Life's a Filet of Fish: Fall in Houston! It's...not really very cool yet.

Hey, it's been 2 months. Guess I'd better update.

In an effort to bolster concert attendance, the Houston Symphony Orchestra has been holding a lot of Pops concerts, including this one that was held in the Cynthia Woodlands Pavillionlands. It was very hot.

Now that school is in session, John has been spending his days at the daycare just down the road from our house. It's a real blessing that it's as close as it is and that it's affordable. He certainly tires himself out nearly every day, but a large part of that is because he has trouble sleeping with all the activity around him.

Right around Labor Day, of course, I have to go and come down with my back to school bug. Maybe I caught it from Alison or something. I was knocked out pretty good for a couple of days, and John got sick with me. We got to hang out a bit.

Does he look sick to you?

Not quite crawling yet...

When Johnny slept and when nothing was happening over email at work, I got sucked into the TV (Persona 4). Not having played a game like that in a long time had a vacuum effect. It was glorious.

However, John still had a fever, so we visited the doctor a couple of times.

He was prescribed antibiotics and probiotic yogurt. It didn't seem to confuse his body too badly, thankfully. Unfortunately, though, we had to cancel our previous plans to see the UT-BYU game to watch after him.

Our neighborhood continued to grow. The second section built out rapidly. This picture was taken in early September. Almost every lot has a house on it now. We're probably going to double our population by the end of the year.

We checked out Mel's Country Cafe one weekend, based on recommendations from my coworkers. I didn't dare attempt the Mega Mel Burger Challenge, but probably at least a dozen missionaries have (and many succeeded!). Their regular burger is big enough...like, it's a tower of delicious meat, cheese, and bacon. But it's still a tower. A leaning tower of meat.

At another opportunity, we tried out the Facon Brazilian Steakhouse at Vintage Park. Like most Brazilian steakhouses, they offer a salad bar and a near endless round of meats. I'm starting to sound like a major carnivore in this post. But...dat sausage was...incredible. They had beef with chimchurri which was also amazing. Oh! The pineapple, with a cinnamon sugar glaze! See, I eat sugary fruits too!

Dessert was nasty

The funny thing is, our friends invited us to go to Tucano's the following evening because they got a 2 for 1 deal as a birthday gift. I made sure to not eat anything the entire day, and still felt enormous afterward. Tucano's offerings were really good, but I have to say that Facon was superior (and more expensive).

John has no hesitation when it comes to grown-up food. Pancakes? Sure.

WARNING: INCOMING FLOOD OF PICTURES OF JOHN SITTING AND HOLDING THINGS

And suddenly, one late September afternoon, our lives became more complicated. He decided to crawl.

I don't want to sit still

Since moving to Houston, I've listened to NPR a lot. Like, I-buy-T-shirts-and-listen-to-podcasts a lot. I couldn't resist an opportunity to see some of my favorite public radio hosts live (yeah I know, APM isn't NPR, but they partner together all the time).

We hit up a sushi joint (The Blue Fish) in the Theater District. Really good stuff, and this dessert was ridiculously beautiful. It tasted as good as it looked.

Entering the Wortham Center

I was too economical to pay for expensive seats for a live Marketplace show. Heh heh.

As usual, Marketplace did some excellent presentations of topics ranging from school data collection to food stamps. Kai Ryssdall is an excellent interviewer; he had a Houston-based chef on who kind of just wanted to talk up her restaurant, and he was able to draw out of her some actually interesting things.

In early October, the Old Christmas Tree Farm opened up their pumpkin patch. For a relatively small area, there sure were a lot of visitors! They had hayrides, pumpkins, and bouncing castles. Anything a kid could want!

WARNING: INCOMING FLOOD OF ORANGE

My cordcut-lifestyle came to a conclusion after Aereo went kaput on me. Plus, I was excited for the BYU season (little did I know...), and pay-TV was the only way forward.

I share Johnny's sentiment towards superfluous TV documentation

Oh, more pumpkin patch pictures? Fine.

We tried out a couple of newer Woodlands restaurants. One was a fancy burger place...Grep? Grub? Something like that. Likely Grub. I doubt grep means much to 95% of the general populace (or 40% of the internet populace). All I can say is that I never would have imagined that peanut butter would go well with a beef patty. Which is pretty foolish, because I think peanut butter is awesome and totally deserves to be wherever it wants to be (I know there are haters out there...sorry Alison).

Not The Grippe

Not pictured is La Bikina, which was a very nice Mexican restaurant. If you go there, get the queso. Fried cheese to go with my melted cheese and salsa? Why certainly!

WARNING: INCOMING FLOOD OF COUSINS DOING COUSIN THINGS

Ryan wasn't sure what to do with John. He started screaming after I took this.

Ian had us try this strange shaved ice dish. Basically, it's shaved ice and milk (I think) that is removed from a cylindrical block via an ice lathe. Add flavors, and bam! "Nu-ice!" Quite tasty.

Grandma Debby made sure Johnny had Halloween appropriate gear.

The only evidence Alison and I have of chaperoning the Klein High School homecoming dance. It was fun...kind of. The hardest part was how late it was by the time it was all over.