Tyler & Corsicana

What else did we do in Tyler? Well, one morning Gage got donuts. Yummy sprinkle covered donuts!

And we took a small road trip to my grandmother's house in Corsicana. My mother is one of 7 girls. She's actually #7, the baby. The oldest two have passed away (My Aunt Jean & my Aunt Nell), so there are 5 left. Mom told "the sisters" that she was going to Mema's house, and they all loaded up and hit the road too. How neat is that? So, we all met at Mema's for some fun.

Road trip! (...and the monkey is Umi. It's a fun thing at Darnin & Pawpaw's house, and Umi has all kinds of fun monkey adventures.)

Now, I have to mention something that happened as we were loading up to leave.
The man who hit Allen is a family friend. He stopped by as we were getting ready to leave because he needed to pick up a tool that he'd let Pawpaw borrow. This guy is the nicest man. Truly, a kind, kind person. His involvement in the accident---just....it was truly a blind-spot type of thing.
But---him being there....showing up unexpectedly....not really him, but rather, his truck being there. Right there. In front of me. I could hardly focus on him or his wife or the words coming out of his mouth because the truck was right there. I had to force myself to look at him because I just wanted to go to his truck and look at it. Inspect every inch. Run my hand over the bumper, as if I would feel closer to Allen and those moments. My mind was racing. My heart was racing. I didn't want to see the truck, but I didn't want to look away. I didn't want to be dismissive or unwelcoming to this man and his wife, but I was having this flash of a reaction that I didn't expect.
And then it was over.
He and his wife left, and we had to get on the road. So, you force your mind to redirect.
That's exactly what we did.

We got to Corsicana a little while later (after another trip to Target, which was like my 3rd in 2 days)...

Gage had fun with Mema's boyfriend, Norman.

Gage was showing Norman about the ipad and the ipod touch.

My Aunt Billie brought her grandsons, the twins. My cousin Nicole brought her boys, Ty & Lane (Baby Lane, as I call him....though he's not much of a baby any more). We had fun with the pirate eye patches picked up at Target. Good times....

The boys wanted to play baseball in the back. It was eventful and there was one ball. I believe Ty had to scale a fence repeatedly to retrieve the ball...

The boys also wanted to "fish" in one of Mema's many water pail/buckets. (Is this a leftover-from-the-Depression-type thing? She saves a billion milk jugs and barrels and the like to catch rain water to water her plants. She saves waaaaaaay more containers than she could possibly use, but don't you dare try to throw one away, or she'd "tan your hide.")

She really does have some pretty flowers...

Can you see the green spider in the last one? I watched that little guy for a while. He was neat. (...and I'm easily amused!)

My cousin Nicole brought some of the bounty from their garden. Holy guacamole!

And---there were peas!
I just LOVE shelling peas. Random, I know.
But, I just sat back and shelled peas for a while. Loved it!

Other pics from the visit...

The boys were convinced that they found "snake eggs" in some of the flowers....

They weren't snake eggs, but it was a fun adventure for the kiddos.
:)

The visit was relatively short. We had to head back to Tyler and get ready for a birthday party that night.
We all had a good visit, and I was so glad we went!