Well, we stayed in Arkansas until yesterday, and then we drove to Houston to stay with Justin’s Mom and Dad. It’s strange to be here in such an empty house–Bridget and Brendan, Justin’s younger siblings, are at Harding (we helped Brendan move his few earthly possessions into Harbin last week).

Before coming down here, we visited my Granny, Pa, Dad, his wife Rhonda, Jerry (my dad’s longtime friend), my half-brother Oliver, his wife Meredith, their baby, my Aunt Robin, her partner Archie, my cousins Heather and Chuck, and his girlfriend Lori. It was a full house, and each one of us enjoyed the music, Granny’s comfort foods, and the baby. Anna and I conducted a Mary Kay skin care class for the ladies while the guys with guitars provided a few hours’ worth of music.

We also watched my granny’s tape of dad on “You Can Be a Star,” a Nashville-based, country-music counterpart of “Star Search” Dad got second place to this scary, over-reactive female singer. Blech. He was much better.

Anyway, now we’re in Houston and it’s a bazillion degrees. Last night we had one of Justin’s childhood favorites–Chicken a la King–for dinner. Today we went to Westbury twice (I am still amazed at how those kids have grown up since I met them 5 years ago) and Justin’s dad was our Sunday school teacher. For lunch we went to Jax’s grill, and my ridiculously humongous plate of penne pasta with tomato cream sauce, grilled chicken and mushrooms has fed me for three meals now (there’s more in the fridge, too!). After church, there was an ice cream social and I had way too much homemade ice cream (vanilla and peach!).

Erin and I are working on taking in a few of my summer dresses. I need to learn how to be a better seamstress so I can hem and alter proficiently. This evening I also reserved a hotel room for Justin and me in San Diego for our 5 year anniversary!

I was really looking forward to swimming while we’re here since the Baeders’ neighborhood has a pool, but apparently it’s closed during the week now because they’ve started school. : ( I guess I’ll just stay inside between the hours of 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. I plan to go running at 10 tonight. we’l see how that goes.

Random note: I love the smell of Surf laundry detergent–anyone else agree?