August 2008

August 8th brings with it the long awaited arrival of Simon's folks, Maureen and Brian. Everyone was excited to catch up again especially the kids. We spent their first week of five exploring in and around The Woodland's bubble where we live.Houston Intercontinental Airport



Water taxi in and around The Woodlands Town Centre





Part of the Town Centre has an restaurant/shopping area called Market St, it has a 'Leave it to Beaver' kind of feel and is centred around a large grassed area with a water feature similar to that at Crown casino ((hence the wet children).


This little squirrel was helping itself to some food in the main street of "Old Town Spring" half an hour from our house.When he's home (ha) Simon works at The Woodlands Country Club's 5 golf courses. We took Maureen and Brian out there for dinner one night and as you can see the grounds/courses are beautifully kept. When we were out taking these photos 3 deer were across the lake eating grass - just amazing.We splurged for a night, got a babysitter and went into town for dinner. We ate at an Irish pub which was 100+ years old that was taken down in Ireland and replaced brick for brick over here in Texas. It was lovely to be on the waterfront with all the lights dazzling around us.














Houston we have a problem . . . . . . the Webbs are coming to Nasa.







We travelled for an hour and a half to the south of Houston to spend the day at Nasa. Fortunately its well geared for the young and not so young with tours and displays dotted in between a large play area, slides, trampolines etc. A great combination for us.
A few minutes from Nasa was the well known Keemah Boardwalk and waterfront district on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. It was a scorching hot day, we walked around, ate dinner and the kids got a taste of 'fun park' rides and amusements.





This shot was taken in the carpark and whilst some might say that Maureen is somewhat vertically challenged (sorry Maureen) you can still see how ridiculously big some of the cars are here in Texas!













The second week we all travelled to New Jersey (Go Bon Jovi!) where Simon was working at The Barclays Tournament. Maureen and Brian got to go to their first golf tournamant and we think they got a bit of a buzz out of it.



The kids love Aaron but dont quite get the etiquette of hushed tones whilst at the golf so we limit their exposure to practice days only.

This is one of two trailers that are at every golf tournament. One is for medical staff/physios etc for treatments and the other is kitted out with gym and training equipment which Simon and other trainers work out of.

New York city was an hours train/bus drive from where we were staying . It was a bit much getting the kids to do that sort of travel daily so went in on 2 occasions and Simon's folks a few more on top of that.

This is one of the memorial/tribute sites for 9/11

The World Trade Centre site under heavy construction. The plan is to construct buildings again around the site however where the twin towers were there will be memorial water features matching the same size and position as the original foundations .
Some of the buildings around the business district.

Waterfront area near the business district. Our first sighting of the Statue of Liberty (squint your eyes)
On our next visit we caught a ferry to Statton Island where we got to see the lass up close (we actually got closer than this but this way you get to see our lovely faces!!)
Central Park is huge and time didnt allow us to see all of it but it certainly is a nice oasis to have in the middle of Manhatten - not sure if you would ever get a peaceful moment to yourself as there were soo many people there but lovely all the same.

4 adults and a double stroller was at times difficult navigating the maze that is the subway as well as the sidewalks of NYC but we did make it to the infamous Times Square and Carnegie Hall
New York city skyline

Hotel rooms are not much fun for kids so when we weren't in NYC or at the golf the kids got to go to the Paramus Zoo, NJ and the New Jersey Children's Museum and role play

as whimsical princesses

and brave fire fighters

even chefs

Hotels were for cuddles and rest time - although trying to get a 2 & a 4 year old to go to sleep in the same room was not a whole lot of fun. Liam has always stayed in his bed but since he saw Ashley moving about we have had trouble ever since getting him to stay in his bedroom!

From New Jersey we hired a car and simon drove us 3 hours to Providence, Rhode Island where we stayed whilst Simon worked at the Deuschbank (?sp) Tournament. Providence is quite an historical town. We caught what the Americans call a 'trolley' which outwardly looks like a 'tram' but is essentially a 'bus' and got a bit of a guided tour.It is thought that this building is was the influence or basis that the Gotham City building from Batman was originally based around.

We spent an afternoon at the Roger Williams Park which has its own zoo, massive carousel, playground and beautiful lakes. And whether it be Mullum Mullum creek or the lakes at Providence the kids still love feeding the ducks with Nanny and Poppy.

We squeezed in a brief visit to Boston (an hours drive) and went to Harvard.

These were some of the grounds intwined among the buildings. Simon doesn't agree but I kind of expected more from one the most prestigious universities in the world. Not that the gardens weren't lovely, just not as grand as I'd imagined.

We dined like the best of them

and can now say I've been to Harvard Law School (one up on you Paul).

Unfortunately Simon had another weeks work (The BMW at St Louis) which we couldn't stay for as the kids new pre-school year was about to start. So Simon sent us home into a hurricane alert - torches, canned food and batteries were restocked only to see Hurricane Gustov track N.E to louisanna and miss us entirely.

Now this is where life gets somewhat interesting and whilst there are countless ways to describe life's curve balls, blunders, stuff ups, mishaps etc I have chosen to represent ours with the well known Homer Simpson 'D'oh!'

D'oh! #1

Upon landing at Houston airport I realised that Simon had our house and car keys, only Simon was in Rhode Island and we were in Texas. It was 4pm on a friday afternoon of a long weekend and our car was in long term parking. We hadnt left a spare key with our neighbours (as they had suggested - What could possibly go wrong?) I didnt have the landlords number in my phone and there were no phone books to be found at the airport. I went to dial a friend only to find I was out of credit on my mobile.

So we had travelled all day with two young kids, were hot, tired, we couldn't drive our car home and we couldn't get inside our house and we were an hour away from the start of a long weekend where no one was going to want to help us out!

Fortunately my friend Jennifer organised a locksmith to meet us at our house. We abandoned our car, taxied home ($70), got the man to break into our house ($80). The first chance Simon got on the Sat to try and courier the keys back to us was Sat arvo when the FedEx place had closed. With the public holidays and simons flight we wouldnt have got the keys for days.

So Brian and I taxied it back to the airport ($70) and met another locksmith ($160) who cut us another key and electronically synchronised it to our car. Yea all done and solved, no more problems or costs right? wrong, but we'll get to that soon. . . .

Maureen and Brian spent their final week observing our day to day routine which is nothing exciting but after all our travels it was good to slow the pace down. They got to see Ashley and Liam off to their first day of Preschool which was great.

(Stay tuned for Sept shortly with many more D'ohs! to come)