January 2012 Texas Visit

Another "too short" visit to see the kids. But we had so much fun as always. Considering what they have told me in the past and that it was a little chilly out there, we spent more time just spending time together in the hotel room.

But we also enjoyed going to Celebration Park, "the Yellow Park" as the kids called it, and The Heard Nature Museum. I loved playing baseball at Celebration Park with the kids. I would pitch to Shelby and Trey, and Shelby would pitch to me, all the while, Lizi would run as fast as her little legs would take her huffing and puffing the whole way with a huge smile on her face chasing after the balls. Once she would reach them, she would try to figure out how to get as many balls as she could into her hands while not relinquishing her grip on the pretzel snack bag. Such a cute scene!

I loved picking Shelby up from school. She saw me from a little distance away as she was walking with her class to be let out, and she let out a loud shriek! Then she ran towards her teacher to give her a "high five" (protocol to tell the teacher that she found her ride) and ran over to me yelling "Daddy! Daddy!"

We also had so much fun playing uno. Everyone won at least two games except me!! At one point when we got back to the hotel after being out, Shelby randomly says to me, "Are you thinking what i'm thinking?" Not having a clue what she was talking about, I said, "What are you thinking?" And she says, "To play Uno!"

Every night before bed, we read the same picture Bible that my mom read to me when I was a kid. I was amazed at Trey's reading comprehension. As I would ask the kids questions about what we had just read, he would immediately give me the answer!

A cute find on our last night there - Trey LOVES the movie Cars 2. As I was laying down to go to bed next to him at night, my hand went under his pillow and hit something hard. As I reached for it and brought it out, I found his Francesco car (a car from the movie) under his pillow :-)

I am always worried that being apart from the kids will break or loosen the bond that we've created, but when it was time to leave, I realized that wasn't the case. Shelby was sad the morning that I left. I sat her down with me and asked her, "Why are you sad?" And she responded, "I don't want you to go home." And then she started to cry as she burried her head in my chest. We cried together for a minute or two. Trey became emotional after I brought the kids back to their Texas home and told them it was time for me to go. And Lizi kept saying matter-of-factly, "I want to stay with you" on the day that I left.

Enough with the words, on to the pictures!