Shelves, Tennis and Hot Dogs

A lot has gone on in the past week. We've become more comfortable in our surroundings as we've driven around different parts of Houston.  We went to Ikea and bought a wooden shelf for storage.  We're staying in the master bedroom at Bo's house, which is great except that it's an empty room.  We bought lots of hangers to hold our clothes and I put together the shelf to hold other items.

The finished product

Some assembly required

I've been noticing some other differences between Houston and Honolulu since we've been shopping.  There are very few people walking around outside.  I believe this is because there are many areas where there are no crosswalks which is related to the fact that the city is very spread out.  On the plus side this means that the streets are clean.  The negative is that it is difficult to get around without a car.

I was worried about getting sick in Houston since we don't have any health insurance, but so far we've managed fine.  I've been able to go running around the neighborhood every other day with Lux (my brother in law) and even do other physical activities.  For example, Lyneth, Bo and I played tennis yesterday at a local park.

Backhand in action

One more not so relevant, but interesting observation I've had.  We went to Costco last weekend to buy groceries and fill up gas.  In the Waipio Costco in Hawaii there are people always in line for gas and for the Costco food due to the low price.  Costco has the cheapest gas prices in Oahu and the pizza, hot dogs and other foods are some of the lowest on the island.  However, the Costco in Houston was the opposite.  The Costco gas station was empty (the gas station across from Costco had lower prices) and no one was ordering at the Costco food station.  This was on a Saturday at noon, so I expected to see long lines of people.  The hot dog and soda combo in Houston is $1.50 at Costco, the same price as the one in Hawaii.  So Costco in Hawaii is a bargain store while in Houston it's considered a little more expensive than average. 

Lunch for $0.50 at Ikea