Texas: The Second Half

We took the tykes to the Boerne fire station for The Tour. We took 'em in February, and I realized that a friend from high school, Lyle, is a fireman there. So I think I'll get 'em in for a tour every time we go back. It was fun to reconnect with him. AND Martin Graham, my good friend's little bro is a firefighter there, too, so he and Lyle and another nice fireman did the tour for us. It was so great, they were all three so polite and said "yes, ma'am" this and that to my mom... just the epitome of small town Texas manners. N&B especially loved getting to fire up the sirens and using the joystick control to move the hose on the front of one of the trucks around. Good FREE fun! And Lyle was just one of the many friends from so long ago that I got to see! Such as...

Katie! Also from high school. She and her kiddos were putting on a bake sale/garage sale to raise money to help fund clean water for Zambians. They're so cute. (Her kids, not the Zambians. They're probably cute, too...) The table with the baked goods and lemonade collapsed while we were there, and Katie took it all in stride.

And Betsey and Michelle! They're both living in Austin, so when we went up to hang out with Aislinn, we got together for a couple of hours. They're friends from Harlingen, down in the very southern tip of Texas, the Rio Grande Valley. I've known them since the end part of fourth grade, when we moved there for the second time. It was sooooo great seeing them!
And my church buds from Boerne. Sarah (on the left) lives in Boerne again with her hubby and little boy, and Carolyn (middle, Martin the fireman's sis), was down from UT for a family reunion. Our little foursome isn't quite complete, since Roshelle went off to heaven two years ago, but she is VERY fondly remembered, and we brought a pic of her anyway. The four of us have hung out since we were 14-ish, and are probably the oldest friends that I've kept in continual touch with. I'm back in touch with wonderful friends from earlier (gotta love Facebook! ;), but these girls I've never lost track of. I love 'em!

I also had a great visit with Cara. She's Roshelle's sis, and is quite awesome. SUCH a good baker, cook, seamstress... There she is with her basket of eggs from her variety of chickens. Those made some gooood egg salad, I'll tell you! She also made the kids strawberry and white chocolate peanut butter sandwiches... yummmm...

Cara and I with our babies, Madden and Maeve :)

Cousin time. Lots of it, yet never enough. Here're Bran and Rowan, who is 2 weeks younger than N&B, at the place with lots of bouncy houses and...stuff like that....

Granny and Maeve.

Nuala, Declan, Rowan, and Bran, ready to go a-swimmin' at the river.

Patrick with Ciaran and Maeve. Patrick is so good with the little kids. I still can't believe that the little darling...the FIRST grandbaby... is so huge now! And not just old, at 11, but really, really big. He was such a cute little fella. Still is, just bigger! He's a great kid.

Nuala with Aislinn's girls, Maire and Aine. They're so wonderful with the little ones, too. You should see them carting Maeve around and taking care of her.

We went to Barton Springs State Park to meet our cousin Ruth and her six-soon-to-be-seven kids. Her only boy, David, is above, holding a massive stick with Bran, Rowan, and Declan.

Nuala standing on the steps down into the water. This place was neat, but kinda different. It was a river, but one you paid to get into, and it had steps here and there, and lifeguards, and a spot with a diving board. I liked it fine, but I prefer my rivers to be more river-y, less... organized? But it was fun! And actually here Nuala is peeing. She and Bran just couldn't quite grasp the concept of peeing in the water while SITTING in it, or otherwise being normal. I told them to pee in the water, and this is what she did. Stood in the water and let it run down her legs, then went and rinsed. And I know it sounds gross, all this peeing-in-the-water talk, but you know that everyone does it! In rivers and stuff, I mean. I do not condone pool-peeing. Bran! Bran's pee story...

Alright... here are the steps again. Right when we got there, Bran was telling me that he had to tinkle, and I told him when we got into the river he could. And we have had this conversation before. How to pee in rivers. With both of them. Like I said, though, it hasn't quite sunk it. The kiddos headed for the stairs and I started putting stuff down and when I looked back up I realized that there was a back-up on the steps. The very steps in the pic above. I mosey over there and -- oh! The sight that greets my eyes! There's my boy, on the step right above the water with his trunks down around his ankles, little white buns a-flashin', peeing a nice, long arc into the river. While several strangers wait behind him on the steps. He was so oblivious. And that boy has a bladder that would rival Finn McCool's. And he's a giant. Just keeps going and going and going... I don't know why I didn't just turn and walk away, I mean, there was no stopping him then. Instead I had to say, with shock in my voice (I wasn't very shocked, but I figured it was in my best interests to express that), "Bran!" etc., etc. I apologized to the folks behind him, and they were all okay with it. I mean, he's 3. They did give the pee area a wide berth on their way in, I noticed.

(Finn McCool. He would definitely have a pretty big bladder. Well, you'd think so anyway.)

Ruth decided to give Maeve a ride in the basket. Despite this photographic record, she did actually enjoy it.

Here are Ruth's kids, Aislinn's kids, and my kids. It was a fun get-together!

Cute manly little Ciaran! He brought Maeve's outfit to Aislinn and was very insistent about wearing it. The boy vibe is a little too hard to mask in this fella, though... :)

Sliding down the slide into mud puddles... Ahhhh, summer! Um, I'm not sure why this is underlined. I don't want to deal with it.

Catching cicadas in Granny and Grandad's backyard. These two like their bugs.

The net wasn't quite necessary, I guess, but it makes things more fun. Obviously.

We went to Schlitterbahn with Aislinn and her crew. We had a lotta fun. I only took three pics, because, really, who goes to Schlitterbahn to take pictures? Here are N&B going down one of the rides. They had a blast!

See? A blast.

At Cibolo Creek our last day in Texas.

Zac chasing Bran and Nuala with the Gator. Who was being a gator.

A family shot. And thus ends our Texas blogs... I love my family. :)