Since quite a bit has happened since September 8th, I figured I'd spare you all a three-hour blog read and just break it down a bit. Let's start with our weekend in Htizzle...
Kiel and I headed down to Santa Barbara for our flight, enjoying insanely gorgeous coastline and incredibly delicious CoffeeBean along the way. While Santa Barbara is a little over an hour from our house, I always welcome flights out of SBA because we pass the CoffeeBean&TeaLeaf, which I believe is God's gift to coffee lovers. Landing in Houston, and seeing my mom waving from across the TSA check point, is probably one of my favorite feelings in the whole world. No matter how many times I've told her just to wait in the car, she never fails. My Dad and Em met us for dinner and we shared laughter over a great bottle of wine that I convinced the waitress to let us open in the restaurant. The poor girl hadn't even heard of a "corkage fee"; it's safe to say I'll do anything for a good Cali red. :)x
Saturday morning, Trish came down bright and early so I could get some sweet snuggle time with precious little Phoebe. I'm honestly still trying to get used to the fact my bff is now a MOM, it was so awesome seeing her with her baby girl and witnessing first-hand how much she's changed.
Mom and I then did a little last-minute trip shopping, watched my Gamecocks WIN, and welcomed Brett home from his looong drive down from Milwaukee! All Brettster had been clamoring for was a trip to Ruthie's, so we headed out for what was probably the most entertaining dinner of my life. Between Brett and EJ acting so "in love" celebrating their "anniversary fajitas", 
my Dad throwing out some of his Archie-isms, Mom getting "sooo sleepy" from her one margarita, and Kiel being his typical gullible self, I got an ab workout from all of the laughter. Which was a good thing, considering I ate my weight in queso and guac. God doesn't let us choose which family we are born into, but even if I had a choice, I wouldn't have picked any differently. 
I got up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to put my Bachelor's in Tailgating degree to good use and whipped up some 5-layer dip, breakfast biscuit sandwiches, honey biscuits, and margaritas for the Colts/Texans game. I think the best part was Brett micromanaging my "ham biscuits" and letting me know I don't make them as well as the ones in South Carolina. I let him stay with us for ONE lousy football game (just so happened to be the one in Clemson where the teams went ghetto and started beating on one another mid-game) and now he thinks he's an expert on the subject of Southern game grub?!
Back to the game:
Houston gets hot. I know this, I lived in that city for almost six years. But STILL, holy hell it gets HOT, and the morning of the game was no different. Within minutes of setting up at the tailgate, I looked like I had been doused for a wet t-shirt contest. 100 degree temps with 90% humidity=one miserable mamasita. It didn't help matters that everyone decides to GRILL in this heat, just adding suffocating, hot smoke to the mix. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE food, but there is NOTHING on this planet worth eating that would force me to stand over molten coals in scorching temps to cook. NOTHING. Oh, and it was so dang hot that no one really even ate anything, not my dip, not my biscuits, not the Hilshire Farms factory lineup coming off of the grill, nothing. It was too hot for BEER, people. Our case was still full, the only thing going like hotcakes were the bottles of water. Misery.
Usually, it's the tailgate, not the actual game, that excites me in regards to sporting events. Not today. The thought of the ice cold, chill-inducing AIR CONDITIONING inside Reliant Stadium had me racing for the stands faster than *some running back's name* racing for a touchdown at *some football stadium* against *some opposing team*. Yeah, I'm so down with my football lingo.
Back to the game
Well, it kind of sucked. Jerry was told he'd sit out the first two games, the visiting team family seats were in the bleeds, we got boo'ed and harassed by EVERY Texans fan in sight, and the Colts ended up losing. *grumble grumble* As we unhappily descended the stairs, we get met at the bottom by a HUGE man in a suit asking for the "Hughes Family"...sure, I look just like Jerry, I can pull this off. After getting some fancy schmancy passes to the "Family Waiting Area", we walked into what I am fully convinced was Kiel's version on Heaven. Dallas Clark, Pierre Garcon, Joseph Addai, and some guy I'd never heard of named Peyton Manning were just mingling around with everyone. Kiel was honestly like a little kid in a candy store, so star struck, just walking around taking pictures of (not WITH) everyone he could. I, on the other hand, just walked up to Mr. Manning (since I heard he's kind of big time) and asked him to sign my jersey, football, program, ticket stub. FAIL. Whatevs, I told him he had a great game and did awesome things for my husband's fantasy with his 491 passing yards. Lauren busting out football stats- BOOYAH! Good thing I was eavesdropping on the Garcon family's conversation or that could have been an awkward moment: "So, about not winning today..."
We rode the post-game high straight to BJ's for dinner (by this time, our not having eaten because of the heat was catching up to us and we were FAMISHED) and had to deal with yet ANOTHER round of people rubbing in our blue-and-white clad faces that the Colts had lost. It's okay, because this time I just said "well yeah, but I got to meet Peyton Manning..." and they shut up, real fast. I wonder how much spit ended up on my pizza?
The rest of the evening was spent watching my Dad "hip check" my mom (if I had caught this on video, none of us would ever have to work again), Brett MacGyver the crap out of my suitcase, Mom procrastinate packing, and Kiel pass out on the couch while the rest of the family was busy making fun of Emily in my parent's room.
All in all, we can just say that the weekend was a "great success".
2 comments:
Fun, fun, fun! So glady you're blogging again! :)
Ah...such memories! What fun!
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