Saturday - May 28, 2002

I regret that I didn't get a chance to take more pictures while I was there. This is all I have but it should be enough to give you an idea. 

I had the chance to meet my boyfriend's childhood friend, Preston, back in early April of this year. Yes, that is his real name, he moved to San Antonio years ago but came to visit us in Houston. We hung out with two other friends Matthew grew up with (Niko and Scott) Niko is a chef so he made a gourmet dinner for all five of us that weekend (last April). The guys all had blackened redfish and I had red fish with some seasonings that Niko could find around the house. Most of you already know that I am not a seafood lover. To get me to eat my own plate of fish is a hard thing to do but I ate the whole dish. Niko also made his own creamy tomato sauce for the Italian noodles that was part of the dinner. From that being so homemade, you could taste so many exquisite flavors and it was simply awesome, along with the garlic-buttered broccoli.  

About a month later Preston invited Matthew and Niko to come out to his family's lake house this last Memorial Day. We drove about 2 and a half hour from Houston to get out there Saturday afternoon. In fact, that same day we all went out on the boat. There were about 20-25 people that showed up through out the Memorial weekend. I wish I took my camera on the boat after all. *sniff*  There were so many funny faces the guys made while they were skiing. 

I asked some of the guys, "Will there be a bathroom nearby the Lake? I haven't been on a boat since I was like 10 years old. I may have to go once we get on the boat."   A few guys told me that the lake was the bathroom. I thought they were joking one of them told me, "Well, it's not just a guy thing, all of the girls do the same thing. You just jump in, and go." 

I never thought about that before. Eww, this meant I'd have to try to hold it then. Preston, Jennifer (his neighbor at his apartments), Mike, Niko, Daye (Preston's older bro), and Matthew (my honey) and I loaded up in the boat and took off speeding around the lake to find a good place to go water skiing. We stayed out on the water from 3pm till almost 7pm. I had a blast. Most of the guys were pretty sore from skiing that night. Daye's (Preston's older bro) girlfriend made some Carne Asada for all of us. 

Mugshoots

Sunset Heat

That night most of us stayed out by the pool talking near sunset. I took about 2 pictures of the sunset. Only a few minutes later Matthew kept grabbing my camera to take shots he wanted of the sunset with in the hours we sat out talking to everyone that evening. As you can tell, we have a lot of shots of the sunset, which is very beautiful. I normally don't relax to watch the sunset like I used to.  

The next morning about 6 people (only 3 people who went with us the day before) went out on the water again. This time they left at 7am in the morning. The water was really cold that early in the morning. They got back around 10am, starving and sore from skiing. Niko and John were among the crew. They ended up pushing themselves to make everyone who showed up that morning breakfast. I actually slept just until 11am that morning, just in time for breakfast. I stayed up till early morning talking that night, just talking to a lot of people in the backyard near the pool. 

Lakehouse View (10am)

Lakehouse Shots
I only was able to get a few shots of the house upstairs. I wish I got the living room, the down stairs luxury bedroom with Jacuzzi, the kitchen and living room. It's a very big house. Argh. :/

Around 5pm that night we started dinner. We didn't get everything finished until around 8pm. There was so much food that night to eat. Chicken fajitas, homemade steak potato fries, spanish rice and Niko's homemade spaghetti. Another girl and I helped Niko cook dinner that night. It was a feast once we were finished. This is another thing I should have taken a picture of. *sigh* 

Creatures of the Lakehouse (muhahaha)
The funny thing about this trip was how Matthew kept noticing bugs and insects or creatures in general. On the drive up he pointed out the deer in many different locations, most of them were out in front of people's yards. Some people were out there on their porch, just watching them. Other people had their children feeding the deer. Through out the weekend we saw deer but I never did get a picture of them. On the way back home, we passed the houses the deer were normally at but they weren't there so I missed out on taking pictures. 

I did get a dark picture of the wallaby though. Around 6pm some of the guys got back from a trip to the grocery store. They came up the road while I was out in the front yard near the grill. As soon as they got out of the truck they were yelling that they saw a kangaroo. I thought they were playing a joke on us girls so I said, "Suuuuure you did."  They sounded pretty sincere but I didn't really want to start running out on the private road and look while it was getting darker. Later that evening us girls were all in the backyard by the pool again just chatting. One of the girls said she heard something in the bushed below the hill (which was about 15-20 feet away). I thought she was kidding until I heard something move. It was EXTREMELY hard to see in the dark because the moon wasn't out that night but I could see a black looking shadow in the distance. Then it sounded like it was coming closer, I told the girls this and we (there was about 7 of us) all started screaming all at once. I ran into the house to look for a flashlight but there was none to be found. So I brought out my camera and this is all I could get of it. We found out later on when the guys found a flashlight that it was the wallaby after all. It longed to be near humans for some reason. The funny thing, this was like 3 - 4 hours after the guys saw it early that night before the sun went down.

Matthew ended up having a fight with one insect and made a friend to another. What you say?  Yes, he's just one sweet amazing guy. *sighs*  Preston had already named the stickbug Larry since he always came to visit a lot. 

Some photos were provided by Mike Denoccio.