Houston, Texas

We wanted to go on vacation with Jason's parents.  Linda has the summer off work and so we kept telling them to choose somewhere they wanted to go.  Alan thought Washington DC would be really fun to go see some of the sites.  So Jason spent his entire day at work mapping out hotel, subways, points of interest and etc.  We get up at 4:30am on Friday and out the door by 5:15am where we fly from St George to Salt Lake City. 

Crew's second time flying... he is such a natural he just sleeps the whole time! Yay!

 When we left St George the flight to DC still had over 20 open seats, when we landed in SLC the flight to DC was now oversold.  Another flight back east was oversold so they had to use our planned flight for overflow.  Well we were packed and ready to go on vacation, so we had to go somewhere.  We seriously went to the "departure" board at the airport and picked out a few destinations that may be fun.  We saw Houston departing in 25 minutes.  Jason pulled up the loads and it was open!  So we all literally ran to another gate at the airport and we all made it on!  Jason is calling Mallory on the airplane and she is helping us book a car rental for when we land.

2 1/2 hours later, we land in Houston Texas!  We have no idea what we are going to do but we have a rental car!  A vacation to us is more about the food than anything.  We just want to eat good food.  We wanted to try Texas Barbecue and some good Mexican food while we were down there.  As we were leaving the car rental we asked the employee for directions to JFK blvd(where a lot of hotels were) and some yummy Mexican food.  No joke her reply was, "To get to JFK blvd, take a Left, Right, Left, Right," and to get to a really good Mexican restaurant, Los Cucos take a Right, Left, Right, Left."  We about died laughing.  

Well we decided to find a hotel first.  We drove down JFK blvd and came across a Hampton Inn, and the rate was decent, and it included free breakfast so we were sold!!  The front desk gave us a list of suggestions on where to eat and what to do.  They highly recommended Mo's Barbecue so we went and had an amazing lunch!

This meal was only suppose to feed one person, but Jason and I shared it.  Look how huge it is.  This is our baked potato cut in half, with all the toppings butter, sour cream, bacon, chives, cheese.  Then ribs and beef brisket.  I can't even imagine eating all of this.  I was so stuffed with eating half!  It was really yummy though!

After lunch we hit up a few stores including the local Goodwill store which felt dirtier than the DI.  After some shopping we went back to the hotel for a power nap.  We were all dragging!

That evening we did a 45 minute drive down to Kemah Boardwalk.  This was one big carnival on a pier.  It was so fun and every Friday night in June and July they do fireworks.  

This is a TON of catfish that you can feed just off the pier... so gross!

This sign just cracked us up

Crew and I just watching the fireworks

Saturday morning we woke up and had our lovely free continental breakfast, got ready for the day and headed out to explore Houston!  We ended up going to Trader's Village, which is the largest flea market in America!  We totally scored and got some knock off sunglasses, shoes, and we found some high heel shoes for some of the nieces for only $5!  

Crew did so good driving all around Houston.  

After Traders Village we hit up a local Mexican restaurant, then found some more shopping!  We found some great buys from Marshall's.  Jason and I have a sickness...(Admitting is half the battle though)  Crew's closet is filled to the brim of clothes yet we keep buying him more clothes.  We found some darling suits for church for once he gets bigger.

Alan started to come down with some stomach flu or something.  He was feeling horrible so we went back to the hotel where Crew and I had a nap, Alan was dying, and Linda and Jason played on their ipads. 

Our son is such a poser (he gets that from his dad) we were just lying in bed and he was smiling up a storm and trying to talk to us.  I just want to eat him up he is so cute!!

 The next morning Jason woke up feeling horrible too.  It's no fun to travel sick.  Flying standby is always an experience.  The flights were super tight coming home.  We decided to try the 8am flight leaving Houston.  We didn't think we would make it because it was oversold.  However because it was a SkyWest flight, and we had enough no shows we all made it on!  Alan and Linda even got first class!  Coming home to St George was not so easy.  Jason and I barely made it on our flight to St George and Alan and Linda had to sit for 5 hours in the SLC airport and then fly to Cedar City where Jason went and picked them up.  It's all part of the story though for flying standby.