Houston is fun. It’s fun because of who we are with, of course. The Embree family has entertained us in high style. Yesterday Mark came to visit us at the campground with two of their kids, Cora and Owen. When they first arrived, it was rainy and windy so we hung out inside for a while. Elise and Cora are the same age and after some initial shyness, they became fast friends and played Polly Pockets. Owen is five, so he appropriately bothered the girls until we hit critical mass and needed to leave the trailer. By this time, the wind had cleared the clouds away and we hustled over to the nature center. There we touched the requisite baby alligator and corn snake, listened to story time about white-tailed deer and checked out all the animal cages. We found out that the alligators cannibalize each other, so keep your pet alligators away from each other.
In the afternoon, we headed to downtown Houston. Mark teaches at Rice University in the Computational and Applied Mathematics Department, so we got a quick tour of the campus. We saw his office and lab.
A special prize to you if you can tell us anything about the math on this board!
Lovett Hall at Rice.
The kids were thrilled to play on the granite sculptures in the engineering quad. There are three huge slabs of granite representing the three fundamental angles of engineering: 45 degrees, 90 degrees and 180 degrees. These are also known as Tipsy, Sober and Drunk. Elise and Cora climbed on top of Drunk and danced all around.
A pre-cursor of the years to come?!
After Rice, we were treated to a trip to Central Market. This is an incredibly souped up grocery store — imagine Whole Foods but bigger, more varied and angrier. Everyone there is grumpy, with absolutely no room for human kindness. You pausing momentarily in the aisle prevents the Important Someone behind you from getting their organic sun-dried apricot free range granola patty. We sampled all the yummies available and escaped, lightening our wallet only slightly.
The evening was spent at Mark and Kristine’s house where we got to meet Becket, the newest member of their family. Elise is always thrilled with little ones and Becket was no exception. Elise, Cora and Owen played for hours until it was time to go. The drive home took us about 45 minutes and we were all soon asleep in the warmth of our trailer, as the tent campers next to us hunkered down in the very windy 35 degree weather.
This morning Elise woke Bobby up with a very cheerful, “Happy Birthday, Daddy! I’m so tired I could barely get that out, but I did it!” We had a birthday breakfast of Matte Latte tea, hot chocolate and fresh bread. We got cleaned up and headed back to Mark and Kristine’s for 11:00 Mass at their parish. A delicious brunch followed at their house and we have spent the afternoon talking with Mark and Kristine while the kids played. This is the way Sundays should be and we’re grateful we could spend this time with friends.
December 17, 2007 at 3:36 am
Happy Birthday Bobby! Shannon was here for tree decorating and dinner and we remembered you with a toast. The wine was good!
Love, Mary Lou
December 18, 2007 at 1:42 am
Happy Birthday Bobby!! Hope you had a really great day!
Isn’t the Rice campus just beautiful?
February 29, 2008 at 5:47 am
[...] I was a freshman at Virginia Tech — which is also where I met Mark. (Remember? We visited Mark in Houston.) I believe Charles has a PhD in mechanical engineering, which is hard to believe. I remember [...]