Early (for us) on Monday morning, we started to 4.5 hour trek to East Texas. Of course, it rained heavily for almost the entire journey. This turned our 4.5 hour trip into about 5.5 hours. I cannot complain though, we were blessed with a safe journey roundtrip, and that is much more than many of the cars that we passed could say.
While I was driving, Emmy was in the back seat watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I bought her a set of two dvd players for the car when she was six months old. We started using them on car trips this year, and let me tell you those things are the best Black Friday purchase I made that year. We have definitely gotten our money's worth out of them already. Currently she only uses one of the TVs, but if someone else were riding in the car with us, you can connect another screen so they can both watch.
We made it to GiGi's house around 2:30 in the afternoon. She had food ready for us, and we spent the afternoon and evening hanging out, watching Disney Jr., and playing. Emmarie was really into all of the dolls and stuffed animals that GiGi has at her house. She was also into GiGi's portable vaccuum. I joked on Facebook that we had only been at Grannie's house a couple of hours and she already had her vaccuming in high heels.
The next day, we made a trip to Center, TX, a nearby town. It is about 30 miles away, and it is the CLOSEST Wal-Mart to my grandmother's house. I don't care how you feel about big box stores, but when you get out in the sticks and the closest one is that far away, you will start to feel the twitchy stirrings of withdrawals. GiGi's DVD player wasn't working, so we picked up a new one for movie night.
By chance of fate, my little cousin Joey happened to be playing in an All Stars Tournement game in Center that day, so of course, we needed to attend and cheer him on.
We got to see a lot of our favorite East Texans at the game.
Some of us had to go out to the car to cool off because we couldn't take the heat...or perhaps the bad calls the refs were making.
Wendy and Marlee made plans to come to GiGi's house the next morning so that we could go antiquing and hang out. MiKayla decided that she would go ahead and stay the night with us. She and Emmy had so much fun playing and being silly.
We went to a few stores and found a few cool trinkets. We ate lunch at a newish Mexican Resturant in Hemphill called El Tio's. The food, salsa, and company were great.
We rented a couple of movies from Red Box (I love that they have these in little towns too), and we headed back to GiGi's house to eat and get ready for church.
Mikayla and I sat in the back of the Tahoe, and we got a little photo happy.
Marlee and Emmarie were rock stars at church. Everyone wanted to hold and love on them.
The next morning, we took a few pictures out by the pier of Mikayla in some of GiGi's dress up clothes and hats. Then it was time to start saying our good byes. Wendy, Mikayla, and Marlee headed back to Kilgore.
We helped GiGi put all of the toys and the doll house away. She made us one more great lunch so that we wouldn't need to stop to eat on the way home.
We took a few more pictures, and then sadly, it was time for us to get on the road.
Bradley had called us several times everyday he missed us so much. He isn't used to being at home alone anymore. I think he enjoyed the peace and quiet the first day, but after that he was ready for us to come home.
There were others who seemed to miss us as well.
Emmy napped and watched MMC all the way home. The weather was great, and we only ran into light traffic in Houston on the way back.
We enjoyed our Summer jaunt to GiGi's house, and we are already planning another trip back.
