My Life On The Move – Current Location: Houston

It has been awhile since we have been on a camping trip. The last was probably in 2006 in Canada. Adam and I were determined to go on a camping trip again, so I went ahead to plan one, invited some friends to come along and we had a fabulous weekend!

We went to Huntsville State Park, 1 hour drive North of Houston. We packed our jeep up with a kayak, 2 mountain bikes, sleeping essentials and loads of food and drinks.

Our home for the weekend

Our kayak which was also the mode of transportation to the swimming area and had been used every morning for fishing.

Gazebo and 'kitchen'

We camped by Lake Raven. We were told that we can’t swim in the lake, there are aligators in it. We didn’t really believe them. The thought of going skinny dipping at night did cross our minds but we figured sitting by the fire, enjoying our drinks would be a better way to spend the night.

Probably it was a good idea we didn’t go into the water, we saw 2 alligators in the lake by our campsite the following morning. Yikes!

Alligator in the water! Can you see its back?

During the day the guys went mountain-biking and the girls just laze around doing nothing much. After lunch the guys will start drinking and the girls will paddle to the swimming area for a dip.

The boys starting a fire.

Julie with her water gun. We filled it up with cold water from the coolbox to shoot the boys.

Other than the hot weather, we all had a great time. We are trying to plan another camping trip but with everyone’s travelling schedule, we are not sure if it will happen.

I recently wrote about an upcoming reunion with some schoolmates from Ipoh here in Houston. That long awaited weekend came and went by so quickly.

We all had such a great time catching up on news of each other and talks about old friends, home and Malaysian food.

The girls were in Houston for 2 days and then we headed to Austin for a night before we all went back home. We did not do anything touristy at both cities, we have nothing planned. We just decide as we went along but we do know that we wanted Malaysian food, go to a strip club and have lots of fun.

Many of you have seen photos on Facebook so I will not put up any photos here but I made this video clip. Why this song? It’s our road trip song!

We had a fantastic trip and I am so glad that I met them all again after so long. There will be a next reunion trip for sure and this time it will not take 13 years before we meet again.

Adam and I love mussels. I have tried making a few variations of it but love the easy, tasty and simple way of cooking them in white wine ~ moules marinieres.

Before cooking the mussels, I normally scrub them with a clean toothbrush (it’s not an old and used toothbrush! I got a new clean one just for cleaning mussels ) to remove any grit or sand. I will then remove any beard found on them. You need a hard tug sometimes to remove the beard but when it gets too difficult, just cut them off with a sharp knife.

At this stage when you see opened mussels, please thrown them away. They are dead. Rinse the cleaned mussels several times and place them in a colander. Do not soak them in water! It will kill them!

Cleaned Mussels in Colander

When you are ready to cook, have these ingredients ready: -

• Butter
• Olive oil
• White wine - something good and that you will drink. If you hate it, don’t use it.
• Garlic - chopped
• Shallots / yellow onion - chopped
• Coriander – chopped. You can use parsley if you want, I prefer the aroma of coriander

In a heavy bottom pan, add butter and olive oil.

When butter bubbles, add shallots and garlic. Do not brown garlic!

When fragrant, add white wine and some coriander.

Dump all mussels into the pot, cover and shake them to make sure the liquid covers the mussels.

In about 5 minutes, all mussels should open.

Uncover the pan, add the remaining coriander and shake the pan once more to make sure the mussels is covered with all the yummy goodness.

Serve with some yummy crusty bread. I used Pagnotta.

Cooked mussels. YUM!

*Note – If you see any unopened cooked mussels, please throw them away. They are dead and can’t be eaten. Do not try to pry it open.

This Thursday I will be meeting with some friends from school, some of whom I have not seen since 1995 ~ yes, 13 years ago. We all went to the same school, some of us in the same class, and we now live in the US. Of all the people here, only 6 can meet up this weekend and we are all meeting in Houston!

2 girls will be flying in from Chicago, 1 from Dallas and another from New York and together with the 2 who live in Houston, we will have a fabulous weekend!

Everyone will be here on Thursday night and we will have loads of catching up to do.

Friday will be a day out in the city, eating at a Malaysian restaurant (most likely) and more catching up. Wait! I believe a trip to the strip club is part of the deal too.

Saturday morning we will be heading to Austin for a night.

It’s going to be fun and I am so looking forward to it!

I couldn’t think of a chicken meal to cook last night. I have the chicken defrosted, wanted to make something different and easy but wasn’t sure what. So I went to Simply Recipes, a food blog that I love and got the recipe for Chicken Piccata.

Chicken Piccata

It’s a very easy recipe. All you need are

• Chicken breast – butterflied if it’s too thick.
• White wine
• Butter
• Capers – wash off brine first before using
• Mix of plain flour, salt, pepper and grated Parmesan cheese.

First you clean the chicken and then coat it with the flour mixture

Pan fry both sides until done. Romove chicken from pan.

Using the same pan, add some butter and white wine. Scrape the bits and pieces off  the pan and add capers.

Add some of the remaining flour from the mix to thicken the sauce.

Pour sauce over chicken and serve with mashed potatoes and steamed veg (our favourite).

Voila! You’ve got yourself a simple meal that taste great!

As most of you know, Adam’s company moves us to a new location every 2-4 years. We would have lived in Houston for 3 years come November and it’s time for us to go.

Adam has told his boss that we would like to leave when our visa expires in November. His boss asked us to renew our visa just in case Adam needs to finish up some work then he has until December to get them done. So we will be renewing our visa in London in September (you need to leave the country to renew the visa, it can’t be done in the US)

I am not sure about the renewal. Once renewed, we have 2 years to stay here. That would be a reason for the company to keep us here but Adam is pretty confident that his boss will not use that trick on him. So if Adam is right, we would be leaving Houston in December.

Where to? We don’t know. We asked to be moved to South America. We love their culture and way of life and would love to experience it for ourselves. If we get to pick anywhere in South America, we pick Colombia as our 1st choice and Ecuador as our 2nd but anywhere on that continent would be great.

Being in the oil industry, there’s always the possibility of moving to the Middle East (Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Oman) or Russia (Moscow, Tyumen). We are open to moving to anywhere new (probably not Nigeria though) and see that part of the world.

I guess we will find out around October / November if we are moving for real and if we are indeed going, where.

The weekend just passed was great. Adam and I went to New Orleans (which I will write about in another entry) and on Sunday when we returned to Houston, we headed over to Jayde’s house for a pool party to celebrate her birthday.

We were late for the party. When we got there people were half drunk, cake cut and presents opened but that did not stop us from having a great time. Jayde’s family had rented a huge margarita machine which was the main drink of the day. We all agreed that it was also the killer drink. It got everyone drunk.

You know people were getting drunk and the evening has got abit crazy when

• girls were kissing
• a girl showing off her tits
• a couple making out at the corner of the garden
• a few of the girls thought it was funny to peep on the couple who was making out
• the thought of seeing someone butt naked and making out got you laughing non-stop
• while peeping on the couple making out, you turn and your head bump into your friend’s nose and it’s still sore the next day and when she cleaned her nose, there were some blood (not good)
• you wake up and notice some bruises on your hands and you don’t remember how that happened

There were so much more fun things that happened. It was a great party though it did sound like we were partying like college kids.

I did not take any photos that day but a friend put this clip together. If you have 4 and a half minute, view it.

Happy Birthday Jayde!!

Julie, thanks for putting this clip together!

It’s Independence Day here in the US come Friday. It’s a long weekend and we are going somewhere!!!

This is the first time we are celebrating the 4th of July holiday in the States. We were out of the country the previous 2 times.

Tomorrow late noon, we start our road trip to a city in a Texas neighbouring state. A place where great Jazz and Blues originate. A place where is home to Louis Armstrong and Harry Connick Jr. A place with yummy Creole/Cajun food.

Have you figured the place out? No?

It’s a place which was in the news after the devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Yes, we are heading to New Orleans.

We were pretty busy mid-June. Not because we had a long list of chores to get done but because we had family over. Adam’s step sister (Emma) and her fiance (Hamish) was with us for 2 wonderful weeks. It’s nice to have family and friends visit, especially since we are away from home.

While here, I took care of them when Adam was at work and on weekends we would do something fun together. It’s a great place to shop in Houston so shopping was obviously part of the to-do.

Hamish doing some shopping in a bike shop. He loves bikes.

Did I mention that Emma and Hamish was living in Malacca for 10 years? They love food so feasting on yummies was another favourite activity.

Dinner at a Malaysian restaurant, Cafe Malay. We had satay, roti canai, laksa, beef rendang, chicken curry and fried keoy teow. YUM!

Early dinner at our favourite British pub, Richmond Arms.

Fry-up. A must with the Brits.

The first weekend they were here, we went kayaking. It’s Adam and my new favourite hobby. We like it so much we are looking at getting our own kayak.

Adam and I kayaking at Lake Conroe.

Emma and Hamish.

The 2nd (and last) weekend they were here, we had a bbq by the pool.

The boys cooking for the girls.

The guys were up to alot of drinking (of course).

Proud owner of the fridge filled with beer.

One of the many bars we went to. This is a typical Texan Ice House.

Emma is 3 months pregnant so there is no drinking for her which is not a bad thing since I am trying to cut down on my consumption. There were loads of baby talk in the house.

Hamish attempting to read about pregnancy while watching rugby.

It was so difficult to say goodbye to them. We all had such a great time together. I am looking forward to our trip to Turkey to see them again. Miss you guys