On the road again

This weekend we made our annual trek to my hometown of Henrietta, Texas (population almost 3,000 - woo hoo!) for the Pioneer Reunion celebration. Three days of parades, events on the courthouse square, and rodeos. Except that because it is a six-hour drive for us, and because the boys are now in school, we are pretty much limited to Saturday. To be precise, we left after school on Friday, arrived in Henrietta Friday night, Pioneer Reunioned our hearts out all day Saturday, left Sunday morning, and arrived back in Houston Sunday evening just in time for dinner and bed. Whew.

As a general rule, Will cries 95% of the time that he is in a car. That can make a six-hour trip vveerrryyyy llooonnngg. So we had a plan. On the way there, we gave Charlie and Joe a map, and we had designated activities between each and every town from Houston to Henrietta. It worked really well. The kids were occupied, Will did not cry ONCE the whole trip, and we made it there in six hours WITH a stop to use the bathroom and stretch legs. We were extremely proud of our parenting prowess.

The kids had a really great time at Pioneer Reunion. There is lots to see and do. The little ones were excited about all the horses, and the big boys liked to look for the floats in the parade. There was also an Elmo on one of the parade floats, which excited Helen to no end. She was a little bit worried though. The Elmo costume was one like this, and she kept saying that Elmo had a person in his mouth.

The boys also LOVE the rodeo. I seriously don't know anyone else who enjoys a rodeo like they do. I guess it's just another sporting event to them. The little kids also made a brief appearance at the rodeo before their bedtime, and they enjoyed it. (Grandad sacrificed his rodeo time to babysit and watch the UT-Texas Tech football game.) The boys participated once again in the calf scramble, but they still haven't caught a calf.

Helen, Charlie, Will, and Joseph checking out the arena

Not quite everything was all roses though. Will got sick and had a fever most of the trip, although he did pretty well when drugged up with Tylenol and Benadryl. And any thought that our wonderful parenting skills would transform driving with our four kids into an enjoyable event was put to rest on the trip home. If Will hadn't been sick--and thus actually asleep (on and off) for three hours -- it would have been downright miserable. As it was, it was bearable, but not the success we were hoping for. We managed to keep all the kids happy at times, but never at the same time. And then there was the activity that seemed to keep everyone occupied--stickers!!--but once we got home it turned out that wasn't the greatest idea either.


I spent a good ten minutes trying to get these out of her hair Sunday night, and still found two I missed on Monday morning.

Nevertheless, Pioneer Reunion is now a family tradition (personally, I haven't missed one since 1971, the year I was born!), and we'll brave the road trip again next year.