T. Henry Heart-throb

This summer we had a lot of opportunities as far as work went -but after making up our minds, and changing them, and changing them again, we finally felt right about going to Houston, Texas. Keegan went to work with his old mission buddy Jason Sanders and a new pal Trent Murphey. They all worked for Keegan and Jason's mission president selling manufactured homes and moving them over to our little community of Sugarberry Place. Even though Houston in the summertime isn't always the most pleasant place, we survived rather well with only a few minor battle scars. But those scars bring back some fond memories ;-)

BattleScar #1: Eaten Alive
The first few days of work were rough and the guys would joke around about how Houston was "eating [them] alive!" And they weren't just talking about the bugs. They tried to find every way possible to get the word out about Sugarberry Place and one method of attack was to strategically place bright signs on the side of the road. Tomball, our little suburb of Houston, was very green, wet, and swarming with mosquitto's and their spawning young. (Not my favorite.) The guys would often come home with a bunch of fresh and festering bites but the worst was when putting up some new signs and unknowingly standing on a fire-ant hill. OUCH!

BattleScar #2: No AC- thank heavens for Bishops advice :-)
After only being in Tomball for a week and a half, we realized on a Saturday that our AC wasn't working. You would think that May wouldn't be too bad- but it was pretty miserable! We spent the first sweltering night there but we survived by following some advice our Bishop from Logan gave us before we left. He and his wife lived through a whole AC free summer in Texas by soaking their sheets in the shower and then having fans blow on them while sleeping. Worked like a charm as long as Keegan kept getting up to re-soak the sheets and put them back on top of us. It only took a couple of hours for them to dry out.

Luckily the next night was spent at a friends house because we couldn't last 10 minutes inside. SO HOT!

BattleScar #3: Poison ...?
While on yet another sign-run Keegan rubbed into some poison plant that turned into one of the narliest bunches of blistery whatevers I had ever seen! I wish we had taken better pictures of it because it was pretty bad. The infection started as larger looking bites on his right arm and later turned up on the right side of his stomach too. They were really itchy and eventually spread to cover about 3/5 of his arm. The last and most horrible phase was the red itchy blobs turning into a thousand tiny and oozing blisters. Poor guy had to go around the house with paper towels under or around his arm to catch the puss! Gross but kind of humorous at the same time:-)

I think the funniest experience was when we got together with a group to play volleyball and his arm was gauzed. Every time he'd hit the ball more blisters would pop and ooze. We all joked about how funny it would be (but not really that funny) if we all ended up with the same thing a couple of days later. Thankfully he was out of the contagious phase and was on the mend. But it lasted a good few weeks which seemed like forever! Its a rough time in Texas when you have to wear long-sleeved shirts to work in order to not scare your customers with your growths. ;-)

At the peak of the ooze we went to spend a great weekend in Austin with my aunt, uncle and cousins(the Bramwell clan). Aunt Lauree is a former nurse and Uncle Jerry a hiking hippie with plenty of poison plant experience and between the two of them and internet searches, we determined that it was poison oak. Despite the irritation and discomfort that Keegan experienced we still had a blast in Austin that weekend. We were able to spend a lot of quality time with the Bramwell's and also had breakfast and went to church with Keegan's aunt and her family that live there.

All in all we enjoyed our Texas experience. We had many good memories and made a lot of good friends. Some of the highlights included the weekend in Austin, enjoying home made spinach-artichoke dip with Trent and Jason, karaoke nights, being young adult leaders at a three day youth conference for the youth in our Stake, and touring some of the sites that Houston had to offer. Another highlight was being able to celebrate Tomball's 100th year Anniversary with the community and their mascot T. Henry Heart-throb ;-) haha. So funny. He was basically a heart with boots and a cowboy hat. One of the major highlights for especially me was being able to work for the Bramwell's for about a month. They are some of the most generous people I know and it was a blast to be spoiled by them ;-) They definitely made our time in Texas much more fun.

Will we ever go backto Houston, TX? Hmmmm...to visit the Bramwells, in a heart-beat. But to live....mmm...fat chance.