Marie and I returned to Houston for the second time in so many months late last week. Houston is the home of Aramco Services Company. This is a subsidiery of Saudi Aramco. They handle all of the hiring in the states. The first time we went was for the interview. This time they literally flew the two of down for a 25 minute meeting to take blood and a chest x-ray for our Visa clearances. That ended up giving us two days of R & R in Houston. We stayed in an area called the Galleria district - named for the massive mall and shopping area that reside there. It is a really upitty and clean part of town. We stayed at a Doubletree Suites and basically ate, drank, shopped and slept for two full days. The shopping was great and the food was better. I found this awesome Indian restaurant online before we went and we ate dinner there. The name of the place was Kiran's . Not that anyone gets to Houston but if you ever do and you like Indian food give it a try. Of course the chance of finding someone from the Philly area that is: a.) going to Houston and b.) likes indian food is the equivalent of finding a needle in hay stack.

In the end the big news out of Houston is we are not leaving on August 5th as we had orignially thought. There is a hold up in Anna's medical clearance and we are now looking at mid August. This is a have your cake and eat it too situation. Months ago we had rented a house in the Outerbanks with our closest friends Matt and Paula R. for the first week in August. Once we found out we were going to Saudi we had to cancel. Well now we can go again. Yes! We have been going to the Outer Banks of North Carolina since way back when we got married. We love it down there.

The other upside is we had purchased tickets to see Micheal Buble' at the Mann Music Center. As many of you know I am a huge Frank Sinatra fan and Buble' is the closest thing you can get in this day and age. We are going with our good friends Joe and Sandra M. in a limo and it should be a blast. So there you have it. Mid to late August (In šaʾ Allāh) and a lot of fun between now and then.