In case you wondered, I did go to girls night. I had a nice time, too. We had dinner at a local deli, then went to try and play laser tag. But that didn't work out since we were short on time at the place that has laser tag and to boot, their credit/debit card machine was down and nobody had cash. So we wound up going to the indoor blacklit mini golf course and then out for ice cream. When I came home the house smelled like men and the only sober people were Amaris and one guy named Matt, who was going to be driving the drinkers home. I wasn't real thrilled or impressed. But that's done and over with, anyways.




This past weekend was full of plans.

I had been planning since the purchase of the "2" shirt for Amaris a weekend photo shoot at the park in celebration of her second birthday. I am by no means a professional, but the JCPenney here doesn't seem to have a portrait studio, and that's where we generally get her pictures done. So I figured that the lack of a portrait studio was enough for me to need to take matters into my own hands.

When we finally got our asses in gear it was in the afternoon and just as we were heading to the park with the back of the car full of balloons, it started to rain. So we turned around and went home and I moped about my foiled plans. And then a couple of hours passed, the sky cleared up, and we went back out to try again. We got some pretty good pictures of her. I can't even believe she is already coming up on two. It's just so crazy.

After the pictures by the river, we headed off to a San Angelo Colts baseball game with Mark's classmates. Amaris was hotly pursued by a little boy named Shawn, whom she's had the opportunity to play with a couple of times in the past, but has not shown much interest. Shawn however seems to really enjoy being around her, and I almost feel a little bit bad for him because I feel like she is really playing hard to get. Once we got into the ballpark, though, his parents bought him a box of popcorn, and she suddenly wanted to be his best friend. It all worked out.


Then on Sunday, my big goal was to find a Toys R Us. Daphne - my Garmin - says that there is one here in San Angelo, but when you take the time to try and locate it, you wind up in front of a sad old building that looks a whole lot like every Toys R Us you've ever seen. I don't know how long this store has been out of business, but I do realize that my Garmin's directory must be horribly outdated. It does, however, find another store about 80 miles from here in Abilene, Texas. Abilene is a city we'd been planning to visit anyways, since they have a zoo and a drive-in theater there, as well as a really nice Air Force Base. So I said, "Let's give it a shot." We typed in Toys R Us and headed on our way just before noon. Tammi came along.

After a fairly long drive with not nearly enough to see on the way save for the occasional dead deer, skunk, or armadillo on the side of the road... we arrived in Abilene. We listened intently to the "turn left" and "turn right" directions from Daphne until we ended up in a vacant parking lot, in front of an old building eerily similar to the one here in San Angelo. I could have cried.

I called customer service and gave them what for. No, not really. I know it's not their fault that there are no toy stores within a decent driving distance but it still sucks. Defeated, we walked their extremely boring mall for a bit and then went to the zoo. That was nice. But hot.







A big piece of me is hoping that Mark's class will let out somewhat earlier than normal on Friday so that we can rush out and maybe go to the San Antonio Toys R Us on Friday night, since Amaris' birthday party is on Saturday and we're planning to go to The Schlitterbahn waterpark in New Braunfels. But at the same time, I know that's not incredibly likely. So I'm just playing it by ear. At this point I feel it's a bit late to be doing my usual online shopping.

Anyways that's my update.