April 17, 2018

Hello from Houston! This is Melanie--I'm taking a turn with this blog. I've never written a blog before, so now I feel cool.
We made it to H-town just fine. It's warm here! A lot of you may know that Mark and I used to live in this city. We moved here on 7/1/01, the day after our big, beautiful, Catholic wedding. We were just two young newlyweds in a big new world, not knowing a soul. It was a great adventure lasting almost 3 years.  It is heart-warming for us to return as we have many fond memories here. We met some some amazing people while living in Houston, many of whom became life-long friends. The parish we belonged to sprouted Mark's passion for youth ministry and even motivated him to teach himself how to play the guitar! But most of all, living here taught us how to function as a married couple, how to depend on each other, how to trust each other. Over these next few days, we look forward to driving by our old apartment, walking around Rice Village, hitting up some of our favorite restaurants, attending Mass at St. Vincent DePaul and visiting with our old pals, Gus and Marta, who are graciously hosting us during this trip. (Thank you Gus and Marta!!) Although we wish it were for more fun reasons, we are humbled to return to where our awesome life together began.