CKZCJ

Well it was both actually. You would think after having 25+ hours of labor I’d give myself a few years to recuperate before I gave it another go. Oh no, not me, I’m a glutton for punishment. So by some great coincidence my second son was born on the same exact day that my first son was, one year later. From the beginning they were not sure about how they felt about one another…

Oh I am sure that they love each other, in fact I’ve heard them tell each other so. They’ve also beat the tar out of each other from time to time. A staff member from their school told me the other day that Z walks his brother to his classroom, gives him a hug and makes sure he puts his back pack away then walks to his own class afterward. So sweet. I spent the day going through pictures of when they were little and oh how they’ve grown. I wish I could make them stop growing, except for the part about being able to wipe their own butts. I really like them being big enough to take care of that themselves. It’s a big milestone here in our house. Moving on.

I didn’t plan well in order for the boys to have a party with their classmates so we started their birthday week with a trip to the Aquarium in Corpus Christ (they had wanted to go in the summer while on our trip but it was a pricey place…). Then yesterday I made four dozen cupcakes some in the shape of a Clone Trooper and some with blue frosting and a white jelly bean on top for the boys to take to school and share with their classmates. Today we took the boys to dinner at their place of choice, the River Pub and Grill, and they opened their gifts there. We had promised to take them to drive go karts in New Braunfels but the place was closed today so that will happen this weekend after their first flag football game.

So guess what I did as soon as we got home??? I hope they had a great birthday, next thing I know they’ll have chest hair and be talking in a low tone like Pavarotti. Someone save me.

A letter in the mailbox from my Popa. I used to love to get them as a kid and my heart still skips a beat when I open my mailbox and see one in it today. He still uses the same letterhead he did 15 years ago.

Last week was a busy one. On Monday, the boys started school -

That night they had their first Cub Scout meeting and our summer Co-Rec softball team played for the championship in our division. We won, the hard way, which made me get home about midnight. I was tired Tuesday morning. 6am came early.

On Tuesday, we had our first date night of the year. I’m pretty sure of that staggering fact. Nine months into the year and we got to go out by ourselves! We had a wonderful meal on the Riverwalk at Texas Land and Cattle (see my Yelp review here) and then had tickets for Prairie Home Companion’s Summer of Love Concert at the Majestic theater. I’ve wanted to see Prairie Home live for a long time and since they were so close I sold a kidney to buy two tickets. Turned out to be really nice seats too. More on that later. And no I didn’t really sell a kidney…

Needless to say we really enjoyed our date night. Even though it was 1am when we got home. I was a zombie on Wednesday and I threw the alarm at the wall at 6am. Thursday came and went, no school on Friday for parent-teacher meetings. We spent the rest of Friday painting our house. We’ve been doing that for two weeks now. We found a seasonal sale on a bird bath and bought one. The poor birds won’t come drink from it. This is why -

On Saturday we meet my Grandparents and my Uncle in town for BBQ and then I rode with them to Long Point, TX where my many great’s grandfather’s cabin was being dedicated. It had been used as a bed and breakfast but was bought by our family and moved back to his original land. He was quite the interesting fellow (more on him soon). It was really a pleasant evening.

See more of the photos from the Gideon Lincecum Cabin dedication on my flickr. We then spent ALL DAY Sunday painting our house. I’m happy to say that the entire front is done. Minus the porch railing and the porch flooring. On Monday we continued our painting with the side and because we started from the bottom up when it decided to pour the white paint ran down onto the darker trim and bottom. I stomped off and threw a fit not wanting to think about having to re-paint all of it again. Thanks for nothing you useless hurricane. Well technically Hermine was only a tropical storm.

Yeah, that’s the whole central part of Texas covered in rain. For two days. Oh and our building has a foundation leak and our offices are nice and stinky from water soaking into the carpets. As we dry out we have a packed weekend ahead of us and two birthdays coming up in only six days!

The boys are almost done with their summer reading list for school. We are in the final stretch of the 20 required books and CaseyJ (aka Jelly) was reading a book of poetry by A.A. Milne and I had heard him giggle at a few of them. So when he handed me the book when he was done I flipped through it and read a short poem about a bear, noting the bear really looked like Winnie the Pooh…. Later that night I slapped myself in the forehead, duh, Milne later wrote “The Adventures of Christopher Robin” and Winnie the Pooh. Hence the total resemblance. On to the post title for today, I also found the poem “The Island” in A.A. Milne’s “When We Were Younger” and it fits me like a glove. I am beach girl at heart and I’ve often said I’d like to have my own island (as long as it high speed internet of course). If you’ve ever seen “Nim’s Island” that’s my dream living place (who wouldn’t want to live on an island with Gerard Butler?)… but I’m not opposed to living near beautiful snow topped mountains either. Enjoy -

Nim's Island Tree House

The Island, by A.A. Milne

If I had a ship,
I’d sail my ship
I’d sail my ship
Through Eastern seas;
Down to a beach where the slow waves thunder -
The green curls over and the white falls under -
Boom! Boom! Boom!
On the sun-bright sand.
Then I’d leave my ship and I’d land,
And climb the steep white sand,
And climb to the trees
The six dark trees,
The coco-nut trees on the cliff’s green crown -
Hands and knees
To the coco-nut trees,
Face to the cliff as the stones patter down,
Up, up, up, staggering, stumbling,
Round the corner where the rock is crumbling,
Round this shoulder,
Over this boulder,
Up to the top where the six trees stand….

And there I would rest, and lie,
My chin in my hands, and gaze
At the dazzle of the sand below,
And the green waves curling slow
And the grey-blue distant haze
Where the sea goes up to the sky….

And I’d say to myself as I looked so lazily down at the sea:
“There’s nobody else in the world, and the world was made for me.”

I originally titled this post “Roll On” because that’s pretty much all we did today. Also that’s pretty much what we’ll do tomorrow until we reach the coast and our destination for the next 6 days. For some reason the 7 hours in the van today seemed twice as long as the 11 hours we spent in it yesterday. Seriously sore bums were had by all. CaseyJ finally passed out somewhere in Alabama and slept for awhile. I think he seriously needed that nap, especially after losing his swimming pool time at our lunch stop.

I love Hipstamatic...

Back to the title of “Roll On” made me think of the Terri Hendrix song entitle the same. However the song is more a metaphorical “Roll On” than the literal. On the same album (Cry Till You Laugh) is the song “Take Me Places” and that song is a lot like what we are doing on our trip.

Take me to Mexico
Wake me up in Singapore
Maybe we could see Morocco
Take me where I’ve never been before

…………

Take me somewhere exotic
Far away
To a distant shore
A quiet beach could be hypnotic
Take me where I’ve never been before

Although the lyrics lead more to a need for escape I think it works for what we are doing. I traveled within the state of Texas as a kid, mostly within a few hours of home. I didn’t leave the state of Texas until I was 21 years old. At 6 and 7 years old the boys have been to more states than I had by the time I was 30. That is cool. They’ve seen things some grown adults have never seen – the Grand Canyon, a sunset over the Missisisippi River, the mountains of Colorado, etc. I love traveling with the boys, minus the in car fights (which have been very few this trip) and the having to get them to sleep while we are trying to watch tv or relax in the hotel room, it’s awesome. I am really looking forward to all the beach time and fun stuff we’ll get to do this coming week. Photos out of my camera and not my iPhone coming soon!

It will all start unusually early tomorrow morning. Like I don’t even get up that early to go fishing and I like to go fishing. A right turn, then a left, and one more left turn will set us up for a few hours until we make the big turn to the right and head east on 20.After packing all the goodies there is just enough room left in the van for four bodies which is good since that’s how many we have in our family. I’ll have to be going to bed soon so I can tweet in the wee hours of the morning for any sympathy from anyone else crazy enough to be up at that hour. Hope to be posting plenty of updates from the road!!! All of a sudden I’m feeling like a Griswold…..