At long last, we got back on the road in early August to head north to Mount Rushmore!  From Houston we got back on the road and traveled to Shreveport, LA. What a different world…the roads just turn into potholes the minute you pass the welcome sign. And the heat…let’s not even talk about the heat and humidity! We thought we left the heat in Yuma and now we are in a heat wave!

We stayed on Barksdale Air Force Base, which was nice, except for the notice that said “Don’t feed the alligators!” OOHHH NNNOOO!  Luckily, we didn’t see any in the wild, but there are definitely some areas where it is like swamp and you know there are alligators watching you!!  We did get to visit with alligators, which was cool!

 

We also went to Shreveport’s Boardwalk along the Red River which was fun. The big hit was the Eurobobbles!! The Eurobobbles look like those plastic hamster running balls, but they are on water. They put the kids in the inflatable ball and then blew it up and the kids could roll around in the water.  It was hilarious!! 

               

We moved from Columbus, which is west of Houston, to Lake Conroe, which is on the north side. We really enjoyed the RV campground at Lake Conroe. They had a nice pool, great activities center for the kids and minigolf and tennis courts, which we really had fun playing “the Brown version” of tennis on!


While we were at Conroe, we made a trip to NASA which was so much fun. They have a Star Wars exhibit with games and Paul was in heaven! It's sad to think that we can't tell our kids to aspire to be an astronaut anymore.


We also went to the Houston Zoo, which is always an adventure! Not only was it HOT, but the mosquitoes were a delight too! We really had fun, but I feel like all our adventures include heat and mosquitoes!

The zoo had this cool tube that went through an aquarium and we got a cute pic of the kids going through. We also had the pleasure of a mommy elephant that decided to back up to the visitor viewing area and go No. 1 and 2! If you haven’t seen the waterfall that an elephant lets loose or the coconut sized poo balls I’m happy for you! It was gross! Of course as they say, you can’t unsee what you have seen! Her baby almost walked in it too, but she was good enough to push the baby away, but she definitely let all the people know what she felt about us watching her! Haha We took some pics, yep we did, but I won’t post those pretty shots!


One weekend, Bill and Paul went with friends to the deer lease and they had a blast! Anna, Noah and I stayed at Lake Conroe and went to the Children’s Museum of the Woodland’s which was perfect for a 5 and 3 year old! Here they are playing in the fire truck.


Paul also had his first big biking accident...somehow his face hit the road?!


This is a picture of Grandma with 3 grandkids, only Paul is missing. Do they all look like Grandma or what? It's cute that all the grandkids look like her after all the years she had two blond children that didn't!


I just thought this one was cute because they are all just relaxing under a grizzly! hehe Gotta love all the outdoor stores in Texas!

Texas

We made a u-turn from Oklahoma and we are back in Texas! We came back so Bill could have his stent from the kidney stone surgery removed at the VA hospital where it would be free. Well as you may guess that didn’t work out. The VA does not do anything quickly even when Bill called everyone and made sure he was following the correct procedure.

We decided to use our other insurance and happily the stent was removed within 24 hrs of our first phone call. Amazing! Thank you Dr. Schiffman!

The VA told Bill his stent wouldn’t even be looked at for removal until 3 weeks and the doctor who removed Bill’s stent said they remove them within 3 days after surgery! I think the VA doesn’t know the difference between weeks and days?! Bill would have been miserable and could possibly have developed other complications. Ugh! The main thing is Bill is doing great and he is almost back to 100%.

Right after Bill’s stent removal we went to Rockport for some more fun in the sun! While we were there, Jennifer’s dad caught a 40-inch, 22 pound Redfish! It was huge!


We had a lot of fun in Rockport – the kids had 2 cousins who were visiting from Maryland to play with too, which was great!

We’ve also been doing some sightseeing in Texas. We went to the Stanzel Model Airplane Museum in Columbus, which was really cool!


We also had ice cream after a tour of the Blue Bell Creamery in Brenham – which is the best ice cream ever!

Ardmore, OK

We headed to Oklahoma next. Bill’s parents live in Ardmore, and we are currently staying here. We enjoyed swimming in Lake Murray and visiting the city water park, which had this cool whirlpool area that pulled and pushed you around the pool!! That was a blast!

This has been a crazy visit though -- Bill has been to the ER twice!! He was having excruciating pain from his kidney stone. He found out he had a kidney stone while we were still in Yuma, but the pain went away, so he didn’t worry about it.

Well, it let us know that you don’t forget about a kidney stone! If you don’t pass it, it will come back to haunt you!! Luckily, we were here with family and he was able to have surgery to remove it and now he has to have some follow up stuff done, but he is doing so much better. We’re not quite sure if we will actually get going on our RV adventure or not…just kidding! We will be here through July 4th and then we head South, back to Texas and to the VA hospital in Houston for Bill’s follow up care.


In the meantime, we are enjoying our visit. Along with Mike and Connie (Bill’s parents), Dan (Bill's brother) and his wife Cindy have visited. Also, Mike and Connie have Spencer and Gavin (Bill’s sister’s sons) here and the kids love it!

Paul and Gavin hit it off right away – they both love WII and Legos, so needless to say, we don’t see them much! As for Anna and Noah, they follow Spencer around everywhere. Spencer is 14 and surprisingly doesn’t mind the kids tagging along to catch crickets, frogs, etc. He also takes them on tractor rides, which is the “Okie roller coaster”!


Anna has also been cooking a lot. She and grandpa have made an apricot pie, strawberry cake, and macaroni salad! She also enjoys helping with making meals -- maybe she'll be a chef someday and I won't have to cook anymore! Woohoo!

Medina Lake

From Rockport, we traveled to Medina Lake which is west of San Antonio. It is a beautiful area with lots of wildlife. You can't imagine all the deer running around - and they are so tame!

While we were at Medina Lake, we traveled about an hour to the deer lease that Bill is on and hung out for a day with Jennifer’s Dad. We had a fun time, but we also discovered a new creature (see weird animal picture)! Really, we didn’t discover a new creature, just baby OWLS – they are so weird looking and stinky too! Ew!

We also went into San Antonio and spent a day on the river with Jennifer’s parents who were there for a conference. We rode the river boats and visited the Alamo and had a great time! San Antonio is really fun, but it was very busy this time of year, too.

Our last adventure while there was on Father's Day, we went to see the new Toy Story 3 movie in 3D. The kids loved it! It made me (Jennifer) cry a little too - so sweet!

Rockport

After Tombstone, we drove to Rockport, TX to stay with Jennifer’s family from June 9th-16th. While we were there, we celebrated Noah’s 3rd birthday!! He is such a big boy now!

We also enjoyed going to the beach, water park, and fishing on the pier!

Bill competed in his first kayak fishing tournament on June 13th and he got 7th place!! Yippee! On our last day, Bill surprised us all when he caught a SHARK off the pier! Ugh! Scary but cool!!

On the Road

Woohoo, we left Yuma yesterday and it was a fun-filled day! Within about an hour of leaving Yuma, our generator started acting up and with it being over 100, it was hot without A/C! Our first stop was in Tucson to have it looked at. We were still able to get back on the road and to Tombstone by last night.

Today we went to the OK Corral and saw a gun fight in Tombstone! Anna covered her ears for the gun shots, but both boys thought it was fun. We had a blast even though it was over a 100 again. Just watching those actors in all those western clothes, I can't imagine how they lived in the desert without A/C. Whew!