July the Fourth Texas Style

For the actual Fourth, Jenee and I got up early and caught a plane back to Texas to spend Independence Day with the Fam. To my delight, the airlines were running on time and we suffered no delays and only one screaming child who, in his defense, had earplugs in his ears and couldn't judge his own volume while calling "Mommy! Mommy!".

Majedah picked us up from the airport and Jenee went into baby overdrive with Zade. Meanwhile poor Maj got several science lessons from me. Poor Maj, but thats what you get when you confuse the definitions of steam and water vapor.

We met up with the fam at Jenee's parents house and lounged around and waited for 8pm to roll around for the Rangers game to start.

Rangers Stadium Baseball

Talk about patriotic, people were wearing red white and blue in every direction you looked. I started to wonder whether the purpose of this annual celebration was to remind the general populous of what the national colors, flag and anthem were, especially those rednecks, give them an inch and they take 3 wives. I do admire the spirit of the people, Australians could do with being a little more patriotic and maybe learning the elusive second verse of our national anthem.

The rest of the trip was spent hanging out with family and friends. I took an afternoon off with Greg Buckles, the pastor who married us. We were having a lovely time taking pictures (see below) in Downtown Fort Worth when we got stopped by a rent-a-cop who questioned our motives. I appreciate that the world has changed and you have to be cautious but it really did make me feel like a criminal. To add insult to injury, he told us that he "wasn't profiling us", however he and his buddy continued to follow us around for the next hour. Whatever helps them sleep better at night, gooses...

Downtown Fort Worth

Of course everyone else thought that our little encounter with Zachary the Bicycling Security Guard (BSC) was hilarious and proceeded to tease Greg and I about it. I was sure that I was going to get a rubber glove inspection, followed by a long holiday in a small room with a man named Beef.

What else happened? Hmm, well of course Jenee tried to spend every waking moment with Majedah and her baby boy, Zade (see slide show), Joe bought a 1975 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 with a Chev 327 and 4 in lift kit (see slide show), I finally got to see Kelly and Derek (She is due in 2-4 weeks, also see the slide show), Matt, Landon and I build a killer Thomas the Tank Engine train track (and then Landon wouldn't let us big boys play) and Joe and I mowed acres of grass so that I could get a quality redneck tan.

Family Pictures