Kaitlynn and Kevin's Birthdays

Even though we had already celebrated Kaitlynn's 10th birthday in a major way, we made sure to mark the occasion of her actual birthday in June. She chose two of her favorite spots, Lupe Tortilla and Freddy's Frozen Custard, for her special birthday lunch and dessert.

This girl has been OBSESSED with Freddy's custard for a while now. The funniest thing to me is that in the very same month we moved back to Texas, Freddy's actually opened its first location in the Middle East -- in Dubai Mall of all places! We were laughing about how neat it would've been to include a stop at Freddy's during Kaitlynn's recent birthday party at Dubai Mall. Crazy coincidence!

As always, we stretch out the June birthday celebrations for Kevin's birthday as well. He happened to be in the Houston area and we were happy to get to spend time with him for his special day.

Home Projects

We had big plans for our summer back in Texas, but first we tried to make some progress on various projects in the new house. In hindsight, we should have completed more projects while the house was still mostly empty, but we took our time and tried to prioritize.

One of the first things we did was to have the tile floor grout sealed. Jeff spent 2 days on his hands and knees sealing every inch of the grout - and there's a TON of it! The grout is a light grey color that will easily stain so we've learned that we'll have to redo the tile sealant every 6-12 months. No fun!

Another thing we tackled was to select cabinet hardware for the kitchen and bathrooms. This project ended up taking several weeks to finish but Jeff did a great job installing all 92 handles throughout the house. Yes, 92!

In late April, we hadn't even moved in yet and my talented brother, Jeb, drove down to Katy to install some handmade custom cabinetry in our living room and laundry room. He brought Madison and Marissa with him and they all did an amazing job with the installation. Fun fact: Jeb and the girls were the very first people to sleep in our new house!

Once we moved into the house, we found some local workers to finish the trim work and paint.

The end result was very nice, although we still had no belongings to put in the beautiful new shelves except for a small television borrowed from a friend, ha!

While the painters were there, we asked them to paint the kitchen island at the same time.

It took many more weeks and a HUGE delivery of our belongings from Dubai, but late in the summer, the biggest of these home projects were completed and we were on our way to making our house feel more like home. Baby steps!

Weekend at the Aasmyr Resort

On our very first weekend back in Katy, we stayed at the home of our great friends, the Aasmyrs, while Julie and Harry went away for a couples weekend. We always call their home a resort because there is no shortage of fun with friends, pets, sports, and pool time. The kids had a wonderful time reconnecting with their friends and getting some long awaited love from the Aasmyr pets.

Side note: What happens when no one claims the wet towel that was left on the floor? They all 5 carry it to the laundry room together! Ha!

First Days back in Texas

Our first few days back in Katy were a whirlwind of purchases...new vehicles for Jeff and I, new furniture and appliances for the house, groceries and staples, you name it. On my first shopping trip to HEB, I couldn't stop looking up into the sky and noticing the beautiful clouds. I'm sure that sounds odd, but clouds in Dubai are a rare occurrence and I definitely missed them!

We stayed in a hotel for several days as we started to set up the house with enough belongings for us to live there. We also ate out most meals for the entire summer. We were happy to have our Texas favorites back.

Our air freight arrived a few days late, but it had some necessities like linens, clothes, and basic kitchen supplies and tools. We were also very thankful for our friends who lent us various things like air mattresses, bed linens, and a spare television. Slowly but surely we were putting together the basic things we needed to be able to live in our new house.

Likely the most exciting new purchase for the family was Jeff's new truck. He found it online, drove up to Dallas, bought it, and drove back all in one day. He knew it was a big truck when he bought it, but driving one with a lift kit was a new experience for us. We were relieved when he realized it would fit in our garage. But just barely!

Of course, one of our first priorities in the Houston area was the long-awaited birthday gift for Connor: his very first cell phone! Boy, was this kid excited. After watching most (all??) of his friends get their phones at much younger ages, Connor was beyond thankful to finally get his. I spent hours and hours researching options for family plans and ended up deciding to go with Xfinity Mobile to save some money. We drove to the Xfinity store with his buddies and it wasn't long at all before Connor had the typical teen pose down: that look on his face with phone in hand. HA!

We also made sure to visit our family doctors and dentists to get reestablished as patients now that we were back for good. Our first days back in Texas were busy but everything was going smoothly with the transition so far.