great weekend in houston.

since it’s soccer season (we have a game tonight, in fact), i am officially admitting how terrible i’ve been about keeping up with friends and family and keeping everyone abreast of my life here in the Arrogance State…er, i mean…the Lone Star State.  so i figured i could update a lot of you with a brief post about a few recent goings-on in my life and the lives of some of ‘my people’.

this weekend was fantastic.  ellen came to visit me in houston on thursday, and she didn’t have to fly home to cincinnati until yesterday afternoon.  what’s more, the soccer tournament that was scheduled for this weekend (friday night and most of saturday) ended up being postponed and then cancelled due to weather, so we had an entire day and a half that we didn’t initially plan on having all to ourselves.  she knew that the tournament was this weekend when she booked her flight, so she was planning on watching some (actually, quite a bit of) soccer (how cool is that, right?); nevertheless, it was really nice to have all of that extra time to spend together.  the whole cincinnati-houston thing definitely puts a damper on the quality-time-together aspect of our relationship, so an extra day and a half was actually a huge bonus.  it really made her visit seem much longer…in a totally great way. 

we ate at several really cool restaurants downtown, got to hang out with sean and laura one night, spent a rainy evening inside watching bad tv and movies, went to see 27 dresses (actually pretty good…especially for a chick-flick), went on a quest one night for a restaurant that serves brownies (i mean, seriously, is it really that much to ask?  i was shocked at the difficulty we encountered and the scarcity of such a seemingly common dessert), went downtown to hermann park on sunday afternoon and enjoyed the sunny (albeit chilly) weather while we walked around, made several random trips to sonic to try a whole slew of slush flavor combinations, and even caught some of the packers/giants game.  (on a side note, i’d like to both air my disappointment with brett favre not being in the super bowl after the freakishly successful year the cheeseheads have had and send eli manning my condolences for the severe and total beating which he and his new york football giants will undoubtedly endure in the super [lopsided] bowl in a few weeks).  but i digress…in short, the whole weekend was so great, just to have ellen here and to be able to experience parts of the city that i had never really encountered.

my family was all in memphis to see anthony’s show (he’s on a national tour of high school musical), and he was actually on as one of the leads for this tour stop.  they all said that he did a great job…which is no surprise…and they all seemed to really have enjoyed the show.  i wish i could’ve been there with them, but i at least got to see the show a few weeks back when he was in little rock.  it was great to see him for that weekend and to spend some time with him.  we rarely get to hang out, and it was totally worth the drive to little rock to be able to see him for a few days. 

i miss seeing my fam…i’m really looking forward to seeing them in april when i go home for matthew’s show.  he got one of the lead parts in one of the big shows at southern miss this spring, which is a huge accomplishment considering the miniscule attention and recognition most usm freshmen receive in the theater department.  he’s been really successful, and i’m really pumped that he’s enjoying school so much.  in the words of ron burgundy…he’s kindof a big deal.  i’m pretty proud of both my brothers…if you can’t tell.  i’m just trying to figure out two things: 1) where the heck did this whole acting/performing gene come from?? and 2) why the heck did it skip me?? 

so to all of my family and friends, i really hope that you can forgive me for being such a small blip on the radar screen that is your email inbox or your cell phone call list.  i hope you guys are all doing well.  i miss all of you and look forward to catching up with you sometime soon(most likely when soccer’s over).