The House That Built Me.

I decided  since we were in Amarillo I wanted to drive to Dumas (the town I grew up in till I was 13) and visit my good friend Chrissy.  She has been so sick... SO SO SICK from West Nile.  This disease is no joke! This disease is horrible lasting months and months with terrible symptoms that make you feel like you have meningitis and other horrible side effects as well.  

I've been so worried about her I had to go see her in person and hug her neck! She was incredibly surprised when I walked in, she didn't believe it was me.  She wanted to ask if she could get a picture of me to send to her friend Diana cause we looked so much alike lol!

Next stop was to visit some old friends of mine, Charlotte and Tiffney.

Look BUNNIES! 

Charlotte was my 4-h leader all through elementary school and Jr. High.  She loves animals.  She went from training dogs to livestock to now showing rabbits.  She was like another mother to me.  She always helped me groom my dog and get him ready for the show.

Good gosh that's a lot of rabbits!

Tiffney is Charlotte's daughter and her and I became the best of friends during our 4-h dog show years.  My gosh how I miss those days so incredibly much, we had training practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays...those were my favorite days of the week! I had the best childhood a kid could ask for.

 Of course I had to do some driving around and reminisce about my old homes.   My mom did such  good job keeping us entertained.  There is nothing to do in that town so we spent most our time at the park and riding bikes with her.  I drove through the neighborhoods we would ride our bikes through, I got teary eyed thinking about doing that with my mom and sisters and a lot of the houses reminded me of special moments on our rides.  

This is the home I was born in, well not born in but you know what I mean.  I lived here till I was 7. 

Then there was this house.  This is the one that means the world to me because we were all a bit older when we lived there and made the most memories in.  I love this house.  I love all my homes, I have an attachment to all of them.  That big lava rock there in the middle we used to pretend to ride cause we thought it looked like a horse. :) 

I know they say you cant go home again. 

I just had to come back one last time. 

Ma'am I know you don't know me from Adam. 

But these hand prints on the front steps are mine. 

And up those stairs, in that little back bedroom 

is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar. 

And I bet you didn't know under that live oak 

my favorite dog is buried in the yard. 

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it 

this brokenness inside me might start healing. 

Out here its like I'm someone else, 

I thought that maybe I could find myself 

if I could just come in I swear I'll leave. 

Won't take nothing but a memory 

from the house that built me.

 So...... crazy me decided to stop.  I pulled into the driveway and rang the doorbell thinking "I look like a cute innocent girl", surely they will let me in to look around right? I don't look like no serial killer.  Well a sweet little old man answered the door. I introduced myself and told him this was the house we had grown up in, and I have a crazy question to ask "can I come in and look around?" He didn't hesitate for a second! I was soooo happy, kinda embarrassing cause as I walk in there I of course start crying. His little wife came out later on and took me to all the back bedrooms and let me take pictures of everything!  I'm so thankful to them, I told them not to be surprised if my sisters start stopping by as well haha.  They said "send them" sweet couple they were!   The last time I was in this home we were all  living together as a family of 5, I was 13. That was 20 years ago!!!!! How the hell does that happen?

My family would sit at our round white table in mustard yellow chairs and I would sit at the bar,  cause I was big and too cool and a maybe little because I would annoy my sisters at dinner time so I had to be separated from them :)

The living room used to have rails running down the hallway  and there were no columns.  I love columns and if I ever build a home there will be columns somewhere (or everywhere)  so I loved how they updated the place.  We had these 80's green couches on the left side of the room and our tv was in the same spot as theirs.  We had a formal dining room table to the right.

This was my room, it used to be pink of course.

Shern and Kasey's room, they had twin beds side by side and my mom painted their room purple.  Back then it was cool to sponge paint so my mom sponge painted hearts as trim in my room and I believe purples stars all over Sherry Ann and Kasey's room, such a good mom.

Mommy and Daddy's room, it still looks the same cause their furniture was pretty similar haha.

The stone fireplace used to be black, the stones stick out and have good crevices which made it fun to play with our toys on them.

The utility room, it reminds me of our poodle named skittles, brings back memories of him cause that's where he slept at night.

This room was a formal living room when we lived there and it was all closed off.  It was a waste of space for sure, I like that they opened it up.  Boy was my heart FULL this day!  When I got home Landon of course rolled his eyes at me cause I have no shame and am always doing these kinds of shenanigans.  I was so concerned about the people who lived there not trusting me and being afraid to let me into their home I didn't think about them being crazy or trying to kill me, oops, that was probably a big detail I didn't think of haha.

Next little home that was special to my heart was my grandmas.  It's run down now which is sad.

Last was my cousins house.  I was very pleased to see how well it was taken care of.  This picture doesn't do it justice.  My family will be sad to know I didn't see any Jimmy boys or Keagan BAAHAAA!  (inside joke)

Farewell Dumas! You couldn't pay me to live there again but it holds a very very special place in my heart and I love going back.

Closing of a House and a Chapter.

We made it to Amarillo!  One of our first stops was Napolis Italian Restaurant! I just love their food and their patio seating even more! We met Landons mom and sister there too!

Nonna and Brielle had to stop and play in the beautiful fall leaves.....

I edited this on my phone and it made my hair look blue ha!

What a little honey bear beauty!

Of course I had to stop and see my dearest friend Tana and get my hair trimmed. 

I remember when we used to think Amarillo rush hour was bad PSH!

Landon's grandparents had lived in this house for 44 years and decided to sell it this year.  We had to drive out there and see it one last time.  You never forget the sound of that gravel driveway.  That would be awfully hard and I don't know if I would ever be ok after letting go of all those memories so therefore Landon and I have to get our last home before we live there for too many years.

One last time on the back porch swing :(

How cute is this picture!!!!!!!

If I was Randy I'd be bawling my eyes out.  This is the home he grew up in! This is the only house Landon has ever known his grandparents to live in and I've been coming here for 15 years! It's so sad.

Meeting up with Poppy (and Grammy joined us later) at Landon's favorite Blue Sky.

Great Wolf Lodge

So about 6 months ago Landon and I were suckered into sitting through a time share presentation all in the name of getting free nights at the Great Wolf Lodge.  They said we would be there for 2 hrs, well that turned into 4.  It was not that fun but I really enjoyed getting to spend some alone time with Landon, he makes everything better :)   After it was all said and done it was pretty much like them paying us $100 an hour to go.... so WELL worth it in the end!! I'll take $400 any day!

So we surprised the kiddos with 2 nights and 3 days at the Lodge.  B was pretty excited, it was so fun to see her face!  Let me start by saying do not waste your money on more than two nights, two nights gets you 3 days at the park and that's more than enough.  The place looks awesome and huge but really there isn't that much to do there, they have two kiddie areas and like 4 big slides, a lazy river and a wave pool, that's it.  We had done everything there is to do after the first day.  I mean 12 hours at a water park is A LOT!  

I loved that she could just run free and we didn't have to worry much about her since the water wasn't deep and she can swim now.

They have this big tower...you can see the stairs leading up to it behind Landon.  I had the most fun standing up there and dumping buckets of water on unsuspecting people going under the bridge from the lazy river!!! LOL, I felt so sneaky! Landon and I laughed so hard!

I loved that they had life jackets for the itty bittys, they even had a handle on the back so I could hold on to him while he was walking through the water without wearing out my back from bending over.  Hason loved his life jacket he would kick his legs up and float on his back, he ate it up!

That evening they had a bedtime story in the lounge for all the kids.  It was so nice going during off season on random weekdays cause there was practically nobody there!
I wasn't much of a fan of the story time singing by these creepy fake manikin people : / The animals were cute but the people were not!  My sisters and I would have been scared of them when we were little.

After all the annoying singing the little squirrel came out with one of the employees and read a book, that was cute and all the kids got a chance to get a picture with her.

Soooo someone decided he didn't want to sleep all night.  He woke up at 2am screaming and crying.  I was so mad but look how incredibly cute and squishy he looks here.  I ended up taking him home and then going back the next day. Good thing we only live 25 minutes away from there.

Oh and on top of all the nonsense at 2/3am  I was completely outta gas, so I had to stop by myself in the middle of the night to fill up. Talk about frustrating.

The next day we played at the park for half a day and then were done.  We decided to skip out on the rest of the day and just go home since we would be driving to Amarillo the next day.  As we were packing up Brielle asks "are we going to Amarillo now?"  Well no, but Landon and I looked at each other like "why not!" So spontaneously we decided to head out that evening! I love doing stuff like that!
But first we had to stop at walmart and pick up a portable dvd player.  I don't know how none of us didn't notice that Hason had on no pants haha, he fit right in at walmart!