It started off with my trip to Dallas to see my Brother, Sister (-in-law), and Niece for a weekend full of fun and family. We went to the park, to Downtown McKinney, to Downtown Dallas, and to a few other various places around town.

Once I got home, I adopted Brutus.

I took Red for many, many excursions around town.

I went camping in June, July, and September, each time at a different Illinois State Park.

I celebrated the birthdays of a few friends.

I went to Chicago a couple of times and Indianapolis once.

I helped J & J repaint the inside of their home.

I started rehearsing with the Philharmonic Chorale again.

Somewhere in there I found time to relandscape an area at the front of my house, but seriously only mowed the lawn about 6 times over the 3 months of summer.

This was probably one of the most exciting summers I’ve had in a REALLY long time, and I loved it. It was fun to be able to see so many friends and relatives in various places. However, I’m also glad that the majority of my travels have come to an end for a few months. There are a few day- and weeekend-trips planned, but nothing too major.

Along with being in town a bit more, I think I might have a bit more time to blog. I am going to try to blog once a week for a while, and then hopefully I can get back to a higher frequency.

This isn’t my child, but rather my neice. I put this together for my brother and dad for Father’s Day, but thought I’d share it in general. Isn’t she absolutely darling?!

I went to Dallas to visit with my brother and sister (-in-law) and had a GREAT time.

Okay, so it’s been waay too long since I started this post, and now I’ve forgotten some of the wonderful things that I was planning to share here. Anyway….

I flew into Dallas on the Friday before Memorial Day and immediately got to spend time with the cutie. My SIL and the Babe picked me up at the airport and took me to the Galleria mall. We moseyed around there for a while until my brother was able to wrap things up at work to meet us for dinner.

Dinner was at the Five Guys burger place there in the mall. I won’t pretend- Five Guys isn’t the most amazing burger, but it IS darn tasty.

After we ate, we made our way back to the car and headed home. We got to the homestead, put the Babe to bed, and, in true Braun fashion, talked into the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Saturday and Sunday were very laid-back, casual days. We went to the park to see the baby ducks, went out for dinner, and then rented a couple of movies to top-off Saturday night. On Sunday, we went to church and then went to my SIL’s brother’s home doe some delicious Puerto Rican fare. After some hood conversation, we went home and chatted a bit more before calling it a night.

Monday, being Memorial Day, we took our time getting ready and then went back to the park for a walk, to see the ducks again, and to enjoy the sunshine. Later in the day we went to a local driving range to practice the ol’ backswing and topped the might off with some wonderful grilled food.

If you haven’t caught on already, I really seem to eat some good food when I travel. (not that I’m complaining or anything….)

Tuesday and Wednesday were just as great, even though they weren’t holidays. On Tuesday, I accompanied the ladies to downtown Dallas to see some of the more historical/touristy sites. We drove through the plaza where JFK was assassinated and went to the north side of the convention center to see a massive sculpture garden of a cattle drive. I didn’t get any pictures of the JFK site, but I took a whole bunch of the life-sized bronze cattle. We then met my brother for lunch at a park near his office. After lunch, the ladies and I went to a different mall – one where they have valet parking at EVERY door and where they practically despise any vehicles that aren’t worth more than my house. Regardless of their dirty looks, we had a fun time shopping around in stores that we could never afford to actually patronize. There was some really great people-watching, though .

Tuesday night found us sharing dinner with the hilarious Mr. and Mrs. Whiteeyebrows at Scotty P’s Hamburgers. After more delicious burgers, we went back home and played Mao (a card game) with the W.E.s until the rooster was about ready to crow.

On Wednesday, the morning was full of my efforts to take as many pictures of the Babe as I possibly could. I think I ended up with about 180 or so for the first half of the day. We met my brother for lunch again at the same park, and the ladies and I went to Historic Downtown McKinney to browse the couture, antique, and trinket shops that line the street and town square. As was the day before, Wednesday was tons of fun and very relaxing. The Babe is an absolute delight to spend the day with, and her mother is incredibly fun, too.

Alas, the trip had to come to an end sometime, so after we finished browsing we ran home, grabbed my luggage, and raced to the airport so I could catch my flight home.

I had an absolutely wonderful time and look forward to the next chance I’ll have to hang with the Fam in Dallas.

Here are a few pictures for you:

First, the Babe:

Next, the Cattle Drive:

Then the Ducks:

And finally, the Egret:

We saw this dude CATCH and SWALLOW a fish, not even 10 feet away from us, while we were feeding the ducks. I have two pictures of the catch/eat, but they’re not really clear enough to show here.

Ain’t she CUTE?!

Snuggling with Grandpaw

Completely knocked-out with Grandmaw

Chillin’ out with Uncle J-dub

Sleeping nicely for me

Deep in thought, or so it appears

Grandpaw put her in the sleeper-hold. It actually worked, too!

The proud parentals, sporting the first member of the next generation of my family

We left on Friday morning, and quickly jumped onto the interstate for the ride down. While the rest of the car was chatting and having a grand ol’ time, I was trying to work on a project for my job, which wasn’t as productive as I had hoped for.

As we worked our way through Missouri, we stopped in Springfield to meet one of my dad’s brothers and his wife for lunch. We had a nice, but brief, visit with them at the Golden Corral, and then got back in the car to knock out the rest of the drive.

Somewhere around 11pm, we finally pulled up in front of my brother’s house and it wasn’t a moment too soon. I’m definitely not a huge fan of such long drives… My sister-in-law had a bunch of family in town, too, so she and the baby were over visiting with them for a while after we arrived. We, of course, waited for her to get home so we could see the baby that night, and our excitement provided sufficient energy to keep us up well past 1:30am after the ladies returned home. We passed my niece around the room, and finally called it a night.

We all slept WAY in on Saturday morning, but then got up and made some breakfast, and continued to pass the baby around . What ELSE are you supposed to do in that situation?

For the remainder of Saturday, we really just enjoyed each other’s company and hung out. I became the official driver, so I drove around to various places and eventually took my mom and sister to a mall for some gift shopping. i don’t really think that this mall was anything special to the locals, but it was 100 times better than anything we have near my own home. It was a more traditional mall, whith all of the storefronts on the IN-side, but it had such a good variety of stores that it put most malls to shame. I’m not a huge fan of shopping malls, but I AM a fan of this one.

My dining habits were not the most consistent; for example, at 10pm on Saturday, I took one of my brothers with me to get a burrito from Chipotle and a burger from Whataburger. Why? Well, ’cause I wanted both and didn’t want to compromise. I may not have mentioned this previously, but I’m a complete Chipotle addict, and this visit was just as amazing as any other. As for Whataburger, it was my first visit/taste, and it is definitely something that I’ll have again if I can. It wasn’t the most amazing burger in the world, but it was definitely tasty and well-worth the trip.

Sunday was a very lazy morning. We needed to be at church at about 1pm, but we were all up by 7:30 or so. We lounged about, passed the kid around, and talked and laughed with each other. At church, we were joined by my sister-in-law’s family and a few of their friends. Most notably, the amazing, funny, and amazingLY funny WhiteEyebrows was present. (Yes, that was a shameless shout-out.) After church, the whole clan raced over to my brother’s home for a late lunch. Unfortunately, though, WhiteEyebrows wasn’t able to join us… and he was missed by all. (Wow – a shout-out and a brown-nose all in the same paragraph )

We definitely enjoyed the company of the other family. They are a fun, lively group, and they are totally friendly. Good times, good times! After things settled down again, we got back into the ritual of passing the baby around, and that lasted for the rest of the evening (and actually into the wee hours of the morning).

Monday morning really just consisted of us getting ready to leave. My brother got up and cooked breakfast and my sister-in-law got the baby up for us to pass around once more. We got the van all loaded up, and we were off. It was so nice to visit, and we’ll be back down there as soon as we possibly can!

NOTE: I’ll post a few pictures of the baby when I get a chance… we probably have a hundred of ‘em!

I’ll post more pictures as I get them so you’ll all be up to speed on her crazy-fast growth.