It was fun while it lasted

We just got back late last night from a weekend trip to my hometown. It was a lot of fun to see the extended family as we celebrated my nephews' high school graduations. It was also nice to have a couple of days to just hang out at my dad's. It's always a shock to go back and see how the area has changed. For a while there were changes brought by Hurricane Katrina, but now we are back to noticing the changes wrought by "progress" and development. Some things don't change, though - like my favorite fast food establishment, Ward's. I have converted the boys to it now, as well. Evan said how much he liked it and asked when we could go back as we passed it on our way out of town.

We always like swimming at Uncle Freddy and Aunt Fuzzy's pool when we are in town, too. The boys were excited about going down the slide and off of the diving board. Joel did go down the slide by himself, but this is one of my favorite pictures. The look on his face is of pure joy!
Steve also got all of the kids at the pool to do different jumps off of the diving board. This was Evan's favorite - his "kung fu dive"
Dad had a litter of rat terrier puppies this time, too. It seems there are always different dogs when we visit, but this was the first time the boys got to see the puppies. They both loved the puppies, but were both terrified of the "big" dogs. Rat terriers aren't that big, plus these weren't the sweetest, calmest dogs that I have seen at Dad's in a while. We could not understand why they were so scared, especially Joel. He has never really acted scared of dogs before. Eventually they were able to play outside with the dogs running around. Joel had fun picking up the puppies. He would pick them up, set them down a few inches over from where they started off, and call that playing with them.