I've been gathering up all our electronics for the trip - phones, cameras, computers, game players, etc. and all their chargers, adapters, media, etc. and realized I hadn't actually downloaded photos off one of the cameras since Christmas!
So... here you will find just a few highlights of the last six months! First stop - Merry Christmas!
Remember the %&*# Elf? Well, here is a photo of Bridget and the %&^# Elf. She named him Robin. I guess he has to come back in about five months. Robin, I hardly missed ya.Now, all you tree-huggin' liberal relatives out in California.... brace yourself for the next photo. Aidan's dearest wish was answered and he got a gun of his own. He IS a crack shot, afterall. This is a nice little gun and we've all fired it. It has 3 interchangeable barrels for fowl, deer and (hehehe...) squirrels. Now that we have a weapon in the house, I was forced to decide exactly how much damage I wanted to inflict upon any possible intruders. I think I want to do like Dick Cheney, and so when Ray is away, it's got the SHOT barrel on it so I can slow 'em down long enough to clear out and call 911.
Bridget too, is a crack shot, but of another kind. She enjoys photography. One of these days I'll encourage her to put more of her photos up on her blog. Santa answered her dearest wish and she got her very own camera.
Next we move on to Spring. You may remember we were consumed by Aidan qualifying for the Texas state swim champs. Papa Bud and Grandma Jan came all the way from California to watch him swim, and let me tell you (well, I already have), swim meets aren't exactly pleasant spectator events. But I knew it was worth all their troubles when Grandma got tears in her eyes the first time she saw him do his thing in the pool. Papa also got to have some fun in the garage with Ray and all his
Besides firearms, Santa also brought another kind of weaponry - bows and arrows. So Papa and Grandma also got to do a little of that with us.
And just in case you don't think we have enough weapronry in our house (believe me, we don't, by TX standards...), Aidan added to his arsenal for his birthday. He is now the proud owner of several "airsoft" guns. These shoot little plastic pellets and are all the rage among the pre-pubescent boys. They run around the woods shooting one another. 
Papa and Grandma had sent a very generous gift at Christmas, which we tackled this Spring. It is a set-up for a zip line for the clubhouse. So many times I've composed a blog post about this in my head. Something along the lines of "If at first you don't succeed...." but we still haven't quite gotten over the heartbreak of all the effort to install the zipline and the fact that it still isn't done yet and a perfectly nice (but quite sick, unknown to us at the time) tree was harmed in the process.... So I will save the telling for another day and offer these two photos..... the one of the left is getting the "crash test dummy" (that would be AIDAN) ready to test it, and the one on the right is trying to get him out of the harness when the line sagged too much. We had a crew of workers here that day dismantling our Christmas lights and the guffaws coming from the other side of the house were hysterical. I bet they think we're nuts.
And finally, in May, it was SwineBreak '09 where our schools and many public events and activities were closed. So, the kids and I hit the road and spent a nice couple of days on the outskirts of Glen Rose, TX. There is a drive-through safari park, and a beautiful state park on the Paluxy River with many dinosaur footprints. We stayed at a nice little guest ranch and brought home some of their pasture-fed longhorn beef. Those cows graze right by our cabin.
All for now! I'll update from Destin.
