November 2018, Texas (1)

It has been a while and I really should have written an update on this blog some time ago, but after a very busy period late summer into fall with hardly any sewing time, when things got back to normal again, all I wanted to do in my spare time was sew, I just could not sit down and write a blogpost, I had to get back to fabrics, needle and thread first.

With some sewing hours behind me now, here is it is a first update of november, which involved a great trip to Houston and beyond, a trip that once again confirmed to us (the Mr. and me) that and why the lone star state has stolen our hearts. 

At the beginning of our holiday we already enjoyed a major highlight of this trip, a visit a few hours north of Houston to our friends Rich and Charlotte who are making their dreams come true and are building a ranch there.

Having been neighbors in The Netherlands, Friday evening drinks, dinners (an epic turkey made by Rich one Thanksgiving is forever a great memory) , walks with our dogs, an evening at the movies  etc. were a regular thing before they moved away to Ghana for a few years, during which time we did see Charlotte a few times, but Rich we had not seen for a few years, so it was a joy to ‘hang out together’ all 4 of us, the way we used to. And this occasion, our first glimpse of what they are doing now they have permanently moved back to Rich’s home state made it very, very special.

The peace and quiet, the green, the small elevations in the land of where they will be living is – especially for us, living in an over-crowded and very flat country – such a special experience.
They took us on a ride on their land in their new ‘mule’ a vehicle I totally fell in love with (had no idea of these before).

A quick lunch at a very Texas burger place

before we headed to a ranch of friends of theirs where Marc was kind enough to spend most of the afternoon showing us (again, in one of those ‘mules’) around his property and explaining us all about the animals there, the work involved and teaching us about indian signs.

We had to say goodbye way too soon, but other people and events were waiting for us in Houston.

Back in town Emma (click) and Olivier joined us, we had a few days before and in between the quilt events at the Convention Center to do some sight seeing, first trip was to Beaumont to visit the gator rescue park there, Gator Country (click).

One little gator seemed to have a special connection with my Mr. , he/she even seemed to try and climb out of the enclosure (never knew they could climb) to come closer.

Also, there was time to do some shopping at the Galleria Mall (of course), with its huge Christmas tree and other decorations.

And a sunny day trip to La Grange to visit the Quilt Museum.

Unfortunately no pictures allowed inside the Quilt Museum because of a Kaffe Fassett exhibition , but not to worry, just around the corner was the old Court House and lucky for us it was open for visitors. This was an unexpected other highlight of our trip.

The courthouse was beautiful and so well taken care of. Old, but spotless, shiny and in perfect condition, clearly something they are very proud of and look after very well, even though – as we were told – it is only used once or twice a year at the most.

 There was a small covered courtyard with a fountain:

 and, interestingly, everything was there for the elections a few days later.

Upstairs the historic court room itself, just beautiful.

Back downstairs , a quilt!

With the law, (American) history, politics and quilts being interests the Mr. and I share you can imagine this was a very memorable visit.

After lunch there was time to drive around the area and do some antiquing:

So I end this post with quilts, more on quilts and the quilt events in Houston in my next blogpost.

In the meantime I hope you enjoy fun (and safe) New Year’s Eve celebrations and best wishes for a healthy and creative 2019, hope we will meet each other again here on this blog or elsewhere in the quilt world.

Phyllis

Houston, we've got a problem......

And that is that each time we are there we find it more difficult to say leave and goodbye….

For the first time in years Eline had a two week Easter break from school so we decided to have our yearly holiday now rather than in the busier and more expensive summer months and because our trip would be shorter than usual we stayed in Houston itself the whole time and made daytrips out of town.

We knew the weather would be nicer too and oh boy, it really was. A wonderful 25 – 30 C instead of the usual 35 – 43 C in the summer time. It made our stay in Houston even better than usual because we were able to spend so much more time outside:

we went for a walk in Brazos Bend State Park where you are sure of close encounters with the resident alligators

 

And this must be a girl alligator , she looked like she had just been to the hair salon ;-)

 

 

A baby alligator was sunning him/herself on our path, the mothers are never far away (we could hear an alligator really close by, never know they made these rumbling noises) so we decided not to go further and turned around.

 





We visited the George Bush Presidential Library

 

Which is on the enormous campus of  Texas A&MUniversity. We had lunch at one of the restaurants on campus, great thing about visiting this time of year, lots of students everywhere, so it gives you a real good sense of the atmosphere there, we would not have experienced this in the summer.

 

We never cease to be amazed by the size of things, look at this store which has everything for camping, fishing, etc. etc.

 

The economy is booming, even more so than before, businesses are looking for personnel everywhere, you see this in so many places:

Of all those signs in shops and restaurants, this one was my favourite, at the BreakfastKlub:

The new, huge Exxon Campus which is being built between Houston and The Woodlands will bring thousands and thousands of jobs and new residents, so house prices are rising in double digits in some area’s:

 

 

 

 

And it means expansion of the already impressive Houston freeway system and here it doesn’t take years to make a decision, they do it before the Campus is finished (this is near The Woodlands, but everywhere you see improvements on the road system being made):-

 

 

Of course we enjoyed the wonderful food in Houston as usual, but this time – because it was not so hot – more of it was enjoyed on the many terraces:

 

 



We went on a few boat trips

 

The above in The Woodlands, the boat trip below was a dolphin tour out of Galveston, we did see dolphins but unfortunately they were too quick for my camera!

Of course I did visit a few quiltshops, they always have somewhere to wait for those who are not interested

But this time I guess I took a bit too long with my shopping, because they both fell asleep in the comfy chairs!

Sundaymorning something completely different, we went to church!
We are not religious people, but during past visits we were impressed by the sermons given by pastor Joel Osteen, which we saw on tv. He is the leader of Lakewood Church, apparently the largest church in the US and their services are broadcast on TV nationwide every Sunday morning (and in many more countries).
Lakewood Church is only a 5 minutes drive from our hotel so we thought we’d go.
And we were impressed, by the atmosphere, the nice and friendly people and the man himself. We will definitely return on future visits!

This was also a trip where we made new friends and of course met up with ‘old’ ones: Ranelle, Bruce, Barb, Clay, Tanja, Walter, Celine, Tammy, thanks for your company, it was fun, it was great and we can’t wait to be back!!

Phyllis

(Next time some quilt news on this blog again, promise!)