Road Warriors

I'm writing this post from a Holiday Inn Express in Springfield, Missouri. Last Wednesday Shanna, Jacen and I packed up the car and drove to Texas to see my side of the family. We left at midnight and drove all night and day. We took it pretty easy on our drive stopping to stretch our legs, have some eats, and even play in a small park-ish area. We got to Hale Center (where my sisters live) at about 10pm Central time.

We had a GREAT visit with them. It was really good to see everyone but especially nice for me was that Jacen is getting to know his family. He loved playing with his aunts and cousins, especially Nicky-Diana's son.

Nicky has one of those motorized cars for kids. It is a John Deere tractor and he loves it. We thought Jacen would too especially when he would chase Nicky around while Nicky was driving it. We put Jacen on it and he was clueless. We tried to show him the 'gas' pedal but he just wasn't interested. He soon started screaming and almost crying. He just isn't interested in motorized toys.

Anyway, we played the game Apples to Apples a lot and of course lots of Wahoo. We also looked through some old photos and Shanna got to see pictures of my mom. She also saw lots of pictures of me when I was younger and much dumber. I should post a few of those pictures (Glenda gave some to Shanna).

On Sunday night we drove up to Canyon to Totch and Kathy Upshaw's house. Had a great time there too. I got to do a tiny bit of work with Totch around camp. I would like to have done more but there really didn't seem like much that needed to be done. We somehow managed to convince Kathy to take us to lunch at On The Border. I know she hated it but we loved it. The best thing is that at the very end, after me pestering her and her telling me OTB was bad, she finally tried my dish and said, "wow, that's pretty good." Victory!!

Jacen got to go swimming again while we were at Camp Don. He loved it. I was worried that since it had been so long since we went swimming (in Singapore) that he wouldn't like it anymore. I was wrong. He even started kicking his feet.

Anyway, we left Tuesday night at about 7:30 and drove to Springfield, Missouri. And here we are.

Oh, and we are bringing back Glenda's daughters Lacee and Brittney with us to Cincinnati. They are going to spend 10 days with us. We are excited to have them with us. Lacee is 13 and Brittney is 11. I'm not sure what we are going to do while they are there but all I know is that we have cheap labor for 10 days. No washing dishes, no mopping, no laundry. Kids are great. :-)

Sick babies and stuff

Man, is there anything more troublesome than a sick baby? Jacen has been under the weather for the past few days with something called Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease. He had a fever for a few days and got rash-like sores all over his body. Add to all that he has been really cranky. I don't fault Jacen because I get really cranky when I'm sick too. Anyway, it has been pretty tough because Shanna is in the last week of work at AWL and the kids there are getting restless. And I've got finals coming up so I've been pretty busy finishing up papers, projects, and studying. Or at least faking it.

Anyway, Jacen has required a lot more attention than normal. I guess this is what we signed up for when we decided to have kids. Cuts, bruises, chicken pox, hand-foot-mouth, etc. By the way, how great is the name 'hand-foot-mouth disease'? They should name all ailments like this. 'Black-lung-and-dying-soon-because-you-smoked-for-twenty-years' or 'Heart-stopped-working-because-you-don't-exercise-and-eat-like-a-pig'. I think people who name diseases should stop using Latin and start empowering the hyphen.

Pressure
I guess now I have to step up my posting here. Tommy has started blogging and already that guy is showing me up. He has already posted pictures AND video on his blog. I am lucky to be able to log in when I want to write. Always gotta show off don't ya Joseph!! Anyway, it is actually probably good for me. Keeps me on my toes. And Tommy, welcome. Good to have you here.