Relaxing

Michele's cousin Cathy and her husband Scott live in a nice neighborhood with a nice, big pool. Their daughter Camryn is Molly's age so we went with them a couple times and the kids had a blast. 

We head to Arkansas in the morning to see Cliff and Allison, then start the long ride home. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 

Tradition

Traditions are important. They let us feel connected to the past while making us comfortable in the present and offer a heading to follow when facing the future. I'm happy to say our Hubbell tradition of someone getting sick on each camping trip or vacation has been upheld!  I give you Nash with a 102 fever....

Eckercise

There is a park close to Donna's house that has exercise equipment and a nice sidewalk all the way around the pond where the Hubbellets could ride their scooters till they were nearly done in by heat stroke. There were a bazillion turtles and lots of fish with a few ducks patrolling the perimeter. It took approximately 4 seconds for the Crane in the first picture to seek refuge on the other side of the water in advance of the approaching hoard.

P.S.

The girls used to call it "eckercise", I'm a bad speller, but....

Lights on for safety

Donna told us her headlights were dim and yellow before we came and asked if I could replace them.  Some co-workers told me about a headlight restoration kit that worked well, so we got one and that was one of my projects today. If you're wondering, all it takes to go from this:

To this:

Is a permanently immobilized shoulder, 10 sheets of 220 and 360 grit sandpaper, one beer and a genuine love for one's mother in law. 

Make that two beers......and some wine.

Tejas

We went to Washington on the Brazos yesterday, the "Birthplace of Texas."  There is a museum there that chronicles the history of Texas and it's like a whole other country, probably because it was a whole other country.   We visited the home of the last President of the Republic of Texas which is a working farm with people in period dress.  It was interesting to consider the Republic of Texas voted to be annexed by the United States after gaining independence from Mexico, and all that was in the mid 1800's.  It's a different place, no doubt, but now it makes more sense.