The fun never stops!

So we spent the last night of our vacation driving the majority of the way home, but stopping in Kansas City (2 hours out of our way, but...) to take the kids to an indoor water park. Everything worked out perfectly. The park was open from 4-9 pm, which gave us the bulk of the day to drive, but still gave the kids plenty of play time as well. Everyone had a great time!


Don and I decided to make the 4 hour drive home afterwards instead of staying in a hotel one more night. And it's a good thing we did... We got home at 1:30 and by 4:30, I was sick and continued to be sick for the next 15 hours. I knew for sure that I had food poisoning! It was awful!

By Wednesday, I was no longer throwing up (trying to be not too gross here!), but my stomach pains were not going away. Don finally went to The Walmarts at 11:30 that night to get me Gas-X because that's what I decided I needed. After I took it, though, I felt even worse! Don and the kids were already asleep by this point, and I finally prayed that if it was just some freaky-bad gas, for God to take it away, but if it was something else, that I would know.

I went to my "medical expert," Google, and looked up appendicitis symptoms when my "gas" didn't go away, and OH MY GOODNESS! While all my symptoms met the food poisoning symptoms, they also met the appendicitis symptoms! By this time, my pain was even more severe, so I woke poor Don up, and he rushed me to the ER, where they diagnosed me with appendicitis and a quick 10 hours later (ha!), they removed my appendix. Definitely not the ending of a vacation that I had in mind, but at least we caught it in time (it was barely ruptured) and they were able to do the surgery laparoscopically instead of the full deal.

So, yup, I'm now lyin in my hospital bed listening to my hubby breathe deeply on the couch (that sounds so much nicer than saying he's snoring, don't you think?), and I'm soo grateful that I'm surrounded by medical professionals who ate takin such good care of me.

So, teacher, that's what I did on MY vacation! :-)

P.S. I'm on quite a bit of meds, so hopefully this all makes sense!

- Darla

Texas Grub

Before we leave Texas, we decided we wanted to have some "real" Texas barbecue. So after asking around, we ended up at Rudy's B-B-Q. And boy was it good! It was quite an experience, too!

We started off in a long line, with a trough of bottled drinks on ice to choose from. Then a lot of people were yelling to take all the orders. Then we walked inside with all our grub to an old-fashioned feeling place.

They had their own barbecue "sause."


All of our food was put on these little crate-like trays. That paper wrapping the meat was our "plates.". (and "yes," I "get" that I'm using a "lot" of "quotes!")


We had the old fashioned checkered tablecloths, glass bottled root beers, and plenty of barbecue (brisket, baby back ribs & chicken!).


And the walls were all painted with people. This was the lady painted next to our table. Can you see her on curler in her hair?


And how 'bout this farmer guy with his big ol' belly?


So, the food itself was a bust with the kids (they didn't like the spices on the chicken), but we all enjoyed the fun Texas time!

- Darla

San Antone

So, I had to go to San Antonio for a work meeting, so Don & I decided that it would be fun to make it a family vacation. We drove the looooong drive Tuesday night and all day Wednesday. Thursday I had a meeting all day. Then, when I got finished, I had 2 hours for fun before dinner with my work group. Don went for a bike ride, & the kids and I went to a Children's museum that had free admission for children just for that evening.

See the line in front of us? The line was just as long behind us! I guess we weren't the only ones who heard about the special...



The kids enjoyed all the hands-on activities. Here Bub is "driving" some sort of tractor thing-y. A Holt, maybe?


After dinner, we took a beautiful nighttime boat tour down the San Antonio River. Very fun!

Yesterday I had only a half day of meetings so we squeezed a lot in afterwards! We visited the riverwalk, the Alamo, the Guiness World Book of Records Museum, dinner/lunch, then Alice in Wonderland in IMAX 3-D.


Oh, and we moved hotels from my very nice work hotel (without a pool) to one with an indoor pool. The kids have currently been swimming for over 2 hours!


After we get cleaned up, we're headed to the art museum at Sis's request. But truly, I'm with my family, away from obligations, so no matter what we do, it's all good!

- Darla

A story in pictures: Game Night

So, I had a game night last Friday night with my mom and my grandma (my mom's mom). All I can do is chuckle when I think back to knowing FOR SURE where I get my game-playing competitiveness! I may not be able to play sports, but I'll go down fighting in a good game of Rummikub!


I, of course, didn't bring my camera (I seem to forget I own one these days!), but I was going through my photos and I found photos from another game night that Don and I had at home with the kids. And even there, where my camera LIVES, I was apparently too lazy to go get my camera... I chose instead to stay on my bum and take blurry photos with my phone.

So, kids... let's play Jenga! You want to? No, it's boring!!! I'm tired of that game!!!

Well, why don't we just build a skyscraper with the blocks instead? OK!

Yo, Mom! Check out our building so far... and my gang sign!

Oooooo... it's getting taller!!!

I bet I can get my forehead thisclose to it without knocking it down!

And hey, does anyone want to play football around a skyscraper barely standing?

Whoa, dad! I don't know if we can get it any taller!

See our creation? We're taking a bow! (subtitle: let's see if we can swing our heads around without knocking it down!)

I don't know Bub... you might actually knock it down! Be careful!

OH NO!!!

Oh well... it was fun while it lasted.

THE END