Ok, so that’s a long, awkward title, but that’s the most accurate description of what this post is. Sorry again for the absence, but I had one last thing to take care of (more on that tomorrow). HINT: If you follow me on Instagram, you might have already figured it out by now!
Anywho, this is a quick summary of our amazing trip to Houston. One of the perks of both Josh and I having flexible jobs is that we get to take some time off every now and then to go visit my “in-loves.” Sure we miss out on a little $$$, and it may be that one day Peter Pan and Wendy will have to grow up and be big kids, but for now, we love that we get the opportunity to go see Josh’s family for extended visits (we stayed 10 days this time, thanks to some strategically timed weekends around Christmas) from time to time.
The fun memories we made during that weekend are really too numerous to fit into one post, but perhaps a smorgasbord (yep that word just happened) or pictures will help explain…
Disclaimer: I didn’t take all or perhaps even most of these pictures (hence the reason I am in them). Most of them were taken by various in-laws, including the lovely and talented Kris Decker from Every Year Gets Better. Seriously, check her blog out… she’s way more industrious than I am!
Day 1) Flight and 24-hour flu. I have no pictures, I was miserable and in bed all day. This was the first of 2 bouts of the flu I would get over Christmas. Lucky. Me.
Day 2) Present opening and general hanging out. I have a bunch of pictures from that day, but this one is by far my favorite!
Yep… this is what happens when 10/11ths of the Decker children get together (we were missing one; he was at work).
Day 3) The zoo!
The Houston Zoo was all dolled up for Christmas. Tons of lights and fun activities! And sea turtles. Righteous, dude…
Day 4-5) Relaxing time for me, but Josh got off his behind and helped his older brother and sister-in-law with some yard work. Plants are his thing… and boy does he make ’em look good! 😉
Day 6) Mostly more of the same, but one of those days – I don’t exactly remember which – we went Ice skating. I snagged this lovely picture… not that you can tell we are ice skating…
Day 7) More loafing on my part, a little shopping, a lot of ice cream eating… but Friday night we went to a place I never knew existed, but was possibly the highlight of my trip. It was a trampoline house?!? Who knew those even existed? I sure didn’t. And in fact, I almost didn’t participate in this awesome 1/2 hour of fun, but man, am I glad I did… words cannot describe the hilarity…
We jumped for 1/2 hour. And after the first five minutes, I was a tired, sweaty mess (see lower left picture for obvious signs of fatigue). I was also HILARIOUSLY bad at it, particularly the part where you jumped into a foam pit (upper left). Literally, a five year old pulled himself out of the pit faster than me. My technique involved flailing like a beached whale until I made it back to the trampolines and then rolling myself out of the foam. So. Stinking. Awkward. To make matters worse, I had on my glasses. So if I wanted to see where I was jumping I got to wear these lovely safety goggles. Thankfully my sister-in-law wasn’t too cool to be seen with me… (center). Josh, on the other hand, I had to coax into one blurry hand-holding picture with his dorktastic wife (that blur on the bottom right is the best picture I got with him). As I described it later to my MIL, “That was on my bucket list and I didn’t even know it!” So if you have a chance to take a turn in a trampoline house… DO IT! 🙂
Day 8) Saturday was a whirlwind. My in-laws hosted a family ping-pong tournament. Sorry I don’t have any pictures. I was too busy beasting at ping-pong… Just kidding. My brother-in-law and I played each other left-handed. He trounced me… and I’m the lefty!
Saturday afternoon we spent shearing my hubby. My sister-in-law captured the transformation pretty well.
Yep, LOTS of hair… gone. I love it (Josh prefers the duck dynasty look). Kudos to my sister-in-law for being brave enough to tackle that bedhead (and for making it look so cute!).
Saturday night, we used coupons from Gobza.com to go to an all-you-can-eat Brazillian steakhouse. The normal price tag for a restaurant like this wouldn’t be worth it, especially if you aren’t a grown man who can eat multiple pounds of steak in one sitting, but with the coupon all of us were able to enjoy this unique treat!
Day 9) After church, we spent most of the afternoon visit with friends and family and wishing the trip wasn’t almost over. Then, that night, we had another good round of giggles at ourselves Wii-dancing.
Day 10) Sadly, Christmas Eve morning we were up and out of Houston before the sun.
We were sad to go, but we took with us a ton of fun memories, and we made it home (with only a few bumps in the road) in time to celebrate Christmas together, and to see a few of my family members before they got out of town.
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