Texas

søndag den 10. november 2013

Arizona

The first weekend of November Jenny, Beth, Meredith, and I went to Arizona, to go see the Grand Canyon – My actual only wish to do on my trip to Texas, except from shadowing a vet.

So Beth and I left our house at 5.45 in the morning Friday the 1^st of November, and had a flight at 7.15 from DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) to Phoenix. They are 2 hours behind Texas in Arizona, so we had a whole day to spend before Meredith and Jenny would arrive in the evening.

Our cute little rental car.

The hotel we were staying at, was in Sedona, a 2-hours drive from Phoenix, and on our way we went by the house Beth and Brad used to live in. Just to see how it looked.

Then we went to Desert Botanical Garden (a garden with cactuses) and wandered around for about 1 hour.

Obeviously it wasn't me who took this picture.. It was Beth!
- Thank you Beth! ;)

How many butterflies do you see?

We got a little hungry when the time went by 11am, so we stopped by a hotel that used to be very fancy… Now it’s just fancy.. ;) We had a breakfast-buffet, and I think it was great!

(I also got a cookie, I just didn't take a picture of it!)

In the U.S. they have all kinds of sugar on the tables at the restaurants...

THEN, we headed to the hotel we were going to sleep for the weekend in Sedona.

The view from the hotel.
(It is not Grand Canyon)

Beth and I rested for about 50 minutes before a van came by and picked us up for a one-and-a-half-hour horseback trail ride in the hills and valleys of Dead Horse Ranch State Park. It was an amazing ride and I am so so so happy that Beth took me on this ride!! Thank you Beth!!

Sorry mom!

And we are going down!

Saturday we went to the Grand Canyon! I tell you, it was so so so beautiful, amazing, awesome, unbelievable…… The best way for me to describe it, is to say inexpressible!

It was…. amazing!!!

Meredith and I went on our own, and we managed to use the time by us selves very good!! At least we thought so… I am not sure how Jenny and Beth felt when we told them what we had been up to, and showed them our pictures…. ;)

Just an easy picture to start with ;)

Sittin' on da edge!

Just laughing...

Freeedom

Where is Mere???

OH NO, she is falling of the edge!! (Actually she was "hanging" close to the edge)

Thank you for taking this picture, Brad from Oklahoma!

And now a few of my landscape-Grand-Canyon-pictures… And please notice, the feeling these pictures might give you, feels 100 times greater when you actually are there!

I tell you guys…. This was unbelievable!

On our way back to the hotel, we went by a little shopping center called Tlaquepaque.. The mexicans have a holiday called Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead) that is celebrated on November the 1., which this Saturday was! In the evening the mexicans honor the dead with festivals and lively celebrations, and that was going on in the Tlaquepaque! I'll show you a few pictures;

On Sunday Meredith and I went on a 2-hours PINK Jeep Tour in Sedona's magnificent outback, and that was so fun too!

It was a very bumpy ride, and we sat at the very end of the jeep (It had room for 7 persons) which means that all the bumps feels bigger and wilder… It was crazy (!!) but so much fuuuun!

What you will see on these pictures will not seem extreme, but let me tell you something.. If you multiply what you see with 10 times wildness, you will get the result of what it was like! ;)

Thank you Mere!

Going dooooown..

Going down-hill!!

We drove around this "mushroom". It doesn't look crazy but it was!
The jeep was exactly not too big to go around.

We did this too.

The Devil's Stairs

By the way, the nature we saw was to beautiful!!

I loved this weekend, which y'all might have noticed since;

This is a very loooong blog..
There is a bunch (BUNCH) of pictures!
I experienced so many crazy things..
I have used words like "beautiful" and "amazing" a couple of times..

And all this wouldn't be without my 3 wonderful friends, Beth, Jenny, and Meredith!

Thank y'all for such a great, amazing, wonderful, fun, beautiful, unforgettable weekend! Thank you so so so much!!!! I appreciate it …. like a lot!

fredag den 1. november 2013

Halloween

Halloween is a big deal in Texas compared to Denmark. They decorate their houses, somebody does more than others, and the kids will go "trick or treat" the whole halloween-evening.

So the date of halloween was Thursday the 31. of October, and I guess it was the same in Denmark!

To be ready for "the big evening" we have to prepare, and we did that at the Bartholomew's the 20th of October by carving pumpkins. Except the fact that these pumpkins never came out of the house before they got rotten.

The Bartholomews + boy-, and girlfriends carving pumpkins.

They look gorgeous!
I guess the winners were Jenny and Bill, with pumpkin no. 1!

Some small ghosts in front of a house in the neighborhood.

A bad phone-picture of a halloween-house.

Another big deal is the haunted houses. I don't know if we have that in Denmark as well, in that case I have never seen or heard about it.

An example of a "Haunted-House-advert".

So of course I had to go to one of these haunted houses, and Jenny and I immediately thought of Charlie (Jenny's son). Charlie did not like the idea about the haunted house, instead he took me to a pumpkin patch. It was a cute little patch with a lot of pumpkins, and a corn-maze. We dared to go in there, and with a little help from the staff, we also came out again.

But I still had to go to a haunted house, so Jenny asked one of her friend's son, Austin if he would take me, and he would love to! When Austin went to high school, he helped the school with their haunted houses, and our first plan was to go to that High School but they didn't have a haunted house this year.

So Austin researched a little, and ended up deciding to take me to the "Cutting Edge Haunted House" on Halloween eve. Actually this haunted house, believe it or not, is Guinness World Record Holder - World's Largest Haunted House.

I didn't have time (even if I did, I wasn't allowed to) to take pictures, so here is some of the website's pictures:

http://www.cuttingedgehauntedhouse.com/blog/

http://www.cuttingedgehauntedhouse.com/newsroom/photos-logos/

This was so fun, and I didn't get scared one single time..... Okay, maybe once... or twice.... Maybe three times.... Whatever, I don't think anybody would believe in that.. ;)

I have no idea for how long we were in that house, but there were a few times you would think "Okay, this is the exit", and then it would continue..

This was really a funny event, and very well done by the staff of the Cutting Edge Haunted House!

Football game!

Football is a big deal in the US, and not only the professionals but football in college as well. So of course I had to experience a football game.

One of the universities (and colleges) in Texas is Texas A&M. Jenny and Randy have 3 children; Charlie who graduated from Texas A&M in 2012, Nick is a senior, and Meredith is a freshman(men???) this year.

On Friday the 25th of October, we headed to College Station where A&M is located. I had a guided tour on the vet school, which was exciting and interesting at 3.30 pm. It was a tour in about 1 hour, and it was only the four (Randy, Jenny, Meredith, and me) of us on the tour. Unfortunately it was a very, very quiet afternoon, so we did't get to see what it's normally like. Our guide told us, that she never had seen the vet school that quiet.
But it was fun to se all the facilities though!

At the evening we went to fancy (and delicious) dinner, and everybody except from Meredith was not dressed up for a fancy place. But the waiter was nice, she said it didn't matter though everybody else at the restaurant showed the opposite.. ;)

Saturday morning arrived, and so did the football game. It was a game between A&M and Vanderbilt (from Tennessee).

The stadium!

Texas A&M has a band as well, and they were marching (without their instruments) in front of the stadium.

The band.

Meredith and I went to see the rest of the family. They were around some tents with water and food...

Can you believe that they actually had all this
for free, just for Meredith and I?? It as so thoughtful of them,
and we appreciated it a lot! Thank y'all!!!

We went in to the stadium, and I will now let my pictures tell you how it was!