A Visit From Grandma and Grandpa

Instead of travelling for Spring Break, we had visitors! Brandon's great-aunt (who lives about 45 minutes away from us) was having a big birthday and so Brandon's folks were using it as an excuse to come visit us. And it was a good excuse for us to go do some touristy things we wouldn't normally do!

First, we went to NASA, which we had never done before.

So many pictures like this

We went to Uncle Buddy and Aunt Nancy's favorite gator place. 

Then we drove our cars over the ferry to go to Galveston. We've been to Galveston a few times before, but never by ferry, so this was fun.

All the aunties

In Galveston we checked out the shore and had some ice cream before calling it a day. 

And I can't believe these are all the pictures we have. But while the folks were in town we also had a bday party for Aunt Viv and later had everyone over at our house for Indian food (a first for at least some of them). It was so great to see everyone! Thanks for coming to visit!

CJ's First (and last) Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a very American holiday, at least when it comes to school celebrations. In the other countries we've lived, there isn't a big fuss made at school, and I am not one to make a big fuss about something like Valentine's Day. When we moved overseas, the kids would wake up to a note that said 'I love you' with some chocolate and that was about the extent of the Valentine's festivities. 

So it was confusing to CJ when her teachers at school started talking about Valentine's Day. The kids were required to make a Valentine's box and bring notes and treats for all the classmates. To CJ, this sounded like a lot of homework she was not excited about. I tried to explain that it was supposed to be fun--a party!--and even emailed her teachers to ask them to clarify the activity to her when my descriptions weren't convincing enough. Letting her choose the Valentine's Day cards and the treats from the store was helpful, but making the box was still a stressful project that took her days of work. 

The morning of Valentine's Day, she was still having mixed feelings about the whole thing when I dropped her off at school, but when I picked her up, it was clear she had had a great time! She had gobs of candy and toys that took her weeks to go through. She loved it. 

Too bad it was her last one!

San Antonio Road Trip

How do you turn a 3 1⁄2 hour drive into an 8 hour drive? See all the roadside attractions all the way! What kind of attractions? Well, the Bluebell ice cream factory to start. Given its proximity to Houston, I can't believe we haven't visited more often--in fact, I had forgotten we had even been here before!--but it was fantastic. I was hoping to see my all-time favorite flavor on offer, Spiced Pumpkin Pecan, at the factory shop since it wasn't released last year, but given it wasn't really the season for it, I can't be too surprised that it wasn't there. (Don't you worry, we all had our fair share of ice cream!)

And then, since we were in Brenham, we walked around Belle's Alley, read about Texas' Freedom Colonies, and saw the old cistern. And got pastries.

The rest of our stops were surprises for the kids. We had a quick stop to take our picture with the watermelon water tower, dodging fire ant mounds in order to get close to it. 

But the water tower couldn't compare with seeing--wait for it!--the original World's Largest Pecan! It was thoughtfully surrounded by pecan trees so we could snack on a few while we marveled. The kids were unimpressed by the watermelon water tower, but everyone agreed that this was worth the stop. 

As we drove to our next stop, Brandon asked the kids if they thought there could possibly be a bigger pecan than the one that we had just seen. No way, they said. So imagine their surprise when we arrived at the New World's Largest Pecan, only a 10-minute drive from the original.

After a stop for some authentic German food, we stopped again for some treats from Texas' oldest bakery. 

To end our road trip, we saw the World's Largest Cowboy Boots, unsatisfyingly located next to the freeway in the parking lot of a busy shopping mall.

But our trip did have an actual destination besides all of these fun side trips: San Antonio! We visited once when we lived here before, but none of us remembered it well and CJ wasn't even alive then, so it was definitely time for a re-do.

First we went to Government Canyon State Park to walk a trail and see dinosaur tracks. 

After a delicious lunch, we popped into the international grocery store next door where we found Polish caramels and their very last bag of the best flavor of Lays: West Indies Hot n' Sweet Chilli. This was our first time finding it outside of India, and it was a steal for only 99 cents.

The next morning we went to sacrament meeting at a local ward that was definitely on the smaller side, but with a lot of missionaries, and visitors.

Then we went downtown to the Alamo. I remember last time being kind of unimpressed, but maybe because the kids are older now? I dunno, I thought it was pretty cool this time. 

We had been to some of the missions before, but we hit them all up this time and even made a detour to see the oldest Spanish aqueducts in the US. 

On our way out of town, we took one last detour to the Natural Bridge Caverns to do the lantern tour through the cave. We love a cave tour!

All-in-all a fantastic trip!