Back!

Many, many pictures to be processed and posted soon.

Our trip down was miserable and long. Bad weather for two days in Dallas messed up all flights in or out. So, we spent a "lovely" seven hours in the Philly airport, trying to get out Wednesday night. That night we crashed at a Holiday Inn Express (I feel so much smarter, now), and picked up the rental and headed down to Burleson the next morning.

Thursday morning we visited with Grandma C at the nursing home before Em and I trekked up to D/FW to pick up Mom and Aunt Deb (delayed by an entire day). We got significantly lost and then found our way back to get them. After that we headed over roughly half an hour to the Dallas Galleria for the American Girl Bistro for dinner. Much grumbling, irritation and general fatigue later, we left without any food. We lucked upon a great restaurant (Pappadeaux's) on the way home and had some wonderful seafood and oversized desserts. Stopped in to see G-ma briefly before heading home.

Friday was bright and sunny again. We hung out a bit and then went shopping for summer clothes for Emily (happy birthday from Mom (not me, that's my mom, her grandma...) all this was even confusing in person ... "Mom, Grandma, Great-Grandma" etc). We picked up G-ma at the home (Uncle Ray met us there with Jonny and his girlfriend, Jenny) and headed to Sake. We had a fabulous time being entertained by (and eating) Japanese hibachi cooking. The chef guy paid particular attention to our little birthday girl, which was sweet. Played some Wii that night and crashed.

Saturday was a more-eventful-than-it-needed-to-be trip to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. Our two cars got separated and we (Uncle Ray, Jonny, Em & I) feared the others would never find us. Plus ... they had all the picnic lunch in their car. We finally hooked up about an hour later. One wonderful picnic later, we visited the butterflies in the conservatory and then sort of split up again for walking around through the gardens. Jonny had to take flower pictures for a school project, and was wow-ed by my camera's macro feature (his didn't have it, and it was frustrating trying to focus for him). He wound up giving his camera to Emily, much to her delight. I think he's now in the market for a Canon PowerShot. We had steaks at Logan's Restaurant for dinner, then dropped G-ma back off and colored eggs at home.

Sunday was comparatively cold (high around 52* and breezy). Aftyer more Wii-ing (Em is hooked!) We "ladies" all went to visit G-ma, while Jonny and Uncle Ray headed over for baseball practice or maybe a Father-Son scrimmage (if they got enough dads). They called and said there was going to be a game after all, so we went and caught some of the game. We saw Jonny make a great game-winning catch. Woo! We drove around a bit trying to find something good for dinner, and wound up getting some great Mexican food. Yum! More Wii and some board games that night.

Monday was our last real day. We visited with G-ma again with cupcakes for Em's birthday. Em opened presents and Mom showed 2 hours (!!!) of pictures on the nursing home big TV. After that we were pretty drained, and frankly I wasn't too disappointed that the local mini golf (which Em wanted to do on her birthday) was closed. We hit some sales at the Hobby Lobby, dropped Mom and Aunt Deb at home and drove out to pick up Jonny after baseball practice. Everyone met up at the house and we hit Sonic for dinner (Em's birthday dinner request). Back at home we saw Christy (finally! yay!) and had cupcakes and sherbet, singing Happy Birthday and all that good stuff.

Tuesday morning we pretty much got up, finished packing and headed out. We volunteered to be bumped (and they even asked for more volunteers), but they didn't end up needing us. Too bad...those $150 vouchers would have gone a looong way toward a return trip to Texas this summer.

I really want to get back as soon as possible. Em and Jonny got along so well. I really would love it if the cousins would really have a relationship of some sort. We'll see....

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