I know its been a while since the last update and boy have we been busy. In mid-June we took a two week road-trip to Texas to visit our old neighbors (and 2 of Matthew’s God parents) the Perryman’s. It was a great trip. Texas was hot but there was a heat wave going through much of the rest of the country at the time so it didn’t seem much worse than anywhere else. Each day it was around 95 degrees and sunny but there was a constant breeze so, in the shade, it was very comfortable. Standing out in the sun was definitely another story.
While we were there we took day trips to Austin to visit the Apple store, look around downtown and head to Dave and Busters for a few. One fun fact is that the Texas state capital is a rotunda similar to the US capital and is actually taller than the US captial…figures…it’s Texas.
We also took a day trip to Ft. Worth (photos) and the historic old town (read tourist trap). They claim to have the only daily public cattle drive in the US. Cattle drive is a loose term at best and while it was neat to see the longhorn steers stroll through the town (all 12 or so of them) I got the feeling this wasn’t the way it went down back in the day.
The kids got souvenirs there, we stopped by the world’s largest Honky Tonk bar called Billy Bob’s for a softdrink and we even brought back some Texas salsa mix. Best of all, our friend Angie’s mom met us there (she lives just outside Ft. Worth) and she tagged along with us and showed us the sites. The highlight of the day was the photographic archive they have in Ft. Worth. We spent some time looking through old pictures of cowboys and the townsfolk from the 1800’s. The neat part was you could buy copies of the photos you liked. We found this really cool old snapshot of a larger family from the time. They seemed to be one of the wealthier families. I bought and scanned in the photo and you can see it about halfway down the page in our Ft. Worth photo gallery . Very neat.
During one of the hot days we took the kids to an indoor rock climbing facility called Boulders where we all tried our skills at climbing up to the top of 35 foot walls without much to hold onto. Hunter and I made it up all the way (Hunter climbs like a monkey) and the whole crew had an awesome time climbing around for a few hours. Here are some photos .
During pretty much every other day the kids played in the Perryman’s swimming pool (photos) where we took tons of action shots of great diving board maneuvers like the triple-lindy and more.
Then one night we decided to go to a putt-putt? mini golf and entertainment center and played a round of mini golf. Everyone had a great time until we went over to the go-kart race track. It was all fun and games and everyone was having a good time…then the Mom’s got behind the wheel. Suddenly kids cars were being driven into walls and flipped around on the track when they were cut off in a corner. If the crew had been watching both Cheryl and Angie would have been ejected from the park.
Speaking of racing, one night the grown-ups went out by themselves and guess where we went…back to Dave and Busters to play games. While we were there, Cheryl and I raced against each other and for the first time ever she beat me…not once but twice. Its a sad day and now I know I must be getting old 🙁 Maybe I was just scared from the go-kart track…yeah that’s it. We played lots of other games and wo n lots of prizes for the kids.
After a week and a half we packed up and began the trip home. Just after we got on the road, the sky opened up and it poured. We thought we were in for a tornado as the clouds were only about 20 feet off the ground we actually saw some clouds that looked like the funnels were forming. We drove through the driving rain and gusting winds for a few hours and finally stopped late that night to rest in Alabama. We got up early and headed home.
All in all it was a fantastic trip. Thank you to the Perryman’s for putting up with all our craziness! If you haven’t seen all the pictures by now. Head over to the photo section and check out the 4 photo albums we put together.
And then there was the bed and breakfast we ran when we returned home…but that the next installment…
-Brian