Girls Day Out

Saturday was our annual Valenta Family Girls Day Out. We do it once a year while the men of the clan play golf at the Bluebonnet Country Golf Club in Navasota, Texas. Some years we go to Houston and shop 'til we drop and some years we go to the Texas Antique Weekend in the Round Top/Warrenton area. This year we chose the antique festival.

Blue Bubble Gum Shaved Ice

Saturday was also the day before the first cool front of the season passed through Texas and cooled the temperature to something tolerable. I emphasize the word before because Saturday was hotter than hell! It was stupendously, breathtakingly, sizzling hot. Within moments of getting out of the cars we were very sticky and drenched with sweat. But there was shopping to be done so we sallied forth into the hot September day. Inside the tents the heat was brutal. Many of the vendors had fans which were definitely a godsend. Outside in the sun I can't even begin to tell you how hot it was. It was difficult to catch your breath it was so hot. We drank lemonade, iced tea, and water all afternoon to stay hydrated.

Grams, Nancy & Jeanne

This year seven of us made the trek out into the crowds of the Texas Antique Weekend. Our group consisted of two carloads. In one car were my sisters-in-law, Nancy and Jeanne and Nancy's daughter-in-law, Autumn. In the other were my daughter-in-law Marie, my daughter Katy, Our Little Princess, and Grams. This was the first time Autumn has joined us for our girls day out and it was fun to have her along.

The Texas Antique Weekend is held twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. Hundreds of vendors from all over the United States gather along the two-lane highway from Warrenton to Round Top and beyond. You can find anything for sale. And I mean anything.

We stayed as long as we could stand it, but by the middle of the afternoon it was just too hot. We decided to hunt down the one vendor that Katy wanted to see and then head for air conditioning.

We left Round Top around 4:30 and headed back to Houston hoping to take quick showers, cool off, and order dinner in. 

We were on Beltway 8 only a few miles from the exit to Nick and Marie's house when another driver lost control of his pick-up truck and crashed into the side of Marie's Chevy Tahoe. We watched in horror as the pickup truck bounced off of us and crossed another lane of traffic, jumped a curb, knocked down a tree, went through shrubbery and into a fence at an apartment complex before coming to a stop.  All the while, never hitting his brakes.

Marie maintained total control of her vehicle and managed to get off Beltway 8 (which is actually a three-lane access road at this point because the highway is under construction) and turned into the entrance to the apartment complex. We quickly assessed everyone in our vehicle, including Our Little Princess, and determined that no one had any visible injuries. We started looking for our cell phones, which we couldn't find because everything in the vehicle had gone flying.

Two very kind motorists who had seen the accident stopped. One of them called 911 before we even got out of the car. Marie walked over to check on the driver of the other car who was, miraculously, unscathed. Both of the witnesses waited and gave statements to the Houston Police. We also asked for an ambulance so the EMTs could check out Our Little Princess who hit her head pretty solidly on the side of her car seat and on Katy, who is 11-weeks pregnant.

The policemen who came to the scene assured us that the driver who hit us was not drunk and did not appear to be under the influence. The driver's wife arrived a few minutes later and told us that he was on his way home from work. We think that he may have fallen asleep at the wheel, since he never hit his brakes.

Katy called her OB/GYN's 24-hour hotline service on Saturday and was told to watch for specific warning signs of miscarriage. As a precaution, she saw her OB/GYN today for bloodwork and a sonogram. The baby's heartbeat was still good. They did go ahead and administer a RhoGAM shot to make sure that the trauma did not cause any complications related to the RH factor and possible mixing of blood cells between the baby and mother. We were all pretty shaken up. Yesterday my back and shoulders were extremely stiff and sore.

Marie was amazing. I would have been a basket case. She was calm, cool, and collected. She never lost her cool and took care of business. I firmly believe this story would have had a very different ending if we had been in a smaller vehicle. That Tahoe took quite a jolt. I don't think a smaller car would have fared as well. And thank God for child safety seats. A bump on her head was nothing compared to what could have been.