Trip to Houston

My dad turned 75 on February 28th. I was blessed to be able to travel to Houston to help him celebrate! I spent a week in the Houston/Cypress area and got to have a lot of fun spending time with my parents and my brother and his family. I got to go to two of my nephew’s basketball games (which my brother is the coach), and got to watch my sister-in-law, Mayra, and Craig down several pounds of crawfish, as they are in season right now. My parents successfully ordered a new mattress for their bed…I am sure there is film footage somewhere of my mom lying on a mattress in the furniture store and me bouncing up and down on the other side to see if she can feel the movement. (insert heavy sigh and eye roll here) I was super blessed to be able to see, hug in person, and go galivanting into the Texas countryside with my Scottish friend, Finona. I knew her in Norway, and she was my cancer buddy throughout the last 2+ years. Fiona is such a support to me…I don’t think she will ever understand how much our friendship has meant to me over the last couple of years. It is so much easier to open up to someone who is in the same place as you are. We were both bald together….sick and in pain together…and now both healthier but still living with that cancer cloud over our heads. We haven’t been able to connect the last few times I have been down here so this was a very special treat for me.

The highlight of my dad’s birthday was several calls from family as well as a mysterious knock on the door around 8:30 p.m. My brother, Craig, is a lieutenant in the volunteer fire department here in Cypress, Texas. He was on duty Monday night and decided to bring his firetruck and three crew members over to my parents’ house for ice cream and cake. When they left, they put on the lights and gave the siren a low whine before pulling out to go back to the station. I am sure the neighbors’ tongues were waggling the next day!

Here are a few pictures from my phone from this last week. As always, I had a great time!