The Shakespears

*Our Summer in Houston TX*

For those of you who didn't already know Derrik and I spent our summer in Texas. It was kind of a "Spur of the Moment" plan, we received some bad news one day and a few days later Derrik was packing up and heading to Spend his summer in Houston while I in the meantime stayed in Henderson and continued working for a few months. I stayed until the end of May and decided there was NO WAY we were going to spend another summer away, so my Amazing Boss let me come back every 3-4 weeks in order to keep all my clients. It was a BUSY BUSY summer to say the least lots of flying/packing/driving/goodbyes/etc but I wouldn't (and I think Derrik would agree) have changed ANYTHING! We got so lucky with our sales office, we went in not knowing anyone and hoping for the best and came home 4 months later with Lifelong friends. I'm not sure yet why most people hate moving away during the summers for a few months, at least the wives I get why the husbands might not be too fond ;) I absolutely LOVED it, I got a lot accomplished that I have been wanting to get done plus Lots Lots more! So in my opinion, Bring on Summer Sales! Its full of Adventure, sleeping in, lots of gym time, catching up on old episodes I never have time to watch during the year, crafts, Lots of Cooking and trying new recipes, Pool time, girl time, exploring new places, Game nights, and so on! Here is a little of our summer in HOT, HUMID, BUGGY, HOUSTON :)I couldn't get these pictures in order so here they are at random.

Us girls checking out this tiny little town near Spring, the streets were so cute and full of little cottages and nic naks Galore!

Darcee and I having too much fun at this crazy little wig shop :)

We were curious what we would look like as red heads... Yikes, we'll stick with Brown!

Sorry this picture is sideways and kind of hard to see or read, but it was a fun little poster in the office that the OA did for the boys, I thought it was pretty cleaver.

One of the mornings the boys went out and did service. They went downtown Houston and re painted this cute little school, preschool I think, anyway I thought it was awesome that the whole office was willing to go help someone else during their "Precious" morning hours off work!

Us at the pool one of the mornings soaking up some sun and enjoying our time!

Derrik loving a little relaxing time to himself (this didn't happen much unfortunately)

I would come out after the gym in the evenings and just sit and enjoy the BEAUTIFUL Texas Summer Night by the pool. This place was SO Relaxing, oh how I miss it!

Here are a few pics Derrik took while out on the doors, I swear every night he would come home with a Crazy story. Never a dull moment with this job!

Not sure if these people would need and alarm to keep them safe???? WOW. The worse part of all of this is have you EVER been to Tx, can you imagine how many scary bugs are in these peoples home :( Yucky!!!

This is Milo and I on one of our many daily walks, I kept him company for one of the sales guys Jeremy during the long days alone in the apartment.

Derrik opening one of his birthday surprises. I had been wanting to do this for the last year or two (mostly so I could cut up lots of his shirts he still tried to wear) Lol. I think he was SHOCKED, he said its one of his most Favorite presents Ever... Mission Accomplished ;)

Don't mind the Balloon, thats all they had :)

Camilla's Baby Shower. Jessica made these cute little party favors for everyone, we had so much fun.

Every Wednesday the boys all got together before their morning meeting and played a different sport. Dogball was probably one of my Favorite to watch, but it got a bit heated at times :)

The office won some big contest (can't remember what one) anyway their incentive if they won was they had to treat the Whole office to dinner at Perry's Steakhouse one of the fanciest places in Tx. It was By far the most impressive dining experience we have ever had. The food was to DIE FOR!

Our Table

Pretty much the whole office

Darcee was lucky enough to have her birthday that same day so she got to Celebrate in Style :)

Katie and I Lovin it!

Game Nights at our Apartment!

One of my projects was to make Kazee (Stacey and Dustin's baby) and Korbin (Adam and Jenni's Baby) blankets. I decided to try something a little different, it ended up being pretty easy but they took SO Long. Luckily I had my laptop and all 6 Seasons of LOST to keep me company while I went Back and Forth :)

Darcee and I may have gotten a little out of hand trying to make different bows and headbands a few of the nights.

Our trip to Galveston was quick but ended up being worth the drive. We all went and played on the beach for the day, the boys played football while the girls tanned and ate of course :)

Let's just say it wasn't Cancun beaches :( Most of the girls decided not to get in the water because one of them did the week prior and her white swim suit turned Creamish Brown. We were a little to close to the big oil spill I guess, so we just decided to melt on the sand!

We lived quite close to the Houston Temple and neither of us had seen it before so we had to go one day after church and walk around the grounds and get a few pictures.

One of their Many Summer Office Pool Parties, the boys playing Derrik's new FAVORITE "The Horse Race Game" He bought it from one of his sales, it turned out to be a Huge Hit with the boys!

And this one was my Favorite game to Watch, this is all the boys lined up waiting to jump into the pool to dive for $500 dollars in QUARTERS :) Oh yes it was Beyond Entertaining!

They did this about once every 4 weeks so they all got quite creative with their different strategies, it got better and better every pool party :)

Our 4th of July Celebration.

So being in a completely different state none of us had ANY idea where the "Place to be" was for the 4th of July Celebration so we looked online and decided to head to Baytown for their festivites. Joe Nichols was playing so we figured it had to have been pretty sweet... well not so much. None of us were feelin it so we decided to head Downtown Houston for the BIG firework show and Celebration.

Checking out the Beautiful City.

Us getting ready to go in to the outdoor concert and to watch the Fireworks with our cans of food to get in for free of course :)

After lots of searching we Finally found a spot on the lawn to sit and listen to Pat Green and can't remember who else :)

It took us at Least 2 Hours to get out of the Traffic Jam after the Fireworks were over, and somehow we still managed to have SO much fun with the Ralphs!

The HUGE Sam Houston Statue

These are from our stop in Oklahoma on our Way home.

Derrik had to stop and check out the OU Stadium .

Jess and Darcee at our last pool party of the summer :(

One of many dinner dates during the summer.

So I decided to put a few pictures up of my Wonderful Rash I got the last week of our summer out there for Journal Purposes. Pretty sure I will NEVER forget this memory, but here are a few pictures just in case :) I woke up one morning and as Derrik was getting ready I started telling him about my dream I had and how I Couldn't stop itching my neck in my dream for some weird reason. Well as I walking into the bathroom my Jaw Dropped when I looked in the mirror and saw this...

I had been itching ALL night and didnt even realize it. Derrik had to go to work so I decided I'd be tough and just take some Benadryl and figured it would go away... well it didn't so that night I got online and found a few ideas on different things I could do to relieve the itching since it was slowly getting worse. I made an Oatmeal and Honey mask, it actually took some of the itching away and made it to were I had a bit of relief so I could sleep. I was up ALL night itching my neck and absolutly MISERABLE!!! So the next day Derrik went and got some topical cream and a few other things so I would survive the day without a car again. I slept pretty much all of the 2nd day so it wasn't so bad, until that night of course when ALL of the Doctors were Closed, then it started to BURN and Spread down my arms and legs :( After another Awful night I headed for the doctor that next morning bright and early because I was afraid it may be shingles from looking at some pictures online and comparing my symptoms. Well thank goodness it wasn't, the doctors had NO idea what it was so they just gave me some meds and a Steriod shot to help stop it from spreading more. After 30 minutes I felt SO MUCH BETTER, no more pain but I still itched for another day or so and the Yucky Hives SLOWLY disappeared. It still bugs me not knowing what the heck it was from, oh well I'm just thankful for Modern Medicine :)

Our Sunday Drive to Lake Conroe in Search of this...

I saw a picture of this lighthouse on the internet and wanted to go find it so we took a little sunday drive to see if we could get to it. It ended up being a little more tricky than we thought it would be, but with my Hubby's driving skills we finally found it and it was worth the many wrong turns we made :)