Monday, August 8, 2011

Trip to see Blair

Last Monday - Wednesday I was in Houston, Texas visiting my good friend Blair! She is getting married this fall and sadly I can't make it :-( but the happy reason I can't make it is her wedding date is November 19th... and my DUE date is November 19th! Probably not a good idea for me to be traveling 20 hours away when little baby boy is due to arrive.

So instead I decided to head to Houston in almost the hottest days of the year! HAHA I wasn't planning it that way, it just kinda turned out that way. In May I was saying "I need to come see you" in June I was still saying "okay, I really need to figure out when I'm going to come see you" I wanted to come before she went back to school (she's a teacher) which is next week. So the first week of August was the winner!

Monday morning Kyle dropped me off nice and early! Unfortunately there was some technical errors with Frontier airlines check in process and the line was VERY long!!!! She gave me a 'priorty' stamp and I was able to get in the first class line for security, which was also a VERY long line!!! After the hustle and bustle of line waiting and panic feelings of missing my flight, I was safely seated on my airplane and headed to Denver, Colorado.
D1 sky view

D1 over Colorado

We actually were late leaving Minneapolis, but not because of me, but because of about 10 other passengers stuck in the lines. So I was again panicking as we landed in Denver hoping to catch my layover, as my next plane was only leaving 30 minutes after we were 'suppose' to land.

Here we are landing, you can see the mountains there in the background
D1 rockies from the sky

D1 landing in denver

Luckily, I stepped off my plane and crossed the terminal aisle to board my next plane. Nice and smooth. Only problem was I was starving and had planned to pick up a snack in the airport. Instead I had to spend $3 on a small bag of trail mix on the plane. Hey a pregnant lady has got to eat! I also played the pregnancy card, by asking for milk on both trips. They did have milk, it wasn't on the complimentary beverage list, but they had to go get it from another area. I was surprised they didn't give me more grief instead just a "it will be a little bit" probably hoping I would say no biggie... but I wanted MILK! lol.

I met Blair and her fiance Zach at the Houston airport!!!! Since we were on the south side of Houston anyway we decided to spend day one going to the beach in Galveston. We drove there and first stopped at Fisherman's Wharf to grab some yummy lunch.
D1 fishermans wharf

This was right outside the window where we sat:
D1 boat

We had some great fish tacos! I was HUNGRY! :-) And oh my goodness was it hot!! You know that scene in the movie New in Town, where Renee Zellweger steps out of the airport in Minneapolis in the middle of winter and is SHOCKED by the temperature. Well that was me, just the opposite from cold!! lol After lunch we walked the short block of Galveston to do a little sight seeing
D1 street of galveston

Then Zach drove me around alongside the shoreline giving the 'car tour', then we landed at Stewart Beach. We got changed into our suits and attempted to get their new umbrella/tent/shelter in place. Boy was it windy!!! That thing was a PITA to get set up! lol. Zach even managed to bend the first stake:
D1 broken tent anchor

But alas, we got it standing, with just a little help from the Playmate cooler :-)
D1 setting up the upbrella

It was so nice at the beach!! After getting in the water (which was the first thing I did once the umbrella was free standing) the heat really was bearable.
D1 galvaston beach

We relaxed for a while, went out in the waves for a while and just had a good time hanging out!
D1 blair daisy faces

I even watched our neighbors feed (and get attacked) by seagulls, lol.
D1 seagulls

They live just north of Houston, so it was about an hour or so drive back to their house. But we did go through Houston so I got to see the downtown area
D1 Houston skyline

They have a dome too!!!

That evening, I got the house tour and we headed out for dinner at a local (about 20 minutes away) BBQ place. We met up with a couple of their friends, who are actually from Minnesota!! They spent the day driving back to Houston from MN where they were all summer. A 20 hour drive, CRAZY people! :-)

The next day we went for breakfast at their nearby Kolache Bakery
D2 Kolache 3

A Kolache is basically a roll of dough filled with goodies. You can get them any sort of way you like. Since it's was breakfast I opted for the sausage, egg, & cheese filled one.
D2 Kolache 1 D2 Kolache 2

So this was Tuesday, we stopped at Starbucks on the way back to the house. Hung out for a bit, talked wedding, talked baby, talked general life. It was good getting to visit with Blair again. Oh and played with the dogs, which I can't believe I didn't get a picture of!!!

Then in the afternoon, we headed over to her mom's house, about 20-30 minutes away. Blair showed me her gorgeous wedding gown, the super cute bridesmaids dress, her shoes, and the grand tour of her mom's house. I can't wait to see pictures from her wedding, Blair is going to look like a princess!!! I'm super sad I can't make it, but like I said it's for a happy reason :-)

After that we headed down the street to a nail salon. The one thing I wanted to treat Blair to was pedi's and mani's while I was there. AHHH it was so relaxing! I hadn't had a pedicure since my wedding and I was way overdue! I almost felt like the guys in dumb N dumber, she had to work real hard on my feet to get them pretty, but she did a great job!
D2 pedicure

We had Mexican for dinner that night.

The next morning we had to hit Chick-fil-a on the way to the airport because it's my fav and we don't have them here in Minnesota. They dropped me off and we said our goodbyes :-( short but sweet visit.

After the panic rush at the airport on my way there I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time. Luckily I did, the security line was rather long and the panic I felt was on many faces as I wanted in line and checked up on emails. Happy that I was there early. I had another layover in Denver, a little longer this time. I was able to get lunch, give my mom a call and sit down for a bit. My boarding pass said I was suppose to be at Gate A38... but it said Indianapolis was departing at 2:55. I was wondering how they were going to get a 3:09 Minneapolis plane to depart at the same gate in such short time. When it became 2:30 and I started to think "my plane should be boarding now, maybe I should double check the gate with their board". Of course the gate had changed to A28, so I rushed through the terminal trying to locate it. After walking ALL around terminal A I found that it was only a few gates the other direction from where I was (pregnancy brain) and I got in line and boarded. Everyone was already boarded, but I wasn't the last. We waited about 10 minutes for 4 other passengers that were coming off a different plane that arrived late.

Once I was in my seat, relaxing, we were off!
D3 puffy clouds going home

I made it home about 6:20ish, Kyle picked me up and even greeted me with a bouquet of flowers :-) isn't he sweet!!! We headed to pick up this toy chest/bookcase I had found on craigslist and grabbed a bit to eat, before heading home.
It was nice to be home, even though I wasn't gone that long. Harpo of course missed me like crazy!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

love the beach pics - looks like fun & relaxing, you even got to see a tall ship ! thanks for sharing

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