Where does the time go?

Another month (or more) has passed since my last post. We have been on the go. We took a trip to TX to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary. While we were in TX, my parents took all of us around to where they grew up and told us more of their stories that we hadn't heard before. My parents were married when they were 17 and 18 years old. My mother was still in High School and finished her last year of high school as a married woman (she had to go to another school because she was married). My parents lived on totally opposite sides of town and my dad had to drive quite a ways to pick my mom up for dates. My dad had a paper route. It was a pretty long "car route." That is how he was able to buy gas to take mom on dates. Anyway 50 years later, they have 7 children (5 living) and 13 grandchildren. Four out of five kids are married (I am the only one still single). Starting this fall, they will have 3 grandsons in college. It was nice to get everyone together since we don't do it very often. Evvy was a little overwhelmed by everyone. She got to the point where she would cry (scream) if I left the room unless grandpa was there. She was pretty much glued to me by the end of the week.

Here is a brief (maybe) synopsis of our trip.

Day 1: drove to Ft Worth, TX (left 6am, arrived 3:30ish pm). Watched lots of Baby Einstein and Disney movies. Had dinner at my aunt Helen's house with my parents, sister and 2 of 3 of my aunt's kids (my cousins) along with some of their kids. Was really nice to visit and see people that I hadn't seen in a long time. Seems like the only times we have gotten together in the past was at funerals.

Day 2: breakfast at the hotel; short swim; even shorter nap for Evvy; off to the botanical gardens for family pictures. It was SO HOT and HUMID. I think we got some good shots though. This was our gift to our parents. We are having one of the whole family blown up and printed on canvas so they can have us nice and big to look at when they can't be with us. We then went to the restaurant where we had the dinner party to setup decorations. I think it all turned out very nicely. Evvy had fun dressing up in a party dress and running around with her cousins and grandpa. She really liked the beans and guacomole and tortillas for dinner.

Day 3 we toured mom & dad's old neighborhoods (mostly Mexican now). It was fun to see where they grew up. We then went for hamburgers and ice-cream. Evvy had her first ice-cream from a ice-cream parlour. She thoroughly enjoyed it and ate the whole scoop.

Day 4 we got up and swam with everyone. Then we packed up and headed from Ft Worth to San Antonio. We actually stayed in San Marcos. We swam again and ordered pizza for dinner. Then we all crashed.

Day 5 we went and visited Grandma Flora Mae (dad's step-mom) who is Evvy's great grandma. She is 94 years old and was very happy to have her grandchildren and great-grandchildren visiting her. Everyone but Allan's family was able to visit. Allan's kids were still in school and Anna is teaching so they had to be back at school. We had a nice visit and took some nice pictures. We then headed to San Antonio and went to the Alamo and then walked on the river walk and ate Mexican Food. Evvy tried to take a swim a couple of times. She LOVES water. We then got in the car again and drove to east TX (through Houston rush hour) and then 1 1/2 hours east to my parents' house.

Day 6 we got up and drove 1 1/2 hours to Galveston to go to the beach. Evvy took her first ferry ride and had beautiful wind-blown hair. Evvy LOVED the beach. The minute she was our of the car, she plopped down in the sand and would have been content to sit next to the car and let sand go through her fingers all day I think. I did convince her to move to the actual beach and introduced her to the waves. I wasn't sure what she would think but again, she LOVES the water and LOVED being in the waves. She wanted to do it all on her own though which was a little frightening cause she thought she could keep walking out in the water by herself. I got a good workout lifting her over waves. Finally we just went back to the beach and let the waves break over us. She had a great time digging in the sand and building with her cousins, uncle and grandpa. Needless to say, she slept very well that night.

Day 7 we pretty much just hung out at my mom & dad's house and did laundry. We also had a yummy dinner that night with birthday cake for all of the summer birthdays. The summer birthdays also got presents from Grandma & Grandpa. Evvy got a great v-tech laptop computer so now she leaves my computer alone. She also got a swing that we hung up in the back yard. She was very upset to get a swing though because she wanted to swing in it right then and there. So I let her sit in it and I held her up. That seemed to appease her somewhat. She swings almost every day now that we are home.

Day 8 we packed up and drove over to Louisianna to drop off aunt Aimee and cousins Ethan & Elise. We also went and visited the grave sight for cousin Ella Grace who passed away last year right after she was born. After having lunch with Grandma, Evvy and I started our long trip home. We drove until dinner time and then stopped in Paris, TX for the night. We swam after eating and then cuddled up in a huge king size bed and watched a movie on TV during which Evvy fell asleep.

Day 9 we got up, ate waffels at the hotel and then hit the road again. This was probably the hardest day of all. We both just wanted to be home. Evvy didn't want to be in the car seat anymore and was tired of watching movies I think. We made a couple of extra stops. My favorite stop was at an Amish cheese-shop and bakery. We ate lunch and bought some yummy cookies and cheese to bring home with us.

We were very happy to be home. We had a great time but home is always best I think. It took Evvy a couple of weeks to stop asking for movies in the car.

I am going to try to do a picture show. If that doesn't work, then I will post some pictures later.

There is more to come in my catch up posts!

Susan