Crazy Times

Heather, the kids and I just completed our whirlwind tour of the Southeast. We flew out on the 18^th to Jacksonville, Fl. We landed and were on our way to meet some of her extended family when I checked my messages and found out that we had a potential buyer for our house in Burlington, NC. That was exciting news, but we did not want to get our hopes up. I basically spent the next day getting a contract together and faxing it to the Mortgage Co. in NC. Getting things done around the holidays has been a little slow regarding inspections and appraisals for the sale, but it seems to be moving in the right direction.

While in Florida, Heather and the kids spent a lot of time back at the ranch with the horses and her parents. I made several trips into town to play disc golf and run errands that needed to be run. We had a great time chilling at the house, and seeing family. Our niece Shelby was a sheep in a Christmas play and we went to see her on Sat. Night. One of my highlights of Florida was eating in a couple of restaurants we don't have out here in TX. The first is Sonny's bbq. I can't explain it, you just need to experience it. The other is Moe's Southwest Grill. Nice place to get a huge burrito at a good price. I miss that place. I had a standing Monday lunch appt. at Moe's in NC. Good times.

We were supposed to drive a rental car from Gainesville, FL to Huntsville, AL. on Christmas Eve. Her parents suggested that we might want to drive at night instead of all day Christmas Eve. I thought it was a grand idea and Heather went for it, which I could not believe. They upgraded us to a Toyota Avalon and off we went. We gave the kids a little Benadryl for help with colds and sleeping and it completely backfired with Addy. She was off the wall for about three hours. Once she went to sleep it was smooth sailing. We got to Alabama at about 3:45 a.m. and headed for the bed.

Alabama was a lot of fun too. I got to see one of my sisters and her girl Makaley. That was a treat as we don't see them very often. Christmas was a lot of fun with the kids putting "reindeer food" in the yard and leaving cookies out for Santa. Both girls were very excited with the loot that Santa brought. After Christmas we had a few more days in AL and I became obsessed with retrieving discs from a pond at a local disc golf course pond. I rigged a contraption together for about $20 to throw out into the lake and pull back in (full of discs) with two ropes. I figured I only needed to find two discs to make my money back. So, I threw that thing into the pond for about 3 hours and got a whopping two discs. Neither of which I will even use. I kept one and will throw it in memory of all the hard work it took to get the disc.

Yesterday it was down to Birmingham for a our flight back to Dallas. You have never seen so many kids on one flight. I thought it may be awful, but turned out to be alright. A kid behind us did yell like crazy during the descent, but we hooked him up with some gum and he was good to go. We went to pick our car up at the long term "parking spot" lot and found our van to be dead as a doornail. They were kind enough to jump it for us and we were on our final leg to the house. I must say it was nice to be home and sleep in our own bed.