September 11 – “The Afternoon Adventure”

Of course it was an adventure.  Nothing else really seems to describe it.  It began the night before, I suppose.  The kids were involved in a children’s ministry event at the church.  They even had a Parents’ Night Out for Luke.  We piggybacked on Josh and Christi’s night out and we all went to dinner.  Nice enough in itself, but as it turned out, we were blessed to have our meal paid for by an anonymous party.  We’re pretty sure it was someone from Josh’s church.  Here’s our thanks to whoever you are.

Now on to the afternoon of adventure.  First, their washing machine broke down.  Josh has band-aided that thing for a decade now, and he was determined that this time would be no different.  He removed the timer mechanism and we headed for the washing machine supply store.  Zak and Caleb joined us.  Seems there were some Pokemon creatures lurking about that needed capturing.  We found out that the replacement part would cost almost as much as a new machine, so they decided to wait and get a new machine instead.  Kind of sad, actually.  That one lasted them for many, many years.  May it have a grand and glorious burial.

When we returned, Luke and the ladies were sitting outside.  It was a gorgeous, fairly cool day.  As we joined them, Josh noticed a dead tree branch hanging precariously over where he usually parks his car.  Can’t have that.  He got out his trimming tool and set to work.  After several false starts wherein the tree was victorious, Josh climbed on the roof.  He ignored my suggestion to put the ladder on the roof with him and lean it across against the tree.  As awesome as that would have been to see, he simply refused the idea outright.  Wonder why?  He finally managed to loop a piece of rope around the branch and toss the end to me.  I mimicked what the wind would have done sooner or later, rocking it back and forth, and before you know it, the whole thing came crashing down at my feet.  Fortunately, Chris had Luke safely in the garage and Zak and Caleb were roaming the street catching Pokie-critters.  They got back in time to make a few bucks hauling bamboo shoots when their Dad moved to the back yard and couldn’t stand it … he had to clear some out. 

Once we got cleaned up we headed to Ninfa’s Mexican Restaurant.  When I google-mapped it, though, it came up Ninja’s Medical Restaurant and Siri couldn’t find it.  Gotta love auto-correct.  After lunch we went on a tour of beautiful downtown Waco.  Sort of.  We drove by but didn’t attempt to get in line at Chip and Joanna’s bakery.  Instead we went to a quaint little shoppe called “Hey, Sugar.”  And through those doors a whole other world opened to us.  There were candies of every flavor you can imagine, many of them sold by the pound.  And in one section we found, believe it or not: Gummy slugs, Bertie Botts’ Every Flavor Jelly Beans, and even chocolate frogs with wizard trading cards inside.  By the way, Ron Weasley, I can understand why you couldn’t afford these things.  They are kind of expensive.

But my favorite part of the little slice of paradise was the section for drinks.  One entire wall, and even a cooler was filled with XXX root beer and cream sodas and just about any other exotic flavor of soft drink that you could ever imagine.  And as perused the flavors, what should attract my eye but one drink do doubt imported from another quaint shoppe far away, but perhaps not so far after all.  The drink was none other than Flying Cauldron Butter Beer.  I had to have one of those.  I may never open it, but it is now in my possession.  It was difficult, but with a lot of persuasion and a little bit of candy, we managed to pry the boys away.  There was really very little traffic, pedestrian or otherwise.  Everybody was at or on their way to the Baylor home football game.  We saw a few of the old downtown buildings that have been renovated, and as we loaded into the car Josh said, “Well, that’s our Strand.” 

Next we went to the Mall.  That took some persuasion as well.  Luke had the most classically male response to finding out he had to go to a Mall that I have ever heard.  In fact I plan to use it in the future.  Here it is: “My body’s gonna cry.”  And after a pause for dramatic effect, “I will need a piece of candy.”  Nice job, Luke.  Now once inside we left Josh and Christi to deal with salesmen, and the rest of us went to the in-store amusement park rides (A.K.A. escalator).  I stopped counting at 17 times we road up and down, with Luke squealing like it was his first every time.  Nani wasn’t quite as into scary rides as the guys, so she waited at the bottom and waved to us.  Finally we escaped the escalator and, after a brief stop at the exercise machines, made our way to that other blast of fun, tractors (A.K.A. riding lawn mowers).  Luke was in hog heaven on the one.  He had to crawl up and sit in every one.  Caleb tried out a few, but then he joined Zak looking at the tools nearby.  Zak decided he wanted an electric, hand-held miniature hedge trimmer.  Caleb’s tool of choice was a good, old-fashioned, Caleb-sized pick ax.  Christmas is coming, boys.  Be careful what you wish for.

We hated to leave, but soon it was time for us to head back to Galveston.  We did take a bit of a different route to start with.  It had a few odd sights.  A set of stairs that led up 5 stories to a deck.  People were up there, too, so it had some use.  And then there was the two story house with the entire bottom story all brick.  All brick, mind you.  No windows.  What manner of life occurs within those walls?  Eventually all roads led to Interstate 45, though. And we finally trudged through the doors of home sweet home around 8 p.m.  It was a good adventure.  One I will one day repeat.  But for now I’ll munch on a chocolate frog and gaze at my unopened bottle of butterbeer.

1 Corinthians 16:13-14 says, “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong.  Do everything in love.”

Father, thank you for a fun and fast weekend.  Adventures are what you make of them.  Amen.