Last Friday, I picked Caroline up from school a little early and we hit the open road to Houston. Well, first we stopped for a haircut and iced sugar cookies. But not at the same place. Although how awesome would that be to get your hair cut at a place that serves delicious iced cookies?
After Caroline got her hair cut and had acquired a box of sugar cookies for the road, we headed out on I-10 to Houston. It’s the roadway equivalent to watching paint dry. I knew we were in trouble about fifteen minutes into the three hour trip when Caroline started in with the whole “How much longer?” routine.
I’ll tell you how much longer. Long enough that Mama may stop in Schulenberg, Texas and put you on a Trailways bus.
Oh, you know I would never actually do that. I would totally let her go Greyhound.
It didn’t help matters that the portable DVD player decided to start acting wonky and shutting itself off. I was particularly irritated because I’d made a special trip to the Disney House of Crack prior to the trip to buy “Bolt” on DVD for a little in-car entertainment. It was a complete media fail.
It’s probably how the Ingalls family felt when they crossed the frontier in search of a prairie where they could build a little house.
I had to resort to the car game of my childhood, the Alphabet game. However, it proved a little difficult because cows grazing in pastures rarely hold up any type of signage.
Anyway, we finally arrived in Houston and checked in at the Summerfield Suites, otherwise known as the hotel for royalty. I hear it’s where Queen Elizabeth is staying next time she’s in the U.S. because she loves herself a good complimentary breakfast and a kitchenette with a mini-fridge. It reminds her of spending the summer at Balmoral Castle.
After a few jumps back and forth between the beds, we loaded back up in the car to meet some friends for dinner at a place called Lupey Tortilla. I had never heard of Lupey or her tortilla, but after experiencing it for myself I will tell you that Lupey doesn’t play around.
The tortillas are bigger than the human head.
In fact, the tortillas are bigger than Beth Moore’s hair. Look how I know.
That is a seriously anointed tortilla.
Caroline and I got to eat dinner with Amanda, Beth, and Annabeth (she doesn’t have her own blog yet) and just had the best time.
I will forever regret that I didn’t take the time to put on some lipstick before we took this picture. Between the Houston humidity and my apparent lack of makeup, I don’t know that I’ve ever looked worse. I should’ve followed Amanda’s lead and avoided the camera.
It was a great time, even though there were a few times that I felt like I was doing the “Chris Farley Show” with Beth.
“Remember that time you wrote that Bible study about Esther and she was a queen? Yeah, that was awesome.”
“Remember that time you talked about King David’s life? Did you come up with that? Oh, it’s in the Bible? Awesome.”
Idiot.
The highlight of the night (other than the fact that I’m pretty sure Z.Z. Top was sitting behind us) was when we walked out to the car and Beth told us she had something to show Caroline. She ran to her car and, about a minute later, I see a puppet pop up from behind a car. It was an Esther puppet that someone sent Beth.
Caroline adored the Esther puppet. She thought it was the greatest thing she’d ever seen, especially when Beth showed her how it could give hugs.
I think she was trying to open her eyes as wide as Esther’s in that picture. Not an easy task when you’re a human and competing with a puppet who has no biological need to blink.
Caroline and I went back to Amanda’s house for a while and visited. I always love spending time with Amanda because she is just so sweet and funny. We got to hold little Annabeth and it made my ovaries hurt more than a little.
Doesn’t Caroline look sweet holding that baby? (Wait, P! Come back! At least finish reading the post!)
But for Caroline, the best was yet to come. Amanda had a little gift for her.
Sea Monkeys.
And not just any sea monkeys, but sea monkeys that come with a friendship locket so you can wear them around your neck.
That is the gift that keeps on giving. At least until someone forgets to put the locket back on right and spills sea monkeys all over Mama’s rug.
Here’s hoping that scenario doesn’t play out for the sake of the sea monkeys and me.
Eventually we said goodbye to Esther the puppet, Amanda, and Annabeth, and headed back to our hotel that was made “for royalty!” to jump on the beds a few more times.
Too bad Queen Esther couldn’t come with us. She would have fit right in.