Category: General

I’m back again. This time, for the “rest” of the summer. We have 2 more weeks before we start leadership camp then all the kiddos come back for summer band on August 1st. I feel a bit bummed that my summer is coming to an end but it’s been such an eventful summer, I have no regrets of not spending this time “wisely” this year.

This last bit away was spent in the Rio Grande Valley with Len, friends & family. Just to let you know now, Len took most/all the pictures this run with his “new” camera & borrowed lenses from Nino (thanks man!!!) so there are only a few photos and a video or two to show off. So, I flew in on Sunday to Harlingen. It was a quick flight with a longer layover in Houston than I spent in the air! Luckily, I had a great book to dig into so the travels really didn’t exhaust me as they normally would. We went straight from the airport to McAllen to Anita’s new house to have some barbeque and see some of Len’s family from Linares, Mexico. Good food, good conversation (what I understood and what was translated) and good company! Anita has a beautiful house, too!

Monday was the 4th so we headed out to meet all the local folks for a day of sun, drink and fireworks. Turns out, all the local friends either didn’t want to deal with the tourist crowds (which weren’t that bad) or had other things come up so we hung out with Connie & Frank Miller and “their” kids. I say “their” because only Sami is their daughter. The two other girls are friends of Sami’s so they’re “adopted” by the Millers.

We were in and out of the warm waters (86 degrees waters!!) and kicking back in the wonderful sunshine. It was a great day. From there, we cleaned up and headed to South Padre Brewing Company for dinner and a good view of the fireworks. The girls kept putting money in the jukebox but it wouldn’t play what they had requested. Sami decided to get even by playing some Celine Dion songs (get even at whom, we’re still not sure) so all during the fireworks, Celine Dion kept wailing from the speakers everytime someone opened the door. So, if/when you hear “Sami, you suck” on the video, that’s what I’m talking about.
http://bigbenford.com/MOV01382-1.wmv

On the 5th, we celebrated Len’s 35th birthday. We met his friends Aaron & Vanessa for lunch. We didn’t quite make it up early enough for the fishing the guys wanted to do. Then, we hung out around McAllen & Weslaco before we headed out for some dinner with Kelly, Kumar & Lakshmi (sorry if I spelled that wrong). We went to Bennigans for dessert and drinks and there was a band playing in the bar that was TERRIBLE!!! It wasn’t amateur night, either. Regardless, we all still had fun.

On Wendesday, we went out to the University (UT-Pan Am) and visited with the wonderful people Len used to work with. We went to see Mr. & Mrs. Smith since Len hadn’t seen it yet and I enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time.
Therapist: How long have you been married?
John Smith: Five years
Jane Smith: Six years.
John Smith: [chastened] Five or six years.
My favorite quote from the movie. I think Len liked this movie as well.

We had dinner again at Anita’s house. This time, with different family members. More wonderful conversation (again, what I understood…or was translated), food and company. Len got a Hostess Cupcake as his cake and we all sang him Happy Birthday. Good stuff. Since we were leaving quite early the next morning, we headed back to his mom’s house to pack and get a good night’s sleep. Mission accomplished.

We got up, loaded the car and the four of us headed to San Antonio. Len’s mom & Aunt Chita joined us on this leg of the trip. Who’d have thought that two little ladies would weigh down the car so much. With his mom headed on a 3 month trip and his aunt headed home after extended time in the RGV and all my shoes, there was a lot of luggage to weigh things down. The drive was only about 4 hours and immigration didn’t stop us at the check point so the trip was quite smooth. Our San Antonio destination was Len’s brother Gilbert’s house. I’ve now met 6 of 7 siblings and all the grandkids! We had a wonderful lunch at a little neighborhood Italian restaraunt and visited for quite some time with Len’s niece Adriana & nephew Anthony.

We then headed to St. Mary’s to watch a Revolution DBC rehearsal and surprise my students that are marching with them this summer. I sure do miss working with this activity. Maybe someday, I can go back to it somehow.

OH, on the drive back to Austin, there was some beautiful lightening we saw between San Marcos & South Austin. I tried to get pics on my phone (only camera I could reach) but to no avail. I did get some nice pics of the rainy skies. The colors that came out are pretty cool. You can see them on my phone photo blog. There are pics of fireworks there, too. We had dinner with my family then came back to my place to crash. Quite the funfilled adventure we had this past week.

Hopefully, next week will be a smidge calmer while I get back to work. The adventures we’ve had this summer have been a lot of fun but I’m ready to kick back for a few days.

Well, as you might be able to tell, we’re back from our vacation. We had so much fun this week, I didn’t want it to end! On a sidenote, I’ve learned that I take quite shaky pictures when I feel akward about taking said picture. I also think my camera is very sensitive to movement when zooomed in. You must excuse some of the blur.

We left on Sunday and headed to Fredericksburg, TX. We didn’t really have specific things planned for specific days so there wasn’t much of a schedule to keep to. At first, this was odd for me to get used to — I’m such a schedule driven person. It took about 2 hours and a few reminders from Len on Sunday but I was good by the time we hit the road. We stayed at this cute little inn owned by a cute Asian couple. It is called The Peach Tree Inn. The room we stayed in was really small but we really didn’t need much. We spent most of the time out of the room, anyways.
So, what all can you do in the Fredericksburg area? Lots! We went to :
Antique shop viewing through downtown Fredericksburg,
the Fredericksburg, Becker, and Grape Creek vineyards/wineries,
the LBJ Ranch & birth home (I’m not necessarily an LBJ fan but the property & stories were cool),
the Wildseed Farms (when I start planting things again, I’m headed back there for sure!),
+ had some of the best Chinese food ever (who’d have thought we’d find that in Fredericksburg??),
– had the worst Pizza delivery service ever (I’ll have to ask Len what that damn place was called so you can be forwarned),
saw the Nimitz Pacific War Memorial & Japanese Peace Garden,
and walked a lot!

That was Sunday through Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, we packed up, checked out and headed to HEB to get our supplies for the rest of the week. Because we had packed for 2 completely different activities on one vacation, there wasn’t much more room in the car. So, we did some re-organizing, got things better packed and headed for Enchanted Rock. It was HOT out there but a lot of fun. Here’s a trail map of the park. We went to the peak of the main rock by going up Summit Trail. Then, we headed towards the Scenic View point behind Little Rock on Echo Canyon Trail. Despite the sunscreen, we were starting to get burned so we decided to head back to the car. The rest of Echo Canyon Trail and the Scenic View point would have to wait for another trip. We decided to go back a bit off the beaten path. Kind of rocky terrain and my muscles were sore the next morning but it was fun!

So, sunburned shoulders & sore legs starting, we head to Inks Lake. Here’s the map to that park. We pitched our tent, got changed into bathing suits, and headed for the water. It was nice. Most of the swimming area we stayed in wasn’t more than 6 feet deep so it was at least managable for Len. I just kept on hanging on! 😛

Mostly, while at Inks Lake, we got up, had breakfast, chilled out, went swimming, ate lunch, chilled out, went swimming, had dinner, chilled out, went to bed and at about 2:30 or 3:00 am, it finally cooled off. There are plenty of funny little stories and anecdotes of our time at Inks Lake but you really had to be there for it to be funny, you know? I do have to tell you that if you go car camping and find a desperate need for air conditioning, making a trip to town for some bread is a great excuse! 😉

Before we left, we went to Longhorn Cavern. It is a really cool cavern, literally. It stays between 65-70 degrees all year around. Most of it is not active because it was formed by water rushing through little cracks in the ground, making bigger cracks. After millions of years, a cave system was formed! There are only 19 other caves in the world (I think?) that were formed this way. There are some rooms in there that are absolutely amazing. The history behind this cave is really interesting as well. It’s said that Sam Bass hid a two-million dollar treasure somewhere down there. It was also used for drinking parties during the prohibition.

There are LOTS of wonderful pictures from our vacation in my Gallery. Len is an amazing photographer so I let him run with the camera. I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I have since we’ve returned. I had to put all the pictures into smaller, type-A albums. If not, there would have been something like 23 pages of pictures!

So, to make a long story short, we had a blast! What’s next, Len?

Yummy watermelon, huh? Makes me feel like summer is upon us, which it is! One more week of school then it’s just summer work. There’s a vacation with Len and maybe working at a jazz camp in June. Can’t wait! (Especially for the vacation with Len.)

Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I’ll never hate my birthday when I have such awesome friends to celebrate with. One day, we’ll have to all celebrate together in person!! More pictures of the stages of celebration to come!