Drive To Provo/ Anniversary

So I finished my internship last Thursday. It was really busy at the end because I had procrastinated writing my final report. I really enjoyed my internship and working for Dow, and they seemed to like me! I think they are still on a hiring freeze so none of the interns got job offers. But they told me to keep in touch and tell them where Dan is going to med school and they will do their best to find me a job. Its kinda scary not knowing where or when I'll get a job for next year but somehow it will work out.
Anyways, Dan and I said our goodbyes to our friends in Lake Jackson Thursday night and hit the road on Friday. We drove 14 hrs all the way to Lordsburg, New Mexico, which was this really, really small run down town. (We almost stopped in Las Cruces but we still had some energy to keep going.) We took I-10 to Pheonix and we had to plan our gas stops because there is so few towns. We continued our drive on Saturday we were heading to Las Vegas for our anniversary. We decided to take a detour to the Grand Canyon since I've never been. The grand canyon was cool, it is so massive.



We arrived in Vegas at 11 after driving the whole day. But we had to enjoy Vegas night life! Sunday we walked pretty much from one side of the strip to the other and saw all the hotels. We stayed at the Excalibur which was really fun.


We stayed on the 24 floor and had a great view from our hotel room.

Dan really wanted to go to the Tournament of Kings so we enjoyed that on Sunday night. It was really cool we had dinner from medieval times, so we ate roasted chicken with our hands. The show was really good, with kings, horses, jousting and sword fights and a dragon! Dan thought it was awesome!



Of course we saw a few Bellagio fountain shows. I really like the fountains!
Monday, we went to the Bodies exhibit at the Luxor. Dan really wanted to go because its pretty much like an anatomy text book come to life. So my future doctor wanted to see all the cadavers. It was cool because you got to see all the nerves and muscles that are in our bodies. Then we had a great night out for our anniversary we went to the Grand Lux Cafe in the Venetian and then went to Phantom of the Opera. It was absolutely amazing! I bought the cheapest tickets cause we are still poor when we reached our seats a hostess asked us if we wanted to move closer. Of course we said yes and she moved us to the center of the third row! WOW! it was so awesome, Phantom was the best show Dan and I have ever seen. I would highly recommend it to everyone. After that we drove the 5-6 hours back to Provo arriving at 4 in the morning. Dan had to attend a training for Y Group Leaders. That ends our wonderful travels this summer, now its back to school for our last year!

San Antonio & Houston

So one of our last weeks in Houston we decided to explore more of Texas and visit San Antonio. We left early Saturday morning and then explored the river walk and the Alamo. We had lots of fun. San Antonio was is really pretty city because it has beautiful old buildings. We met up with one of Dan's companions from the mission Elder Villareal. We had dinner and the guys reminisced about good times in the mission. We left after dinner, so it was a really nice day trip to San Antonio!





Dan and I really enjoyed living in Houston. We made lots of friends and I loved my job!! Dan and I enjoyed going to the Miller Outdoor Theatre for some free entertainment our last couple weeks. We saw Twelfth Night (Shakespeare) and we saw The WIZ (version of wizard of oz). We were able to meet up with our friends Yesenia Garcia and Dan Paul one more time before we left Houston.


Unfortunately our time in Houston has to come to an end and we need to head back to BYU for one more year of school. It would be really nice if we could return to Houston when we are finished school but we'll see!

Mum and Dad's Visit

I was fortunate enough to have my parents visit me last week. It was lots of fun and it was great to see them again. My parents drove the 30 hrs to Texas in their new Subaru. They stopped to see Kirtland and Grace Land on the way. Mum and Dad arrived in Lake Jackson right when I finished work on Tuesday, perfect timing. We sat and talked for ever until we realized it was getting late and we should have dinner. We'll I wanted to take them to the famous BBQ place in town but is was closed and we barely made it to a Mexican restaurant it was so late. We went to El TORO which is one of my favourite Tex-Mex places. It has really good food.
Wednesday, I had to work so Mum and Dad rode around town and went to Wal-Mart! They tried to find the beach but got lost and ended up swimming in my pool. I had to teach piano lessons and Dan went and played tennis while they kept swimming. So then wanted to try BBQ again and it turned out the restaurant was on holiday until my parents were leaving. To bad. So we tried seafood. The golf coast has good seafood. We went to a Greek Cajun Seafood restaurant and everyone ordered catfish. If was good stuff.
Thursday I took the day off to spend time with my parents. We went to the local Sea Center (aquarium of the golf of Mexico). Dan was also able to get the time off. We also went to Galveston and went downtown. Saw all the cool beach houses on the way. We spent the day at the beach. The water was warm and had lots of waves.



The day did not end there, we came home and showered and they headed up to Houston and went to the Temple. It was really nice to be able to go to the temple again with my parents. After the temple we went to see the Danner family. We hung out with Heather and Shea and their kids for a while. After a long day we didn't end up getting home until 1 in the morning!

So our adventures continued on Friday, I took the day off on Friday as well. We spent the day in Clear Lake. We first went to NASA space center. My dad was way excited to see all the cool space stuff. We started off with a tour of where the astronauts train. The tour ended early because there was a thunder storm. (its funny cause Houston has been in a drought this whole summer and when my parents come they bring rain!) so we went to all the movies and saw all the space artifacts. We ended with a tour to mission control and the huge rocket Saturn V.



After NASA I took my parents to my old apartment and where I worked for Celanese last summer. We then went to Hwy 225. I wanted to show my parents the huge chemical plants and oil refineries. I think its pretty cool just because of the how many plants there are. We drove for 20 min and we still didn't reach the end. The chemical plants look really cool when they are all lite up at night. We then headed to Kemah for dinner. Dan and I treated my parents to a fancy dinner at Laundry's. We had really good sea food. We walked around Kemah which has fair rides and booths. There was a jazz band playing and a juggler in the square. It seemed like my Dad really enjoyed it because we didn't leave until midnight. So once again we didn't get home until 1am because of the drive home.

Saturday my ward had a pancake breakfast in the park. After breakfast, my parents, Dan and I headed to Houston for the day. We had bought a houston pass with when we went to NASA. The pass consisted of 3 museums, the zoo and the aquarium. It was a really good deal. We started at the Natural Science Museum. We learned a lot with the cool chemistry and oil exhibits. The museum was really fun and interactive. We then headed to the museum of Health. Dan really wanted to go to learn all about the body. (My future doctor!)

After that we strode through Hermann Park and toured the Zoo. We saw Lions, Tigers and the Bear was sleeping. Oh My! we saw elephants, giraffes and lots of monkeys.


We headed to dinner and my Dad finally got his Texan BBQ. We went to Pappa's BBQ. It was really good and lots of meat. Well, of course our day could not end yet it was still only 9pm. So we headed to the Houston Aquarium. Dan really had fun with the sting ray.


After a busy 3 days we were ready to relax. Sunday, we went to church and relaxed afterward. I made dinner and we played games. My parents left Monday morning. It was sad to see them go but we had a great time together.

Fun with the Danner Family

Friday, Dan and I went to the temple after work. We made it just in time for the 8pm session. Afterward we had dinner at Sonic (huge fan of Sonic slushes). We wanted to spend some time with Heather Danner (Kyle) and her family. After the temple we went to Heather's home, she lives 15 minutes from the temple. We spent the night at their house on Friday and stayed all day Saturday.
Saturday, Dan and I babysat Landon and Brooklyn for a few hours while Heather did some shopping. Shae and Carson were at a eagle scout project for most of the day.
Landon and Brooklyn had lots of fun playing games on our cell phones!




Later in the day we went swimming at the community pool. We had to leave early because a thunderstorm was coming through.





We enjoyed dinner with the Danner's and watched the USA vs Panama soccer game. Dan and I had to come home to write our talks for Sunday.

Dodge ball Tournament

The Dow NPN (New Professional Network) put on a dodge ball tournament. In order to encourage networking, each team needed a co-op student, a NPN employee and a dow leader. Janeth, Monica and I played in the tournament with a few other interns. It was lots of fun. My team did well but Janeth's team won. I guess I didn't have the strategy like Janeth did!
After the tournament we went to Chili's for appetizers. Unfortunately Dan missed out on the fun because he was working. =(

Soccer Game

Dan and I went to the Concacaf soccer gold cup game in Houston. We went with my intern friends Janeth and Michelle. There were two games back to back. The first game was Gadaloupe vs Nicaragua, it was a good game with great goals from Gadaloupe 2-0. The second game is what everyone came for. Mexico vs Panama. Being in Houston I think 99% of the fans were routing for Mexico. The game was really good. The first half there were 2 red cards one for each team. The second half started out 10 on 10. With 10 minutes to go a Mexico player was pushed and everything was crazy after that. The Mexico coach was thrown out as well as a Panama player was red carded. The Mexico fans were so mad about the push (and drunk) they started throwing food and beer at the Panama bench. The player were in an uproar and didn't want to resume play with those conditions. Play started 10 minutes later. A Panama player was injured so they took him off with a gurney. As soon as the player crossed the sideline fans started throwing food and beer at him. Pretty much the fans were out of control. It just escalated from there. A guy sitting behind us started throwing beer and was escorted off by the police. Then a couple minutes later a brawl broke out in the front seats of the crowd. The soccer players continued to play but they were hardly playing because they were distracted by the brawl. Anyways, the game ended after 15 minutes of added time. (CRAZY!) The score of the game was 1-1. (The game was a round robin and could end in a tie). Needless to say we had lots of fun. It definitely was an exciting game to go to and Dan's first prof soccer game.

Houston Culture

Dan and I went to see the Houston symphony on Friday. It was a free concert at the Miller outdoor theatre. It was really fun we went with four other interns working at Dow. It was really nice to listen to classical music performed very well by the Houston symphony. They had a concert pianist as their guest performer. I really enjoyed listening to the concerto. He had a great time with friends and expanded our houston experiences.

Dan's Birthday

Dan turned 25 on June 18th. I'm just getting around to posting what we did. For his birthday present I bought him a ticket to Salt Lake City so he could see Jon Buck's wedding. Dan and Jon are best friends and they lived together in Roman Gardens. Jon was in our wedding party and now Dan was in Jon's wedding party. Jon and Annie were married June 20th in the Timpanogos temple. Dan flew out on thursday (his birthday) in order to be there for the festivities on Friday.

Since Dan left on his birthday we celebrated a day earlier. I planned a really nice dinner and to have cake with an old roommate (BYU-Idaho)of his that lives in lake jackson (Adam). But Dan decided to play tennis with some co-worker so the dinner was set back to have after dessert. I surprised him with a tasty ice cream cake celebrated with friends. Adam's little girls drew Dan beautiful pictures for his birthday and we enjoy the ice cream cake together. Afterward, we came home and I made Dan a stake dinner with shrimp, twice baked potatoes and broccoli with cheese sauce. We were both very full, probably from having too much cake before hand. I also bought him a aero polo, and he received cards from his parents and my parents.
It was a wonderful evening!! I love Dan so much, he is a wonderful husband and he always makes me laugh and brightens my day.




The next day I drove Dan to the airport and he spent the weekend at his grandma's and went to Jon's wedding. His family was having a family reunion the following week and started congregating at his grandma's house on sunday. So Dan was able to see his dad on Father's day as well as his sisters Tiffany and Heather. He hasn't seen Heather for a year and a half now that she lives in Australia, so it was good timing! But it is unfortunate, we are the only members of his family on his dad's side that aren't going to the family reunion. We both couldn't get a whole week off work.