Where the west begins

My mom was here visiting from Wisconsin, so for the last week I've been dropping everything to soak in as much family time as possible. Not only did I avoid any sort of blog writing, but I didn't answer any email, listen to any voicemails, or floss my teeth.

And it shouldn't surprise you that Rob and I had some very different goals for her time here.

Two weeks ago I came back from grocery shopping to find Rob seated at the dining room table making a list. (For my mom. It was so cute it hurt.) Not only did it include sightseeing opportunities, but also all tasty meal options. I believe there were about 10 food items - Babe's Chicken, fajitas on the grill, Los Molcajetes... And there were perhaps 20 "let's not be boring like my wife and her family always are" items - the Stockyards cattle drive, the art district in Dallas, a Mavs game, the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens...

My list (if I weren't too lazy to have made one) included the following:
coffee
Bananagrams

It ended up being a great mix in the end. The days Rob was home were fantastic - butterflies at the Botanical Gardens, a Japanese garden walk, tasty fried chicken, a trip to the lakehouse. And the days Rob wasn't at home were glorious - thrift stores, garage sales, Bananagrams, coffee, sun-soaking, walks to preschool (to save gas money). So much cheap Dutch fun.

In completely unrelated news, today Jannika graciously allowed Silas to use her computer time to play five rounds of some Blues Clues game online. And then she got tired of holding up her hand with the appropriate number of fingers while he played, so she drew this:

The perfect mix of lazy and anal-retentive.

And apparently only let him play twice before her generosity ended.