Weekend at Bernie's

Saturday, we called Great Grandma Kennel fairly early in the day to see if we could stop by to visit her and let Erica surprise her. Unfortunately, she had plans that day, so we did some shopping with Erica and laid low most of the day. We treated Erica to supper at Caraba's that night, where I told her she should have asked the waiter for his digits, which she declined. After dinner, we called Grandma Kennel again and this time she was home and up for company.

She seemed in good spirits and genuinely surprised to see Erica. Other than a few name mix-ups (which even I do at this point in life), I'd say she was good all around. We snapped a few family shots before Joshua took off with the camera again. Grandma Kennel has a good amount of toys for the boys to play with, thankfully, and they weren't too awful rowdy (maybe a little bit, but they were just being 3 and 1, not necessarily bad). Here are a few favorite pictures from the rest of the evening:

We laughed at the 165 pictures on the camera that Joshua had taken. He had snapshots of Great Grandma's apartment from every angle, pictures of all of us, and even some in my car showing just how dirty it really is (YIKES!).

When we got home Saturday night, we finally went to youtube and looked up the "goin' down the bayou" song from the Princess & the Frog movie. All the kids had danced to it the night we had watched it, and Joshua kept trying to sing it from memory. It started out "growin' down the bayou" and ended up sounding more like "throwin' down the bottle" which made us laugh. He & Caleb danced to it in their jammies that night before bed.

Sunday morning we went to church and Erica chose to stay at our house. The sermon was on what we think we control vs. what controls us. When we give God the keys to our life and all we have, we actually find freedom. The scripture was the wealthy man who refused to give all he had to the poor to follow Jesus. The speaker showed how his money was really in control of him, and his claws were in his possession rather than enjoying freedom in Christ.

That afternoon was life group. I took a power nap, went for a jog and tanning in between church while Shawn & Erica ate lunch and the boys napped. We enjoyed the time with our friends, and we gave the boys a bath when we got home since they had played in the sandbox at the Grube's house. They had SO much fun!

I don't remember that much of Monday either. Aunt Missy came in the morning, and I went tanning as she & Aunt Erica played Hide 'n Seek once again with the kiddos. When I got back, we returned Erica's rental car and then Missy treated us to lunch at Isaac's. The gals went shopping while the boys & I napped that afternoon, and then we all got together for one last dinner at the Texas Roadhouse before Erica's departure the next day. Unfortunately, they split up our group of eleven and didn't seat us close to one another and gave us different servers. One of the servers was good while the other one (ours) was TERRIBLE! She was slow and didn't bring half of what we asked for, and did I mention she was slow? One table was done half an hour before the other. It was a bit of a bummer, but such is life. The food was good and so was the company.

The last night Erica was in town, we all watched 24 together, which is what we had done her first night staying with us, I think.

One other funny story from some time over the weekend: we went by a graveyard near our house, and Erica reminded us how at one time Joshua had said "Dad, look at all those TV's!" So, I said to him, do you see all the TV's when we passed it again, and he said "Those aren't TV's" (so matter-of-factly), "they're chalkboards!" We all laughed. Later they became TV's once again in his mind. He says a lot of funny things, but I don't always think to write them on here. My memory is getting worse and worse!