Food, Games and "Home, James"

We had a lot of fun at Keith & Val's.

We had fun eating pies.
We had fun eating all the time.
Thanksgiving is never good on the waistline.

The kids enjoyed watching the Thanksgiving Day parade.
We even saw snow on Thanksgiving Day!
You can barely see the white stuff flying by,

but it's there.
The kids went out to play in the flying flurries.
You can see some snow in Junior's hair.
And they got to play with cousin Christopher!
That was exciting for them.
This may be the only snow we see this year.
Junior had fun hanging out with his baby sister.
We all had fun playing games.
We play lots of games at Keith & Val's.
This was the position Christopher had most of the time we saw him...sleeping on a couch.
All good things must come to an end, and so we eventually had to leave for home. We packed the kids and our luggage in the Caravan and hit the road.
It was a long drive, but with Stephen's help, we made it all the way.

Fun Around the House

Aunt Val holding Jules.
Mommy holding Jules. Julia loves to look at things.

And those eyes are so dark...mesmerizing.
Aunt Lorrie, who came with us to Texas, enjoyed the Texas sunshine as she sat by the window and read. She will stay in Texas until Christmas.
Aunt Lorrie looks on as Junior prepares to play a musical instrument he constructed.
A straight-pass, extended miniature French horn?
I think Syndi's is a snub-nose, reverse-pass miniature trombone.
Syndi and Junior made beautiful music together.
OK, they just made music together.
OK, they hummed, and I wouldn't call it music.
But they had fun!
It was a good time for the kids to use their imaginations.

Fossil Creek

Syndi, Junior, Stephen and I trekked down to Fossil Creek from the park.
A plethora of stones lined the shore of the creek, and all the kids loved throwing rocks in, trying to make a big splash.
In this wide view of the first shot, you can see the creek is not that big.
You can see the rocky shore on the left. The boys kept throwing rocks, and Syndi actually found some shells.
I had to pull Stephen away from the water's edge a few times. He doesn't know enough to keep a safe distance. He's still in that "no fear" stage in most respects.

No, no...in this picture he's a safe distance. Unsafe was when he was less than a shoe length away from the water.
And Stephen has reeeeaalllly small shoes.
JuneBug looked for the best splash rocks.
Caught with the weapon in hand!
In color, too.
Here you see the tall bank on the opposite shore.
And yes, some Haltom City residents live up there.
I though it would be neat to take some black-and-white and some sepia shots.
I showed Syndi how to skip rocks, too.
They were all pretty fascinated by that.
It was windy and cold in the park, but 10 feet down in the creek bed it wasn't windy at all, so it was much nicer.
Friends walking along the shore line.After a while, we walked along the shore, following a path.
We found a ledge down by the water's edge, and the kids went out onto it. It was some kind of white deposit, but I'm no rock expert.
The kids searched, but didn't find many rocks for throwing here.
They had a lot of fun along the creek.
We climbed off the ledge, pushed through some brush (as the path disintegrated), and made our way up the embankment back into the park, where Mommy and Aunt Val had returned from shopping to pick us up.

Haltom City Playground

While in Texas for Thanksgiving, I played with Syndi, Junior and Stephen at a park in Haltom City.

The kids all enjoyed monkeying around.
Silly boys.
Seven years ago I sat in this very same slide with Syndi in my lap.
Flashback Below! Weren't we cute?!
November 2000
Now I have 4 kids that can go in my lap.
Sometimes more than one at a time!

Looooong slide.
The three of them all went over to the swings.
Junior and Syndi made for a neat B&W photo.
Peaking down at Fossil Creek, which meanders around the edge of the park.

We'll see pictures from Fossil Creek in the next post.
The 3 Stooges preparing to descend to the creek bed....

Genberg Hockey

Over Thanksgiving (yes, we're still posting Thanksgiving pictures), we went to see a hockey game. Christopher Genberg, our cousin, played in the game.
The kids really loved cheering on Cousin Christopher.
Looking for that goal!
Genberg's team, the Hawks, dominated.
Syndi went crazy rooting for Chris!
And Stephen had to copy her.
In the end, the Hawks won 7-1!

And we had to wait around to watch the zamboni clean up the ice.