BFFers

Part of our youngest daughter's summer vacation was spent visiting her long-time bestie. These two Cali gals have been best buddies since they were two-year-olds.

After a quick search in the photo archives, I was unable to locate the photo I was hoping to find. I have an absolute gem from one of Millie and Sydney's first meetings. They were soooo teeny, and they appear somewhat unimpressed/unaware of each other's existence. It's hilarious! 

(I will keep looking.) 

My search through the old photos was not in vain, as I managed to find this precious snapshot of the two friends when they were about six. Princesses indeed.

It appears that these two are joined at the hip.

They have always had fun hanging out with one another. These two are a LOT alike, yet they are still both have distinctly unique personalities. It's just so easy for them to spend time together -- most of the time doing absolutely nothing. Definitely BFF material!

I'm just not sure which one is the cookie and which one is the milk. 

I can only imagine that this summertime visit was a seventeen day slumber party -- with precious little slumbering.

At the risk of getting into serious trouble when Daughter #2 realizes what pictures I used for this entry, I am going to share a photo that was sent to me via a text message from my girlie. It really made me chuckle -- a lot!

In the wee hours of the morning, these two were inspired to do one another's makeup, blindfolded. And this is the result:

 This pretty much sums up their friendship -- non-stop fun!

So true...

 During a Facetime call, I screenshot this image of the two friends. Pure joy!

Syd's mom texted me the next two photos along with an eyewitness account of the airport events. I felt as if I was there.

Although these two are still smiling for the camera, the tears were beginning to well up as they made their way to the airport. 

All good things must come to an end.

A lachrymose farewell at Sacramento International reportedly caused an innocent bystander to get teary-eyed, too. These girls are so blessed to have such a wonderful friendship.

Of course, plans for the 2014 BFF reunion are already being discussed, planned, and negotiated with the respective parents. I understand it will involve our girl traveling to California for a couple of weeks, then both girls traveling back to Texas for a couple of weeks. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Whatever the direction, we'd better start saving our pennies now. 

Austin City Limits and Beyond

While Millie was off having fun in California, the four of us planned a quick trip to Texas' capital city. The rest of us wanted to have fun, too. Mr. Smith had a conference to attend in downtown Austin on Friday, July 12, and he was eager to have traveling buddies. 

Our bags were quickly packed, and into the car we went again. This time it was only a three and a half hour road trip. We spent the nights of the 11th and 12th at the downtown Embassy Suites. 

Unfortunately, on Friday morning, the two older Smithlings and I overslept and missed the complimentary hotel breakfast. We easily found a Starbucks and ended up being treated to three free drinks by a very kind barista. We had free breakfast, after all!

Our tour of Austin began at the Texas State Capitol. 

Little did we know that this was the day that the Texas State Senate was deciding whether or not to pass new, tougher abortion laws. It was busy with supporters from both sides, but we managed to squeeze in and go on a guided tour of the building. 

The TX Capitol was completed in 1888. The Lone Star state paid for the construction of this impressive structure not in dollars, but in land: some three million acres in the Texas Panhandle that would later become the famous XIT Ranch.

Attention to detail is evident everywhere, including the door hinges. Each decorative hinge weighs over seven pounds, and measures 8"X8".

The Bullock Texas State History Museum was next on our to do list.

Look! I found a lone star...

...or two.

From Native American facts and artifacts to the present day oil industry, we learned a lot about "our" state.

We were nearly finished with the museum exhibits when we realized that we had not eaten all day -- except for the liquid (coffee) breakfast. It was 2:30.

We remembered that it was Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-A -- FREE food!

Do I write about food too much? Perhaps. What we ate, where we ate, and when we ate tends to dominate the details of many a blog post. Oh, well.

Dinner was AWESOME. Jack Allen's Kitchen was chosen by my son because of the 94% approval rating on Urbanspoon. It was a good call.

The next morning, we arose early enough to venture down to the hotel breakfast bar, but it was disappointing. 

Nothing disappointing here... We took a walk for about a mile and ended up being delighted by Gourdough's Big. Fat. Donuts. Well, I'm not so sure about the light part of being delighted. Let's just say that it's a good thing we walked.

We ordered one Flying Pig, one Miss Shortcake, one Sin-a-Bomb, one South First Hipster, and they added (just for me!) a chocolate beauty that wasn't even on the menu. These are monstrous fried dough confectionary delights. After a few bites, it was evident that we had ordered two too many donuts for the four of us.

We had to get a doggie bag. We knew that we'd be skipping lunch after this hearty breakfast fare.

We left Austin mid-morning and headed for Fredricksburg. We really only had one reason to take this circuitous route back to Ft. W. -- the Choo Choo Patio shop was beckoning. We wanted/NEEDED to get some yard art.

This place is hard to describe -- it has a little bit of everything!

And there's a lot of stuff I'd never want.

If only we would have had room in the car for this Spanish conquistador. I'm sure our neighbors would love seeing this in our lawn.

We did purchase three objects d'art for the Smith Haus.

 We selected a rebar tree that now has glass baubles hanging from it.

The next item is an oversized peacock. (We call her "Kevin" because she reminds us of the bird from the movie Up.) No pink flamingos came home with us.

The third item is a gazing ball (far right) that is in a globe stand.

Whaddya think?

Westward ho!

After much planning, the wheels were finally set in motion to reunite the two Raleigh Court besties, Millie and Syd. The plan was for us to meet in Palm Springs on the 6th of July. We opted to drive.

Can you say, "ROAD TRIP?!" This meant traveling through Texas, Texas, and more Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and finally California. 

July 5

Mr. Smith, Millie, and I departed the Smith Haus at 5:30 AM. The older two Smithlings were left at home to be in charge of watering plants, feeding kitties, scooping litter, and wrangling fleas.

Thankfully, the speed limit is 80 mph in western Texas. Yeehaw! There's a whole lotta wide open spaces out there, so it was a good thing that we could fly right through it. Speeding, even one mph over the legal limit, is definitely not tolerated. We did NOT test the tolerance levels. We saw plenty of state troopers out doing their job.

What a beautiful sign! We still managed to average 30 mpg, despite the faster speeds.

Millie hopes to have a blue Beetle someday, so I thought she'd appreciate seeing this car. She was sleeping, so I snapped this pic just for her. That girl o' mine was not terribly impressed. I quickly learned that she'd prefer a Beetle that looks more like this:

What's the difference? They're both blue VW Bugs. Right?

I am so easily amused by things I see along the road. At a rest area, I chuckled when I saw multiple cigarette receptacles just like this one. 

I'm sure that somebody has vandalized one of these bins somewhere. I did not make a thorough investigation of the entire rest area to see whether or not my hunch was true, but I know there had to be at least one label that said "BIG" -- it's just too tempting.

 Naturally, we stopped every two hours for a rest -- not. 

After a fourteen-ish hour trek, we stopped in AZ to spend the night with the Birds, Jay and Robin. We were back on the road the next morning, and we had picked up additional travelers.

July 6
We now had a caravan of two cars heading for California. As we left Rio Rico, we stopped for the routine border check. Our traveling companions were ahead of us, and they quickly cleared the checkpoint. As we were waiting in line, Millie and I remarked about the beautiful face of the German Shepherd, border-patrolling, drug-sniffing dog. He looked so smart, too!

Moments later, he began barking furiously at the left rear door of OUR car. We were instructed to pull ahead to the next officer and get out of the car.  

Within ten minutes, our car was visually inspected and x-rayed, and we were deemed good to go. One of the agents told us that it is highly likely that our car was contaminated by the previous owner. Even though we've had this car for two and a half years, it still apparently has residual contaminants. Good to know. 

We then wondered how easy it was going to be to pass through the border check on the return trip, as we did not have plans to detail and decontaminate the Bimmer before returning to Texas.

Our fellow road warriors realized we were no longer behind their car. They called us and learned that we had been detained at the border check. Yep, they were traveling with a drug lord and his family. And we look so normal...

Boredom set in somewhere in Arizona. 

Seeing this toy from a (Despicable?) Happy Meal doesn't mean that we stopped at a Big M for food. It merely means that we stopped to use the potty. I just couldn't resist this little minion whistle. Wheeee!


We spied these oversized critters in Gila Bend, AZ. Gila monsters? Maybe.

It's been said that after a long, hot drive in the desert, one's mind begins to play tricks. Hmmmm...

No tricks here. That's definitely a Millie Monster.

After lots and lots of Arizona desert, we FINALLY made it to California and more desert.

There was no inspection here.  I guess it's a good thing we didn't have any illegal produce. 

Next stop: Palm Springs. 

 These two friends were sooo eager to see one another! Love it!

 These three look as if they could be sisters. :-)

Millie (a.k.a. Millsters Freeman) posed with her adopted family. We hugged and kissed our girlie good-bye, knowing that she'd be in good hands for the next 17 days.


Mr. Smith and I drove to Indian Wells and checked into our room at the Miramonte Resort, which is decidedly an oasis in the desert. The young man at the front desk must have taken one look at our road weary faces and determined that we needed a blessing. We were given an upgrade to the Villa d'Este suite. Sweet! Hooray for off-season prices and luxurious accommodations. And no kids! 

This was the view from our balcony -- not bad. 

We enjoyed dinner outdoors at 9PM, despite the temperature still being near 100 degrees. 

"But it's a dry heat."

I had to take a pic of the hair dye bag. Oh, I mean hair dryer. More dry heat?

July 7

In the morning, we met up with Jay and Robin. After a leisurely breakfast, we headed back to Rio Rico, AZ, to the Bird's Nest. A seven hour road trip is kidstuff at this point of the game.

July 9

All too soon, it was time to make the drive back to Texas.

We made it out of the state without causing too much trouble. We left VERY early in the morning, so the dreaded border checkpoint was closed. Thankfully, we didn't have to make that call to our family to bail us out of jail. 

My brother talked with a border patrol agent buddy of his who surmised that the dog who sniffed our car was probably ready for a break and simply made an error. He's only human... I mean canine. Perhaps our car doesn't have a sordid history, after all. Oh, but it makes for a much more interesting story to think otherwise.