Texas, oh Texas!

Seriously, there's this big song that starts with "Texas, our Texas - all hail the mighty State!"

*really.  The lyrics page I found has "State" capitalized all proper-noun-like... T'Aint No Joke!


So yea, we flew down to the state known as it's Own Country on my birthday the first week of August - no better birthday present than drinking margaritas with your Momma!!!

We had an ass-early flight (ok we've had worse, but having to get Ben up over an hour earlier than normal, I just knew, was going to make the day interesting!) from Newark to Dallas.  We had a bitch-of-a-non-grandma sitting in front of us that, when Ben let out the ONE and ONLY seat kick of the entire flight, turned around and glared at us.  To which E responded, "sorry, we're doing our BEST!"
(but really - it's not like he's leg-pressing 100lbs here to be a strong seat-kicker...)
Anyways - after the glaring not-a-grandma, we were lavished with praise upon deplaning at DFW with the "OMG I didn't even know there was a baby on the plan!" comments and the "He was sooooo good!" platitudes...
(see third pic - he slept, LIKE A BABY hee hee - for almost 1.5 hours!)
Then, with a quick 21-minute flight from DFW to Waco, we were ready to get our drink on... AND SWIM!

This was Ben hanging out in the floating cooler I bought my parents for Xmas... he loved it!

(E has all the pictures on his phone of Ben in his actual little turtle float...)

It was great - the pool was warm enough (high 80's) that Ben could hang out with us for a lot longer than at NJ-grandma's pool (which has been hanging around the low 70's - brrr!)

Other highlights of the trip were:
Shopping at Spice (this awesome warehouse of a store with tons of different vendor booths, one being Blue Flamingo where I found the cutest tribal-print shorts, geometric-print leggings, and adorable navy-white striped nautical dress... Also, um - flower earrings and two earring-cuffs from a booth where everything (jewelry) was 3 for $5.  THREE for FIVE DOLLARS!!!!!
(I wonder now, how did I stop at just three?!)

A good 'ole Southern Shrimp Boil - and if you're saying it correctly, "Boil" is all one syllable.  Like Bowl. =P

Instructions are like, super easy:
Boil Water.
Add spice-packet (you can buy at grocery store!)
and then every 5 minutes or so, start adding the above ingredients! (potatoes, corn, sausage, onions,, lemon, shrimp and/or CRAWFISH!)

 Yup, you read that right - we all (Ben included!) had our first taste of Crawfish!

Once everything is all cooked, it's gets strained and then dumped onto a table from which everyone prepares their plates:

"Noooo please don't eat me!"

This is how babies stay cool in Texas... And they're "nekkid" - not "nayked"

Another highlight was Ben's first real haircut from Grandma (and "real" means that Mommy didn't just snip-snip here and there, leaving crooked hair lines and uneven bald spots above ears...)

Overall, he loved Texas: