Courtyard By Marriott Bryan College Station

... His nose would go a mile a minute sniffing everything. He covered 30 states with us.

Socks: thank you for giving us 14 wonderful years. We’ll always remember you lining our front steps with dead field mice; putting your paws in the snow and running back in the house; climbing into bed with us every night. You never gave us a hard time.

You’ll always be remembered and loved!

Hugs and kisses,

Mom, Dad and Michelle

... both entertaining and educational.

During his presidency, sweeping changes took place across the globe. The collapse of the Soviet Union, America’s archenemy for fifty years, heralded the spread of democracy and freedom in Eastern Europe. His excellent leadership provided stability during reunification of Germany, a country divided for fifty years during the Cold War. The success of Operations Desert ...

Left Arlington, TX early in the morning. Heavy rain predicted later on in the morning, definitely wanted to leave before the rain. Ran into rain anyway so it took longer than usual. Texas received heavy rain the past 2 weeks that caused severe flooding in the Dallas / Houston area, of course this is where we are .

I guess this was the main reason I came back at this time for vacation. On the plus side - got to see the whole family in one place over a couple of days.

Outside of having to dress up in a tux, it was a good time. And my rental car even got into the wedding.

Made a quick stop by the Traveling Aggies office to make sure everything was taken care of for my Peru / Machu Picchu vacation next year. I was a little worried trying to do everything from across the pond.

Looks like it will be a good trip & I got the names of the other travellers.

Met up with another high school friend living in College Station. Conveniently, his kids were playing flag football at the same time as my brother's step-son.

Then off to the hotel. My suite on the top floor, right next to the Hilton emblem.

This year I only get to make one football game from Scotland. The Aggies are playing Oklahoma State. Krista is able to make her annual game as well. Not sure if the win streak will continue - every game she has gone to over the years, the Aggies have won.

Update - well, the streak is over. Wasn't as close as the final score. But it was a good day out, even if the weather wasn't as nice as forecasted.

... units of blood. He received a bone marrow transplant from his sister just six months ago, in March 2009. He is currently having a trouble with Graft vs Host disease but otherwise was looking great and very thankful that his sister was a match.
They had a cool canvas goodie bag for each of us. The goodie bags have the Lone Star Circle of Life logo embroidered on them, with a hat and some other goodies in ...

... the world. Talk about relaxing. Ahhhhhh, good times. So maybe it's those things that make me want to travel. To reach that level of ecstasy or nirvana that I mostly find abroad. It could be a mixture, it could just as well be something that I can't even admit to myself or haven't realized yet. I don't know if I'm chasing or running from something, but one thing is for sure, the travel bug is itching and as Matthew Murphy once told me, "...there is no cure, only treatment."

There are 27 days until I leave for Nagasaki. I am extremely excited but even more nervous. It's true that I did receive information about my host family and that I was a little freaked out about the fact that it was all in Japanese, I understood next to nothing of it, and no one in this future family of mine speaks English. Despite this, I think I'm still more ...