Sorry about the Delay!

Hello, gentle readers! It's been a couple of weeks, for which I profoundly apologize. You see, we ended up going to Texas for Thanksgiving and I didn't even think about blogging while we were there. And it always takes a week to recover from such vacations.

Anyway, those are my excuses. Make of them what you will. As restitution, I'm providing seventeen pictures. SEVENTEEN! Settle in and let me talk your ear off.


This is Miss Bubbly a few hours before we left. She loves running off with The Hub's shoes and tie and proclaiming: "I go to church, Momma! I go to church!"



We drove through the night Sunday night, thus depriving me of my favorite past-time. You see, our route takes us through West Texas and the heart of the oilfields. There's an oil derrick in every backyard and then some, so I count them to pass the time.


The ratio of oil derricks to windmills is something like 3:1, but I count the windmills for the mental exercise. Both structures are a vital part of the West Texas landscape. Also, there is nothing else to look at in West Texas. And West Texas is HUGE.

This is how I know we're getting close. The I-20, which we drive for something like 400 miles, ceases to be the yellow brick road and we get onto the I-30 to finish off our trip.


The Hub didn't want his picture taken after twelve straight hours of driving. I can't imagine why not.

Miss Bubbly was a little more accomodating. She got the most sleep of all of us and was highly distracted by the new toys I busted out while we navigated Fort Worth. Here we have her intently deconstructing her magic mirror.

The Eldest was quite thrilled with her magic mirror and didn't feel the need to take it apart. She's mostly happy that we were in Texas. Thing was, she was excited from the time we crossed the Texas border at El Paso at one in the morning. So this is The Eldest on five hours of sleep.

After we recovered, we were put to work. Those grandparents are slave drivers, I tell you, slave drivers! Granted, we didn't rake the leaves until we'd been there for three days. And we didn't really have to rake the leaves. We volunteered. Maybe I should take back the slave drivers bit. Anyway, here are The Eldest and Miss Bubbly playing in the backyard. I believe there is a wand involved.

"I zap you, Momma!" Miss Bubbly has been a little wand-obsessed lately and the backyard was full of potential candidates. Eight years until you get to read Harry Potter, kid.


The pile of leaves I raked together were an endless source of delight for certain small children. The Eldest was busy helping Granddad cut up root balls from the bushes he pulled up to be sufficiently distracted by the crunchy leaves.


This is the most unique way of raking leaves I've ever seen, but leaves don't fall all that often in Arizona, so my experience has been pretty limited. And The Hub's youngest brother is quite agile. He was up on that roof in no time without a ladder.
The next morning, Miss Bubbly found the work gloves The Hub had left out. She put them on and wandered around for a while, declaring to anyone she encountered: "I have monkey feet!"

Our first full day in Texas. The Hub and I were still tired, so Granddad took pity on his energetic grandchildren and paid attention to them.


Ahhh, the bonds of football. And brotherhood. But mostly football. Would you believe there's only twelve years between these two? And only fourteen years between The Youngest C and The Eldest. How does that relate? I don't know, but I do know that The Eldest knows the difference between a football and a baseball.
Yahtzee: The eternal C------- family past-time. The Youngest C is inducting Miss Bubbly into the mysteries of keeping score. The lesson didn't quite take, however. Miss Bubbly took his pencil and scribbled in all the squares where he'd written in his score. And without him noticing, either! Uncle-niece bonding at its finest.
For your information, those white flakes are not from a dirty camera lens. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Texas snow. It falls, but it doesn't stick! The Eldest and Miss Bubbly had a lot of fun playing in the "white sparkly stuff."
Miss Bubbly was a little mystified at first, but she really got into the whole playing outside in the cold thing after a couple of minutes.

We spent six days in Texas, plus a couple of days traveling. The trip wasn't actually all that bad, in spite of fog for a couple of hours on the way in and a bit of snow on the way out. Boy, are we glad for our inverter, our laptop capable of playing DVDs, and children who love Little Einsteins, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and the Muppets!