After baking some ornaments we headed to the light rail (the new one) to go downtown. This train is longer that the other line but has a much nicer view. Each station has a different stained glass bench.

As soon as we got to the 16th street mall we headed to Starbucks to warm up our insides with hot chocolate. They had some wreaths up and bows on the poles and a herd of buffalo.

We went by the museum to see if they had any grab bags, no. The Capitol looked nice with a yard of white in front. It was rather icy on some of the streets.

When we got home I thought I’d be smart (or lazy) and only shovel the sidewalks and 2 strips on the driveway for the car. But, since it got down to 0 and then the sun came out the driveway is an icy mess. Maybe I should get a metal shovel, this plastic one isn’t cutting it. I think Douglas co. forgot our main street too, when you come down the hill you have to stop way up so you don’t slide past the turn. Our street looks like a snow village, slush and ice packed on the streets still. The only thing I’m complaining about is that this snow isn’t wet enough to make a snowman. Here’s the park today.

3 inches and a light snow, sledding today!
Joel tried out his new snowboard, after he used the ski poles he got all the way down.

Hannah was not happy because no one would go down with her, so she was stuck eating snow.

And James got to sled a bit too, it was a long walk up that hill though.

We have about 4-5 inches now and it’s still a light snow out there. We’re getting out in a little bit to go to the wings place, yummy!

We went to the mall and sat by the big fireplace. A lot of car wrecks tonight, Denver didn’t get the plows rolling in time. I thought our area looked better, that’s because Douglas co. got the plows out at 5 pm. Tsk, tsk Denver ought to know better.

We got the day started by saying a quick good-bye to my Mom and Grandma Carberry, since they were the closest ones to us.

After finishing packing we loaded up the car and moved to Beverly, um…Advantage car rental to return the car. We skipped into Hobby airport on schedule and checked in the bags. Security was a little tighter than at DIA, I had my camera inspected thoroughly and Grace’s breathing machine raised some eyebrows, but it was all cleared. (Maybe that crap about the Imams on the planes the other day bumped up the security, good.)
We had time for a nice lunch in the terminal, bunny and his friend brown dog ate too.

Bethany decided she was going to twist her loose tooth all the way around, it was so gross. I told her it looked like hillbilly teeth. So, I made her twist it back and it was about to fall out, so I twisted it back and pop! It landed in her mouth and I was saying, “Ah, don’t swallow it!” (She swallowed a previous tooth, not that it would kill you, but still.) So here’s her new smile:

We got to pre-board (thank you Hannah) and the plane was pretty empty so James and Joel got a row to themselves. Before we even took off Hannah and Grace were asleep (1 dose of Tylenol 1 hour before take-off, that’s the trick!)

So I had a nice calm ride.

Bethany fell asleep about 30 minutes before we landed. We were early again (15 min, 20 minutes on the way to Houston), so the stewardess said “Tell all your friends we’re early, ‘cuz we know you tell ‘em when we’re late!” She also sang a song “Crazy, crazy for flying those other guys…”

Grace woke up in an alternate universe and said, ”When are we taking off.” We tried to convince her she was asleep the whole flight, but as we got out in the terminal it went like this:
Me, “Grace we’re in Denver, you slept the whole flight.”
G, “I wasn’t asleep.”
M, “Yes, you were.”
G, “No, we’re in Houston.”
M, “Then why is it so cold?”
That had her stumped for a while. We got in the car and said:
M, “How can we be in our car if we’re in Houston? Did it just magically appear there?”
Again, she was thinking, well maybe it is magic. Then it started to snow.
G, “Hey, it’s snowing, we are in Denver, but I didn’t go to sleep!”

We went by the $1 store and grabbed some decorations for the tree and went home to a scared cat and one fat cat (that had thrown up twice.) It was cold in the house, the fish was not happy. It took awhile to get the temp. up to 60, but we did it by sitting in blankets and watching the fire. The kids haphazardly put ornaments on the tree. For every 1 they put up Hannah was taking 2 down, but eventually they all got one there, it looks nice against the snow.

We’ve decided to cut the Houston trip short and come back home tomorrow. This way we’ll still be on ‘vacation’ and we get to enjoy the snow coming in Tues./Wed. We’ve seen just about everybody and it’s been nice, but now we get to do a Golden Christmas on Friday and we would have missed that if we were here. And I’m sure our cats are missing us (hah!)

We went to church with Grandma Carberry and then popped into the orange show.

It’s a little known pile of art devoted to the orange and healthy eating. The guy who made it thought it would be the 8th wonder of the world, well it isn’t. But it has inspired a pop culture and helps the art car parade. The kids like it because of the steps and stairs and twisits and turns. Once I took a bunch of HS’ers here and we had an art clinic. Mr. McKissack used to drive oranges during the depression from Fl to Atlanta and they helped him survive that time. He also infused the art with sayings from his book How to live to be 100 (he died at age 78.) Here’s some pics:

Then we went to see my Dad and Step-mom. Can you see the family Buell traits in my Dad, me and Joel?

Also in the pic, Matthew, Isabel, and Kristlyn. Hannah thought the dog bed was very comfy:

Galveston has gone chic. They have a wavy new side on the bridge and wavy lights and new signs on the bridge. I thought it was very nice looking, some people said it made them seasick, pleeze.

We got to the beach and there was no one there. We got in the water and there were only 6 idiots in the water, oh, that was us! It wasn’t that cold, after all it was 80 degrees outside.

Joel and Grace were picking up whelk shells and I let them hold them for about a minute before I said, “Ya know, there are hermit crabs in those.” Grace screamed and dropped her shell, “Ahhh, Herman crabs!” and ran for the water.

Hannah was intrigued with the sand and water.

She preferred to wade in a little stream that was warmer than the bay.

We saw a guy riding above the waves with a fan strapped to his back and hanging from a parachute; I’m sure they rented those somewhere.

Bethany (who’s always saying how cold she is) was the main one in the water, go figure.

We found that if we walked out quite a ways it got shallower. The waves were actually not crashing on the shore, but further out in the water. Also we saw the mass of crabs waiting for dusk in the sand. I remember well the night we thought we’d stroll out onto the beach and enjoy a moonlight walk, hah! As soon as we hit the sand millions of tiny crabs went everywhere. If you know James and spiders, then you know James and crabs, they each have 6 or 8 legs and look like they belong to the same family. After more frolicking we ate at McD’s and then headed for the ferry.

I know what you’re thinking, didn’t they ride the ferry on Tuesday. Well, yes, but that was the Lynchburg ferry and this is the Galveston ferry.

On this one there are more than 8 cars and you can get out while the boat is crossing the bay. Our only mistake was driving on and not walking on. I thought, the traffic is so light over here there probably isn’t much on the other side. Wrong. Drive, drive, drive, past the lighthouse and finally we got in line.

So the whole trip was 2 hours, mostly waiting for the ferry to pick us up from the other side. (Yes you could drive home from the other side, but from there, which is practically in LA, it’s a loooong ride home.) We didn’t see any dolphins in the bay, but some brown pelicans were sitting on the water.

We also saw a giant boat called the Nordberg (We said it must be O.J.’s boat – from that Leslie Nielsen movie)

Finally back on the Galveston side we headed home to rest before going to Kemah……more later.

It’s later! Kemah was okay, we ate at Joe’s Crap shack, could have done without that. Here’s the boardwalk:

We rode the ferris wheel:

and here’s the sight from the top of that:

Let’s see, today we went to eat Vietnamese for breakfast. It’s not that we don’t have bun thit nun chai gio in Denver; it’s just that it’s not good. We have Mexican food in Denver, but not Tex-Mex, it’s just not the same. So while we’re here I plan to eat pate thit and pho tai and bo chen until I pop.
After picking up the kids form my Mom’s we headed out to Pointblank, TX to see my grandparents. That’s in east Texas past Huntsville, toward Dodge and Onalaska and close to Livingston. We had a good visit with them and my Uncle and Aunt, also my cousins who have grown a foot since I saw them last. So we talked and ate and James worked on my Grandma’s computer (the hazard of being a computer guru.) Hannah had fun pulling things out of drawers and walking around with them. She had Opa’s pipe at one point and Oma’s clippers the next. Of course she fell asleep on the way home and I had to let her run around for a while before bed.

Today we started by going to the parade. We haven’t been since Joel was 2, and now I remember why. It was so hot (but this is a different kind of hot when you add humidity) there were a bizillion people and they were all pushing us around. Finally we got near the front and got to see some floats and bands and Pancho Claus. That’s a guy with a team of low-riders who goes around at Christmas delivering toys. I think he used to have motorcycles, but this year it was low-riders just like in the movie Cars; they were pumping up on one side and doing wheelies.

Grace had a conniption fit when HEBuddy went by.

“It’s HEBuddy!” she screamed. Jeez, you’d think we hadn’t seen the character in a year and a half. (HEBuddy is the character for HEB grocery stores down here. HEBuddy has milk and a steak amongst others things sticking out of his grocery bag head. We have HEB slippers, watches, shirts, games and hats from our last stint in Houston.)

After the parade we went to the Pho place and snacked on Chi goiu and café sua da, yum. Then we headed over to my Mom’s for Thanksgiving dinner.
It was turkey and ham, sweet potatoes, squash, oyster dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy and like 5 pies. Grandma Carberry joined us and we ate and talked an ate some more.

Ohhhh, no dinner tonight! The kids had begged to spend the night, so I palmed off 3 of them (no need to exasperate Hannah and Grandma by trying to get her to sleep there too), and went on my merry way. We ended the day by watching Spiderman 2 at the hotel, not original I know.
So on Thanksgiving I’m:
Thankful for my husband who works so hard so I can be a -
Homemaker and Homeschooler, I’m not good at anything else,
And I wouldn’t want to be!
Now that we have a house that‘s ours I’m thankful for it and the Landlord for selling it to us.
Kitties and birds and fish that may throw –up on my floors and make noise, but cuddle with me too!
Family, of course, my extended and my close, my friends and my buddies, I love them all.
Under a patio on my bench I can see the Rocky Mountains and a million stars, that is so cool.
Light of the world, who came down into darkness and opened my eyes to make me see, You are my most greatest reason for Thanksgiving!

We went to the wall of water today. It’s part sculpture and part cooling off machine. It was about 77 today and the spray off the walls felt good.

Hannah was amazed at the water coming down and kept running up to the edge and then looking up. It’s very dizzy standing there and then looking up at the sheets of water coming down.

If you stand just right you feel like you’re at the top of a roller coaster falling down, cool.

After that I took the kids to the Arboretum. I forgot about the blood-sucking mosquitoes. As soon as we got outside they descended. Hannah didn’t know what they were and she couldn’t keep them off her head. I swear it was like open season on the Carberry’s. Grace was shaking her head so hard at one point she lost her glasses. Bethany used her highly developed Brownie skills to guide us through the trails to the other end of the loop.

Joel raced ahead to get out of the sucking proximity of the wretched bugs. And then, in supreme irony, as we got inside the visitor center there was a basket of free bug spray for us to use (if we had seen it, which we obviously didn’t!) After looking at the puzzles and fish we ran to the car and enveloped ourselves in metal security from the menacing mosquitoes. It’s not that I forgot there are mosquitoes here, or maybe I did…..since we don’t have them in Highlands Ranch!

For dinner we met my Uncle Kenneth at Amazon grill. It’s a Cuban restaurant. They have fried plantains instead of chips and tasty pesto dipping sauce. The kids like the fact that the popcorn chicken comes in a paper cone in a metal holder. But, they were really just waiting for dessert, smores at the table (or like Buzz Lightyear says “Delicious hot schmose”) Of course what the kids like even more than making smores at the table is lighting various objects at the table on fire. I think they would have stopped, but I found that the plantain could burn to a nice orange point that I could wave in the air. So, James did the adult thing and put out the fire. Then the kids got up and danced to the sounds of the live steel drum players. Hannah is the only member of our family gifted with the ability to clap to a beat, so she was clapping away and doing this funny arm-waving thing. Grace and Bethany were doing ballet to the music, and Joel was playing his video game. We’re so white bread when we clap or dance. We’re pathetic in church; personally I can’t clap and sing at the same time. So it’s funny to see us trying to clap and dance to steel drum music; sorry but I don’t have pictures of that.

-Or where we learn some facts about Texas history.

We went to the San Jacinto monument today. We saw the Texas Forever movie and finally took the kids to the top of the monument. I haven’t been up there in a ‘coons age (or since they had bars on the windows.) Now they have a/c (thank goodness), direction symbols over the windows, a kiosk about the monument site and glass windows. Of course now you can’t throw pennies out the windows, but that’s probably a good thing. We could see the port and river below, but where are the mountains? That’s weird.

In the movie we learned a few facts we didn’t know, Moses Austin was Stephen Austin’s father (that makes sense, they’re both Austin’s) He died, so it was Stephen who brought the 300 colonists to Tejas to settle it. The Mexican government asked that these settlers do 2 things for their 400 acres: become Mexican citizens and become Roman Catholics. The settlers should’ve seen that number 1 was a problem; you shouldn’t give up your American citizenship for land!

Now for the history lesson: Soon it was a problem, when Santa Anna came rolling though bent on ridding Tejas of every settler. So Gen. Sam Houston took up arms; of course the Alamo fell and Santa Anna’s under General murdered all survivors at Goliad, so the Texian army was pretty pissed as they moved toward Washington on the Brazos. The Texians cut off the ferry at Lynchburg (which we finally took across the river for the first time) and set up camp at San Jacinto. With cries of “Remember the Alamo” they overtook the Mexican army and within 20 minutes won the battle. Thus, Tejas became the Republic of Texas with the signing of a treaty and concession from Santa Anna (who tried to sneak out, but was saluted by his men and then brought before Sam Houston.) There’s your Texas history lesson for today! Anyway after that we went to the reflection pond and walked around. (By the way the Texas monument is taller than the Washington one, just because Texans think everything here should be bigger)

We went to my Mom’s house afterwards to visit. She saw us in Oct., but my step-Dad hadn’t seen the kids since Memorial Day. Hannah was very huggy on him, which thrilled him to no end. The kids were trying to get to spend the night that night, but I told them to wait a few days so Gramps wouldn’t have to go tot work after having them there for the night.
Here’s the ferry ride. Now I know why it takes 40 mintues in the morning. They have 2 ferries and they each hold 8-10 cars. The trip across the river takes about 5 minutes, so not even enough time to get out of the car. On the upside if the ferry tipped we could just swim to shore!