Doing What I Should: Christmas In Houston

Sarah and I left Hawaii about 2 weeks ago to spend Christmas in Houston with family. From departure to arrival, we were gone 18 days, and in that time I took 177 miscellaneous pictures. That means that about 10 times each day there was some moment that I insisted on capturing. Hearing it that way helps put into perspective the fun we were having. Here is much of our trip:

I had been saving my Chuck E. Cheese's tickets since I was a kid.
Sarah, Amanda, and I went and cashed them out.
I had Sarah keep an eye out for a deserving young chap to whom we would give the lot. She found a mom who was there with her two sons. I approached her, gave the voucher for the amount, and we went on our merry way. Upon leaving, we saw a car on fire at a stop-sign and the owner trying to frantically put it out with a fire extinguisher. Tragic.

Holland (floor) schooled Brendan and I in the art of climbing at Stone Moves.

Daniel, Ryan, Nik and I went to top Golf one morning.

This place is amazing if you don't know. Ameena eventually joined us too!

(Group below)

Ashley is Sarah's sister. Jonathan is Ashley's boyfriend. Jonathan has the

sweetest collection of straight razors I've ever seen, and this here is his first one.

He gifted this to me for Christmas, and it has been the greatest shave experience of my life.
Not necessarily in quality of shave (although that's part of it), but rather in the art of shaving; taking time in the morning to clean up and prepare for a day in an old fashioned way. My mom also got me a straight razor, along with a shave brush, and shave soap,

for Christmas and birthday.

Met up with the 2 below, Michael and Jennifer, to eat at Clay's. Afterward, we fed

mints to this horse.

Got to wait in line outside of REI for 2 hours in 32 degrees to partake in their membership garage sale.

Scored this $200 Deuter 65 + 10 pack for $75. It is in mint condition without any found flaw, only in that it was "used". The "65 + 10" denotes that it's a 65 Liter pack, and the grey extension you see is an additional 10 Liters if needed. Now to put all my survival gear in it!

My "Boho" wife lookin' hot in the airport.

"What's Sawyer doin' under there?" -Kawaii

These are my cousins Kawaii, and Kai.

4 generations, baby! Grandma, and Great Grandma Mamaw.

Caught colds within a day of being home. To ease the congestion the family joined me in the bathroom to breath the steam.

Haven't seen my dad since I was 8. 18 years later we arranged a get-together at my place when people were coming out to catch up and meet Sawyer. Hands down greatest Christmas due to this alone. Seeing him with his grand-baby was very surreal.

My dad, and my uncle (left) were friends back in the day. It's been 18+ years since they've talked, so it was a fun reunion for them as well.

We used to go to "The Boat". It's a restaurant shaped as a boat that serves seafood.

He wanted to see us one last time before we left and he thought The Boat was a great place to go eat together. It definitely was.

Sawyer and Ashton meeting. (Sarah's cat).

Charlie and Sawyer meeting. (Holland's dog).

He'll hold anything you put in his hands.

One of Sarah's Christmas presents to me was a bundle of Texas shirts. Told her it seemed more

of a gift to her really.

Sawyer met a lot of people, so here's a little collage of his trip and meetings.

Megan's family had us over for dinner. So much fun hanging with them and meeting the family.

What can I say about this?

We went to Cracker Barrel with a few of Sarah's sorority friends, Audrey, Lauren, and Stacy. I don't have the picture of Sarah with the girls, but seeing as how Sarah loves their fireplace, here's us in front of it. Check out Sawyer's demon eyes.