You asked, and I delivered!

Ok, well one of you asked, but I’m still delivering!

‘This better be coming soon to a blog near me’ were the parting words from the lovely Miss Em this past weekend, and because I don’t like to disappoint, I decided to take some time this morning to tell you about the last week of fun we’ve enjoyed here in sunny Houston.  I only wish I was more witty and sharp with my blog titles, maybe I should take a poll before I post my entries!

Last week started with some TLC and recovery, both Rowan and I got pretty badly burnt out in our gym’s swimming pool and spent the days after suffering (and scratching!)

My ‘BFF’ Amber, told me that I should try a ‘tea bath’ in order to ease the itching, and, I have to say, it worked instantly and it worked like a charm!  My other ‘bff’ Lindsay delivered some Aveeno Oatmeal sachets to me, which were a great help to Rowan who was being driven nutty with the itching!

Tuesday we had lunch with the ladies (quite a lot of them actually), Sharon (an SSA ex-Houston gal, who currently lives in Norway) was back in town for a few days and Rowan had the biggest salad any of us had ever seen!

For those of you in the Houston area, Pappasitos isn’t my favourite Mexican, the staff aren’t the friendliest and when you ask them for something they kind of stare at you for a minute like, ‘what’d she just ask me for?’, I also think the food is overpriced for what you get.  However, I’m not averse to going once in a while, I just think there are better Mexican restaurants out there!

Thursday, a group of SSA ladies (and Rowan) channeled their inner artist and painted some moonlit cherry blossoms at Sugar Land’s Painting with a Twist, on Hwy 6.

The studio manager, Bren, who was also our teacher – and she was great! She was accommodating of our large group and she was a great instructor.  You can bring your own food and drinks (they have paper plates, cups, ice etc as well as ALL of the art supplies and aprons that you need) and, if you have a group of more than ten people, you get to chose what picture you paint as well!

It was my second time painting here at PWAT and I’m already trying to decide what my next masterpiece will be.

Thursday night we did dinner with Lindsay and Duane & Friday we did ComedySportz with them – however, I seem to have had a total brain-fart and not taken a single picture, needless to say it was giggle-tastic as always and Linds & D are great craic to hang out with!

Saturday was a busy day for our merry expat bunch, we kick-started the day with a birthday lunch for Emily, Magz baked the most adorable butterfly cake and the theme for the pot-luck lunch was, ‘salad’ because it’s Emily’s favourite food, so there were all kinds of salads, pasta salad, cous cous salad, bulgar wheat salad, potato salad and green leaf salad all to accompany a tasty BBQ.

Our evening was spent at the new BBVA Compass Stadium in downtown Houston, for a game of international rugby, the USA -v- Italy.

Of the people we know here in Houston, Magz, Emily, Frances, Crystal, Sally, Annette and I, all went with our families to the game.  It truly was an international event – I think because it’s a very European game, the expats were out in force.

We did stop and get a group picture with all of us in it, outside the arena, however, the kind passer-by who took the photo, didn’t *actually* take the photo, which is a shame cause we didn’t take any inside the arena, figuring that we’d gotten the ‘main’ one, before we were all hot and sweatified.  This is the closest we got – and, as you can see, no one thought to holler to Col, Rowan and I who are sauntering off in the distance, oblivious – though, you get the idea, lots of fun (and sweat) was had by all!

Sunday was a sporting affair, ok, I guess the entire weekend was, and, once again Italy handed out a spanking (in the football to England).  Also, the normally ‘same old’ Valencia Grand Prix was probably the best we’ve seen all year, though not very lucky for our Mclaren boys.

The rest of our weekend, was spent prepping for a Hurricane (which, thankfully, seems to have changed direction and won’t be coming our way).  That said, however, we probably (read: definitely) should have done hurricane prep three years ago when we first moved to Houston, can you believe, that until Sunday, we didn’t own a torch?

We already have a pantry full of tinned foods and snacks, so we picked up potatoes (they can be done on our charcoal bbq), Charcoal (for the aforementioned BBQ), paper plates (for if you have no water or electricity), bottled water, extra loo roll, battery powered fan, torches, spare battery, room light (so you don’t have to sit by torch-light, it also has a night-light function and can run for five days straight on one set of batteries), glow-stick type lights and a new wheel-y cooler that isn’t a particularly excellent addition to the hurricane kit, but it’s something we’ve been after for a while now and Col got a great deal on it!

Hurricane season started on June 1st, and it’s very rare to have had four tropical storms before July 1st, this may be a bad year.  You really should be prepared, and, at long last, we are well on our way to being organised…for those of you in the ‘Gulf’ area, y’all should take a look at what you have, and what you need to pick up – just in case!