We hit the road again early on Friday morning to complete the road trip. We hit Abilene right on time, then headed in to my great aunt Billie's house in Anson. It was so wonderful to see Billie. She's always been like a third grandmother to me, and it's been far too long since I've been able to visit. Being at her house was like coming home for me. I've spent many a night there, visiting her and my Uncle JD - with my parents, then as an escape from dorm life when I was at ACU. As soon as we walked in the door, she spread a quilt down for Larkin, and covered it with toys. We rolled around on the floor with him and had a great time. He was rather relieved to be out of his car seat!
My parents and my Nana joined us shortly. They have been in Dallas for the past three weeks, and were pretty happy to see "their" baby again (Larkin, not me, of course). We just visited all day and into the night. Then Saturday we drove to Stamford for the reunion. It was so good to see the family again. It was hard to be there for the first time without my great uncle JD, but nice to reminisce about the good times. The adults chatted while the kiddos ran wild, then we had a delicious lunch that some of the cousins grilled up for us (steak and potatoes - it's easy to be gluten free in Texas!).
Larkin got to meet his cousin Braden who was born just two weeks after him. I'm sure these two will cause us plenty of worry in the years to come!
We do a big egg hunt for the kids, and the little ones got a small piece of the action.
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| Just the cousins age three and younger. |
Larkin looked adorable in his little Easter outfit, even if it was more casual than a typical Easter get up (and thank goodness it was because it was HOT!).
On Sunday morning, we visited Billie's church. Larkin was extremely restless, so we spent the whole service in the cry room/nursery. It was so nice to visit though, because I love going back to the more traditional, acapella hymns that I grew up with. Larkin finally fell asleep in my arms about five minutes before service was over, and stayed asleep as we walked out of the building, put him in the car seat, drove back to the house, and got him upstairs in bed. He was just all tuckered out - or else that country air got to him!
We ate lunch, then packed up to hit the road. We drove into Abilene (about 20 minutes away) and stopped at a grocery store to grab some snacks for the road. While stopped, I realized Larkin needed his diaper changed, so I went to pull out his diaper bag and realized we had left it at the church cry room in Anson. Sigh. We drove back, went to Billie's, and she tracked down a church key. She unlocked the building for us, Jonathan ran in and grabbed the bag, and we piled back in the car. By that time though, Larkin was ready to eat and needed another diaper change. So we stopped for a change and a nursing session. By the time we hit Abilene again, we had added almost two hours to our trip.
Luckily, we got out of town just in time as a HUGE storm swept through town. They needed the rain so bad, as many parts of the area had been plagued by wildfires in the previous days, but they didn't really need the softball sized hail and tornadoes. Got to love the insanity of Texas weather!
We made it to Horseshoe Bay for another layover, then back into Houston the following afternoon. It was a rough trip, but so very worth it to see everyone.
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