Category Archives: Our Kid is Cute

Birthday Boy.

The newly turned teenager was living his best life this morning, hanging out with two of his closest friends. It was mostly quiet, except for some sort of male-type communications while they gamed together. The door to the master bedroom opened with an abrupt click, and a loud popping noise announced the arrival of a thousand pieces of confetti shot into the air over their heads, accompanied by a triumphant, manly-man yell from the teenager’s father: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” One of William’s friends jumped like someone poked him in his armpit, there was a pause of quiet, and the other friend announced, “You almost gave me a heart attack!” Yep, if you are in this house the morning of our son’s birthday, you best be prepared for some sort of alarming event.

This year, as he moves further into his journey of becoming a man, I find myself searching his face for that little boy who was, literally, just right here walking into my elbows. Now I have to look up to meet his eyes and his giant man feet walk his toes into our furniture. I wonder frequently if his toes will make it successfully into his adulthood.

He is 6′ tall, weighs 136 pounds and wears men’s size 13W shoes.

William loves spending time with his friends and family. He loves vacations, road trips, monster trucks, theme parks, riding his bike and hoverboard, Dave & Buster’s, snuggling with cats and pretty much any animal. He does not, however, like spiders. He loves listening to audiobooks, making videos for his YouTube channel, playing Minecraft and a few other video games and it’s especially special if he can raise his friends to play video games with him.

We love this young man so much and are so thankful he is ours.

Happy 13th birthday to our sweet William.

From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

We went to visit Big Tex last night. With a tag line of “the most Texan place on earth” we figured we should go see what all the fuss is about.

Now, mind you, we’ve been to the Orange County Fair and the Del Mar Fair, but this is our first time rollin’ through the Texas State Fair. We know fairs are usually crowded (people watching is the real deal), the food lines are long (everyone wants dinner-on-a-stick) and usually during the hottest part of the year. So, we figured a Thursday night somewhere toward the latter part of the fair days, with a cold spell to boot, would avoid all that.

Belatedly, we figured out that we had likely made a tactical error, because we think it was fall break in the schools and pretty much everyone in the Dallas area was there last night.

At one point, we were shoulder to shoulder with people and a dude bumped into me pretty hard and he profusely apologized. I laughed and said, “I think my weeble and your wobble was off balance.” Dude wobbled off into the crowd chuckling about that. And it was true, if you looked, everyone was just shuffling along weeble this way, wobble that way. Heh.

Visibility was limited and at one point we went to throw some trash in the can, and to head up toward Big Tex. Suddenly, a Security man waved his hand and shouted, “Get behind the yellow line.” Everyone stopped, and 2 seconds later a parade swished around the corner right in front of us and there we were right by the trash can with front row viewing. I couldn’t go forward (parade) and couldn’t go backward (crowd) so I stood there, awed by viewing the most Texan parade ever, with Big Tex in the background, in macro viewing mode.

By the end of the night, we had found our Fletchers Corny Dogs and I found my Darn Good Corn. We took the Skyway back to our entrance gate, and after a pass through the Dinosaur path, we called it a night.

As we hurried back to our truck, we watched the transit train load up with people until it was so overly full that the barely closed doors looked like a tightly laced corset. So many people!

Anyone know, when did fair stands stop taking cash and start taking “coupons” only? Or is that just a Texas State Fair thing?

Poppy’s superpower is not snuggling. So when she decided to hang out on my lap and then put her head in my hand, I asked the Husband to take a picture of it. That way when she is a complete turd tomorrow and wants nothing to do with me, I can look at these pictures and remember the 5 minutes of sweetness she gave me today.

We were given tickets about three weeks ago to attend the Billy Joel/Stevie Nicks concert that occurred last night. In preparation for the concert, I’ve been listening to music from both of them and delving into their biographies. Doesn’t everyone do that?? I came to realize that I have long enjoyed Billy Joel’s music, but really didn’t know much at all about Stevie Nicks, but knew a few of her songs. With that research done, I felt comfortable attending and observing. Yay – homework done!

Stevie Nicks performed first. She would introduce a song, a little history first, sing, and then disarmingly would say, “I need to go find another cape!” or “I need to go get another shawl!” and then disappear for a minute, come back onstage with a different shawl,and tell us about the shawl/cape she had changed into as part of her introduction to the next song she was planning to sing. It was rather like watching a show-and-tell or a child playing dress-up. She displayed warmth and delight in her sharing, and it was completely charming to me.

Billy Joel appeared on stage with little to no fanfare, and the audience went wild. Obviously, he was the fanfare, and had no need for a dramatic entrance. He, too, talked between songs and while I knew most of the script (I had watched some of his concert performances online), he did ad lib a little bit. His self-deprecating humor was endearing and witty. There also seemed to be a humility about him, as he shared the spotlight easily with others, and seemed as comfortable with playing the piano while someone else sang, as he did singing as the front man (piano man).

Of course, one of my favorite things to watch is the tear down, as it is marvelous to watch how expediently a giant venue can be transformed into a blank slate again, and we had opportunity to do that while we waited for everyone to depart the stadium. (You will never find us rushing to stand in the aisles with a bunch of butts in front of us.) When we finally arrived in the parking lot and departed, I beheld the Husband’s gift exploring alternative, lesser known routes out of a venue, and we were on the road home in short order. Given the lateness of the concert ending, I was extremely grateful for his gift, as that meant I was home and in my bed much sooner!

A couple months ago, I planned us a weekend in San Antonio. It wasn’t until early June that I realized the dates I had chosen actually fell on Father’s Day weekend. I mean, what dad doesn’t want to drive 10 hours round trip for his family to enjoy a weekend away? Ha!

On Saturday, we visited Sea World San Antonio and had lunch with the Orcas. After walking around a bit, the Child and I decided that we wanted to ride two coasters (Great White and Steel Eel). After finishing our ride on the Steel Eel, we decided to leave the park because it was way too hot and humid for humankind to be outside in that. We ended up at Lego Discovery San Antonio for a couple hours (indoors!!), and then back to our hotel for some relaxation.

Sunday found us spending time with some of our favorite people at one of our favorite restaurants (Magnolia Pancake Haus) and I felt like we could have talked forever. And then the 5 hour drive home with a pit stop at Buc-ee’s (snack of choice was a BLT this time). Henceforth, I will always share my snack of choice from Buc-ee’s because that’s really what Buc’ee’s is all about (plus the restrooms).

Last week, we checked out Hawaiian Waters, a local water park. We had a great time and got to watch the beautiful sunset. We rode all the slides once, a couple of them a few times. Sadly, I never did make it into the lazy river. I predict that we might go back … 🙂

We enjoyed a unique activity today learning about the tabernacles in the Bible, while viewing life size examples. If you’ve ever been curious, or didn’t know you were curious but now are curious, you should check and see if they’re coming to a city near you. If you do end up going, maybe try not to do it when it’s 100*F outside, though.