Surprise Trip to Stephenie's 36th Birthday

Mom called me while we were in Idaho and asked me if I thought I could make a quick trip to Houston for Stephenie's birthday. Her birthday is January 11 and it fell on a Tuesday. How do I do a trip to Houston in the middle of the week? 4 kids in school and Mark was in Corpus Christi that week.



My sister, Bonnie, then called to see if they could change it to Monday (January 10) instead. That made things easier for me. I decided to take the twins with me to Houston on Sunday night. Mark left for Corpus Christi on Monday morning. The big kids went to school. Since Matthew can drive, he just made sure they got to school and got home from school on Monday.



Aunt Bonnie's house is not set up for little kids. She doesn't have a TV or any kids toys. The boys were bouncing off the walls. Figuratively and literally. We tried setting up Mom's computer with Playhouse Disney. That only worked for a little bit. They asked Bonnie if she had anything fun at her house. She said "no".



The boys woke up early on Monday morning. I had to figure out how to keep them quiet until the rest of the house woke up. Matthew had put some movies on my iPod and I decided to use it. Plus it was cold outside and in Bonnie's house. They like their house cold and we were definitely cold.



We got Stephenie 36 balloons. Bonnie had the idea. She didn't know that in Steph's family they each get balloons on their birthday. It was fun.

Bonnie also called one of Stephenie's friends and asked if she could watch 2 of Stephenie's boys and the twins so that we could go to lunch.

We were going to go to Olive Garden for lunch because Mom thought that it was Stephenie's favorite restaurant. (It used to be about 5 years ago). We pulled up to Olive Garden and there was a wait. Stephenie suggested we go for a steak instead. We went to Salt Grass. We enjoyed the food and the company. Then Mom said we could get dessert. YUM! I got a chocolate cake. It was too much so I brought the rest home and shared it with Rebecca the next day.

Before we left for lunch, I threw some dinner in the crock pot so that Stephenie wouldn't have to make dinner that night. She did have 6 extra people.

Around 7:30 pm, I decided I better head home to San Antonio. By the time I got to the toll road that goes through Houston, the little boys were asleep. They slept the whole way home. The trip went by so fast.