Dance Dance Revolution

Okay. Maybe the kids are too young for the latest fad video game, but not too young to rock out to their own kind of music (they were singing here)!

At the end of July, I took the kids to San Antonio to visit my college roommate, Patricia, and her family. Her daughter Camryn (4) is between Abby and Will in the picture. Too bad 1 year-old Kacie didn't make the shot. She's a cutie too!

We had a blast going to the pool and taking one of the boat tours on the River Walk. We hadn't thought about how ABSOLUTELY HOT that would be until we were already cruising. Yikes! We all had to stop for margaritas after that. Too bad the kids only got lemonade. :)

On the way home, it was a straight and easy trip up I-35 for the first hour (while the kids snoozed). Just about the time they were waking up in Buda, we hit a traffic jam. I didn't think to get off until too late. After all how long could it take? We were only half an hour away from home. . . 

But, alas, I was stuck on the interstate in the one stretch of three miles between exits with kids who became increasingly restless. And we weren't moving more than inches at a time. Will started yelling for water. Abby was trying to calm him down while I was yelling that I couldn't do anything about it. Turns out she had a better handle on the situation than I did.

And there it was. Up ahead, the golden arches. I could see them. I  told Will we would get water there. Of course, I didn't know it would take me driving through the grass plus an additional 45 minutes to get there. 

We finally stopped with about 200 other cranky drivers, waited in the bathroom lines, got ice cream sandwiches, and hit the playground for another 45 minutes. While I was there, I got out my trusty Texas map to find an alternate route home. I found one.

From McD's, we made it home in about 50 minutes, which was really quite decent compared with the rest of the afternoon. All told, it took 4.5 hours to come home from San Antonio. I could have driven home, driven there, and driven back home in about the same amount of time on a normal day. Turns out a tractor trailer had jack-knifed in Austin and shut down the whole highway. Who knows how long it would have taken if I hadn't gotten off when I did. Thank goodness for small favors.

Meanwhile, Brad was back in Austin trapped in his pre-NI Week haze, working almost nonstop (which is why we left town in the first place). Luckily, he was ready to take over when I walked in the door because I was so done with that day!