FALL TEXAS TRIP: Day 21

Editors Note: Pictures from our last day in Bandera refused to upload last night. We are 500+ miles further up the road (!) tonight in Forrest City, Arkansas. The pictures have successfully loaded, so I'm going to just redo the narrative with them.

We drove over to Bandera today, stopping by the Snowflake Donut shop on the way, and arrived at about nine in the morning. Nicolas was unable to get the day off, so we wanted to visit with him before he had to leave for work at ten o'clock. He has a new job in San Antonio, which is about a 45-minute drive from Bandera.

We sat around the kitchen table with the little kids and enjoyed our donuts ...

... with the exception of Liam, who is too little for solid food yet.

This is a very typical beautiful smile from Nathan Paul. It's not always an easy thing to catch him long enough to snap a picture, but Grandpa Jones was able to get this one. I really love this picture of him.

Nick's new job is at a smoke shop. Forty hours per week for almost the same income as the 55+ hours per week he was working at Chili's. He is happy with the more reasonable work hours.

Here is Lottie with her donut holes. She wasn't really hungry for them! She did enjoy taking them in and out of her bag, though, and laying them all out on her high chair tray.

Liam was almost six weeks premature when he was born in March ... so he is still a pretty small baby. He will be six months this week! Grandpa Jones really really enjoys tiny babies like this. He and Liam seemed to thoroughly enjoy each other.

This is Nia showing me Audrey the cat (who, by the way, is a BOY). The children play kind of rough with these kitties, but everyone survives ... for the most part!

Lottie Caroline played hide-'n-seek with me for quite awhile. It wasn't very hard to find her (!), but I pretended I could NOT see her or find her anywhere. As I called out her name, "Lottie, Lottie, WHERE is Lottie?" she would giggle so cute!

And then she'd whip the blanket off her head and flash her beautiful smile!

Nia and Lottie are about 14 months apart. They can't decide whether to be friends or foes at this point ... but I predict they will be very good friends pretty soon. I took about 50 pictures (I'm not kidding) of Lottie chasing the kitties all over the house, in and out, over and under everything. She was completely unrelenting! When she would catch one, she'd take it by the neck and carry it a distance and then drop it! The kitty would sit for a minute, lick its wounds, and then the chase would begin all over again. I'll have to post those pictures another time (not all 50 of them, don't worry!).

We blew up a few more balloons and played with them for awhile. And we enjoyed visiting with Rachel too.

Our hour with Nick went by really quickly, and then he had to leave for work. We were sad to see him go, not knowing when we'll see him next.

I made a few paper airplanes and we flew them inside the house. It was a little bit rainy outside, plus the ground was wet from all the prior rain. Paper airplanes don't do well in that environment ... so we just tossed them around the house for awhile.

We did a little bit of coloring and cutting stuff out at the table ... Nia is three now. She is the exact age of the children I work with at church. I really love that age. Nia is talking more and more and I love to listen to her.

We read a couple of their wonderful story books together. Lottie was totally engaged during the process. These books were unfamiliar to me, but they were beautiful stories that the children were familiar with and I enjoyed reading to them.

We did take a brief walk outside with the girls. Nathan was busy inside, and Liam was being fed his bottle. Both boys ended up falling asleep (yes! Nathan!) while the girls were outside with us.

Lottie picked a pretty little blossom and held it like a true treasure. She is such a little darling, isn't she?

By mid-afternoon, we decided to begin our drive north back to Michigan. It's been three weeks since we've been home and we have some volunteer obligations to return to.

I snapped this picture of the rainbow about an hour before we stopped for the night in Temple, TX, about four hours after leaving Bandera. We have a long drive ahead of us and are thankful for the many memories we have been able to make again here in Texas.