Mom1

My mom and Rebecca flew in on Tuesday August 6, only 3 days after we had moved into our house. It was a good incentive to get a lot done before they came, and then it was nice to have a babysitter to accomplish other house projects. From the moment they arrived Rebecca wanted to know where the closest swimming pool was.

So Tuesday evening we went to a pool, only to have them close 5 minutes later. They would have kicked us out anyway because we didn't have pool tags. The next day following a morning of work we went to our neighborhood pool, only to find it had closed for the season except for a few more Saturdays.

On Thursday we went to Kingwood to do the final cleaning of our apartment. I assured Beckie that the apartment pool was always open. After working all morning and afternoon we were ready to swim. Once again the pool was closed for some maintenance repairs. Beckie was a bit frustrated, but we were able to go swimming at a Kingwood community pool.

Saturday, we finally found a pool! We borrowed some pool tags from our friends and went swimming. We got some pretty good pictures.

Friday August 9th
Samantha's half birthday

Rebecca was looking for some fun things to do while she was here. Although our Six Flags plan didn't work out, we still took her to some fun and exciting places. Friday we went to the Houston's Children Museum. You can see the pictures on the next page!

On Saturday, Beckie babysat while the adults went shopping. When you have a new house there is lot of stuff to buy. Later that evening we went to the Galleria, which is a popular up-scale mall. This mall has all of your ritzy stores that will sell tops and dresses for ridiculous prices. The thing that we like about the mall is the ice skating rink in the middle of the lower level, and the CheeseCake Factory. The CheeseCake Factory has every kind of cheesecake imaginable. My favorite is the Peanut Butter Fudge Ripple but this last time I tried the Snickers Double Chocolate Crunch.

The Water Wall is supposed to be the #1 romantic spot in Houston. We took Angela there in May only to be disappointed because it was turned off. Here is a picture of Rebecca standing in front of part of the wall. The best way to describe it is a wall 20 feet high shaped like the letter "C" with water falling down both sides. When you stand in the middle there is water falling all around you and it starts to play tricks on your mind. I tried walking looking at the wall and I got really dizzy. Sammi freaked out. It was cool.

Sunday after church we drove by the Houston Temple and let Rebecca and Samantha walk around the grounds. Samantha knows the first verse to "I love to see the Temple" and starts singing it every time we drive by. Unfortunately, she also sings it when we drive by any other building with a spire.

The temple is about 10 minutes away from our house, which is one reason we chose our neighborhood. Lots of other members chose our neighborhood for the same reason, so instead of "Northpointe East" everyone calls it "Mormon Pointe East."

Monday was our last chance to go to the beach before my mom and Rebecca flew out on Tuesday morning. Our beach is just over an hour drive southeast. It looked like it was going to rain when we got there, but it was a beautiful day. The sun was covered most of the day, so it wasn't too hot. Jacob took a good nap on the beach in his shade while Samantha played in the sand. Rebecca met some girls her age and they played together in the water.

My mom was a bit disappointed with the waves. I guess nothing can beat California where she grew up. You could do a little body surfing, but there were no real surfers on these waves. Around five we hit the showers and got cleaned up. We started home, not knowing how long it would take to navigate through rush-hour traffic. If we had only known what would happen next, we never would have left . . .

As we passed through downtown Houston, we heard a really loud noise. It sounded like a garbage truck falling off of the Empire State Building. Since we were on a very long extended bridge I thought it might just be extraordinary road noise, which is not uncommon in a Honda. At least the old ones. The new 2003 model has a brand new state-of-the-art noise dampening system that . . . I digress. The noise was persistent so I started slowing down. I looked over at my mom, who was mouthing a silent scream.

The moment I felt the car swerving I knew we had a problem. My suspicion was confirmed when I looked in the rearview mirror and saw rubber flying off in all directions behind our car. I don't know how, but with some kind of superhuman strength and focus, I began a controlled slide, dodging cars right and left, until I landed safely in the emergency lane and came to a stop. Innocent bystanders will tell you that there were angels carrying the car out of danger's way.

We carefully stepped out of the car, and what I saw sickened and horrified me. The right rear tire was shredded like a pork burrito from a cheap mexican restaurant. I have never had a flat tire (let alone a blow out) so I was pretty excited to show off my tire changing skills. We got to work but got stopped short when we couldn't figure out how to get the jack out; it was bolted in the side of the trunk. A friendly guy stopped to lend his assistance, and he couldn't figure out how to remove the jack either! Incidentally, the next day Scott removed the jack in 3 seconds without so much as a puzzled look. But the friendly cowboy (everyone in Texas is a cowboy) used his own jack and proceeded to change the tire. He was done so fast we barely had time to say thank you! It is nice to know that there are Christ-like people everywhere you go. We were thankful to the stranger, but I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get a chance to change the tire.