Back to the grind and that’s good.

The word of the day is raisins – that’s short for decorations.

It’s a grind until you’re all out of the routine and then you miss it so. This weekend brought a feeling of normal and a feeling of fall. After a long week of tearful drop offs at school and catching up at work, it was so good to have some home time. We needed it to continue the clean up but we also managed to watch a movie, cook a meal at home and eat Mexican with friends. What more could we ask for?

Going to the store to restock the freezer never felt so good. G was a model child on the trip and the nightmares and flashbacks from the trip I can’t even bring myself to write about a few weeks ago are starting to subside. I still have to play the Rocky theme song in my head to gear up for taking him, but we proved this weekend it’s possible to go and get back without incident or the need for assistance from law enforcement. Someday I’ll tell the whole story….

Anyway… Add to the full fridge, a return of one portable AC unit to Home Depot, a Prince’s Hamburger lunch, nap time yard work and an afternoon run to Target and we were all on cloud nine when we sat down to have this year’s inaugural batch of pumpkin soup for dinner.

Princes Hamburgers is full of neon lights and sparkly vinyl chairs. It looks an awful like the sha-boom life would be a dream scene in Cars. G was amazed and he got his first gumball there—and his second when number one hit the floor. He also liked pushing buttons on the juke box and we heard “If you’ve got the money honey” while we were there. Reminded me that I still love that song…

This morning I had to giggle to myself as we all puttered about. G was reuniting with every toy in the cabinet by pulling them out on to the living room floor, Deeda was in this garage reuniting with his toys too and I was placing Halloween spiders and ghosts throughout the house sipping my second cup of coffee. We all needed the time together and the time in our own surroundings doing “our thing” respectfully.

Despite circumstances, we made good memories while we were evacuees. Many trips to the Wal-mart, Lakeway park and “chick a fill” back and forth down the roller coaster street with the windows down (Living in H-town the hilly drive to Casa Butera really is something special for a two year old). We swam at the Sullivan’s (G still wants to go back). We had a super Austin-style Friday night mole Mexican meal complete with live music and a lake view. We walked dogs “all by ourselves.” We made a good soccer team. We ate Papa eggs. G had the Cabelas experience and hasn’t stopped talking about it since. And we are now the proud owners of one rescue helicopter—just like the one we saw land at the top of the hill. WOW!

We saw at least 10 great sunsets. G even appreciated the sunset. He was still for the sunset. He told us what color the clouds were. Ole Ike made us slow down a little. It felt good.

Toddler Tip: If you make pumpkin soup a dipping sauce (like ketchup) , a two year old will eat it. He even dipped his green beans!