"Cookie Time Already??"

Yes, the 2 month process of doing nothing except selling cookies and then recovering from selling cookies, all to help our little princess Emily go to summer camp for either one week or two weeks, depending on how many we sell. The goal is 1,500 for 2 free weeks of camp but we'd settle for 750. We made the annual pilgrimage to the zoo to pick them up:





It was so nice that morning...then the rain came...and then it was cold beyond belief. Gotta love Texas. Not really.

I managed to achieve a milestone on ye olde war wagon:



200,000 babee!! Never had a car that lasted longer than that. Of course, this is the only car that I didn't use to deliver pizzas constantly, save for the first year I had it. I've been assured that this will be the last year I will have it. Then I get the Saturn which is eight years old and rising, so...not a big upgrade. Maybe one day I'll get a brand new car.

Man, Emily is halfway done with 6th grade! I keep asking her if she's going to miss JB Little Elementary and she always says no. Part of that might have to do with a certain girl who used to be her friend and then turned on her as fast as she could because she wasn't "cool enough". And apparently a lot of other kids have had the same problem with her. Why does there always have to be one kid that makes trouble for everyone else? For me it was a kid named Robert Williams. His family lived next door to ours in Duncanville and he would be nice only when there wasn't anyone else around, which was about 5% of the time. The other 95% he was just a mean unhappy kid who felt he had to bother only me. I used to fantasize about going back in time and just picking him up now and wringing his neck. Probably not the most productive use of my time. I drew over his face in blue ink in my yearbook. Just never understood why people like that even exist. Maybe he was a mistake. His whole family was full of misfits and drunks. Just amazes me how there are wonderful people out there who can't have a child and then you have rednecks and losers who crank them out constantly and have no way to take care of them. Glad that isn't us.

"More Flags...Well..."

...you know how that ends. Amongst the time that we all had off together this Chirstmas, we managed to squeeze in a few trips herr and there to Six Flags! Since bringing a big camera to this place leaves me all kinds of out of sorts, I used ye olde iPhone and took a few shots:



You know...I never really looked at the big tree they have at the entrance until this year. It's a bunch of little trees surrounding one big support. Funny how I never caught that until now. Ah well.



Zach just HAD to have one of those $5 lightsabers. So when he swung it around the camera managed to capture this. Pretty cool.



THIS was the prize jewel of our photos. For the low price of $56 we were able to pose as Wild West outlaws on the "lam". Everyone looks really mean and pissed off. Just like everyone in real life should look like.



Cousin Ethan actually won this, but he was nice enough to give it to Zach after Zach couldn't win anything. Pretty good deal he got there. Now if we can just find a place for it!

All in all we certainly got our money's worth out of our 2012 passes. So...we got 2013 passes! Even included an upgrade to Hurricane Harbor! Haven't been there since...1991? Wow...been a while. Love the Lazy River though. You are what you enjoy I guess.

"The Aftermath..."

Well, Christmas has swept by us in a haze of wrapping paper and gifts, and now...now, we need a day off to get ourselves back to normal. And what better way to spend a day off than in the one place we never seem to get out to enough...Grapevine Mills Mall! They have two really fun things there that cost a little moolah but I thought the kids deserved it for working so hard in school. First we had some lunch:



Emmy of course got a Charley's sub. I don't think she's gotten anything different in like forever. Hey, when you know what you want, don't fix it if it ain't broke. Zach and I got Sonic, cuz...we like Sonic.



A carousel ride! Emmy is like me and just wants to chill but Zach got on the spinny wheel with some other kids and almost made it jump off the track! Well, not really. But he was pretty dizzy when he got off. This is what people look like thru our camera when they're in motion. You'll see more of it later I'm sure.



Zach: "Um, this is awfully tight around my waist...is it supposed to be cutting off my circulation?"

Me: "Hmm...I'm not sure...you may want to ask a supervisor."

Zach: "You mean the old Korean lady eating behind the cash register?"

Me: "Exactly. And be sure to call her ma'am."



Ya see? Zach is disappearing from existence! It was kind of hard to take pictures of him when he's bouncing all over the place. But he had a blast leaping high up into the sky on the space jump. Here's a video of him doing it too:



I think it's more breathtaking than fun when you're seven years old, but he really enjoyed it.

Did Emmy do the space jump too? You betcha.



Again...disappearing from time and space.

Next stop...water balls!

What?

They're these gigantic inflatable beach balls that kids can get in and jump around on a pool of water. It's all the fun of swimming and none of the drowning and inhaled pool water:



Man that looks like fun...if you don't get seasick easily or motion sickness. If you do...better to avoid these.



Is someone tired? You betcha. I wish my kids could drive me around while I slept in the back seat. One day...one day.

But wait, the fun isn't over yet! After we left the mall we stopped by one of our favourite haunts:



Starbucks!! Zach got a snowman cookie and Emmy got a marshmallow square. Fine choices one and all.

New Years' Eve came around and the Barkers were nice enough to bring over some sparklers and other exploding things:



Jerramy: "Oh geez! How come no one told me these things were so hot??!! Ouch!!"

Ahh, good times...

It's always nice to take time off from work and do all the things I never have the time to do. Whoever said time was a valuable commodity really hit it on the head. I know the day is coming when the kids will be on their own. Hopefully I have enough hobbies and friends to make each day better than the one before. It's a shame we can't do more sometimes.