Texas, Week 1

We finally arrived in Longview! After two long weeks of travel and visiting, we arrived at our apartment on LeTourneau University's campus.

The very first day, we were met by the secretary of the school of arts and science who had filled our pantry, fridge, and freezer with food and supplies like paper plates and cups. A little while later, a woman whose husband works in IT came by with her kids and a casserole! We were feeling the Southern hospitality! We did the normal running to Target and learning the lay of the land. The second day, our truck arrived! Three professors and three students help us unload. We got the truck done in no time and I hardly touched a box! We also just beat the rain. On the very last load it began to pour.

Not long after the truck was empty, another set of people came by and brought us barbeque. And not long after that, some people who had driven all the way from Louisiana helped us build some furniture and take a load over to Ed's new office. And we thought Washingtonians were nice! (They are.)

After making the apartment look like this, Milli and I got ready for our trip to Michigan. We made sure there was a path and the laundry was done, but then we were off to the train!

Milli was an old hat at riding the train. We got our own seats and she played with toys and ate Os. She slept at night and took her naps almost on time. She loved the observation deck, mostly because she could stand up and there were more people to watch. And people loved watching her.

We got to Michigan on the second evening. Grandma and Uncle Michael picked us up in Kalamazoo, took us out to eat at Wendy's, and dropped us off at Nana's house. Milli got her first taste of Frosty!

The reason we went to Michigan this time was for my cousin Elizabeth's wedding. Both my brother and sister were in the wedding party. Although I was under the impression that my cousin, Lauren, was going to be walking down the aisle with Michael, because she had been really excited about it. But when I turned to see the first members of the party walk up, this is what I saw! These two have not gotten along well since they were in elementary school, so it was a very sweet moment.

Actually, the sweetest moment of the wedding (sorry, Liz) was during the pause between the two plants. My sister had her hand in my brother's arm, and she gave him a little hug and smiled. I was sitting next to my best friend, who has seen these two grow up, and she let out a little sniff just as I did! I can definitely congratulate my dear cousin for pairing them up and making them be civil to each other for an entire evening.

The wedding was lovely. Look:

This was the reception hall. I think we had one of the more fun tables, mostly because Keoina and I were at it! Just kidding... sort of. That is Keoina's hand in the bottom left. Then there was Nana who held Milli a lot and let me eat; Uncle Brock, who may have scared Nana a bit but was fascinating to Milli; then Aunt Rachael, who had the cutest dress on that I wanted and could have gotten at Meijer, but couldn't justify spending money on clothes after moving across the country, setting up house again, and then paying for a trip home.

Cody, who is sitting next to Rachael in this photo, didn't actually sit at our table, but he came by to chat some. He was place at a table of single people around his age, none of whom he knew. I felt a little bad for him over there and stopped by a couple times- but, most of the afternoon we played musical chairs, so it didn't matter that much. The people who did sit with us were two girls I didn't know and a sweet baby. All the blondes at the table next door are related to my cousin Lauren.

This is the only picture I have of my cousin, Jenae and her husband, Bob. They got married last fall. She is now expecting their first child, which is what is making my Uncle Jonny and Aunt Lucy (from the previous post) into grandparents. Bob was very gentlemanly to me and helped open doors when I was carrying Milli around. He seems like a good guy and Jenae looked very happy. I hadn't seen her since my grandpa's funeral 6 years ago. That is a long, sad story that I won't get into here.

This is Keoina and some celery. I do not know the significance of the celery.

Somebody loves Milli!

Somebody loves my cousin, Elizabeth!

More than one somebody, I think.

Yup, they were buds the whole day!

Blurry from my tears!

Milli and I were only in Michigan from Friday night to Tuesday morning, but we did have time to visit the zoo with Nana, Bethany, and cousin Gideon. Here they are watching the otters, which were almost always my favorite. My first favorites were the monkeys. My mother used to take me to the zoo during the free months, October to April, and I said my first word there while looking at the monkeys. And, no, it wasn't "Da-da."

They look fascinated.

This is Milli looking at the monkeys from above.

I think we wore them out.

Why are diaper butts so cute?

After the zoo, we went back to Nana's house to have some lunch. I think we had pizza. Milli and Gideon played on the floor and pretty much just looked cute and entertained the adults for a while. Later, all of us but Nana went to my parents' house for dinner and later had some ice cream at Dairy Queen. The joke about that is that Ed and I noticed that almost every highway exit in the state of Texas had a Dairy Queen near it. It became a running joke for me to say, "Oo! Dairy Queen!" And for him to say, "No, Reba." We also saw a lot of LaQuinta hotels, but that wasn't as fun to say.

I just liked the expressions they make to one another.

This was another lesson in sharing. This is Milli's bottle (and she knows it) but they passed it back and forth to each other, with little or no irritation and both took drinks in turn. It was darling! I really hope they grow up friends.

I couldn't resist throwing this very lady like picture in here. She's too young to get mad at me.

We arrived back at our new home on Wednesday morning. Note that the living room is much less cluttered than it was when we left. Daddy did a good job of fixing up the place while we were away. 

One of the things that was place in our pantry by the secretary of arts and sciences was a metal rack with these wooden puzzles in it. Milli just loves them! We pull them off her shelf every day in the morning and they are some of her favorite toys.

We set about straight away to become good East Texans and part of this included going to the Great East Texas Balloon Race! We actually missed the race, as the balloons were over town at about 6am and Milli was still sleeping then. But we did go to the Balloon Glow on Saturday night. Dozens of balloons were in formation at the air field and they put on a light show. The pictures I got were not very good, but I got a really fun video. Which, apparently, Blogger won't let me add. You will just have to believe me.