Saturday, January 7th, 2006 - Visiting with My Niece's family in Carrollton, Texas.

Right after breakfast we went with Lois to Wal-Mart to stock up on things we needed for camping. Most of it was food or other consumables like paper towels, but it's still amazing how we forgot things like Comet for cleaning inside and Windex for washing the windows. Plus, the pitching the trailer endured on Route 69 in Oklahoma had broken two of our Corelle cereal bowls, and we were anxious to replace them. It was a Wal-Mart Super center, so we were able to find everything on our list and also a couple of things that weren't on it like batting for the cloth book that Monika was making for Annalise ("The Little Engine That Could").

That afternoon we signed on to the house WiFi network with Baby to check our email. Monika found a site where she could check on football games, so she periodically checked the score for the Redskins game, and finally the Redskins won 17-10 over Tampa Bay Buccaneers (sounds of Great Rejoicing). Carrie and Carson and I spent the afternoon painting and assembling some kits I had brought with. Carson and I built a model airplane while Carrie painted and assembled her bulletin board, and we all had a grand time while Beth, Lois and Monika went to Kohl's to spend a $50 gift certificate that Lois had received for Christmas.

Terry and Phyllis & their two dogs arrived late in the afternoon, bringing our complement of folks up to a "critical mass" such that for the next few days somebody was always talking to someone else about something. Living so far apart, the different parts of the family try to squeeze in all the interaction we can when we do meet for a few days. That evening we sat around the table and chatted away while Monika worked with Beth to figure our how to sew together the pages of the "Little Engine That Could" book. That was not as simple as one might think because the picture pages had to be facing the correct text pages, and the whole set of 8 pages had to be in the correct order. Beth, our most experienced seamstress cum quilt designer, finally worked it out and then starting cutting and sewing. But we called it quits around nine o'clock as we had to drive back to our campground and get to bed by a reasonable hour ("reasonable" is before 10 p.m. in our book).