| Moving to Houston, TX - May 2005 |
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| May 11 - As most everyone knows by now, we've made a temporary move to Houston, Texas for the summer. (Yes, we know...Houston, summer, heat, humidity!) On Monday, Leif began his internship with British Petroleum. Although he's only been there for a couple of days now, he seems to be enjoying it. Our cute little apartment is only a few miles away from where Leif works, and there is a beautiful paved trail along the Buffalo Bayou between here and there so he is able to bike or run to work. And speaking of our apartment, we are enjoying that too! It's quite spacious with an open floor plan (and air conditioning!) which allows Peyton and the dogs to chase each other around indoors during the heat of the day. We've had a nice introduction to the heat already. On Monday it was 93 degrees with 75% humidity. Phew! It about knocked us out! We desert folks are used to the heat, but we like it DRY. I don't think we'll get much of that here though, so we'll just have to get used to it. The pictures below show a small bit of the fun we had on our move down here. |
| The route we took: Day 1 - Salt Lake City, UT to Moab, UT - We didn't get on the road until 3 p.m., so we only drove a short while this day. Peyton had fun in the parking lot of our motel in Moab looking at all of the Jeeps that play around on the slickrock down there! Day 2 - Moab, UT to El Paso, TX - From Moab we headed south and east, traveling through Cortez, CO and Farmington and Albequerque, NM. We drove the entire length of New Mexico, hoping to stop in Las Cruces near the southern border to stay for the night. Turns out NM State University was having graduation that weekend and all hotels were booked! So we drove on to El Paso, TX and got into our hotel late! Day 3 - El Paso, TX to San Antonio, TX - From El Paso, it's a straight shot southeast to San Anotonio on I-10. Although it doesn't look far on the map, it takes quite a while to drive the width of Texas!!! This really IS a big state! It was another long day, but the highlight was a nice picnic lunch stop at a state park in the middle of nowhere in western Texas. We learned our lesson from the day before, and made hotel reservations early in the afternoon for San Antonio. Day 4 - San Antonio, TX to Houston, TX - This segment of the trip was also relatively short. Only about 4 hours from door to door, with a lunch stop. Although we were excited to see our new place, it was POURING rain when we got to Houston. It was a soggy move-in!! |
| You gotta have the "baby in the box" picture, right? |
| Papa & Peyton having some fun loading the U-haul |
| By the time we were ready to leave on the big trip, Peyton was POOPED! Here he is, just about asleep in McKenzie's spot in the car! |
| More Papa & Peyton fun. Papa & Uncle Branden built the rack for our truck to carry our canoe on. It sure worked well!!! |
| Peyton in New Mexico, posing with one of the larger tubleweeds in that state! |
| We rented our Uhaul in Salt Lake City, Utah, it had Oregon license plates, and the sign on the outside advertised Kalispell, MT. That trailer is well traveled! |
| Our truck, taking a rest somewhere in New Mexico! |
| With the weather warming up (here we're somewhere in central Texas, we decided to stop for a treat. This is Peyton's first experience with an ice cream cone! |
| We took both of our carseats along so that Peyton could ride in either truck. Here he is in the bigger of the two seats, propped up while sleeping. |
| Peyton snuggling with his stuffed aligator. Pretty appropriate for the South! |
| Papa & Peyton were inseperable for the entire trip. I honestly don't know how we would have made the trip without Papa's help! He was always a willing babysitter, which is more valuable than any other type of help!!! |
| A lunch stop at Balmorhea State Park in west-central Texas. This is where the heat and humidity started. Ugh. |
| Daddy & Peyton taking a break from sitting in the truck. |
| Much to the delight of Peyton, this car parked next to us at one of our dinner stops. This was almost (but not quite) as cool as all of the Jeeps that we saw on trailers in Moab. |
| Kind of a funny picture. Aside from the orange looking face and red eyes, Peyton looks a lot like his Daddy here. What a little stud!!! |
| A shot of our front room in our new apartment. It sure looks different now that we're moved in. We have a nice sized patio out the sliding glass doors. |
| Looking from the front room towards the front door (left), the kitchen (middle), and the dining room (right). Out of the picture on the right is a small hallway with our bathroom and bedroom. |
| Trilby's favorite feature of our apartment!!!! |
| Peyton goofing around with Papa before bed. Now that we've found summer, we had to purchase some shorty pj's for the little munchkin. These have fire trucks on them, which is WAY cool!!! |
| Peyton playing with a balloon that Nana sent us. You can see out the sliding glass doors now to our patio. |
| Wednesday, May 11 - temperature and humidity at 9:00 a.m.!!!! |