Texas Trip

Last weekend, Kristen and I went to San Antonio to visit her family. Her sister Lauren and her family lives there, and her parents and brother were there visiting as well. Throughout the (very short) 4 days that we were there, Kristen & Ryan became Godparents to little baby Bailey, we did some site seeing around town, and just hung out the rest of the time. But, these faces were our main source of entertainment:

Camden Claire

Bailey Blake

Camden is hilarious. One of her favorite things to do is make up songs about people and sing them to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

"Hi Aunt Kristen"

"Gay Gay Jake"

This Christmas, Santa gave Camden a bunch of  toys designed specifically to wear her out. So far, it doesn't seem to be working. It's like they give her even more energy. Nice try Santa!

Camden riding her rollercoaster (p.s. check out Jake's face)

"Boing! Boing! Boing!"

Hanging out with "Mickle" Ryan and getting some love from Lennox

Camden can say "Uncle" and "Ryan" separately but calls him Mickle Ryan. It's cute and way funnier than saying it the right way, so naturally we encouraged it instead of correcting her. Camden likes to request to have her back tickled, her arms tickled, and her hands tickled. Apparently, she decided she would like to have her eyes tickled too.

"Tickle eye?"

"Tickle two eyes?"

 Bailey is the sweetest, prettiest little baby. I don't think there was one point during the trip that she wasn't in someone's arms. She's impossible to put down.

The Young Fam

The Davis Fam

This was our first time meeting baby Bailey since she was born back in September. She was getting Baptized on Saturday, so we flew out early Thursday morning (like 6:30am early) to get some extra visiting time in. After we got there, said our pleasantries to everyone, played with the babies, and opened up some belated Christmas gifts, we headed off to downtown San Antonio to see the Alamo and the Riverwalk.

In front of the Alamo

San Antonio's Riverwalk

After some site seeing downtown, we went to a small historic district called Gruene for dinner and drinks. It is known for being an old-time country/western looking town. It comes complete with a General Store, B&B, wine shop, plenty of antique shops, and is home to the oldest dance hall in Texas - Gruene Hall. It was a pretty cool little town. We ate dinner in a cool barn-looking restaurant with the whole fam, and then us over-21 kids spent the rest of the evening drinking cold beers and listening to some live country music at Gruene Hall.

B&B I think

Gruene River Grill dining room

Camden and Mickle Ryan

Gruene Hall

Gruene Hall's bar room

awesome place.

On Friday, me, Ryan and Mr. Davis met Tommy on base to do a flight simulator. It was pretty cool and probably the closest I'll ever get to flying a real plane. Despite my attempt at a backflip that technically would have ripped the wings off, I think I did pretty well. Wouldn't be surprised if I start getting recruiting calls/letters from the Air Force any day now. On Jim and Ryan's turns, they kept crashing into buildings, so I'm pretty sure they're on the "watch list" and will never be allowed near a plane again.

me flying at night

Ryan trying not to crash in to stuff

Jim ready to take off

The Baptism was on Saturday morning at the base chapel. Tommy's parents had flown in the night before and a few close friends of Lauren/Tommy's met us over there as well. It was small but nice ceremony. Bailey did really well, except for when the million year old priest poured water in her eyes. Afterwards, there was small gathering at the house with food and watching Pitt struggle in both basketball & football (sorry Tommy).

Mom & Dad with Bailey & Camden

the godparents

the grandparents

Bailey and Mimi

Bailey and Uncle Ryan

Bailey and Aunt Kristen

Since we had had such a great time at Gruene the other night, we decided to go back for a second time later on that day to look around and to take some Save the Date pics for the wedding. Kristen conned Ryan into being the photographer because she felt he was the only one with enough patience to take a million different ones until we found the winner. For not having a clue what he was doing, he actually did a pretty bang-up job. After that, we did some more sight-seeing before heading back for Thai take-out night. Here's some pics of Gruene during the day.

Gruene Hall's bar

Sunday was our last day there. So, the natural thing to do is go to IHOP and stuff your face with pancakes and get out of there before all of the church folks invade the place like the beaches of Normandy. After breakfast, we played with the babies and packed for the trip back home.

Welp, that's all we got. Here's a video of Camden doing a flip.