Day 57: Houston, Cupcakes, & Meeting Ivonne!

Sorry to do another day-late posting, but I got home very late last night!

It felt weird having a day off in the middle of the week, but these were very special circumstances! One of Nick's classmates from Animation Mentor was on her way home to Mexico City from a job she got for a couple of months in Belgium, and she had a layover in Houston for a few hours. We thought it'd be the perfect opportunity to try to meet her, so we made the trek to Houston and fetched her from the airport for what seemed to be only minutes!

Since Nick and I didn't have to pick up Ivonne until 2:00, I was able to fit my workout in before we left. I was happy that there wasn't any rain yesterday morning and I took full advantage of the sunshine by heading to the hike & bike trail and biking 11 sweaty miles. I was surprised to see that many people on the trail at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. There were also people mowing the grass and emptying the garbage cans on the trail. There was a point when I felt like I was in a video game or a movie being chased by one of the lawn mowers on the trail! The mower being behind me really made me boost my speed for a good long stretch, but I was SPENT when I rounded the corner. The wind wasn't too friendly yesterday either. I swear, those windy portions of the hike & bike seem to be getting more and more challenging every time I'm out there.

After my bike ride, I rushed back to my apartment to shower and prepare a small and quick lunch for Nick and me to eat before we headed to Houston. I warmed Nick up some Totino's pizza rolls and edemame and we shared some chips. (Random, I know, but that's what happens when you're in a hurry). I didn't have any pizza rolls, though....I just had a bowl of oatmeal with chips & salsa. We also split a bag of skinny cow dark chocolate dreamy clusters. HOLY CRAP these are great, and they're only 150 calories per bag! I highly recommend them if your sweet tooth is crying and just won't shut up.

After lunch, Nick drove us to Houston. We arrived at the Bush Intercontinental Airport pretty early, and we had to wait for Ivonne to arrive for about an hour or so. I've never seen someone so enthusiastically wave at anyone before when she spotted us from the arrival gate! We had a wonderful day together, and I truly wish it could have been longer. We kept laughing about how it was so weird and awesome that we FINALLY got to meet each other face-to-face and in person. It was refreshing to see Ivonne and be able to hug her and hear her real voice instead of seeing her on a computer screen and hearing her over the speakers on my computer!

Our first (and pretty much only, unfortunately) stop was to Crave Cupcakes in Uptown Park by the Galleria. We got to give Ivonne her very first taste of American cupcakes, and she was a big fan!

Apparently yesterday was Crave's 4th birthday
so they were giving away FREE mini cupcakes!

Everybody, meet Ivonne!
Here she is enjoying her banana cupcake!

This was my strawberry cupcake!
I couldn't finish it, so I saved the rest for later.
Thanks for treating us to cupcakes, Nick!

Sadly, by the time we were done at Crave it was already almost time for rush hour traffic to start. We decided to head back to a restaurant closer to the airport, but there weren't any worth visiting!!! We truly just wanted to hang out and get to talk, so we decided to just chill in the airport until it was time for Ivonne to leave. 


We found a small food vendor in the airport close to the check-in point for international flights and pretty much just chilled there for a little over 3 hours. It was great to chat about their schooling and their animation dreams. Nick's schooling feels even more real now that we've met a fellow Animation Mentor student in person! GAH I wish we had more time together!! 


While we were in the airport, Ivonne got us a bag of Doritos to share, and Nick got me a roast beef with provolone sandwich. I only ate half because...well, it sucked. (Sooo sorry you had to waste your money on this for me, Nick!)

The sandwich might have made me a little sick because I spent a lot of last night tossing and turning with stomach pains and I was late to work this morning... Let's just say I was down to 137.6 pounds this morning thanks to what I had to go through last night, and just leave it at that. haha!

Minutes before Ivonne had to head to her gate, we remembered we needed to take a pic of all 3 of us together!

More will be posted on FB!
Gotta love the timer feature on cameras.

Ivonne is fantastic, and I hope to see her again some day soon! She was super sweet and got Nick and me each a HUUUGE Toblerone bar from Belgium! Can't wait to treat myself to some over the next few months...haha (seriously, these things are heavy duty). She also got Nick a fantastic Lego themed sketch book! Thanks for all your sweetness and kindness, Ivonne! Till we meet again!!!

A bittersweet feeling washed over Nick and me as we headed back to Beaumont. We both loved spending time with Ivonne, and it was much too short-lived...

It was pretty late when we headed home (I'd say 8:30ish) and Nick was pretty hungry since he opted not to risk eating the gross food at the little vendor in the airport. Wise man. We stopped at Chick-Fil-A in Baytown and we had some nuggets there. I had an 8 pack with lemonade and Nick ordered a meal (12 pack with fries). I ate about 8 of his fries. We finally got back to Beaumont at 11.

It wasn't the healthiest eating day, but at least I got my workout done and I did OK with portion control! I intend to be much better on Day 58 and the days to follow before Nick's birthday on Sunday! Yay!