Daddy & Clara visit Amarillo

Last weekend, Clara got the chance (for really the first time) to experience what life as an only child/grandchild might be like - at least for a few days!

Mike was going up to visit his parents and I was still recovering from my bout with stomach flu, so we decided to send a smaller contingency to the panhandle. Clara and Gracie were both excited about the plan. No complaints at all when I told them about it. I think it has been an awful lot of togetherness for them this summer - we are counting the days until school starts!!

I don't know much about the trip or the weekend (maybe Mike will have a few comments to add??), but I know they made it up to Amarillo in about 6 hours which is a great time! Before Clara had left, she mentioned that she wanted to get something from the ice cream truck. Last summer, we had just pulled into Joe & Virginia's driveway, when we heard the ice cream truck. So the girls got to have their first experience with that & Clara definitely remembered! I told her she would have to see if they were at the house when the ice cream truck went by.
Well, she is one lucky girl:


Mike said this was the exact same thing (Daffy Duck on a stick) that she got last time. You can see how pleased she is!!

They also got to see Grandma's two kittens. Aren't they cute?


And again, I don't know much about the weekend, but I'm assuming either Clara got the camera or ... maybe there were some extra refreshing beverages being consumed by the camera operator???


So the crew got in around 9:30 on Sunday night. Of course Clara probably should have gone straight to bed, but she was sure she needed more of her pasta (leftover from the dinner stop). Mike said he had never seen her eat so much spaghetti and so quickly as she did at dinner that night. And she ate quite a bit that evening at home, too. Then she had to show me some of her treasures from the weekend. Most importantly, her new coloring book (from the TXDOT Travel Plaza) and her new box of crayons from Grandma. She has informed her big sis and little brother multiple times this week that they are HER crayons. She is very proud of them.

She finally headed to bed that night, but Monday morning came all too quickly for some of us (okay . . . for me). First thing (before breakfast), Clara had to show off her new (Daddy's old) Hot Wheels track. The girls had some complicated idea about taping it to the easel, etc. But I didn't think that would stand up to John Michael's "inspections." In a burst of ingenuity (or so it seemed at 7am), I told the girls to put the track under the sofa cushion to make a ramp. So here's Clara racing those cars down it. I guess I was sleepier than I remember because I thought for sure I had taken several more pictures when all three of them were playing with it. Oh well ...


After breakfast, Clara had to get out her coloring book. I didn't manage to get pictures that day, but you can see what they were busy doing on Tuesday morning as well...


I love the serious look on her face. And she is very serious when she is working on that book!

She was working on mixing colors to see what the outcome was and also making her picture "multi-color" one of her favorite "colors!"


Gracie pulled out one of her TXDOT coloring books to work on, too.


And of course, JM didn't want to be left out. What a goofy look - he has started saying "cheeez" when you are trying to take his picture, which results in this funny look!!

And finally, a very happy Clara. Thank you Grandma & Grandpa - she certainly had a fun weekend and enjoyed her special vanilla cake & all her treasures she brought home!!