I <3 the Sweeneys

Tricia miraculously captured this charming photo of Zoey and the plastic flamingo. God knows, Zoey don't pose....

So, this post is really late in coming. My problem stems from my desire to do something really good, but never having the time to really sit down and work at it. So it doesn't get done. This goes for a lot of things. I have big plans. Too big. So nothing.

That, and I keep going back to the damn Weboggle page. There, I just went back and closed it. It's evil.

I spent some time with the Sweeney's on their brief trip to Houston, and we had a great time. Zoey really takes to both of them (and they seemed quite charmed by her as well). We were all impressed by Zoey remembering their names. I brought her over to Kilian's mom's house, not telling her who we were going to see. We came up to the door and Tricia opened it and gave Zoey a big hello, but Zoey just looked at her and went inside. She looked around the house a bit, looked back at Tricia, and said, "That's Tricia." We both went, "hooray!" and Zoey said, "That's good Zoey!" She recognized Kilian as well as Carlotta (Kilian's mom). Such a smart girl.

Anyway, we had a fun day driving down to visit Tricia's sister to watch her boys 1. play trumpet in a concert and 2. play little league baseball. Well, Zoey and I didn't watch the concert, that was a bit too still for her. She and I took a walk around Industrial, TX (was it Industrial? Or Industry? Something vaguely workerish sounding....), including the high school Tricia went to for two years. The ballpark was more fun for Zoey, as she had a great time climbing up and down the steel bleachers making much noise and then making sure everybody watched her jump down with much thunder. Well, I thought it was cute, but I think some of the other parents got a little tired of the noise, so I took her down to the adjacent playground, which was nicely lit up at 9 pm. We had the place to ourselves for most of the time, only briefly joined by a suspicious looking camaro that parked near the playground, then drove slowly away. Hmmm, we then left the park. Of course, it's very likely the driver of said camaro was only looking for a quiet place to, oh, I don't know, do drugs or something, but you never know in those small towns. (For the record, the ballgame was in Ganato, TX.--wait, let me look these names up--sorry, Ganado, TX, and I couldn't find the town with the high school but am certain Tricia will clue me in at some point.)

After the ball game, we took a quick trip to Tricia's sister's family's new bay house, which they had actually purchased whole and moved to their lot. It was an impressive job. BTW, Tricia's sister Sheila and her family were all very nice. Zoey really liked their backyard, which is set up for a daycare, so you can imagine the toys. When we first arrived, Zoey actually held her hands up and went "Yay! We're at the park!" Also, Kilian left Ernie there, so we had to go back after the concert or else my life would have been made much worse. When we went back, we stayed in the front yard as Zoey was already a little upset because we had left another playground before she was able to play in it. There's nothing more frustrating for a 2-year-old than seeing a playground and not being able to touch it. Well, there are probably more frustrating things out there. I certainly can't tell you what goes on in the mind of a 2-year-old. I'm in a constant state of bafflement. Oh, and she was hungry too. That really gets her goat.

So, that particular Thursday was splendid. What I really enjoyed about the day was being so comfortable around old friends. I really miss hanging out with those guys. We used to just sit around and do nothing for hours, back in the day. "I'm bored." "Come on over." "Okay, be right there."


"Kilian, what are you doing?"

We got to spend Sunday afternoon with them at Kilian's mother's house (Carlotta, remember?), which was especially memorable for Zoey's impromptu (but not needing much prompting) performance of several popular children's songs. This, I got on video, and you can view it here, unless you have a macintosh, in which case, click here for the quicktime version. (I recommend any dialups out there to use the first link if you have a Windows movie player, because it's a much smaller file.)

Tricia and I also got a few nice pictures in the backyard, mostly of Zoey and Kilian, which you can check out at the smugmug site. I don't remember who took which pic, but if it's especially well composed, go with Tricia.