Ay Carambe. Muchas fiestas this weekend.
See how those four semesters of college-level Spanish are the gift that keeps giving?
Despite my best efforts I have only made it through half of the Fiesta so far.
Ayudame.
That means help me in Spanish. I actually learned that from “Go Diego Go”, not Spanish class.
But if I haven’t made it to your fiesta, I will. And I’ll also announce the winner of the new blog header around noon central time.
The main reason that I haven’t made it through all the fiestas yet is because Gulley and I loaded up the kids on Saturday morning and headed to College Station to take in a little Aggie baseball.
Caroline had been so excited for this trip that I truly thought her head was going to explode by Friday night and it would have been so tragic that after days of repeatedly asking, “IS TODAY SATURDAY? ARE WE LEAVING TODAY? CAN WE LEAVE TODAY?”, that she would have missed the trip due to head explosion.
It’s about a three hour drive from San Antonio to College Station if you make the drive without any children in the car. For us, it took about the same amount of time it took the Ingalls’ family to make it across the Northwestern plains in the dead of winter as they fought wolves, Indians, and the bitter cold.
At the halfway point we stopped at McDonalds so the kids could use the bathroom and order a Happy Meal so they could all have a free toy and eat a combined half a Chicken McNugget and four paper cups filled with ketchup.
Gulley and I decided we couldn’t stomach another meal at McDonalds. We are grown women. We needed something a little more sophisticated, a little more refined.
We made a run for the border.
Which for us is a true delicacy because Taco Bells are next to non-existent when you live in San Antonio, TX, home to over eight hundred and fifty-two Mexican restaurants.
In spite of the easy access to some of the best Mexican food in the world, Gulley and I still crave Taco Bell from time to time. Which just goes to show you can take the girl out of East Texas, but you can’t take the East Texas out of the girl.
We finally arrived at Gulley’s mama’s house with just enough time to change clothes and head to Olsen Field for the game.
Will really wasn’t up for the photo op. He’s a complex fellow and needs his space.
Poor Will. Why can’t we all just leave him alone?
He sent us a clear signal that he wanted to distance himself from the pack when he insisted he sit in a booth behind us at McDonalds, not with us. Because the age of three is filled with emotional turmoil. He needed a few moments alone to journal his thoughts on the side of his Happy Meal bag.
Anyway, once we arrived at Olsen, we bought about $150 worth of cotton candy, popcorn and snowcones and settled into our seats. For about five minutes. And then someone had to go to the bathroom.
But in between the trips to the bathroom, we saw a few fights on the field, three coaches get ejected, and an OU team that liked to meet on the pitcher’s mound and talk more than any other team I have ever seen. At one point Gulley yelled, “Take it to Starbucks, Ladies. We’re here to play some baseball.”
Because we are delicate flowers at sporting events.
In the end all that chit-chatting didn’t pay off because we completely demolished them.
It was a good night.
Until the kids realized they were exhausted and then muchas meltdowns ensued.
But Gulley told me to quit crying and get Caroline in her pajamas and put her to bed.
The next morning, we woke up to a veritable carbohydrate heaven consisting of Shipley’s donuts and kolaches courtesy of Honey and Big.
And just like that, it was time to turn around for the long drive home.
I would tell y’all about it, but I don’t like to use profanity.
All I can say is if our drive was any indication of what Ma and Pa Ingalls went through then I wouldn’t have been surprised if The Little House books contained this phrase, “…and then Pa kicked us out of the wagon, left us on the prairie and said ‘Good Luck’.”