Well, it's been quite a while since the last entry, but much has happened. Grab a cold drink, pull up a chair, and enjoy the adventure...

Trip to Dallas and points beyond...

Friday before last, I loaded Shelly, Matthew, Bob, Larry, and a few other characters in the Expedition and headed to Dallas for the weekend. Cousin Eric and his fiancee, Morgan, came in from London for some pre wedding activities. My parents, sister, and her 2 youngest (of 3) kids met us there. Man, what a full weekend.

Friday night I joined Eric and several of his friends for the bachelor party. In the interest of protecting the innocent, there is really nothing of interest to report on this outing.

Saturday was a wild day. The women had a wedding shower for a couple of hours around lunch time, so Pops and I kept the 3 kids. We did what anyone would do in that situation, we drove around for a little while with the 3 kids buckled in their carseats, while they watched Dora on the dvd player. When it was time for lunch, we dropped into McDonalds. Man, the playgrounds in those places sure have come a long way since I was a kid. I remember that if you were lucky, the local McD's has a dinky merry-go-round and a Hamburglar and Grimace guy sort of deal mounted on a spring deal that you rocked back and forth on. These new ones have huge tube type deals that the kids enter and you see them through little windows. They can play for 30 minutes or more and seemingly not get bored with the deal. Who needs a backyard swing-set, just hit McD's and let the kids play in air conditioned comfort. Of course Pops and I keeping up with these 3 kids at McD's is like herding cats I have to tell on myself. Although Matthew is almost 3, I made a rookie mistake. Matthew was drinking water and juice all morning, but I neglected to change the diaper. I guess it's a guy deal in that if we don't smell any foul odors coming from the kid, we're good to go. Well, as we were about through eating, I noticed the little guy 's shorts were wet.. He's still in diapers, so you see where this is headed. I grab the guy and pull him out of the high chair, get the diaper bag, and head for the restroom. Well, McD's is kid friendly, but not daddy friendly. No changing table in the restroom. Plan B, head to the truck and change on the backseat. Man, Mom's sure do make this deal of carting the kids around town look easy...

Ok, that deal over, Pops and I load the kids back in the truck, turn on Dora again and head back to the hotel. The women will be back soon, and we think we smell an aroma from my sister Staci's youngest. We do what any guy would do, we parked in the parking lot and let the kids continue to watch the movie until the wives return, then play dumb about any diapers that need changing.

Saturday night was a big party consisting of wedding party folks, and hosted by some of my Aunt and Uncle's best friends. The party was at some of their good friends house in an upscale gated neighborhood in McKinney. It was great as house parties go. They had catered in BBQ and Mexican, and they also had a grill going with Brat's and some sausage from LaGrange. What a feast. It was nice to see these people again. Eric and I have quite a bit of fun together. We are the only 3 guy cousins on that side of the family, so we share a sort of a bond. Well, when we get together, some level of pranking us usually involved. As the evening went on a little, everyone was getting settled into visiting around at different points around the house. Eric and I (and Shelly - much to our surprise) snuck upstairs and located Pat & Paul's bedroom (the hosts), and short-sheeted their bed. Juvenile? Yep, and quite hilarious given the targets. Man, this is almost too easy. Next, we moved to one of the guest rooms. Ok, keep in mind that all of the guest rooms will be occupied by the 4 couples that are throwing the party (all close friends of my aunt & uncle). We have no idea who is staying in which room, so we figure it is pot-luck, with any the other 3 being suitable targets. We complete the task with lightening quick precision, and head back downstairs to re-join the party. Man, it's hard to keep a straight face when you are leaving and thinking the hosts for such a wonderful party knowing that in another hour or so they will get the business end of a good pranking.

Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel and met the family for breakfast at Chuy's. According to my aunt & uncle, they were the recipients of the guest room short-sheeting. Score!! Eric and I will have to be on out toes for the wedding weekend in June. It seems that we have a few people that have sworn revenge on us. I'll be sure to keep you posted on that...

After breakfast, we headed down to lunch with some of Shelly's friends in Burleson, and then continued on to the ranch for a few days of vacation

On the way to the ranch...

Shelly thought it would be fun to take a trip through Crawford to see where Pres Bush has his ranch. We didn't find the ranch, but we did find the Crawford Peace house. That is apparently the place where that gang of miscreants heads up their mis-guided rants against all things related to patriotism. We also saw the land that their leader (name intentionally left out, but you know who I'm talking about) has apparently purchased and set up some sort of a mock graveyard with little white crosses. It was a real shame that if they were going to go to all that trouble they wouldn't go to the trouble of actually moving the grass. The place looked terrible. Seeing how she claims it is a memorial to her son, you would think she would at least make sure the place looked well-kept.

At the ranch...

We did just what most people do on vacation. Nothing in particular. I took Matthew for a ride on the tractor, and we knocked over a cedar tree. We were going to ride the bull-dozer, but when I cranked it up, he found it a little scary, so we scrapped that idea. Yes, I do know how to operate the dozer. I read the manual on Monday ;-).

I think it was Monday afternoon that we took Matthew over to the Topsey Exotic Ranch. The place is just a couple of miles from our ranch, and it is a pretty neat deal. You pay your money and drive through the deal with little bags of food to feed the animals. Man, those animals know the drill. You stop the truck, and they swarm the truck. There was a Shetland pony and a cow that were a little too forward about it. I'll post pics when I get them off of the camera. I didn't know a cow could reach his head that far into the truck. Had to move on from that spot... Sidebar comment about the animals... They did have all of the usual exotics (ostriches, zebras, axis deer, camels, etc.) I only mention this because I know some of the smart-alecs (Tommy) will comment on the above mentioned horses and cows on an exotic ranch...

There are a few other adventures, but it's getting late and I'll have to post them tomorrow night. There will definitely be a few more funny Matthew stories coming up.