Yee-Haw and Howdy!

Ok that's not really how people in Houston talk :o) Sophie and I just returned from spending last weekend in Houston training for the upcoming April Cursillo weekend. We had a wonderful time seeing friends we hadn't seen in a year and meeting the new staff we will be working with. We stayed with our friends, the Westheimers, and on Friday Robert played tour guide taking us to various parts of Houston we had not seen. One of our stops was to drive around Rice University, where a baseball tournament was going on. Rice wasn't playing until later in the afternoon but we stayed and watched a few innings of the game preceeding theirs.

Sophie and Robert holding down the...well stadium...the Rice fans were just showing up as we were leaving.

Friday night and Saturday morning we had training with the new staff of Houston Presbyterian Cursillo #50, and didn't have a chance to take too many photos (LOTS will be coming from the actual weekend I'm sure!) but I did snap this one of LaNoe, Janelle, Rachel and Anne (the most amazing pastor EVER!) worshiping on Sat. morning. Sophie & I are both SO excited to spend the weekend serving alongside these amazing women of God!And...Saturday night after training our friend Karen took the two of us and another friend of ours, Adrienne, to the Houston Rodeo, livestock show and Martina McBride concert. We definitely had a few moments where we looked at each other and said "wow, I don't think we're in Los Angeles anymore!" It was a wonderful evening of laughing, experiencing a bit of Texas culture, and enjoying fellowship time with two women who mean a lot to both of us!

Our first stop was dinner. The other 3 of us opted for bbq sandwiches--Sophie decided to go for the turkey leg as big as her head! (the hat is Robert Westheimer's, he said we needed to look 'authentic'...I'm not sure the Gap sweater and Lucky jeans fit the rodeo motif very well....but she sure looked cute!)

After dinner we went to the livestock show and saw a variety of baby animals, big animals, anything "rodeo-ish" you could possibly want to buy...and we even got to take turns sitting on our new friend here. Yes, he is real, but must have been on tranquilizers or something as he barely moved when people climbed on and off of him! The photo of me on his back was taken on a film camera so I only have a hard copy, but here is Sophie's turn!

It took me awhile to convince Sophie that the fair authorities probably WOULD mind if we snuck a baby pig into our suitcase....but they were awfully cute!

And I totally could have used a tripod for concert pictures, but here's a semi-non-fuzzy one of Martina :)

On Sunday morning we had the opportunity to worship at both Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church with the Westheimers and Pines Presbyterian Church with our friends Adrienne and Barbara. After a lovely lunch with Barbara our friend Sam came and hung out with us Sunday afternoon for a few hours before taking us to the airport. It was kind of a whirlwind weekend but we were so thankful so many people took time out to spend with us and we are very excited to come back to Houston in less than a month!