What 16 years with the company will get you.....

A trip with the family to Fort Davis, where we tent camped in the State Park, went to the Fort and the McDonald observatory. Now, we were tempted, or at least I was, to leave the kids with my parents and go by ourselves, since it was us who started the company, but since we are responsible corporate officers, we answer to our shareholders, and also, because they are fun and make life awesome.

Some thoughts on our trip:

1. Screw you Nikon, for telling me my memory card was not formatted, when it totally was, and then refusing to format it, whereby making me take iPhone pictures which cannot possibly capture the beauty of the davis mountains.

2. Grandma, seriously? The road trip present was nice, but.....The gum? The tic tacs? It makes for an interesting drive when the 2 year old eats all the tic tacs before you get to Junction and then starts in on the gum, which she is not supposed to have until she is 5. You would think that Annabelle would back us on this, since she didn't get gum until 30 seconds after she woke up on her 5th birthday, but she has found this rule to be completely arbitrary saying "why? She knows not to swallow it. Let her have it." And we did, and they formed the gum into mini play dough-like animals that played with each other and when they got tired of that and put it on their noses and then eventually it made its way to the floor of the van and Tallulah's puppy purse, and since she is anal, like her dad, she was not happy about this.

4. My kids can rock a 9 hour car trip with no devices and no dvds, and if it sounds like I am bragging, it's because I am.

5. Annabelle is a born naturalist and wanted to go to every talk the rangers were offering at the state park, and was thrilled to death when 5 javelina walked through our campsite. Our neighbor campers were thrilled that she was thrilled, but were thrilled standing on top of their picnic tables. She also delighted in the barrel cactus and yucca, which she thought sounded like caca, And the skunks, and was disappointed that we didn't see the montezuma quail. So was I.

4. Annabelle is now an official junior ranger with the national park system, because she and H got so into the Fort.

5. For as sweet as Tallulah is, as kind as she is, as caring as she is, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, take that child on a nature hike. I cannot stress this enough. If you ever though you saw a child throw a wall eyed fit, you were wrong. If you ever thought, wow that kid at the mall, or park or where ever, is being bratty, spoiled, whatever.... they weren't. Or perhaps you have seen somone else's child and thought, "what crappy parents , they need to give that child a beating." They really didn't. They needed to give Tallulah one instead. I am pretty sure the echoes of her screaming I DON'T WANT TO GO ON A NATURE WALK I WANT TO GO HOME AND NOT TENT HOME I WANT MY GRANDMA are still reverberating throughout the Davis mountains and possibly into Marfa and the surrounding area. The only thing that kept me from having a CPS family plan put in place was her ever patient and somewhat smug and sometimes asshole-ish father, who kept saying " she's two, what did you expect?"

6. See number 5 and apply it to our trip to the fort, where I carried her throughout the entire tour and add in the phrases " I SO HHHHOOOOOTTTTT!!!!!!!! I WANT MY MIIIILLLLKKKK. I WANT MY BING BING. NOOOOWWWW!" (bing bing is her special blanket, who stayed in the car. She is a girl and goes everywhere with us. She does not like other blankets. And if you are nice, she kisses you. She doesn't like being dirty. If Annabelle is sad, she gets to hold bing bing. Cute, right? Doesn't really make up for the tantrums, though).

7. Fort Davis, is like a paradise. It is so remote, that I felt free. It is a green desert, with cotton wood and oaks trees on top of volcanic rocks with an underground river. And there are mountain lions. It was 60 degrees at night and 88 in the day with no humidity. I could live there, but I would need an amazon prime account and a garden, because the grocery store (called thrift away)is limited--bacon was 7 dollars and chips were two for 7. Thrift away. I get it. Like throw your thrift away. But they did have mrs. Meyers clean day products there, go figure. There is also so much to do there, it is amazing. You could easily stay in the area for a week.

8. As a Texan, if you are one, or a non Texan living in our great state, or just the random person from sri lanka who reads my blog, you should make it your duty to go to the McDonald observatory. I saw Saturn. I saw its rings. We saw a red giant, we saw parts of galaxies far, far away. I learned about the earth's wobble and how there used to be a different North Star. And we saw 2 shooting stars, which our instructor insisted we call meteors because we were at the observatory. The company decided that we would not do that. That they were shooting stars, because it sounded better.

We were unanimous on that, at least the 3/4's of us that were still awake. One of us being a little worn out, was asleep in her father's loving arms.

The light from those stars that we were seeing was in some cases millions of years old, they told us how many light years, but I am an English major and do not compute astrophysics, especially when I feel their explanation is incorrect, based on my rudimentary understanding of such things that I gleaned from Stan the Man hutto in high school--but I know that my small company's 16 years is an insignificant grain of sand in comparison.

But it is our grain of sand, and i can hold onto it, with my small hand and see the world inside. And it is a glorious green desert on top of a mountain, with children standing arms outstretched, spinning like they are in the sound of music, and us, the CEO and chairman of the board, smiling, laughing and joining in.