So, I was in Texas on a work trip last week and didn't end up writing a blog post. At the time I thought "I'm on a work trip all week, so there won't be much to blog about." Upon reviewing the pictures it turns out it would have been nice to have a split between the weeks, as more happened than I remembered.
Anyway, on Friday Brooke didn't have school, so we went to the zoo. We decided to give the train ride a try this time, and everyone LOVED it! Winry even said she loves it more than the carousel. While we rode it I even found a "hidden" park on the zoo that we went to visit after. It was pretty great.
Rolling way back to Labor day we hit up the outdoor pool for the final time. The pool is open from Memorial day to Labor day. Anyway, we all had a great time. Grayson climbed along the wall and sat in my lap splashing for a lot of the time.
Brooke saw her friend from church, Emy, there and ran off to play with her all morning. Monica went swimming with Winry, and they had a great time together. Winry even wanted to go into the deep end and swim around.
Brooke learned an endearing and engrossing song about nouns at school, and we've been hearing it ever since. It's been a bathroom staple for a while now.
On Wednesday (8th) I headed down to TAMU (aka Texas A&M) to the cyclotron for radiation testing, which is always a good time. We had 40 hours of beam, which was split into two 16 hour shifts from 4pm to 8am, and a final 8 hour shift from 8 am to 4 pm. I was honored to run a full over-night shift, but got lucky and was in the final 8am-4pm shift, which meant I got to leave early the second overnighter to make sure I could wake up in time for an 8 am start. Anyway, here we all are in the control room running our testing!
On our first night there, after we finished setup, the kids called to talk before bed. I was in the back of a suburban like car (I don't remember what kind of car) and took the call there. Brooke was even nice enough to grab a phone to help enhance the realism. All my co-workers joined the call for a moment as I rotated the camera around and everyone said hi. Brooke and Winry were especially enamored with Marty, and even said goodnight to him! They also named the car I was in "donut." It was fun chatting with everyone, and if I read the car right I believe everyone else enjoyed their part in the conversation as well.
SEAKR has a storage locker in Texas, and our most important item we keep there is our disco light/blue tooth speaker for our all night "parties". Also, as I reflect on getting to stay up all night, I think about how fun kids think that sounds. I know Brooke has said she wants to stay up all night, and I vividly remember a family vacation where we joked about staying up after getting back from a show at Tuacahn after midnight, and then when we all headed for bed, Andrew was VERY disappointed. Well kids, take it from me. Staying up all night isn't actually fun.
You never know what gems you may find laying around at TAMU. As I was walking to the bathroom I came across this box. I hope it's not still being used for it's original purpose, but I got a good laugh from the situation.
Back at home, the garden was booming and Winry continues to LOVE helping Monica pick the tomatoes. Oh, while I was gone Monica's mom, Gram, came out to help with the kids. I was gone, so I don't know what zany stories they may have, but Monica can insert them here: <intentionally left blank>.
So the real perk of not having to work that second over night shift? I got back from the facility just in time to turn on the BYU v Utah game! I will admit I was in a terrible sleep state, and going back and forth between staying up all night messed with even knowing what day it was, but I made it up until half time. I think I mentioned this last week, but we got a TV subscription for the football season, so I've got the game DVR'd. However, Sling doesn't work right on my phone, and their webpage doesn't load right, so I couldn't watch the rest of the game till I got back from Texas, so I did look up the score after I got back from church on Sunday. That was the other blessing of getting to head out early the night before, I don't know that after staying up till 8am at the beam I could have made it until 10 for church.
Meanwhile, back at home, there was even more to pick in the garden! In fact, just before I wrote the caption for this picture, Monica asked if anyone wanted to help in the garden and we just went and picked a whole bunch of stuff! Our garden is killing it this year. We might actually get more money in produce than we spent on plants!
As we were finishing up our test trip, there was a chance that a hurricane was going to hit land fall in Houston Monday night/Tuesday. We were inland far enough that we had the potential for lots of rain, but not much more. However, there are several spots between College Station and Austin where the road ends up as a low point, and the road we take can flood, so on Monday we called back to SEAKR to get a hotel next to the airport, and swapped hotels that night. In the end, the storm went east and it didn't rain much in the area at all. That also means my flight didn't have any trouble making it back to Denver. I got home when Monica was picking up Brooke from school, so the first person I saw was Gram, followed by Grayson once he woke up from his nap. Eventually everyone got home, and we were all excited to be back together again.
Monica booked a stay for us at a local bed and breakfast for the night, and Gram watched the kids while we headed out. It was a really fun place to stay, and I could definitely see us going back again sometime. We put the kids to bed before we left, so we didn't get there until after dark, and didn't have much time in the morning before we needed to be back, so we didn't end up getting to walk around outside at all, but there was a cool waterfall that we could see out one of our windows.
I had enough hours on the clock when I got home from my trip, so I took the rest of the week off. It was nice to get to spend a bunch of time with the family, though it might feel weird heading back to work tomorrow... On Wednesday while Brooke had dance class I took Winry and Grayson to the park. I was going to take everyone, I just forgot about dance class. Anyway, Grayson liked the slides, but didn't do much else. I didn't plop him in the wood chips, but he probably would have had a lot of fun doing that...
On Friday we went to the zoo, since Brooke didn't have school. Friday the high was only around 70, so it was really great weather too! The kids of course loved seeing the animals. And we got to see the new animal hospital. They weren't checking on any animals when we were there, but there was a worker who could pull up x-rays and stuff on the TV screens, so that was really cool to see.
Grayson couldn't quite fall asleep in the stroller, so eventually I carried him around while he took a nap. Of course, right as he fell asleep is once it started feeling too warm for a jacket...
With the cooler weather, the hippo statues weren't too hot to climb on! Brooke and Winry both climbed up on the little one.
Brooke climbed on the big one, and I climbed up with Grayson too! While we were riding the train we found out that the big hippo is a statue of the zoo's very first hippo, and he had 29 babies!
We had lunch at the amphitheater where they do the elephant shows. They weren't doing a show, but two elephants were out on the platform. They started having a shoving match, as elephants do, but once one got turned, the other noticed a secret stash of hay on his back and snatched a quick snack! I thought it was really funny and had a good laugh, hopefully you enjoy it too.
While we were having lunch there, Winry started dancing around!
We got Brooke's school picture back this past week. I think we ordered a few prints, but we also ordered the digital file! She looks so cute and the picture turned out so GREAT!! If you need a copy let Monica know.
Grayson wore a tie for, I believe, the first time today. Here's the tie club! Maybe for his birthday I'll have to find a tie with a matching clip on tie so we can match!
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