We're back in Texas (and not a moment too soon)

Jordan poses in front of the Texas welcome center on I-35 near Gainesville this afternoon.

We made a trip to see Dondi's grandmother in Oklahoma this weekend, and had a pretty good (yet wet) time there.

We (Dondi, Jordan, Grammie D and me) packed up the Camry and headed to Oklahoma Friday morning. There was some bad weather in Oklahoma and North Texas on Friday, but we managed to miss most of it, though it rained a few times. Getting out of Fort Worth (traffic) and then getting out of Texas (bad accident at the Red River) made the trip take a lot longer than normal (7 hours on the drive up).

Going to Grandma's is a bit of fun: you turn off a two-lane state highway onto a gravel road, follow that a mile and half or so, and then drive down a dirt driveway, through a creek bottom and then to the house. The only problem this time is that is has rained a lot in Oklahoma (as here in North Texas) in June and July, so the gravel road was muddy, and the creek (usually dry) was flowing. So, we got to see Dad's driving skills in the muck and mud. Not bad, if I do say so myself. You can see how the front of the car looks below:















Saturday was a fun day. Uncle Charlie came out and grilled hamburgers, hot dogs and hot links. The food was good, and a lot of fun was had by all.

Sunday we packed up and left. We also got to experience first-hand Oklahoma's record-high gas prices. The latest reason excuse the oil companies are giving for the prices is a flooded refinery, but you'll have to pardon my skepticism. :-)

What we paid today at Love's in Guthrie:















I wouldn't call it price gouging. I'd just call it, um, well, yeah, I'd call it price gouging. We paid $2.759 a gallon when we got home tonight.

It was a pretty uneventful trip home. Lunch in Moore, and a couple of stops along the way. Jordan was quite happy to see Chloe, and be sleeping again in his own bed.

And, the week starts again, tomorrow morning!

Some more pics from the trip:

Trying video

I finally got around to starting to learn about You Tube this weekend, meaning I am perhaps the last person in North America (under the age of 40) to do so.

This video below (if I do this right) was shot last June 25 in Galveston.



Edit: it works! If you can't see the You Tube player above, it's most likely because your security settings prohibit it. Sorry, can't help you there. :-)

Happy 4th of July

Greetings!

This year's fourth of July followed pretty much the same pattern as last year's, with a couple of exceptions.

We started the 4th's festivities at the Light Up the Lake event Tuesday night. Grampy, Grammie D., Aunt Deona and Monica all joined us. The party was a combination community-wide 4th of July celebration (with about a dozen boats decorated with lights and fireworks) and commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Lake Arlington. I'm told if I can't say anything nice about something, just don't say anything at all. But, I will say that someone at the event did mention this was poorly done, and I didn't disagree with him at all.

So, once that was over, we got home late. Jordan didn't go to bed until well after 10 p.m. At 7 a.m., we all got up and headed to downtown Arlington to watch the 4th of July parade with Grandma and Grandpa. Jordan wasn't interested in much of anything (other than running up and down West Street), so we left after less than an hour. We did get to enjoy the bands from Lamar, Juan Seguin and Arlington high schools, though, and all were excellent. Maybe one year, we'll get to hear all six high school bands. Arlington can't throw much of a lake party, but they can and do throw an excellent parade.

After the parade, we went and got cleaned up. Lunch was at Mimi's apartment complex, where we had hot dogs, sausage, potato salad, pasta salad, cakes and pies, and some other stuff I'm sure I've forgotten. It was all excellent.

Wednesday afternoon, we capped off the day at Aunt Deona's house with some swimming. Jordan did not enjoy that at all! Which, he'll have to get over; swim lessons started this week.

Thursday, I've taken the day off from work to go with Dondi to see the Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. We're looking forward to that.

All and all, it was a good 4th, if for no other reason than it didn't rain for the first time in 40 days or 40 nights. :-)