Houston Report

Last Friday, Ella and I headed off to Houston for our first road trip together. It was a nice little trip and some good bonding time with Ella. I loved being able to sleep in a hotel and not have a small person wake me up three times in the night. I also liked being able to sit and watch TV without worrying about doing laundry or cleaning the kitchen or changing any diapers. It's funny how our definitions of luxury change through the years.


Reason #3492 I love Ella. As soon as we got to our room, she set Lyle the Crocodile up in bed with her blanket. When it was bedtime, she moved him to the arm chair to sleep but then dragged him back into her bed because she was lonely. It's nice to see that even though she's 9 and approaching tweendom, she still loves her stuffed critters.

Ella climbed really well, and it was fun for me to get to be at the competition with her. I learned a lot about how the comps work. I was able to help her strategize about which routes to attempt and cheer her on. Here she's climbing her hardest route. The grey area under her is actually an overhang; she had just climbed around the corner and back up on to the vertical wall. Unfortunately, she fell right after I took the picture. We watched a lot of climbers from her division, and none of them were able to complete the route.

To my amazement, Ella won her division! I knew she had climbed well, but I thought she'd been out climbed by at least three other girls. Ella was happy to have won, but she was happier that she'd gotten a ribbon.

It was a great trip, and we get to go on another one in two weeks - this time to Dallas.