Well I told you all that this might happen. Sure enough, the day Mal arrived, I was in no way worried about my blog. Sorry :(. But I am back now. I thought I'd spend tonight recapping this fantastic weekend.
FRIDAY. Friday was great. I worked extra hours earlier in the week, so I was able to take off around 1 pm. I had never gone to George Bush Intercontinental before, so I wanted to make sure I beat rush hour traffic and learned my way there. I got to the airport in about an hour or so. By the time I walked in, it was about 2:30. Mal's plane was supposed to arrive around 7:30, so I just chilled in the car, slept, read some of my EGM's until she arrived. I was SO excited about seeing her. Seeing her as she walked out of the terminal was a great feeling. Unfortunately, I had little knowledge of what was ahead for both of us.
We went down to get her baggage, and it just seemed like we saw the same luggage over and over and over. We were getting kinda worried. We must have been there for at least 15 minutes. I was just about to go up to the desk to report a missing suitcase when all of a sudden, Mal saw hers pop through on the conveyor belt. Whew. Crisis 1 was averted.
We then headed back to the part of Houston where I live, Seabrook. I knew how to get back, but Mal and I just kept talking(mainly my talking) and catching up, having a great time. Before I knew it, well....we...uhm...were kinda lost. I had no idea where on the beltway we were. So we got off at an exit, called Jason for some map support, and got nowhere fast. Mal then suggested we just drive to a gas station and get a map of Houston. Brilliant. We did that, found out where we were, and headed back home. We got back just in time to eat some Mexican food. We thought the place was closed when we got there, so we kinda hesitated at the door. We walked back to the jeep, and the manager came out and told us they were still open. She kinda followed us all the way to the jeep....it was kinda creepy. Anyway, we ate, and it was good. Mal even discovered her new favorite mexican food: fajitas. That was quite a historic moment. After dinner, we headed back home, and crashed within minutes.
SATURDAY. Well I promised Mal I'd fix her breakfast Saturday, and I dont go back on a promise. We got up around mid morning, and I got to work. I fixed eggs, toast, and bacon. I even included OJ and Milk. I'll show the pic of the breakfast later. I was quite impressed. Jason joined us, and we ate everything. Mal and I then headed to the mall; we weren't really intent on buying anything, but we figured we should check it out. I ended up buyin some new swimming turnks(very cool...they're red...I'll post a pic later), some shirts, and a niiiice jacket from Old Navy. I'll take a pic of that as well. It's a great all weather jacket, and it's NOT black, haha. Mal and I got back, grabbed some Subway, and headed for Galveston.
Galveston was cool. The hotel was sa-wanky! It was tight. They even had valet parking. Right as we arrived, they treated us like royalty. We headed in, checked in our room, and had all our luggage brought up to the room. The room we got was on the VIP Penthouse level of the hotel. And the room was Deluxe size, with a great ocean view. I'll show those pics as well. It was all very posh.
Mal and I got settled in, and we got dressed for our night on the town. I thought the restaruant I had picked was rather nice, but we found out I kinda misjudged it. It was really kinda casual, but there were some there that were wearing sportcoats, nice shirts, etc. Mal and I were slightly overdressed, but we looked DAMN good, if I dont say so myself. Especially Mal. She wore this new dress I had never seen before. Wow. It looked amazing on her. I ordered the grilled salmon with a coconut-almond shell, covered with some curry sauce. Mal ordered this half chicken, and it was literally a HALF chicken. The thing was HUGE. We ate until we were stuffed, and then we ate dessert, haha.
We got back to the hotel and ordered Finding Neverland. Neither of us had seen it. Not a bad movie. Kinda sad, though. Not really a feel-good movie for a vacation.
This is my attempt at creating a picture inside my post. Cooooool.
SUNDAY. Lemme point out that the weather theme for this trip was "cloudy and rainy." Every freakin day it was like that. Maybe not heavy rain, but a little light drizzle here and there. VERY frustrating, especially being on a beach resort. We made the most of it, however. The VIP floor levels serve breakfast in the floor lobby, so we dined on those treats Sunday morning. We then figured we try and see if anything was possible outside, despite the weather. We went to check out Moody Gardens, this trifecta of pyramids in Galveston. The only main draw is that one of them is an aquarium, but Mal lives near one of the best, and we both didn't really feel like going. We then tried to see if Putt Putt golf was open. Nnnerp. No luck there. We drove over to the historic downtown area where we ate dinner Saturday night, parked the car, and walked around. We went into a few stores here and there, but we didn't really see much. We drove back near the beach area and dined at this Greek restaurant. Stupidly, I ordered spaghetti when I knew good and well that we would be eating at an Italian restaurant that evening. Oh well. It was good. We came back to the hotel and took a nap. When we woke up, we still had alot of time to kill before the evening dinner. We decided to be goofy, and we walked out onto one of the rock piers on the beach. It was kinda nasty weather, so the waves were really kickin. We got some funny shots. I'll post them later too, don't worry.
That night we ate at Mario's Restaurant, a quaint little Italian eatery. I had pizza(shocker) and Mal tried the spaghetti. We were quite satisfied(especially with the bread).
We returned to our hotel and found our room completely cleaned and serviced. The maids had even laid out our robes for us. They must have been phsycic, for Mal and I were planning on checking out the heated pool. It was kinda neat, and would've been even nicer had everyone else not shown up right after us, haha. We tried the hot tub, as well as the slide and heated pool. It was pretty fun. Definitely a break from the ordinary.
MONDAY. Monday we checked out of the hotel. We had to drive by NASA first to pick up Mal's visitor badge for Tuesday; after that, we headed towards the Alamo in San Antonio. Over half of the drive was freakin thunder, lightning, and rain. It was SOOO annoying. Thankfully, an hour or so before San Antonio, the weather turned really nice. We got to SA, and we immediately headed for Trinity University, where our good friend from high school, Rachel, is attending. It was very cool to see her. I couldn't remember the last time we had talked. We picked Rach up from her dorm, and we went to lunch. We ate at this SUPER cheap Mexican restaurant, yet the food was incredible. I had a fluffy taco, and it was devine. Mallory once again confirmed that fajitas were her new thang.
Then came the Alamo.....uhm, not as exciting as I thought it would be. Oh well. We did the River Walk afterwards, which was kinda fun. All 3 of us spent that time just catching up, sharing stories, and just talking.
Rachel then gave us an abbreivated tour of TU. Very nice campus, I must say. After the tour, we had to leave. We headed back to Houston.
Much to my surprise, Mal's Valentine's Day gift had arrived. That's right: VALENTINE'S DAY. Yeh, it's a long story, but the guy basically wrote down the wrong address. So he had to resend it once it was returned to him. What was the gift you ask? It was Monopoly, Wizard of Oz style. We waited to play it on tuesday night, though.
TUESDAY. I had to work some on Tuesday, but I returned to the apartment to pick her up and bring her to NASA. Trey, my boss, gave us a fantastic tour of Mission Control, the Space Station Training Facility, and the pressure chambers. I showed Mal around Building 4N, where I work. I also introduced her to some of my co-workers. The whole day at NASA was great fun. We got some good pics....again, I'll show them soon.
We chilled for a little bit after that. We took a short nap, and we were again in the mood for putt putt golf. We went to the place, and it was packed with every kid and his daddy. So we nixed that plan. We returned to my apartment, and kinda chilled until...........
We went out to eat Ethiopian in downtown Houston. I wanted to surprise Mal with a limousine ride, but she had deciphered all the clues and knew that it was coming :(. Oh well, I tried playing it off, and it was great fun still. We had the COOLEST driver, Gerard. He's a 57 year old black man that SO reminded me of Ray Charles. Haha, he was great. We went to eat Ethiopian, yet when we got to the restaurant....NO ONE WAS THERE. I mean, it was open, but we were the ONLY customers. Granted it was a tuesday night, but com'on. It was empty. Nobody there. The service was STILL bad, despite the lack of traffic there. Nevertheless, the food was decent enough. We then got Gerard to take us to the new Hilton hotel in DOWNTOWN Houston. They have a cafe there. We ordered Pecan Pie for dessert, and had a very relaxing evening. Gerard took us home, and we got to play some WoO monopoly. It was freakin sweet. Jason joined us in a game. Near the later hours ,we kinda wanted to head to bed. Mal wanted someone to just go bankrupt so we could call it a night. It looked as if Jason was going to be the victor, but I decided to go "all-in", if you will, and buy every house I could get. Jason landed on a few of my properties, and it was all-she-wrote after that.
Whew. That's our weekend in a nutshell. I guess I can fill in the important details later. But there you have it. We had a great time, and it sucked seeing head into the terminal at the airport on Wednesday. Hopefully it won't be too much longer until I see her again.
I'm out, and I'll post pics later on.
Night!
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