Grand Opening

So last Thursday kinda sucked, and I’ve left that blog entry up for far too long. By Friday, I was over it. If this person wants to continually be unhappy with me, that’s their choice. I’m over it and will just keep doing the best job that I can do.
We had quite the whirlwind of a weekend. Jose’s mom, brother, and brother’s girlfriend arrived on Thursday afternoon and we had a lot of fun with them. After the standard Alex-requested trip to Fry’s, we made a kick-butt (if I do say so myself) dinner of chicken parmigiana on Thursday night and used our dining room table for the first time.
On Friday we headed downtown through a monsoon to take in an Astros game. I’d been at work late getting ready for the shuttle launch, and the rain slowed down traffic, so we didn’t actually get to the game until the end of the 3rd inning. We still had a great time though, and our seats were better than usual — down on the first level in left field. (I got them for cheap on StubHub, which was a nice surprise.) After the game, the rain had stopped so we were able to see the Friday night fireworks show. The wind was blowing into the stadium, so a few minutes into the show bits and pieces of spent fireworks — cardboard and ashes — started dropping on our heads. That made it a bit more exciting than we’d expected!!
On Saturday, 12 additional family members drove up from Corpus Christi for the “grand opening.” I don’t know where the name came from, but his family had been joking about a “grand opening” for quite a while, so we went with it. While Jose and I were at work on Friday, Alex and Krystle took it upon themselves to decorate the entire house with crepe paper and balloons so it looked quite festive. I loved it — in fact, the decorations are still up three days later. Heh.
We don’t have a grill yet, so we cooked rice and beans but picked up 8 pounds of barbequed brisket and sausage from Red River to go with the sides. Yummy. Today is Alex’s birthday, so we celebrated a few days earlier with cake and ice cream.

As the evening wore on, someone broke out a deck of cards and poker playing began. Jose won $22, so let that be a lesson to you all — the house always wins!

Later, after most of the “adults” had gone to bed on a flotilla of air mattresses, a spontaneous dance party broke out in our kitchen, led by Jose’s counsins. That lasted until the wee hours of the morning, at which point everyone collapsed onto the floor. (Well, Jose and I slept in our own comfy bed, thankyouverymuch.) All in all, we had 17 people in the house on Saturday night. I think that will probably remain the record…for all time!



Everyone headed back to Corpus on Sunday afternoon, and after we shut the door for the last time, I flopped onto the couch. I was exhausted. It is fun to have enough space to host parties now, but being a host is hard work! It was a lot of fun though. Now we just need to get the painting done and finish moving the rest of our stuff from the apartment. Then it’ll be time for another grand opening — this time for all of our Houston friends!