Sight Seeing in Houston

At the End of August, Evan's cousin Matt and his wife Rike came to Houston to visit and were able to stay with us for the weekend. It was fun to hang out and catch up with them as well as play Houston tour guide one last time. We drove them around downtown, the museum district, the medical center, etc. Then, we met up with more cousins from Evan's mom's side of the family in Pearland for lunch. It was great to see Judy, Jeff, Marsha, Vic, Matt, and Susie. We had a great time catching up at Judy and Jeff's restaurant, Jake's. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was the last opportunity we had to eat at Jake's for a long time because of our move...thankfully we had one last time to enjoy it! If you are ever in the Pearland area, you really need to check it out. We obviously enjoy the people :) but the food is great too!

Matt and Rike on our tour of Rice University

Me, Susie, Matthew, and Evan at Jake's

Later that afternoon, thanks to my brother Eric, we got a great tour of NASA. While we went on the standard tour, Eric, who works for one of the contractors at NASA, was able to give us some insider info. Our Dad's company has always had contracts out at NASA so I had been on the tour a couple of times before when I was a kid. I was excited for Matt and Rike to see NASA since they had never been but honestly, I probably had just as much, if not more fun than they did! Being older and having my brother as a tour guide helped me get way more out of it then when I was a kid. It was also a cool way to learn more about Eric's job. It was also cool as an older sister to see him in his element experience his passion for NASA. The funniest part was when we were looking at all the full sized units they use for training and Eric starts explaining to me how they often times use this Russian spacecraft called the Soyuz to transport people to and from the space station. I was looking at this thing thinking, "Your kidding, right?" Apparently not. It just looked so primitive. I guess I just hadn't ever thought about the fact that there aren't enough space shuttle missions to transport everyone to and from the space station. The crazy part is that it looks like an over sized metal soccer ball and when it lands, it just lands in the middle of some field in Russia and sometimes the passengers have to wait for hours before anyone comes to get them! Check out this link for more info. Anyway, we had a great time! It was also great to hang out with Eric and Kim one last time before we moved. Thanks again Eric and Kim for joining us and giving us a great tour! Here are some pictures:

UT siblings in front of Saturn V

Eric, Kim, Matt, Rike, Me, and Evan in front of Saturn V