Visit with my parents

Doesn't Garrett look thrilled?

I've mentioned visiting with my parents last week a couple of times now, so I figured I would post about it and share some pictures.

As you already know, they came to Oklahoma for my mom's family reunion and then followed us down to our house on Sunday, the 13th (which is my half birthday.) (Yes, I'm weird for pointing that out.)

On Monday morning, Keith headed off for work, my brother Jesse and his girlfriend Sarah headed off for our other brother's house in Lake Jackson (about 5 hours away). Keith called about 20 minutes after he left and said that his truck had broken down on him. His truck has never done this before and it has 250,000 miles on it. Seriously. He does a lot of preventative maintenance on it in order to avoid having problems with it on the road, but of course we knew eventually something would happen. I looked up a wrecker service close to where he was and the wrecker driver drove Keith and his truck back to our house. As soon as Keith got home, he tested the fuel pump (my husband is a mechanic when he feels like it, but an accountant the rest of the time) and figured out that was the problem. He's been super blessed because most fuel pumps only last 100,000 miles and his has gone more than double that!

Anyway, he didn't have time to work on it at that moment because he had to be at work for a meeting. Since Jesse had taken the only other vehicle at our house (besides my SUV of course), I drove Keith to work so my parents and I could go places if we needed to.

After Cooper took his morning nap, my parents, the boys, and I all went to eat Mexican food. You can't find good Mexican food just anywhere and we happen to have some great restaurants around here. (Funny story moment: while sitting in the restaurant, eating chips and salsa and waiting on our food, my mom pulls out her camera and tells Cooper to say "Cheese!" He turns to her, puts his hands behind his head and smiles as if he was intentionally posing. A waiter nearby saw what happened and told us that he's a photographer when he's not waiting tables and that he had never seen that before from a kid so young. haha I'm sure it was just a fluke.)

Once we were thoroughly stuffed, we headed to Walmart. I needed groceries and birthday party food. It was nice to grocery shop with not one, but two other adults along with me to help corral my children. I normally do it solo and Cooper is terrible lately about throwing anything he can get his hands on. So my dad took Garrett with him to hunt down some things he was needing, my mom put Cooper in his stroller and looked for things she needed and I actually grocery shopped by myself. I don't remember when the last time was that I got to do that! Ah, the little things in life that make moms happy.

Keith's boss brought him home from work that night since he doesn't live too far from us. After we put the boys to bed, my mom, dad, and I all helped Keith take the bed of his truck off and put it in the yard so Keith could reach the fuel pump better. That was hilarious and I wish someone had taken pictures of us lifting that thing. It was heavy!! He got most of the work done, but wasn't able to completely finish it that night, so on Tuesday morning, everyone got up bright and early, left our house by 7:30am. We dropped Keith off at work, then went out to breakfast at IHOP and went over to my grandparents' house for a visit.

Eating at IHOP

After visiting with them for the morning, we all went to my aunt and uncle's house for a yummy BBQ lunch and more visiting. Later that afternoon, we left to go back to Dallas and pick Keith up from work. Driving in downtown during rush hour is truly one of my favorite things. It was made even more memorable with my dad saying from the passenger seat "You just keep your eyes on the road and I'll watch the GPS." haha I will always be a 16 year old who barely knows how to drive in his eyes. :)

That night we attempted to help Keith put the bed back on his truck, but it was a no go for the original 4-some that took it off to start with. It's one thing to lift something ridiculously heavy from waist-high and take it down to ground level. It's a whole other animal to attempt to lift the same heavy object from ground level and bring it up to your waist. Thankfully our neighbor was home and he is more than capable of helping with this project, so my mom and I were relegated to making sure the bed wasn't banged into the cab of the truck while the guys all heaved and ho-ed and got it back in place.

On Wednesday we went to lunch at Schlotzsky's. My parents don't have one in their area, and they love their sandwiches. After lunch, we went to Target and then Mardels (a local Christian bookstore). I got my dad to point out some things he was wanting so I could get him his Father's Day present. Then we went to pick up Cooper's birthday cake. My friend has been making all of our cakes for years and we've never had any communication problems on the date and time for when the cake was to be picked up.

But there's a first time for everything.

I could tell when we pulled into her driveway and she wasn't walking out with the cake, that something was up. I've only had to actually knock on her door one other time because she's always been waiting on me with the cake when I showed up. As soon as she answered the door, she had a panicked look on her face. She had thought I was picking the cake up the next day and didn't have it ready. Thankfully the party wasn't until the next day, so it didn't matter. I just wanted to save myself having to drive 20 minutes one way to pick up the cake on the day of the party. But everything obviously worked out. She's entitled to mess up every now and then. :)

For supper on Wednesday night, my mom made fried chicken and gravy and I made rice, biscuits, and a veggie to go with it. (Normally we would have had mashed potatoes, but all of the potatoes were spoken for in the potato salad for the party.) It was so yummy! I've only made fried chicken a handful of times in my life and I've never made homemade gravy. So Keith was quick to point out that he doesn't get to eat like that very often. (Though I make supper at least 5 nights a week, those suppers tend to be steak on the grill, chicken in the crockpot, tacos, etc. Nothing fried in a pan because it's too messy and hard to do very often.)

On Thursday morning we cleaned and decorated for the party, then we headed out to buy a couple of last minute things. Then I took my parents to a local restaurant that serves the BEST catfish. They make it with a cajun seasoning, so it's on the spicey side, but it's so good. My parents loved it. Garrett usually eats 2 pieces of catfish there and these are big pieces! So it's not too spicey for him.

Then we went to pick up the cake and she was ready for me this time. :)

The rest of the afternoon was spent party prepping and visiting with early partiers.

My parents left really early on Friday morning to make the long drive back home. (Oh, and Jesse and Sarah came back to my house on Thursday afternoon before the party.) We actually said goodbye to all of them Thursday night before we went to bed. Normally I would try to get up and see them off, but from everything that went on that week, I knew I would be too tired to get up at 5:30 and I didn't want to risk waking the boys up early either.

It was such a fun visit! We always love spending time with them.

Family Reunion 2010

80 years ago, this year, my Grandma and Grandpa Ross were born.60 years ago, this year, my Grandma and Grandpa Ross got married.

So this year, we had a Ross Family Reunion. The Ross Family (which is my mom's family) lives all over the globe: Rwanda (my cousin works over there for Compassion), Massachusetts, Indiana, Illinois, Virginia, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, and California. It's hard to figure out the best location for a reunion. The last one was in the DFW, Texas area because a good percentage of the family happens to live in this metroplex. At my Grandma's suggestion, this year's reunion was held in Paul's Valley, Oklahoma. No one in our family actually lives in Oklahoma (except my Grandpa's sister and her family and they all came to the reunion too, which was fun). But I think it ended up being a pretty good central location.

My family left on Friday, June 11 around 3pm. Keith had a dentist appointment that afternoon, so we headed out as soon as he got home. Thankfully we qualified to use the HOV lanes to get us through Dallas' Friday rush hour and only got held up north of Dallas for 20 minutes or so. The trip is exactly 3 hours, which is not bad. We didn't stop once. The last 30 minutes or so, Cooper was getting grouchy because he hadn't taken an afternoon nap and refused to sleep in the car for some reason. Thank goodness for his crazy "Singing Babies" movie. I had prepared Garrett for the possibility that he would have to give up his DVD player if Cooper did not cooperate in the car, so Garrett graciously did so (he's not always gracious, but he was in this moment. Partially because he knew we were getting close and he was going to see Nana and Pawpaw who he hadn't seen in 7 months.) The movie kept Cooper quiet until we arrived at the hotel where our reunion was held.

It was a fun weekend of seeing family members we hadn't seen in a long time. Or in some cases, hadn't met yet. Like my cousin's husband who is originally from England and has a cool accent. Along with some new babies that have been added to the family in the past several years. My personal favorite part of the weekend was our family's Sunday morning service. In case you aren't aware, my family has a number of preachers in the mix. At the reunion alone we had 6 of them. Of course the honors of the Sunday morning sermon went to my Grandpa. He did an excellent job and then we went on to have prayer time for my uncle Mike who has cancer. It was wonderful and humbling to see him at the reunion, knowing that he had to travel all the way from California to be there and knowing that his health is fragile at the moment. (Please pray for him and my aunt Debbie if you think of them.)

Mike is the one in the white shirt. I took some snapshots of the weekend, but not near enough.

It's one thing to participate in church services with your church family who you grow to love over the years. It's a completely different and unique experience to have church and prayer with your blood-family.

My family along with my parents, my brother and his girlfriend, left Sunday afternoon to head back home. They spent the following week with us and were here for Cooper's birthday party. I promise to post about the party and share pictures soon. We've had a busy couple of weeks!

My Crazy Day (and an introduction to a new family member!)

Nephew update:

Tyler Aaron Reed was born on Friday, April 3, at 11:45 am.  My sister was only in labor for 3 hours!!  Tyler was having some trouble breathing right after he was born, so they took him to the nursery to be on oxygen and, I think, some type of medicine.  He was there for about 24 hours and then they let him go with his Momma in her room.  

You can see the bandage on his hand where he had an iv for part of that time.  But he's doing wonderfully now!  He weighed 7 lbs 7 oz and was 20 inches long.  They will be going home tomorrow.  I have no idea when I'll actually get to see him in person.  Considering that they live in Indiana and I'm in Texas, who knows.  I had considered flying up there at the end of the month for a visit, but after a lengthy discussion with my husband, he put the kibosh on my plans.  I'm not sure why.  It certainly can't have anything to do with the fact that I'll be 8 months pregnant at that time.  I was hoping it would work out, but it doesn't look like it will.  

So I have to wrap up this blog with a bit about my day today.  Keith was asked to go hog hunting this evening, so he wanted to do some target practice at his parents' place beforehand.  Since his parents are out of town, I figured Garrett and I would come along and ride around on the 4 wheeler for a few hours, then pick up pizza from Pizza Pro, which is something I've been craving lately.  

We got down there and Keith got the 4 wheeler out of the garage for me and took it for a spin around the yard (his parents live on 50 acres, and next door are his grandparents on another 50 acres, so there's plenty of room to ride on.)  For some strange reason, his parents' German Shephard, Hank, was NOT happy with us riding the 4 wheeler.  He was perfectly fine with us being there and being in the yard.  He's not a new dog, so he does know us and is familiar with us.  But as soon as Keith started riding around the house, he immediately started barking, growling, and snapping at him, all while running back and forth in front of him trying to stop him from going anywhere.  It was VERY irritating and a little worrisome because he is a pretty big dog and could hurt you if he got a hold on your arm or leg.  Keith drug him down to the dog house to tie him up so Garrett and I would be free to ride around.  Keith wasn't going to be in our vicinity with his target practice so he wouldn't be able to keep Hank away from us once he left.  Somehow Hank managed to get out of his collar and chase Keith around on the 4 wheeler some more.  So Keith took him back down to the pen, put the collar back on him (this time a little tighter), and came back up.  Next thing we know, here comes that stupid dog again.  He always wears the collar, so I'm not sure why he leaves it on when he's able to get out of it.  I just told Keith to forget about it because I knew he was losing time to be down at the shooting range.  

After he left, I tried one more time with the 4 wheeler.  At first, it seemed like Hank was going to be ok with Garrett and I riding on it because we were going pretty slow and sticking close to the house, but after our 2nd lap, he started getting really aggressive again.  So I parked it and we went inside.  I wish we could have atleast stayed outside so Garrett could play because it was such a nice day, but that dog proved to me that he could not be trusted if he was going to behave like that.  The few times we did walk out there, I armed myself with a big stick that I would have used if I needed to.  He never once barked or growled at us, but he did follow us everywhere we went.  Keith would have been happy if I had armed myself with more than a stick, but I wasn't going to use deadly force unless it was necessary.  I personally think that dog is bipolar.  

After a couple of hours, Keith came back and I went and picked up the yummy pizza.  While I was gone, Keith managed to ride the 4 wheeler far from the house and for whatever reason, Hank left him alone.  So Garrett did get a nice ride today and he even got to see an armadillo.  But before we left, Keith was putting the 4 wheeler back in the garage, and Hank was back to his old tricks with barking and growling at him.  See?  Bipolar.

Keith left with a friend of his to go hunting and Garrett and I headed home.  About halfway here (which is an hour's drive), I noticed that our SUV was driving a little funny.  It was pretty windy today, so I hoped that's all it was, but I knew deep down that it wasn't.  But it was still driving and handling ok, so I just kept on going.  The closer I got to our exit, the more I knew that something was wrong.  I figured it was a flat tire, but, again, the SUV was handling ok and I wasn't hearing any weird sounds.  I told myself that I would keep driving until it wouldn't go anymore or I heard something that sounded really bad.  I also prayed.  A lot.  

Somehow we managed to pull into our garage safely.  I immediately jumped out to check the car over, and there it was, the front, passenger side tire was almost completely flat, but still intact.  I have to say that I've always been a little apprehensive about the fact that our SUV has Firestone tires on it, what with all the bad press they got several years ago with blowouts and causing SUV's to rollover.  But this tire held together really well considering that I drove a good ways on it with very little air in it.  I immediately called Keith to let him know and he was happy that we were home safely and didn't care about the tire, so long as we weren't on the side of the road.  I know the tire is definitely ruined and we won't be able to patch it after today, but it was worth my sanity and safety to keep from pulling over on the side of the road with a 3 year old, and myself being 7 months pregnant.  I'm not sure what caused the tire to do this, but I'm sure it has something stuck in it because Keith would have noticed if it was low on air before we left his parents' house.  He's very hyper about tire maintenance and keeping them properly aired up and in good shape.  

So thus ends what felt like a ridiculously long day.  I'm so glad it's over.

Home Alone

It's official.  I'm home alone for the first time in almost 4 years.  I think this is the part where Macaulay Culkin slaps himself in the face, right?  I'll pass on that, but otherwise, I'm finding myself with about 24 hours of complete and utter aloneness.  Yeah, that's probably not a word.  Anyway, I'm trying to figure out the best way to pass this time in order to do so efficiently as well as keeping things fun.  I'm seriously contemplating going to a movie in about an hour, but right now I'm just sitting here enjoying the silence, and the buzzing of the light in the kitchen which has been known to drive me crazy.  

Keith came home from work on Thursday and randomly said that he was going hunting this weekend.  I was all for it, of course.  He hasn't gone hunting since we've been married and I know he's been wanting to get out and try some of the newer guns he's purchased recently.  I asked him what he would be hunting for and the time frame of his plans and he told me he would be going hog hunting in the area around his parents' land.  Apparently hog hunting is best done during the nighttime hours.  Before he started making calls to round up a friend or two for this excursion as well as letting his parents know of his plans, I suggested that maybe he might want to take Garrett along and let his parents spend some time with him while Keith would be out.  They're always wanting Garrett to stay overnight with them, I've been hesitant for a few reasons, but knowing that Keith would be within 20 minutes of their house, I thought this would be the perfect chance to do this. 

When he called his parents, this was his side of the conversation:

Hey, could I come down and spend the night with y'all on Saturday?

And I might have Garrett with me.  Would that be ok?

Now, my first thought was, "I hope his parents don't think we're having some sort of marital problems" because that sounded like a strange request to me.  Thankfully he got on with explaining the why of his trip and of course they were very agreeable.  Keith and his dad have done these overnight hog hunting trips many times in the past.  Apparently wild hogs are a problem in that area at different times of the year, and there's currently plenty for hunting right now, according to one of his friends who's going with him tonight.  These aren't the type of hogs you would eat, that's my understanding, so I have no idea what they will do with the hog once it's been "hunted" but I'm sure I'll find out tomorrow when he gets home.  

So now I contemplate all this time before me.  Wondering what would be the best use of my time.  The obvious choice would be to clean, and I hope to do some of that.  But I also want to feel as if I've done atleast a few things that I wouldn't have been able to do had Keith and Garrett been home.  Normally I would seriously consider doing some shopping, but it's pretty cold today and I don't have anything pressing that needs to be purchased.  It's probably good I don't know the sex of the baby yet because otherwise I might be out buying "necessities".  The second thought that came to mind was the movies.  When I mentioned it to Keith (after he asked me what in the world I was going to do while they're gone), he was very hurt that I would even consider going to a movie without him.  I swore to him I would be seeing something that he wouldn't even want to watch on video, let alone in the theater.  So I'm probably going to see "Twilight".  I've read the entire series, twice, but I've heard the movie doesn't quite do the book justice.  However, if I'm wanting to go catch a movie, then this is the best option because no way would Keith ever want to watch a movie about teenaged vampires.  So that's where I'll be headed here shortly.  Then I'll probably come home and watch a few more chick flicks on DVD that I haven't seen in ages and go to bed at some point before it gets too late.  Maybe tomorrow I'll have the energy to do some of the cleaning that needs to be done.  There is church in the morning, but after that I should have a few hours before they'll be home.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I was home alone for this length of time.  I almost feel as if I'm at loose ends knowing that there's nobody who needs to be taken care of.  Such a freeing feeling!

You all enjoy your child-filled, spouse-filled evening, while I'll be out partying it up like my college days.  ;)

Livin' La Vida Loca

The past 3 weeks we have been crazy busy.

First a road trip to Indiana where we watched my youngest brother graduate from high school. While we were there, Keith and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. Well, I use the word "celebrate" loosely. We said "Happy Anniversary" to each other and it was acknowledged by my family (including my dad while preaching that Sunday morning) and that was the extent of our celebration on the actual day. At some point we'll get around to atleast going out to dinner and a movie in celebration of surviving 6 years of marriage to each other.

Second we survived driving 14 hours all in one day on our way home from Indiana. (Going up there we broke it up into 2 days.) Surprisingly, Garrett was excellent during that long day in the car. Not one single tantrum was thrown. To say I was shocked by this good behavior would be an understatement.

Once we got home I started in with cleaning my house thoroughly. Because...

Third, my mom, my sister Grace, and my niece and nephew all came to my house a week after we got home from visiting them. No, it wasn't because they were just desperate to see us again, but my mom had a family reunion in Hurst, Texas the following weekend so they came down a few days early to hang out at my house. We spent several days stuffing our faces with food that they don't have up in Indiana. Yummy Double Dave's pizza (mostly their dessert pizza, I wish you could order one of those to go) and Mexican food from Posado's. Our all-time favorite Mexican food restaurant is Mercado's in Tyler, Texas. Tyler is just too far to drive with 3 kids under the age of 6 just for some good eatin'. So we settled for second best. We did some outlet mall shopping and some Target shopping as well. Then we headed over to Hurst for the big family reunion. My mom is the middle child of 5 kids. Her family is really big. There's 5 kids, 4 in-laws, 16 grandkids, 9 grandkid-in-laws, and 7 great grandkids. Her siblings and her parents haven't all been together in about 8 years so we were past due for a reunion.

My cousin Andrea and I did all the planning for the reunion so that also kept me busy leading up to our Indiana trip. Reunions are more work than I realized. But it was totally worth it. Some of the work, I brought on myself because I decided we needed a family cookbook with a compilation of all our favorite recipes. It turned out great and we have approximately 60 pages of family recipes shared amongst everyone. I also put together a video slide show as a surprise for my grandparents. I think they really liked it. The reunion went well. We had a great number of the family come and we enjoyed getting to spend time visiting with each other. My brother and sister-in-law came up from Houston which was great. We hadn't seen them since last December. The family that wins the "who traveled the farthest" award would be my cousin and her family who flew in from Massachusetts. It was decided that we would have another reunion in two years. And any family member who doesn't come will be kicked out of the family. Let's hope I can make it.

Third, this isn't really anything to do with being busy, but it's a good story to share and wrap up the blog. Since Garrett is almost 3, I figured this summer needs to have more activities than the previous summers. He's not content to be at home like he used to be so I've been coming up with some cheap things that we could do that would get us out of the house and keep him entertained. One of the local theaters is showing free kid movies on Tuesday mornings so we went there today for the first showing. The movie was "Shrek the Third". I've never seen any of the Shrek movies and this one really didn't impress me, but it was a free movie and Garrett seemed to enjoy sitting in the theater next to one of his friends, chowing down on popcorn and watching the movie on a big TV (atleast that's what he called it). With about 10 minutes left in the movie (I'm totally assuming that, it seemed like it was almost over) it shut off. My friend and I figured they were having technical difficulties and decided to go ahead and gather our things and head out. Before we got to the door, two movie employees walk in and say that the electricity just went out in the theater due to a bad storm in the area. I have to say that when we got to the theater not even 2 hours earlier, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, so I found that odd. But when we came out of the theater there was a really bad storm outside. It was actually raining and blowing so hard that water was coming into the lobby. There was no way anyone could go outside, in fact one of the high school guys who worked there had trouble even opening the door because the wind was blowing so hard. And he was a pretty big guy. So my friend and I decided to hang out and play some of the arcade games. I mean, let our sons play some of the arcade games. :) Ten minutes later the manager comes into the lobby and says that a tornado has touched down roughly 5 miles from the theater and we all needed to get into the hallway as a precaution. Lovely. Just where you want to be when a tornado strikes. With your 2 year old son in the middle of a theater. My friend and I called our husbands (who work together) to tell them what was going on and have them check the weather. Keith didn't see anywhere that said there was a tornado warning for our area. A few minutes later that same theater manager comes out and says they called the police department and were told that there wasn't a tornado. I would love to know who told them about the tornado in the first place since there wasn't anything about it online (the weather channel website and some local news websites) and obviously they didn't hear about it from the police. Anyway, it was still too bad outside to attempt to go to our cars so we threw more quarters into the arcade money pit before it let up. We initially were happy about the free movie, but I'm sure we spent the equivalent of a movie ticket on those games while we were passing time. Thankfully the storm let up before we were broke and we headed home. Hopefully Garrett doesn't expect that kind of excitement the next time we go to the movies.

I'm sad to say that all of our big summer plans are now over and it's not even officially summer! Of course Garrett and I will do a variety of things in order to pass the time but no more trips are planned for the next few months and no more visits with my family. In fact we won't be seeing them again until Christmas. I'm sad. But that's just life when you don't live close to your family. Hopefully these last 3 weeks haven't given Garrett high expectations for the next few months. Long trips in the car and stays in nice hotels with indoor pools just aren't on the agenda. Maybe the occasional free movie at the theater combined with running in the sprinkle will be good compensation.

Yeah, I don't think so either.

Road Trip

Things that I learned on our trip to Indiana:

*When Garrett spends 14 hours in a car with his dad he comes out saying "Dang boy". And he says it over. and over. and over.

*There is such a thing as too much sitting. After about 5 or 6 hours of it your tailbone feels as if it's broken off in the middle of Missouri. If you see a tailbone on I-57, it's probably mine.

*People try to load their cars down way more than they were meant to be. We saw a car the size of a Geo Metro with enough stuff piled on top of it that it appeared to have a second car on it's roof. I don't even know how it was making it down the road.

*Portable DVD players are a blessing.

*Garrett actually behaves better when strapped in his carseat than while eating breakfast at Cracker Barrel.

*Cousins who don't get to see each other more than a couple of times per year have a lot of fun playing together. They also manage to entertain each other for hours which is nice for the parents.

*People look funny while playing Wii.

*I managed to drop my Wii age from 57 to 36 in approximately 3 days. Wouldn't it be nice if we could do that in real life?

*The child of mine who refuses to sit long enough to have a book read to him will sit on his Nana's lap and allow her to rock him to sleep. Things that grandparents can get away with that parents never could.

*My dad is an awesome preacher. You might think at the age of 50 that he would start losing his ability to connect with the young 'uns, but he's still got it.

*My husband is extremely patient. He never grew tired of my walks down memory lane while making the drive from Texas to Indiana. The book store in Texarkana where my family never could resist stopping in. The church in Little Rock where I fell down the stairs and sprained my ankle. Lambert's in Sikeston where you get the best food. The exit in Illinois which leads to the town where I once lived and graduated from high school. The lake where we would spend many summer hours swimming. The Wendy's in Effingham where we would meet up with our friends from Indiana because it was the halfway point between our "new" town in Illinois and our "old" town in Indiana. And I could go on. But I'll stop. Because you're probably not as patient as my husband.

*Even though I live 14 hours from my family we'll always be close and enjoy every minute of the time we spend together.

The Zoo

Around noon today my cell phone rang. It was Keith calling to tell us to get ready to go to the zoo. He took the afternoon off, picked us up and we headed off to the zoo. We debated which one to go to, Dallas or Fort Worth. Garrett and I went to the Dallas Zoo last spring and I really liked it whereas Keith had been to the Fort Worth Zoo when he was a kid and wanted to go back. Considering that both closed at 4:00 we didn't have a lot of time to discuss it, but his desire to go back to the Fort Worth Zoo won. I was glad because Garrett fell asleep in the car and since Fort Worth is about an hour's drive for us, he was able to get in a little bit of a nap before we got there.

In order to get Garrett's cooperation with getting ready for the zoo, I told him we were going to see elephants so he needed to change his clothes. After that it was all he wanted to talk about. He kept grabbing my hand and attempting to drag me to the door so we could go see "elfents". He woke up from his nap in the car with about 15 minutes to spare before arriving at the zoo and he immediately started crying because we weren't seeing elephants.

We got to the zoo with about 2 and a half hours until closing time, which is honestly plenty of time for a 2 year old. The first animals to see when walking into this zoo were the gorillas. Keith walked Garrett up to the plexi-glass partition where one of the gorillas was sitting, they were close enough to get a real good look at him. Garrett immediately covered his face and turned away, he never cried, but it was like that was too close for comfort and he didn't want to see gorillas in that proximity.

As much as he wanted to see the elephants, he acted pretty indifferent when we reached their area. He pointed and waved at them, which he was doing to all the animals, but no overt sign of excitement. He waved at the zebras so much, I half expected to see one of them lift up a hoof and wave back.

I've been watching too many cartoons.

There were a few interesting moments while there. First, the hippo was out of the water. I've never seen a hippo not in the water, they are huge! I definitely would not want to fall down underneath him. Secondly, the bear was very funny. He stood on his hind legs almost directly underneath where visitors were looking at him. I think he was begging for food. Third, we apparently approached the lion's den/area/cage right around feeding time and lion was roaring for his food, very interesting and Garrett loved it. We also saw a mom fall down while holding her baby girl, thankfully her husband was right there and neither one was seriously hurt, but I could totally see myself doing that, heck, I have done that, minus the part where I was holding my child, thankfully that hasn't happened...yet.

We really enjoyed our day at the zoo. I'm so glad that the weather was nice, we were all able to wear short sleeves and never once got the slightest bit chilly. I'm looking forward to doing this again real soon. Although next time I probably will push for the Dallas Zoo, it's so much closer and there's not much of a difference in my opinion, although if Garrett falls asleep in the car like today, then the drive to Fort Worth might be worthwhile.

My Weekend (and Meeting Beth Moore!)

This weekend, me, Keith, and Garrett headed down to Huntsvegas (as my brother affectionately refers to Huntsville) to attend the college graduations of my brother, Brad, and my sister-in-law, Kristen. They both graduated and looked great in the process and we enjoyed getting to eat out and spend some time with them along with my parents and, for one meal, my sister Grace and her family (Christie and Jesse couldn't come due to work and school ). Kristen graduated on Friday night and Brad graduated Saturday afternoon, of course they couldn't graduate during the same ceremony! That would have been too easy.

Garrett did pretty well, he had his moments, but I brought a ton of stuff to entertain him, including a few of the small things that I had bought him for Christmas, so he did his 2 year old best to behave. Between graduations we all squeezed into my parents' hotel room and exchanged a few Christmas gifts. After supper on Saturday night we headed down to Houston to spend one more day with my family. On Sunday we got up and headed out to church. Brad and Kristen go to Houston's First Baptist Church. It's huge! But very nice and the pastor was great! Once again I wrestled with Garrett during the sermon, he did pretty well, but by this point he had already been forced to sit through two graduation ceremonies so he wasn't thrilled to be sitting through church. Why didn't we put him in the nursery, you might ask? Well, about half of the time that we put him in our own church's nursery where he's been going for 2 years, he throws a huge fit, like he doesn't know these women that he sees every Sunday or the kids that he enjoys playing with. I could only imagine how he would react if we were to try to get him to go to an unfamiliar nursery, so we decided to grin and bear it for one service.

We suspected that this was the church where Beth Moore was a member, but we weren't positive. Brad and Kristen aren't very familiar with Beth so they had no idea if she went there, and there's technically two First Baptist Church's in Houston, so there was always the possibility that she was a member at the other First Baptist Church. As we were leaving, we headed through the foyer and I immediately spotted the back of her head. I knew it was her, and she turned around and confirmed it. I turned to my mom and said, "I just saw her!" Now, I am not the type to just run up to a celebrity, I always worry that they aren't in the mood to sign an autograph or take a picture, so I was just planning to stand back and stare at her and maybe sneak a picture with my cell phone. But my mom had other plans. She marched right up to her and introduced herself and my dad, so I figured since she was already being bothered, I may as well meet her. She was super nice! I told her that I read her blog every day and she hugged me and said, "So you're one of my siestas." (If you read her blog, then you know what that means.) She even posed for a picture with us. She has a grandson who is just a few months younger than Garrett, so we chatted about them for a minute and I told her that her husband Keith and my husband Keith have a lot in common from what I've read about him in her blog. It was so much fun! We only talked to her for maybe 5 minutes, but she seemed very happy to meet us and super sweet. If I wasn't a big fan of her's before, I would be now.

After that we went for lunch at Fuddrucker's and then headed back to Brad and Kristen's apartment to squeeze in a little more visiting time. We headed back home this afternoon.
It was so wonderful to get to see my family and great that we were also able to have Christmas with them!

Home Again, Naturally

Bear with me, this is long and mostly just a recap of our visit.

So after the initial insanity of our flight to Indianapolis, we did eventually make it there. My parents are currently living in an apartment while they get their church going, so we kicked my brother Jesse out of his room (thanks, Jesse!) and put a twin air mattress on the floor for Garrett. Let me just start by saying that Garrett is a wild sleeper, he thrashes and cries out in his sleep. The first night he didn't get into bed until midnight due to the crazy day spent in Memphis. Keith and I didn't sleep well due to adjusting to Garrett's weird bed antics, but we all got up Friday morning pretty well refreshed and just happy to be there. My mom had the day off for fall break, which also meant that my brother Jesse was home from school. My dad had worked extra time during the week so he was able to be off that day as well. Unfortunately my sister Christie did have to work. That morning my other sister Grace came over with her 2 kids Riley and Jake. Garrett was excited to see his cousins. Jake is only 8 months younger than Garrett, so they're becoming closer and closer the more they see each other. Us women were wanting to go shopping so we decided to bring the kids with us. This meant 3 women with 3 kids ages 4, 2, and 18 months attempting to shop in Kohl's. It took us an hour and we weren't really finished, but it was time to meet the guys for lunch. I got a good deal on a winter coat for Garrett. Yes, we live in Texas, but there are many days where it's really cold outside and I am having trouble finding a nice, thick coat for him to wear this winter, so thankfully I found one on sale there. I also had to buy him the prerequisite Indiana clothing. He already has an Indianapolis Colts jersey that my parents sent him for his 2nd birthday, and a pair of Indiana Hoosier shorts sent to him by one of my close friends who still lives there. Since I lived 9 years of my life there, I am a Hoosier fan through and through, so I bought him an IU jacket with matching pants. I'm sure everyone in Texas will love to see him wear it, but I love it so that's all that matters. I also bought myself (and my dad) an IU Christmas ornament, so I'm really excited to put that baby on the Christmas tree this year.

We then met up with the guys at Culver's. Even though we have Culver's here in Texas, Keith and I had never eaten at one before. It was really good. Since the kids weren't really cooperating with our attempts at shopping, we all ended up heading home. My mom helped me to get Garrett down to sleep for a nap and then she and I left for more shopping at Target. (Grace had gone home so that her kids would get naps as well.) Riley's birthday is next month, so I bought her birthday present while we were out with plans to give it to her before we left. It was nice to spend some alone time with my mom. We don't get to do that very often anymore, especially considering I'm the oldest of 5 kids, there are now 3 grandkids, plus 3 in-laws added to our family, so alone, quiet time is pretty rare. Friday night we ate a yummy, home-cooked meal by my mom at their apartment. Roast, mashed potatoes, all the good stuff. Friday nights are when my dad's church has Bible study (currently). So my mom stayed home with the 2 boys so they could get to bed at a decent time and the rest of us headed out to someone else's home for Bible study. It was really good. They are in the midst of discussing relationships and Friday night's lesson was focused on the parent-child relationship (namely discipline). It was very good and I learned that I definitely discipline out of anger which is something I need to work on. It was fun though because my dad was teaching the lesson and he had 4 out of 5 of his kids there, so we all enjoyed sharing our moments of discipline growing up. I think the rest of the group got a kick out of hearing our stories. Everyone was really friendly. They have a good, solid group of people that they are starting their church with.

On Saturday we all left and went our separate ways. The women and children (minus Christie again, due to working at her darn job ) headed for Greencastle. As luck would have it, my best friend since I was born, was in town visiting her family. She now lives in Florida. I haven't seen her since she got married and she now has 2 kids. Her sister was in town with her and she and my sister are best friends (weird, I know). So we all made plans to meet up at a tea room type restaurant. We obviously weren't thinking. This was 6 women with 6 kids (all under the age of 5) in a place that really wasn't meant for kids. I mean, the tables had thick pieces of glass on top of the table cloths. Unfortunately my son got a hold of some metal silverware and started banging away on the glass. Apparently the manager didn't like this, so she came and took it away from him and brought plastic instead. I honestly didn't think he was banging that hard and he wasn't being loud, but of course after she took it away from him he got hysterical and wouldn't sit there any longer. So my mom ended up holding him the rest of the meal. But all in all, we had fun, it was so nice to see Mary again and her kids are adorable. After eating we all went to a local park for an hour for the kids to play. We decided later that we should have just picked up McDonald's and eaten lunch at the park. We probably would have enjoyed ourselves a lot more.

After the park we were supposed to meet the guys at my Aunt Pat's house. She lives out in the boonies on like 50 acres. It was so pretty because there's a ton of trees and with it being fall, the leaves were turning and some had already fallen. The kids had a lot of fun playing in the leaves and the adults had a lot of fun taking pictures of them. We were able to get some really cute outdoor shots of everyone. Aunt Pat made us a nice, big homemade meal which included steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, veggies, homemade yeast rolls, etc. It was all so yummy. She always goes overboard when we all come out for a visit.

The next day was Sunday and we all went to church. As I mentioned above, my parents have moved to the Indianapolis area to start a church. They currently meet in a historical building called the Interurban Depot, it used to be an old train station. It's really neat, with brick walls and really high ceilings and cool windows. They had almost 30 people in their service, and that didn't count an early service that my dad held for the first time with a cheer group who left for a competition earlier that morning. I think my dad said there were about 15-20 people in that service. So it was a good morning for them! The service was awesome, totally laid back, and very inviting. One of the neat parts of it was during their Sunday school time they are learning the books of the Bible. I've grown up knowing them, but I realize that many people (my husband included) don't know them, so I think that's a great idea, considering a good number of their people are new Christians or younger kids. My siblings, plus atleast one other girl, do the praise and worship songs, and they are great. I know Christie is praying hard for someone to join their church who can play the keyboard. She would then be able to get out her drums and add them to their music, but for now they have the keyboard and 2 guitars. After church we all (all as in the majority of the people in the last service!!) went to eat at Pizza King. Now, for those of you who don't live in the Greencastle/Indy/Plainfield area, you probably haven't heard of this pizza place. I grew up getting pizzas or subs from the local Pizza King every Sunday night. It was our weekly tradition and I loved it! I've craved Pizza King ever since we moved from there and every time we go back I have to go there and eat. Their pizzas are a really thin crust and all of the toppings are chopped up really fine. They also cut the pie up into square pieces, which I think contributes to it's appeal. It was very yummy. I love the actual restaurant too. It's set up like a train station, with each booth having a window on one side that looks onto mini train tracks. The mini train actually brings you your drinks! Plus each booth has a small TV where, for a quarter, you can watch cable TV at your own booth. Pretty awesome! Especially considering we had kids with us and cartoons kept them quiet so we were able to visit and eat in peace.

Sunday afternoon was pretty quiet with all the kids down for naps and everyone else resting. My mom and I played Skip-bo, which is always a fun game. Then once the kids were up from their naps we had the Toy Party. The Toy Party is something my mom implemented way back when I was probably 7 or 8 years old. It was about 3 or 4 weeks before Christmas and of course us kids (there were 3 of us at that time) were desperate to open one of the many presents already sitting under the tree. So one Saturday my mom kicked us all out of the kitchen and we weren't allowed to come back in until she was ready. After an hour or more, she called us in and it was so cool. She had decorated the kitchen table with toys and Christmas decorations. Each of us had our place set and next to our plates was a wrapped present. My mom had made chicken nuggets and fries. My dad put on an apron and folded a towel over his arm and pretended to be a French waiter, with a silly accent and everything. We "ordered" our food and they both served us. It was a lot of fun. We then got to open our presents. (I burned my finger on a candle, but didn't tell my mom because I didn't want to ruin the fun we were having.) It became a yearly tradition up until we got married. Once we were older, we started drawing names for the toy party and exchanging presents that way instead. After us three oldest ones got married and moved out, it became a movie exchange party. Anyway, I say all of this to say that my mom is starting a new tradition where she wants to have a Toy Party for her grandkids. It won't necessarily have a Christmas theme since she knows that we all won't be around at the holidays, but whenever all of her grandkids are together she will have a Toy Party. Since this year it was close to Halloween, all of the grandkids wore their costumes. It was really cute. Garrett was a turtle, Jake was a lion, and Riley was a beauty queen/princess. They each got a few smaller presents, plus one bigger present and they all had chicken nuggets and fries served by my parents, just like always. The table was decorated really cute with a variety of different toys and we spelled out "Toy Party" with blocks. I think the kids had fun and we got some cute pictures. That night after everybody went to bed, Keith, Christie, and I all watched a movie called "Bugs" (I think) with Ashley Judd. It was really weird and not a movie I would recommend. But I enjoyed getting to spend some time with Christie and watching a movie I hadn't seen before.

On Monday my mom had to head back to work, but my dad had the day off. He took us around and showed us a variety of stuff, mainly places where they were looking into possibly buying a house in the future, or where my sister and her family might buy a house. It was fun to look around the town. We had lunch at a place called "Red Robin" which was good (all the fries you can eat) and we went by my mom's work so we could see her office. When my mom got home we visited some and then I made supper. I wanted to fix a meal at some point and had thought about doing breakfast, but there wasn't a breakfast time where everyone was available, so we just had breakfast for supper. It was fun making the meal and we had a nice evening together (minus Christie again! because of work, but we did send her a plate up there). The kids all put on their new pj's from Nana and Pawpaw and we attempted to get a few pictures of them, they weren't too cooperative, but they did have fun tackling each other and Pawpaw.

Tuesday morning we got up and prepared to head home. Of course that's always tough. On the one hand, we were ready to sleep in our own beds and not share a room with Garrett at night (he either climbed into bed with us or I ended up on the air mattress with him each night), but on the other hand, it's always very hard to leave your family. Especially since I don't get to see them very often. My dad took us to the airport on his lunch break and we said goodbye outside. That was actually a little easier. The last time I was up there my parents took me to the airport and waited with me and I cried buckets when I had to get in line for security. It didn't help that Garrett was reaching for them the whole time. It was really hard. So I'm glad I was able to avoid that, even though it's also nice to have someone seeing you off at the airport as well. Initially our flight did not have a good start. We had been sitting on the plane for about 10 minutes when the pilot comes on and says that they had to update some paperwork in the cockpit, so it would be a few minutes before we would be ready to take off. Keith and I were already on edge after our trip up there, so we were both very stressed after hearing that. But after about 15 minutes we were pushing back from the gate. After we took off and were able to turn on electronic devices, we got out the DVD player. While at my parents' we discovered that the DVD player itself worked just fine, but the battery was fried. So we went to Walmart and bought some other kind of battery-type thing where we just plugged the DVD player into it and it worked just fine. Unfortunately, Garrett remembered all of the fun he had with shoving toys inside the DVD player on the trip going there, so he wasn't really interested with sitting there and watching a movie. Somehow we managed to keep him mostly happy up until about 30 minutes before we were supposed to land. Then he snapped and decided he wanted out of his seat belt, immediately. He went into hysterics and wouldn't stop. I picked him up and held him trying to muffle his screaming with my shirt and a baby wipe, but that didn't work. After about 10 minutes (I'm not kidding) of non-stop screaming and crying, Keith took him and he got quiet and went to sleep. I'm sure our fellow passengers were hating us right about then, but honestly, what can you do? I was trying everything. Thankfully nobody said anything to Keith about holding him when we landed, and he stayed asleep up until we got our luggage. Then we had to wait for a shuttle bus to take us to the terminal where we had parked (of course we landed in a different terminal than the one we took off from, that's just Murphy's Law). After about a half hour of waiting and then riding the shuttle, we were finally at our truck. It was nice to be headed home after that horrendous display that Garrett put on in the plane. I was worn out. We got home around 6:00 on Tuesday night, Garrett was in bed by 7:00 and we were in bed by 9:30.

Garrett has been asking where everyone is now that we've been home for a day. It doesn't quite make sense to him that he was just playing with Nana and Pawpaw and now they're not here. Thankfully we will get to see them again in December when Brad and Kristen graduate. We're looking forward to that!