TEXAS - DAY 2 - THE DAY OF HOLIDAY AND PARTIES

So day 3 begins on a pretty normal note.

Kids are up right on time -- California time -- which means they didn't get up until 8am Texas time! Yay for time zones screwing with your body clock!!!

And then it's off to visit my grandmother, who can't seem to stop staring at Chago in his latest fedora (who was incidentally named after her father), and this is an important point to remember for later because my grandma has a pretty vicious evil eye!!

Back to the ranch to pick up my nephew from day care.  And the children are quickly dubbed Yaya and Gago by their baby cousin.

Squeeze, hug, kiss, hug, tickle, squeeze, hug, kiss.

And then a game or two of animal charades with Grandpa (on threat of being cut-off from the family, I am not allowed to post the video), and then the rest of the clan returns from school and work and the real fun begins.

Since we haven't been home in over a year, we celebrated all the holidays we missed in between...in an hour.

At this point, the kids are under the impression that, apparently, every day's a holiday in Texas, and have stated pretty adamantly that they want to stay here forever.  Not surprising, of course, what with the loose bed times, Grandpa starting their morning with 10 vanilla wafers each before I'm even out of bed, and their two older cousins willing to pick them up and carry them around whenever they get even remotely tired.

But these are the memories that build a home for them.  A home to go back to.  A home away from home.  And it's so powerful that they remember specific things they did and said during our last visit here, and even the time before that one.  

That they feel and understand a sense of family like this, at 6, and from the other end of the country, is pretty darn cool.