I believe Amanda will agree that my schedule was a bit more hectic than her schedule. For me, I worked in Houston for 4 days, travelled to St. Louis for 4 days, back to Houston for 4 days, and then to Dallas for --- you guessed it --- 4 days. Everyday at work started at 4:30-5:00am and every night ended around 11pm (most nights). Quite honestly, at the end of the trip, I was exhausted.
Amanda and Jacob did it a bit differently. They left for St.Louis on Tuesday so she could spend a bit more time with my family (or, so my family could spend a bit more time with Jacob). One of the most surprising bits of the trip was my Dad and Kay's trip overlapped with Amanda and Jacob's trip by one day. It wasn't a lot of time, but it was still really good. Grandma and Grandpa got to see Jacob and we got a lot of great pictures.
My little niece Emma was a pro with the pool and took time to show Jacob the ropes. She did, however, draw a very clear line between her side and his side.
I think Jacob and Emma had a lot of fun together.
Jarrod has spent a lot of time with Emma, but very little with Jacob. It was good to see the two spending time together. The tricycle that Emma is riding is an early birthday gift from Uncle Dustin, Aunt Amanda and Cousin Jacob.
After I got to town on Thursday, we left to for the family reunion at TanTara Resorts in the Ozarks. We had pretty good weather on Saturday and everyone got to spend time in the pool. It was very tiring for Jacob.
Back in the 80's, our families used to get together for the reunion at the Holiday Inn in Springfield, Illinois. As the families got bigger and more spread out, it got much more difficult to get together. This year, however, Ericka "righted" this ship and pulled everyone together for a Summer-Weekend-Vacation-Reunion. It was great!
We all remembered our parents forcing us to the couch for the annual christmas picture. So, to balance the karma in the world and pass the tradition on, we all decided to force our children to the couch for their picture.
Bottom-Left Picture: Dan (top-left), Jeff (top-right), Dustin (middle-back, blue bow tie), Matt (right-side, red-bow tie), Leslie (front-left, clearly bored), Becky (second from left, comotose baby), Andrea (front and center, red hair).
Bottom-Right Picture: From left to right - Andrea, Leslie, Becky, Ericka.
After St. Louis, we headed back to Houston for a few more days. We got to get around and see a lot of our close friends.
It also provided some much needed time for "baby training" on Big Spring Trail.
It was hard to leave Houston - especially for Jacob.
Luckily, though, we got lots of time with Amanda's family. It is always a lot of fun with our nieces.
The plan all along was for Amanda and Jacob to stick around Texas long enough to see a new addition to our extended family. Our good friends Brandon and Kristi brought Griffin into the world on 7/11/07. Amanda made a quick trip back to Houston on 7/12 and got to spend some quality time with all three of them. I only wish I could have been there.
The trip home was great, but it was definitely hard to leave and a very clear reminder of the things we left behind when we decided to move to Holland...
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