A Very Congdon Week

I meant to write this post earlier, but the past few days have been quite the whirlwind of crazyness.

{Warning: long post with many pictures coming right up}

Last week Thomas's parents and his two youngest brothers came to stay with us along their road trip around the U.S.

It was such a fun week. They arrived on Monday evening and left on Saturday midday.

Unfortunately I was not very good at taking pictures throughout the whole week... we did lots of fun things like eating at our favorite Thai restaurant, going out for Ethiopian food, and exploring our favorite places in Dallas.

The first pictures I have are from last Thursday, when we went to Six Flags Over Texas.

{Which is a big amusement park with lots of rollercoasters, for you non-Americans.}

Poor Thomas had to go to work while the rest of us were having a grand old time.

Waiting outside the gates for the park to open.

The very first thing these crazy people did...

... was to go on the Titan rollercoaster.

Someone had to stay behind with the bags and the camera, so I volunteered... and took pictures :)

I preferred the tame rides, like the antique cars.

And the mini mine train.

 Getting on the mini mine train.

You can kinda see me and Paul in the middle there...

They went on a slightly more adventurous ride close by...

After Paul had ridden the Titan he decided he'd had enough of a thrill, so we were the stuff-watchers and picture-takers while the rest of the fam went on the Shock Wave.

Dr. Rob and James went on the new Texas Giant. 

It's like a straight drop... eek!

I was happy to stay behind and take pictures.

There they go! (They are in the seventh row from the front).

 

On the home stretch, looking rather windswept.

It was really hot, so we interspersed the day with water rides, like the log flume.

This water ride took you up high and then dropped into a pool of water, soaking everyone.

You can sort of see the Congdons there in between the trees, going up, up up :)

 

... and completely soaked at the bottom

 

Candids throughout the day,

 

Right after getting soaked by the roaring rapids.

It was an amazingly fun and exhausting day.

On Friday we drove to Corsicana (an hour south) to meet up with some dear friends of the Congdons who were in Zambia with them when all the boys were little.

Lou and Jerry Schaefer with the Congdons.

A few random pictures from the week, just hanging out at home:

Gathered around the computer watching a funny Youtube video... and James, deeply engrossed in the "The Hunger Games" series.

What a great mother-in-law... doing the dishes :)

The computer & the Ipad again... more Youtube videos

We could hardly tear James away from these books all week!

[I can't blame him though, I've read them twice myself].

And Paul, with his rasta Tweety bird that he won at Six Flags.

Then on Saturday they had to leave :(

But first we went over to the country club to feed the fish & turtles and take pictures.

Hundreds of turtles appeared to eat our stale bread.

And then, they drove away :(

Sad day.

We had such a great week with six Congdons all under one roof (even though we live in a small one-bedroom apartment we didn't feel crowded at all!). Family time is always treasured when we all live so far apart.