Neices and Nephews and Time Fly By!!!

The past three weeks have hosted adventure after adventure for David and me, and we've loved every minute of it. Fortunately, our short time together before David's deployment isn't over yet and we still have a few more adventures before he reports back on July 26th.

I picked David up from the National Guard Armory in Dallas on July 2nd. We spent about a week in Denton and Allen TX visiting Mimi, Papa, Sarah, Jean, Mike, Rob & Cathe and the kids (Ammon, Natalie, and Ella - pictured with Uncle David below).

On Wednesday, July 9th we flew to Washington D.C. Wil, Lauren, and the boys (nephews Adam and baby Jake) picked us up from the airport and drove us to Hillary's apartment. We stayed with Hill Wednesday - Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, Hill was uber-busy trying to complete important papers for her graduation that is coming up, so we didn't get as much Hill time as we really wanted. We entertained ourselves Thursday by metroing to downtown D.C. to enjoy the zoo and to meet up with Ellen for dinner. I went camera-NUTS at the zoo, especially when we got to the invertebrates. I wanted to take good pictures to show my students when we get to our invertebrates unit this coming school year. Here are some of the highlights.


We were able to spend the following day (Friday) with Hill...after running around UMD getting her paper copied, packaged, and delivered. We went out to a sushi restaurant for lunch and even got to eat sitting on the floor - barefoot! We then metroed downtown and visited the botanical gardens. Again...some highlights.

Then came Wil and Lauren's turn. (We're high-commodity people, you know.) We started out at the Temple visitor's center Friday night, then continued our high adventures early the next morning with the mini-van packed and headed towards Pennsylvania. I feel that I have now been fully initiated into the Becker family with visits to the relatives from the back-hills of PA under my belt. :) Our time with Wil and Lauren continued with a relaxing Sunday and a wonderful spaghetti and meatballs dinner. Hill even came to Wil's and Lauren's for one last Hoorah (and dinner) before David and I took off for Texas again. The next day we were back on the plane.

So Monday was an airport day. We stayed with Rob and Cathe again that night and were back on the road on Tuesday - this time DESTINATION OKLAHOMA CITY. We met my parents, brother John, sister-in-law Heather, and their adorable daughter Mackenna there that evening. Oh, and I can't forget the three "fur-kids" that made our OKC trip complete. David was quite excited to be reunited with Otis, and it would never be a Clemens-family reunion without Richey and Bailey (John and Heather's dogs). The primary purpose of the trip was of course to visit with family, but we decided to take in a little bit of OKC while we were in the area. We visited "Bricktown" (downtown OKC), the Oklahoma City Memorial and Museum, and the Science Museum. The OKC Memorial was awe-inspiring and thought-provoking, and the Science Museum was a big playground...big enough for 6 "big kids" and baby Mackenna.

David and I realized that over the span of 3 days, we saw all 3 of our neices and all 3 of our nephews. Sunday 13 July - time with Adam and Jake. Monday 14 July - time with Ammon, Natalie, and Ella. Tuesday 15 July - time with Mackenna. We love and adore every single one of them and are so glad we were able to see all of them before David deploys. David is such a fun uncle, too. I loved watching him play with all of them until HE and THEY were worn out. He has been dubbed Uncle Octopus Arms by Ammon and Natalie and Uncle Fishlips by Adam...although the Uncle Fishlips thing was really self-inflicted.

We're finally back in San Angelo and are glad to be out of the car, out of airports, and out of hotel rooms. But our adventures aren't over yet. We hit the road again on Thursday for a night in Fredericksburg. We're going to stay in the same bed and breakfast that we accidentally stayed in on our honeymoon. But that's a story for another time. : )