July (My attempt to catch up on blogging)

This summer flew by in an incredible whirlwind of trips to the airport during July. Several times this summer Meghan and I made the 25 minutes drive to Lambert airport at 4am. We were often awakened in a delerious rush that came with the realization that we might miss our flight.
Carlos, completely oblivious to his parents careless planning, always woke up with immmediate energy (yes at 4am) and an uneneding declaration of "AIRPLANE!" He couldn't contain himself, he was so excited.

Usually we would make it to the airport only an hour before our flight. We'd made it barely in time to ensure our luggage was on the plane and then pleeded with the airport gods that the gate wouldn't close after we walked through security. In our race to the airport inevitably, we would forget a few essential items; child's birth certificate, car seat, and worst of all "woof woof" (Carlos's beloved).

We learned some valuable lessons about getting to the airport sooner and putting the birth certificate on the iphone so we didn't lose it. My sister once forgot her daughter's birth certificate at the aiport and she was forced to pay for a ticket because she could not prove her daughter was less than two years old. Somebody said it was like a Bobby Knight incident. We don't talk about that story much anymore.

We got down to San Antonio to visit my parents, and two of my sisters were there with their kiddos (15 of us in all). The child to adult ratio was 3:2, most under 10 years old.
It got a little crazy sometimes, but we survived.
We went down to the coast to spend some time on the beach with everybody, I attempted to skim board, Meghan got sunburned and Carlos enjoyed chasing around his cousins.

Some trip high-lites; every morning my Dad would take a few people out fishing, it was nice because it was quiet and you had an excuse to have a beer at like 9am. In the evenings, we'd play dominoes and laugh, and talk.

One of the days out at the coast, while it was too hot to be out on the water, Meg and I hosted a dance party for all the nieces and nephews, complete with instructions to the Cupid Shuffle.

On the days we would travel, it was an all day event to get everybody in the 3 car caravan, the houses cleaned up and all the bags packed. With all the logistics and the rush to get out the door, somebody wouldn't be happy, somebody would be hungry and I recognized more and more how much like my Dad I am becoming.
We traveled to Tu y Yo, my grandfather's ranch. He purchased this with his dad in 1975, 144 acres of mesquite trees, hay fields. I grew up hunting, fishing, riding horses and generally romping around here during the summer months.  It was cool to see Carlos do some exploring of his own. A few times he'd go missing, but you could count on he was usually checking out the tractors or the riding lawn mowers.
More family gathered with us there to enjoy a cajun boil, a few water gun fights and more oppurtunities to catch up. Unfortunately, I got sick off the cajun boil and spent the next few days going from the toilet back to the couch. Sorry Meg.

We returned from Texas more exhausted than when we left but thankful we were able to see so much family. Our next trip a week later was a long weekend in Colorado Springs. One of our groomsmen from our wedding, Brandon was getting married at the end of July there in C. Springs. We stayed with my sister, Gina who we just saw a few weeks before in Texas. It also was a first time since graduation to revisit the Air Force Academy for me.

The wedding was a ton of fun and my sister graciously took care of Carlos while we enjoyed a little date night. It was a great chance to see some guys who I went to high school with. We enjoyed the night out and danced like fools (no surprise).

The Central Catholic contingent



July was a busy month, we'd barely been in St Louis it seemed like, but I think the opportunity to see friends and family outweighed the flashes of chaos that our traveling occasionally showed.