IT'S A COLORFUL WORLD, HOUSTON!

Sunday, November 20 - We got together with our daughter, Carrie, today to attend the Houston Via Colori Street Painting Festival. With more than 200 artists, it has become one of the city's signature art festivals. The artists transform the streets of downtown into mind-blowing murals.

Via Colori is a fundraiser for the Center for Hearing and Speech (CHS). CHS is the only full-service resource in Houston to teach children with hearing loss to listen, speak and read without the use of sign language. The Center has been dedicated to improving the lives of children with hearing loss through clinical, education and support services. Last year, CHS provided services to more than 8,600 children from 31 countries across Texas.

This year's theme, A Colorful World, celebrates different cultures through art, food, beverages and activities. Entertainers also perform on three stages throughout the festival.

We missed the opening event – Yoga & Mimosas presented by Barefoot Wine & Bubbly. Dang! So we had to enjoy strolling down the streets enjoying the 200 artists using mostly chalk to create absolute works of art. These artists were very talented. Even the street dedicated to children had some wonder works of art.

We took a break from the street art to enjoy Soaring Phoenix. This group of young people perform all across the USA raising money to benefit kids. I guess you would call them a dance-acrobat group that uses Chinese style dragons to entertain the crowd.

After a unique balancing act on pedestals about six feet high, the dragons danced among the crowd accepting cash donations for CHS. A fun way of donating....you put a dollar or more in the dragon's mouth. Neat!

Carrie making a donation.

Marsha showing her appreciation.

The dragons then posed for photographs with kids, mom's and dad's and anyone wanting a picture. It was a fun way to spend an hour and very enjoyable to see the kids’ reaction to this colorful group.

Marsha had the biggest time watching these guys.

We then continued our walk among the artists to see the progress they were making on their street art. The time and energy these artists put into their creations is amazing. And to think it is only temporary. Luckily, it doesn't rain much in Houston so the art work should last at least until the streets are re-opened to vehicular traffic.

This is one of our favorites. Look at those eyes.

A look from the elevated walkway.

There was an entire section of one street dedicated to 3-D art. Amazing.

There was a wonderful section for children to show off their artistic side. We kept commenting how we couldn’t do anything close to what some of these kids were doing. They were having a ball.

It was a fun day. We finished it off with a late lunch at a small family-run Mexican restaurant and a little work around Carrie's apartment. She recently moved so she had a few pictures and mirrors for Paul to hang. With that done, we called it a day and headed back to the Houston Elks Lodge Campground for a little card playing in the Lodge.

Carrie and Paul enjoying the sunshine.

We wish all our family and friends a very blessed Thanksgiving day.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!