4th of July Weekend

Long weekends are the best! They're even better if your sister comes to visit for the first time in over a year! (I still can't believe that it's been over a year since our wedding!) It's so weird that we're all grown up now and only see each other on special occasions. Thursday we went to Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens because it was free! It was quite an event. A lot of volunteers were dressed in period costume, there were musical performers, and of course the house was beautiful. (Sorry, we're not allowed to take pictures of the house!) They even had a parade and cake to celebrate our country's birthday but we left before then.

You have to cross this awesome bridge to enter the property!

Jonathan and Carolyn joined in on the musical group!

Learning about why they wore those silly outfits.

It's a butterfly!

A very intense cupid statue.

 



The house is so pretty!

After Bayou Bend we made a quick stop at the Beer Can House since it's right across the street. It's kind of funny how you can see completely differently things in Houston right next to each other. Thank you Houston for no zoning laws! If you don't know about the Beer Can House it's a house that's completely covered in beer cans. Pretty straight forward... Apparently this guy really loved beer and hated mowing or painting so he thought that paving over his yard and covering his house with beer cans would be the perfect solution. He was more creative with it than I expected and it actually looks kind of cool. You can tour the house on the weekends but we just walked around the outside.

After we had spent enough time in the hot sun we headed back to our house to relax for a bit before heading out to Miller Outdoor Theatre to watch the symphony and fireworks. I have literally never seen so many people there before. There were so many people that they were actually backing up to the reflection pool. We squeezed our way in so that we were at least facing the stage. We didn't have the best view but we could at least hear the symphony! The fireworks were beautiful and we even got to see 2 other firework shows from a distance.

We're excited!

Itty bitty symphony!

Fireworks!

Apparently camera phones are ideal for fireworks but you get the idea.

Friday was beach day and, although were slow moving in the morning from being up late the night before, we headed out to Galveston! There were a lot of people visiting the island but it wasn't too crowded. We spent a few hours at the beach and then walked a little bit around the strand.

Check out our sandcastle! It's the tower with the eye from Lord of the Rings.
Can't you tell?

It was a beautiful day!

And I didn't get sunburnt again! I'm getting pretty good at this whole sunscreen thing... Saturday was spent playing games and watching Clue. I forgot how funny that movie was. We also made a quick trip to First Saturday in the Heights. First Saturday is an arts market on 19th street every first Saturday of the month. In the summer it's in the evenings and in the winter it's during the day. Texans are smart about avoiding the heat. There were many different booths with paintings, sculptures, jewelry, etc. It's so nice to walk around and look at all the art and the artists are so nice and love to tell you all about their work. There's also live music so we listened to a folk band for a few songs before heading back home.

Sunday we met up for lunch before Carolyn had to head to the airport. That meant that the rest of the day was spent finishing laundry, dishes, all the fun stuff as usual...

Happy 4th of July! Thank you to everyone who has served for our country and Happy 237th Birthday to us all!

- Chelsey