Family Fun Times

Happy May! Life remains crazy and full and wonderful and I'm trying to take this hour while we're all on the couch watching the first Ironman to capture just a bit of it. Like how one week ago we decided to go bowling between the girls' soccer games. A few of our previous weekends had not been particularly fun thanks to packing and cleaning and I thought we could use a full family activity that did not involve packing tape.

I always forget how fun bowling is until the next time we bowl again.

And this time was particularly fun because I WON! I'm a very erratic bowler, but it's so good for the men in my life to be reminded that I can occasionally beat them at things. Landon remains shook.

The next day I flew to Chicago for work.

One of the first things I did at the firm was asked to be involved with law school recruiting and now here I am, the partner in charge of University of Chicago and Northwestern Law School recruiting for the next year.

It is so weird much that building defined my life for 3 years and how it still rattles me a bit to see it now. It looks exactly the same.

We hosted a dinner for the students already interning with us this summer and starting in the fall and then hosted a lunch event for any prospectives who wanted to learn more about the firm, our practices, etc. It was great.

I also managed to walk 7 miles, buy Chicago Mix popcorn at Garrett's, and even squeezed in a stop at Giordano's for a tiny Chicago style pizza on my way back to the airport.

I LOVE this city.

I truly think that walking among tall buildings is my love language. I just smile like a crazy person the whole time. Even in non-walking shoes, a too-light coat, 33 degree weather, and gray skies, I just grin and walk and watch. I love our life, but it will always be mildly mysterious to me that I live in these non-walkable Texas cities.

I arranged for several other meetings while I was there and at one point between appointments, I happened to walk by the very restaurant where my water broke when I had Landon! Talk about a blast from the past- I had vivid memories from nearly 15 years ago when we had to tell our waitor I was in labor and then taking a stack of napkins with us for me to sit on in the cab we hailed to head to the hospital. I loved that it was still there.

I stayed at the Ritz Carlton and ended up participating in a presentation for the board of directors of a potential client from the empty lobby bar at 11 am after I checked out. I managed to angle the camera juuuuust right to avoid the rows of liquor AND the TV screens.

James spent this past weekend at the Masters Nationals meet in San Antonio. He won multiple events and set a new National Masters record in the 100 IM (50.65 which is so fast). He met up with lots of fans and followers and then, even though it was 45 minutes out of his way, surprised my grandpa (and me!) with an in-person visit between events. It was so sweet and meant SO much to my grandpa who is so very lonely now that my grandma is down in memory care.

The kids and I were in Houston visiting my family for the weekend. My sister flew in with her crew and my brother and the twins live nearby, so we got to have a full Rice family reunion.

We spent Saturday on the lake on my parent's boat, tubing and swimming and picknicking at the kids' favorite island.

The tubing was a hilarious bit of insight into everyone's personalities. Landon and Cora were crazy- constantly yelling "faster!" and eventually flipping off the tube.

Claire chose me as her tubing mate because she knew I didn't want to get my hair wet and chanted "you only live once" the whole time- except for her, the fact you only live once means you should live as cautiously as possible. This is also the girl who threw herself off a 40 foot cliff into the ocean Curacao, so she's maybe not the best judge of danger.

But we went VERY slow, my hair did not get wet, and Claire was perfectly pleased with the experience. Even after her much younger cousin flew around in circles on the tube after her.

The swim mat made an appearance, babies ate sand on the island beach, toddlers and little kids spent a lot of time and energy scooping up sand in the water and dumping it in a bucket, and big kids threw footballs and frisbees. It was a lovely lovely day.

We celebrated my oldest niece's 6th birthday on Saturday night and headed back to Fort Worth on Sunday.

All weekend I just kept thinking what a delight it was to be around these 3 kids of mine. We chatted and sang songs on the car rides (Encanto forever), they are SO helpful with their tiny cousins, and are just generally a joy. At one point on our lake adventure one of my little nieces was crying for a totally normal baby reason and Claire looked over at me and whispered, "aren't you glad we're all grown up?"

And though James and I often long for those sweet toddler years, and we are both in pre-mourning for when they will leave us, I thought, yes, yes I am.