If you live in Houston, I’m sure you’ve heard about the Art Car Parade. Every year, hundreds of artists create “art cars” to be put on parade in May. Before the big parade, there’s an annual ball. Dena and I were lucky enough to be given tickets by our friend, Y.E.T. She is a belly dancer and all around cool lady. The ball is a huge celebration of art cars, with bands playing and dancers performing. It was a fun place to see and be seen!

Here’s Dena’s outfit. She’s posing in front of The Orange Show, the venue that hosts the art car ball. The Orange Show is a quirky outdoor venue that is sort of like a mini castle filled with knick knacks and art. You HAVE to check it out.

Here’s a picture of me in front of the entrance. I’m wearing my glitter high heels that I made myself. I felt very glamorous in high heels at the ball. A photographer approached me at the end of the night and asked me if I had ever done any runway work and would I be interested, because he wanted to show my photos to his agency. What?

Here’s the crowd and some of the art cars. Those dang lights were kind of annoying. It was hard to see anything in the light they provided. In the words of the famous song, we were “blinded by the light!”

When we were walking passed this art car we looked up and who did we see? Some of our friends! “Is this your car?” we asked. “Nope! We’re occupying it!” So we climbed up with them and hung out for a little while. They have the cutest baby ever.

Dena and I in the art car.

The crowd, as seen from the art car.

Mr and Mrs. Colonel Sanders! These old people were too cute. I want to be as cool as they are one day.

Really cool “End Of The World 2012 Apocolypse” Car. I don’t actually know what it was called but that’s what it was about. Dena told me it’s made by some famous artist from New York. Anyway. It was way cool.

Guy taking a picture of me. Dena and I kept getting pictures taken of us!

In front of the stage, lookin’ good.

Sock monkey car and the owners wearing sock monkey garb! How cute.

I loved this car. It was covered in colorful fake fruit.

You may have seen this car around town. It has giant merry-go-round ponies. Fun fact: the owner also has a bike with merry-go-round ponies attached (don’t ask, just use your imagination). The point of the story is one time he chased Dena at Critical Mass and it was very scary.

Dena in front of a bumper sticker car. Perfect! Her truck will look like this one day.

Side-show style stage. Here’s a picture of a burlesque show. Ooh la la. I kept asking Dena “Are they allowed to do this?” Glad there weren’t very many kids around.

A giant Marlboro box dancing in front of the stage. Dena knows the lady wearing it!

Me in the audience.

Finally! The whole reason we came! To see Y.E.T. perform! She did her “bad unicorn” dance. She is so fun to watch and is a great friend. We love getting to see her and hang out.

Y.E.T. teaches a donation yoga/belly dance class every Thursday at 6 at Tango Cielo above Tacos A Go Go on Main. You should check it out!

She teaches a lot more classes as well. Check out her twitter for more info on her upcoming classes and performances.

Go Y.E.T. go!

Dena and I danced down front at this performance by Tyburn Jig, a Houston band that Dena’s seen before. When we went to dance, some other people joined us. There’s not much room to dance at the Orange Show, but we made it work. I had to take off my shoes because I kept falling.

The last band that played was The Dirty Dozen Brass Band from New Orleans. I enjoyed their music. I love jazz bands. I was privileged to see Galactic play on Halloween here in Houston, which is a memory I’ll never forget. Our friend told us he had seen Dirty Dozen play at a wedding in New Orleans. How cool! I would love to have a local band play at my wedding.

At the end of the set, they asked people to dance with them. So, ya know. We did.

It was pretty low key and fun. Dena had a great time. I was mostly just concentrating on not falling on my face.

He he he look at dena.

We were starving after wards and had A LOT of packing left to do so we stopped by La Tapatia on the way home and got burritos and saw a friend and his friend.

Dena and I stayed up all night packing and cleaning. Poor Dena had to pick up after her roommates who left a bunch of stuff in the apartment. I didn’t stay up too late but boy was I exhausted. It’s officially summer for Dena and I so I’m home in Kingwood for a 2 weeks, then my family moves to London! Dena starts summer school in June . I’ll be finishing up my internship and working at my real job and traveling around Texas as much as we can. We’re hoping to travel a lot. I’ll be going to London to stay with my family for the month of July and Dena will be joining as well!