Sunday, August 1, 2010

Laura Came to Visit!

Last weekend our good friend, Laura Davis, came to visit.  Laura is on Summer break and was taking a road trip with Houston being one of her stops!  It was so much fun spending time with her and catching up.  We went to the movies and saw Inception, which I highly recommend, and ate out a ton because what else is there to do in Houston (ha! just kidding).

One night we went to an AMAZING custard place called Ritters.  If you live in Houston and haven't been there, you must!  It's on Fry Road so it may be a bit of a drive, but it's SO worth it! 



On Laura's last day in Houston, we went to NASA.  Matt and I have never been there before so we were excited to finally visit.  It was really neat getting to see all of the history. 

Matt and Laura were really excited! Ha!


They had one of the Saturn V rockets on display.  It's HUGE!  Pictures don't even do it justice.  The Saturn V rockets sent all of the Apollo missions to space. 




We also got to see Mission Control.  It's a lot smaller than I imagined.


We really enjoyed our day at Johnson Space Center.  Afterwards, we stopped at Crave on our way home for some AMAZING cupcakes.  Later we played Phase 10 and Laura dominated!  I've never played such a short game of Phase 10 before.  I don't think I've ever played such horrible hands of Phase 10 before either. Ha!

Matt and I had lots of fun spending time with Laura while she was in town and we hope to get to do it again soon!

5 Year Anniversary


Back in May, Matt and I celebrated our five year anniverary!  I can't believe it's been five years already.  It feels like just yesterday we were doing this...


On the weekend of our actual anniversary, Matt and I took a short trip to San Antonio and spent the day at Sea World.  It was so much fun seeing everything that was there!  As a complete surprise to us, Jars of Clay (one of Matt's all-time favorite bands) played the night we were there.  So fun!

A few weeks later, Matt and I went on a 7 day cruise to Jamaica, Grand Caymen and Cozumel!

One of Carnival's signature towel animals:


I don't think I was hungry for even one moment on the cruise.  So. much. food.  One night we ate dinner at the steakhouse.  Here's a picture of our fancy desserts:


In the picture below, you can barely see a red mark on Matt's left cheek (near his sideburn).  It was caused by an unfortunate accident that occurred on the ship involving a lawn chair, very strong winds, and Matt's face.  He was okay, but if you know Matt and his queasiness with blood, you can only imagine the situation.  That was accident #1. 


After being at sea for two days, we finally arrived to Jamaica!  We chose the Dunn's River Falls excursion.  Doesn't climbing a beautiful waterfall sound amazing?  We thought so too.  And so did the hundreds of other people who were climbing the waterfall with us.  Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful.  But it was also very chaotic.  There was a group of 10 of us and we all held hands pulling each other up the waterfall.  And I mean you're IN the waterfall.  Water is literally pouring all over you while you're climbing.  If you don't put your weight on your foot, the water pressure would literally push your foot off the rock.  You also couldn't always see where you were stepping.  I was right behind the guide so I would simply step where he had.  I guess Matt didn't get that memo.  At one point he stepped a little farther over than I did, but there was nothing to step on so down he went.  What's funny is that when he fell, he took me and the 10 year old whose hand he was holding down with him.  That was accident #2.  Again, he's fine, just with a few more scars. 


While on the Falls, it started pouring rain, which didn't really matter because we were already drenched.  However, that's when the lightning started.  At one point lightning struck a tree causing it to fall about 30 feet from where we were standing.  Crazy.  I think this is the point where I starting freaking out.  Literally hyperventilating.  I'm not one to freak out like that but Matt did a great job with calming me down.  I still get a nervous feeling just thinking about it.  We later found out that they closed the Falls right after we went up due to the weather.

After our full day of adventure, we returned to the ship ready for some serious relaxation.  Jamaica had a beautiful sunset.




The next day we arrived in Grand Caymen.  It was gorgeous!  I seriously think I could live on an island.  Unfortunately, the only good picture I have is below because the rest were taken on our underwater camera and none of the pictures turned out.  Bummer.  We had a much more relaxing day there.  We spent the day snorkeling at a reef and a ship wreck.


Our last shore day was at Cozumel, Mexico.  Matt's and my favorite excursion was spent in Cozumel.  We got to swim with dolphins!  It was seriously one of the most fun things I've ever done.

This is the resort that had the dolphin swim. Gorgeous. 


This is the hug.  Notice how the dolphin looks like she is smiling.  They are such sweet creatures!


This is the dolphin swim.  AMAZING!  The girls had a little bit harder of time with this because our bikini bottoms started to fall off because of the force of water!


This is the handshake. 


Matt is getting a sweet kiss.


Isn't this next one amazing?!  They did this right in front of us!


Overall, Matt and I really enjoyed the cruise, although next time we probably wouldn't take one with so many sea days.  You start to run out of things to do on the ship...especially if your bottom is so sunburned you can't be in the sun ;)