. I got a glimpse of what would happen if the Apocalypse really does come this year, because people were in full force like "I've been waiting an hour for this shuttle, I better get in there!" and "You should let us who have children on there FIRST!" which we gladly would have but realized it would not benefit them in the slightest because there were two of us and five of them, and the shuttle was at capacity. Finally we made it to the "close right by the airport motel but really was about 15 minutes from the airport".  There was only one concierge working and that poor guy had no idea that a million people were going to bombard him with rooms for the night. Since there was only one guy working, and we were tired and desperately needed a drink we, yes, were a little deviant and poured ourselves a beer from the tap and later poured a pitcher, because dammit it was New Years and all we wanted was a drink! We finally got up to our motel room, and this picture is of Chris, toasting our unexpected celebration of New Years. We hated the situation we were in, but were so thankful we were at least with each other.

Toasting to the New Year!

We had to wake up at the crack of dawn to get our tickets for our morning flight and go through security to ensure we'd be on. that. plane. So we were able to watch the sunrise in Phoenix. As much as I would have liked still sleeping, it was pretty to see something I usually miss.

We took off! And this picture was taken up above right before landing. Those last two days were strenuous, but we were together and the trip overall was pleasant and it was really nice to reconnect with his family!