A Visit From The H-Men (part 2)

There are certain things that we, as parents, just kind of can't stand to do with our children. And its different for everyone, I'm sure. For me, its teaching my daughter how to play games.

Eleanore loves to play games. Duh. What 4 year old doesn't? And I love to play games with her. I just... hate to teach her how to play games. Partially because I know that once I get through all of the telling and retelling and retelling and retelling of the rules, and after I pretend to lose and then have to hear her rub it in my face how awesome she is- shes going to want to play that game all the time, everyday, from now until the world ends.

She'll ask me if we can play Silly Sentences, and no matter what my answer is, even if I'm literally walking to the closet to pull it down off of the shelf for her, she'll ask me again. If I tell her no, if I tell her yes, if I tell her that the ice cream man suddenly carries sugar free soy ice cream and is driving down the street throwing them at little girls with cute short haircuts... she'll still ask me again.

Something awesome though, about having family come to visit, is thats the kind of stuff that they love to do. Thats the kind of stuff that my family used to do with me, and thats the kind of stuff that our family seems to be loving to do with her.

Elie was begging to play something, anything, and then out of nowhere Uncle Josh says "sure, I'll play a game with you, whatdya want to play?".

Oh God, stars lit up in her eyes, fireworks went off between her and the ceiling.

Game on.

After he taught her how to play Old Maid with a deck of Dora cards that had been hidden away on the shelf above the DVDs in the downstairs closet, they busted out some Memory. And seriously, when you're four years old, Memory is a way of life.



And of course, 5 minutes after they were finished, she was asking to play again.

While that was going on, I was working my toddler free tail off in the kitchen, frying up an entire mountain of catfish for everyone to feast upon.

Random fact: I had fried catfish for the first time just a few months ago. My life will never be the same again. Batter, fry, repeat.



After we filled our bellies with cornmeal dusted seafood, we all wandered outside for some fresh air, toe touching, and beard growing. The kids loved having people to climb on and chase, and before we knew it, we were racing the sunset to the basketball courts...



Eleanore fell in love with Miss Christl. She wanted to walk beside her, hold her hand, sit in her lap and purr like a kitten.

While the ladies were hanging out on the sidelines, the H-men tore up the court.



It was pretty awesome, to see them out there tripping over themselves, all with the same matching awkward sasquatch-like movements. Baskets were rarely made, but when they were, it was a big deal.

They would have stayed out there much longer had the sun not ducked out of sight, but leftover cookies from the night before were calling their last name from the fridge, so like sweaty zombies, they marched back to the house, and we all settled down in front of the television for a movie.



Oh, Me and Evelyn were there too. Christopher captured proof on the walk over. This is the only picture of me from the whole trip.

By the way. That one movie, about the robot airplanes rocket ship arc... sky captain and the world of tomorrow, or something? ...I don't so much recommend it.

To be continued...

A Visit From the H-men (part 1)

People don't come to see us very often. They're always saying that they're going to- they ask us if we're doing anything on this date or mention in a conversation that they were thinking about flying out during that week, but- they never do. The last time we had out of town guests, was in December 2009. ...and we can't really blame people, because we are kind of way out here in the middle of nowhere.

But nobody came when Evelyn was born.
And nobody came after Evelyn was born.

And it was really kind of depressing. Especially when we see that the same people who said that they were going to come, at one time or another, go other places instead.

But again. We are pretty far off the beaten path, and can't let our hearts get too sore over our lack of company. We understand. We don't' like it, but, we understand.

Finally though, somebody said they were coming, and then they actually came!



Somewhere around ten pm on Wednesday night, Christopher's Dad, Brother, and Brother's girlfriend, walked into our home just in time for freshly made chocolate chip cookies. I didn't want the house to smell like diapers, and I needed something to keep my impatience at bay.

Josh and Crystl went down to Ventura to meet up with Grandpa Dave, and then they all flew to Dallas, and drove from there to Abilene.

The first ones to meet Miss Evelyn.

The older two were asleep when they arrived, so they didn't get to meet them until the next morning. Which was nice, it gave us all a chance to greet each other, snack on cookies, and play a game or two of wii, before heading to bed.



It was so nice to see Dave holding the baby. She wasn't quite sure of who he was, or why someone other than Mommy was holding her, but she didn't cry or fuss (not then, at least), she just kinda went with it.

And he seemed to enjoy it quite a bit as well. When you go from living on a boat by yourself, to holding a 7 month old in a faraway state, its got to be a little bit awkward, but- it was a nice change for the both of them.



The cat insists that anyone thats here, is here visiting her. So while Christopher and Josh started making an avatar for wii sword fighting (or whatever it was that they ended up playing), Bomber got as many good pets out of Crystl as she could.



They were tired, from their journeys. It was obvious. Yet nobody wanted to go to sleep, because what fun is that? First one to turn in is a rotten egg.

Alright so we didn't end up staying up too late, the excitement wore off quickly, once we started passing around yawns.


The next morning sure was interesting. Eleanore spent the first half and hour hiding from everyone, crouching under baby bouncers, leaning behind Daddy's legs. Charlie seemed to warm up to everyone extremely quickly, which was the opposite of how he used to handle unfamiliar faces (we welcomed this change of character). And Evelyn, as seen in the pictures above, got along with everyone just fine.

We made a big breakfast of potatoes, pancakes, bacon and eggs, and then later on in the day, went down to Christopher's work for a tour, and then played around by the airplanes.



The boys walked around the planes, talking engines and wings, while us girls (and Charlie) played in the shade of a B-52, occasionally ducking from a hornet as it doubled checked us out to make sure we weren't packing pollen.

It wasn't really my thing, ya know? I just kinda stood back and observed most of it through my lens, capturing it on record for everyone else, the way that I typically do, and the way that I'd wish someone would do for me.

I did however, have to dive in and check inside of little mouths, looking for broken teeth, after a nose dive or two off of the tip of a bomb. I've still got the green and brown bruised shins to prove my loyalty.



It didn't take long for the baby to start getting hungry, and the hornets became more unfriendly by the minute.

We hopped into our cars and headed for home.

To Be Continued...