after a fantastic family reunion with my mom's side of the family at bear lake, my mom, dallin, and i headed out to denver, where i'd meet up with jonathan.
can i just say that leaving home is never fun? i love going home, but sometimes leaving is so painful. fortunately it was offset some by the excitement of seeing jonathan again. eric (jonathan's brother) and his wife, jaime drove dallin and me to the airport. as we pulled up along the sidewalk to pick jonathan up, i had to restrain myself from jumping out of a moving vehicle. as it turned out, it wouldn't have worked anyway. apparently eric and jaime have child locks on their back doors. i couldn't get out! it took a couple hours (or maybe jst 30 seconds), but eventually i jumped out and was back with jonathan.
it felt good.
it was fun to visit with eric and jaime - we don't get to visit very often - but we only got to stay the night. and we were afraid to leave too late in the morning...we weren't sure how dallin would handle it. he did great on the way from bear lake to denver, but i sure didn't want to push our luck.
but as luck would have it (rather, the blessings of heaven), dallin was an angel in the car. and he did even better the second day. we spent the night in amarillo, and i could hardly stand my excitement. when we came to the texas border, i kid you not, my eyes were tearing up. we pulled over and took pictures by the state sign, but since dallin was sleeping, he missed out on that. some things just aren't worth it. anyway, while we were pulled over, two other cars stopped and did the exact same thing. now i've crossed a lot of borders in the past few days. no one does that for new mexico, i'll tell you that much.
and even though we were in the same sort of fields and such, i swear that colors were brighter, the air smelled better, and i think i even lost ten pounds just crossing over that state line.
can you tell i love texas?
we stayed at a courtyard marriot, not because it was close to the highway, or close to a grocery store, no, because it was close to not one, but TWO braum's! jonathan agreed we could eat there for dinner and breakfast, and even listened to my plans of bringing dry ice in the cooler so we could buy some ice cream and bring it to del rio with us. well, we skipped out on the dry ice part (and i think it was a mistake...), but we did eat there twice. and i got a shake both times. strawberry at night, and chocolate almond with breakfast.
worth every calorie. if i die a couple days earlier because of it, i'm okay with it. and i think heaven would understand.
anyway, the next day was pretty much like the first, only we were in texas. i think dallin knew something was different, because he was even better in the car that day. he only cried maybe a half hour that day. not too shabby, considering how much driving he'd been doing!
so. texas. it's definitely different down here. we stopped in at a grocery store in a little town somewhere between here and amarillo. the air smelled like a mix of manure and hamburgers (which is, i think, somehow ironic). in the bathroom stall, i looked at the boots in the stall next to me, and felt sheepish in my $2 old navy flip-flops. people say "ma'am" to me, and not because they think i look over 60. they have accents, and i even find myself saying things with just a bit of a drawl at times.
i love it.
as for del rio, well, it's not so bad. it's not great, but it's a lot better than i expected. if you take 277 in, you cross over part of lake amistad to get there, and it's really quite pretty. the land has VERY gently rolling hills, but it does add some variation, which is nice. mexico is less than three miles away, so learning spanish would probably be beneficial. they have a pretty nice walmart, home depot, jc penney, chili's and applebee's. i don't know what to say about the base - i don't have much to compare it to. there's a mix of leafy trees and palm trees, which is kinda cool. there are four (rumored to be five) radio stations here, two am and three fm. it's something like 1) today's hits, 2) country, 3) oldies and tejano, 4) tejano. but from what i've been told, that's quite a step from the one station they had 20 years ago.
we can't get into our house for a while (they told us it would be august 13th or so, but it's looking like it'll be next week, which is nice), so we're hanging out in the laughlin manor. all the TLF was full, so we're just in a regular hotel room. but we have a little refrigerator/freezer and microwave, so it's not half bad. and our room looks over the flight line, so i get to watch all the t-1s, t-6s, and t-38s take off and land all day.
i've gone out and kind of figured out tricare. i got a library card and checked out a couple books and movies. i've gone and looked at the fitness center, checked out the commissary and bx. family readiness services (or whatever they're called) got us a pack-n-play, which was great. we checked out the pool, and it's pretty nice. they even have a baby pool with a canopy, which is super nice to have. other perks of the pool include the oppurtunity to buy koolaid for 25 cents. kool, right?
our house is supposedly one of the nicest ones you can get without being a higher rank. we even have carpet in most rooms (which we have found to be unusual). it's a three bedroom, 1-1/2 bath house. and a garden box out back. i'm excited.
as for dallin updates, well, in addition to meeting aunt jaime, he also finally got to meet his uncle david, which was exciting. dallin is getting balder and fatter every day. i weighed him a week ago and he was about 19lbs 12oz...so big. we put pants on him and they make him spit up because they're too small! he has charmed all sorts of southern ladies down here, a trend that i don't think will be ending for a while. he smiles and laughs (i had the hiccups last night and he just laughed and laughed and laughed), and he can push himself up with his arms! pretty exciting stuff, right?
anyway, that's a basic rundown of what's been going on in our lives. and now here are the pictures of the last few weeks...
uncle eric (miller) and dallin:
dallin and me in the baby pool at my parents' house:
this is to show a very "dallin" mannerism - he will just sit there with his hands clasped for long periods of time:
just cute:
dallin with uncle david!
dallin with grandma miller at uncle dan and aunt cindy's house:
me, dallin, eric, melinda, and greg at bear lake. greg's had major knee surgery, wisdom teeth taken out, and a root canal recently, so he's on a bunch of painkillers. poor guy.
check it out! pushing himself up...sooo close to rolling over. also note the big cheeks, the receding hairline, and the rolls in the forearms:
he can arch his back :(
more bear lake:
dallin:
back with daddy!!!!
texas state line (note the other car pulled over, and you can't tell, but there was an awesome storm ahead)
what the land looks like about 45 minutes (maybe less) from del rio...it's not a very good representation - i don't remember seeing anything this green since colorado:
part of lake amistad:
daddy and dallin:
in the hotel room...studying with daddy:
the view out our window at the hotel. the reflection on the window from the flash is right just above the flightline. i just missed getting a picture of a t-38 taking off.
and there it is. del rio looks like a resort town, right? i know that's what you're thinking. palm trees, a pool, an international airport, mexico just down the road...what more could you want?
