Houston has been one of our favourite parts of this trip around the USA – not because it is the oil capital of America or its a sprawling humongous city – but because Cathy C Kathy K (as the kids so lovingly named them – they are wonderful friends I met through being on the board of IIPA – international Iridology Practitioners Association) are just so awesome and took 6 days off work to host us and it was basically quite a relaxing and epic stay.
Not an easy feat having 7 crazy Australians arrive at your door and ask if they can leave their car at your place while being driven to the airport so they can go to Peru. Then arriving back Three weeks later to valet pick up, 6 days of great things planned, being driven everywhere, 16 delightful meals prepared, comfortable beds for us all to sleep in, a pool to keep the kids amused, and also a love of Harry Potter.

Our kids have never been into Harry Potter because of their perception that it was scary. We’ve never really pushed it either but Kathy & Cathy are definitely big fans and it was the best way to introduce our kids to Harry. They fell in love with him and we got in five of the movies. Kathy K was in stitches watching the kids hide behind pillows during the scary scenes. The owl letters that arrived were just gold! Thank you Kathy K and Cathy C – you are such incredible hosts, the Kids new Texan aunties and we can’t wait to see you in Australia hopefully next year. Also it was great fun having an IIPA board meeting with two members in the same room!
I loved Kathy’s Facebook post after we left:

‘So…after 6 days, 5 kids, 4 exhausted adults, 3 scaredy cats, 2 tired dogs, the partridge in the pear tree has flown away.
With a few skinned knees, one slightly sick mom, a couple of coughs and runny noses, a day trip to Aggieland, a fun day at the lake fishing, 5 decorated pumpkins, 16 prepared meals, 5 Harry Potter movies and 2 owl deliveries the Milikings have left Houston.
We all had a great time and Cathy and I will see the Miliankos family in Oz in 2015. Safe travels y’all!’

My favourite thing about staying with Catch C and Kathy K was watching Harry Potter – we watched five movies all together. It was awesome. I was scared of number two and number four because of Valdermort but all of them are a bit scary. I liked Harry Potter cause he’s a cool guy.

We got two owl post mail each from Harry’s owl. I forgot what he said but he said to enjoy Texas. He also said that ‘Emilio before you leave I’m going to put you in the right house’ – he said ‘Emilio since you are naughty, cheeky and sometimes you are very kind so you belong in the house of Slitherin. I got a badge of Slitherin. Slitherin is the house of Valdermort and he’s very bad. He was born bad and he has lots of bodies and gets destroyed lots of times. He has a humongous snake that dies by Harry Potter. It’s a good story and also one of the other scariest things is a three headed dog. Also one of the captains of the magic school called Hagrid has a secret weapon that Is actually not a weapon – it’s an animal – it’s like an ogre. He is an old student and he’s very very big.
Harry Potter got into to the championship called the Tri-Wizard tournament and he had to breathe for one hour under water to get his friends. He used magic potion that made him have flippers and gills. He could breathe and the guy that gave it To him said he killed Harry Potter but he didn’t – the magic potion worked and he lived. He saved Ron and another girl from another school.
When we finished all of the Harry Potter movies we stopped in number three halfway and we went on Kathy K’s boat fishing, there was tons of fish and we got lots of pulls but we weren’t fast enough. We had hot dogs on the boat – it was like a cafe – so yummy. When we got back To Houston we watched more of Harry Potter and had dinner and we had salmon. It was really really good. After that we watched even more Harry Potter.
Once we lost number five but Toby found it and he even found number six but we didn’t have time to watch it.
Once we got up I was playing around and then we had to get ready to leave. Before we left we got some presents – one of them is a sand maker pendulum. We also got our second owl letter and we had breakfast with the pumpkins that we decorated because it was about to be Halloween. Then we went in the car and said goodbye – I had such a good holiday with Cathy C and Kathy K – it was really fun!
Love from Emilio

Fishing 4/10/14
Today we went fishing with our friends Cathy & Kathy. They’ve a pontoon boat, it was an amazing boat. We didn’t catch any fish, but the fish finder showed about 150-200 fish & we had 5 rods in the water! We’re using Minnows & fished for at least 2-3 hours. Well our fishing day comes to an end.

Generous Cathy & Kathy

Cathy & Kathy made us some of the best meals I’ve ever had, they were lasagna, garlic bread, pizza, salmon, Mexican, & other awesome meals. We watched 5 of the 8 epic Harry Potters, they even gave us some brochures that had stuff that you could buy from Harry Potter. We even got mail which we called ‘‘owl mail’’. Harry Potter gave us wizard & witch coins & gave us badges for a house that we would likely to be if we we’re in Hogwarts. They (Cathy & Kathy) also even had a pool.

George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush library is awesome. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about the Bushes but it seems that most of the stuff is about his son George W. Bush. We got to fill out a form about George H. Bush & here are some of the answers…
George H. Bush has three brothers & one sister. Bush flew a 1944 TBM Avenger which he flew after he married his wife Barbra. (He flew the plane in the second world war – they say that he was a war hero because his plane got shoot down & he was the only one out of three to live). When Bush moved into Texas he drove a 1947 Stude breaker. Bush’s favourite water sport at his holiday house in Maine are boating & fishing.
By Toby

At Cathy and Kathy’s place Yasi and I swam in their pool everyday. It was so awesome. I liked fishing on their boat. Their boat is a pontoon fishing boat that is very big. It had a grill so we had hot dogs for lunch which were absolutely delicious. We went out on the lake to fish and the bait that we used was minnows which is like small real fish. After we had gone fishing we had to let all the small minnows go but it was hard to catch them when there was only one or two left. No one caught any fish. We saw lots of fish on the fish scanner but they were too fast.
Cathy C and Kathy K’s house is awesome because they have a pool and two dogs and three cats. I had a really comfy bed – I slept on a double air mattress with Yasi.
I really liked the food we had. We had salmon, burritos, nachos with bean sauce, lasagne, pizza – all their meals were so delicious. I also loved the breakfast – sometimes we would have cereal but other times we had pancakes, eggs, omelettes, pumpkin muffins and lots of other things. Very yummy stuff – they are really good cooks.

We played some mini golf – I got two hole in ones and I was very excited. Kathy K is a really good golfer and has her own golf clubs. It was really hot most of the time in Houston but the pool cooled us down.

I loved staying with them and they will come and have Christmas with us in Australia next year. I can’t wait.
Love from Kalika.

 

 

 

In Texas we have been to Houston and we have had a great time.
We are staying at some friends of my dad – Cathy C and Kathy K.
They live in Houston and we have been here for six days.
Kathy C and Kathy K have a pool and we have been swimming a lot – every day. We have been to play min golf – Toby and Kathy K won
and l lost by a lot. We also went to a festival to meet Polly and Steve who work at IIPA with my baba and Kathy. We got an ice cream and played and watched the grown ups drink wine for an hour!
Kathy C and Kathy K took us to have lunch with their best friends and to the George Bush Library.
By Yasmina

 

 

 

 

I loved cuddling with Cathy C and Kathy K. I also loved their dogs and cats and the pool. I miss them. By Zoi