We left the South Padre Island house at 9 (check out was at 10). We ate breakfast at a greasy spoon called the Grapevine Cafe. G and D fought and played while the miles went by. Cindy drove until Austin.

At around 5 at sort of my insistence, we pulled off at 6th street. Cindy parallel parked the Element with the bike rack on back. Cindy, I and the girls started walking. We passed many cool restaurants and bars but Cindy just kept going. The restaurants/bars ran out but Cindy kept walking. G, D and I started whining but Cindy kept walking. OMG, our universal whining strategy failed! We changed tactics and asked her what she was looking for. Sighing, she said, “A kid friendly place.”

I pointed back to all the bars we had passed and said, “what about all those?”

She looked at me with the weirdest expression.

After several seconds of her looking at me and me not getting it, she announced to the girls that their father (that would be me) would be picking where we ate and she would not say one thing about it.

Suspecting that I was somehow standing in a hole that I had dug. I led everyone back down 6th street and skimmed the menu of the first place we came to for food that’s ok with D’s wheat allergies. It looked ok so in we went with my fingers crossed.

Boy, a lot of people drink on Austin’s 6th street at 5 in the afternoon.

Thinking quickly, I choose one of the high bar tables between the TV and the bar. I grabbed the seat facing the bar and set Cindy up to take the seat facing the TV. The bar tender delivered the menu saying that they had been voted the best fish-n-chips in Austin 3 years in a row. I told Cindy they must’ve forgotten to bring us the kids menu with the crayons — more strange staring from her.

It turned out they make a high-class grilled cheese sandwich (4 cheeses) on Texas Toast. G loves Texas Toast grilled cheese sandwiches. (She doesn’t get them very often because we love G and want her to eat well). D order chicken kabobs and Cindy and I ordered quesadillas.

I think I have figured out why they keep the music and noise at the bar so loud. It causes the people to lean in together and gives the group a feeling of privacy. We had a good talk and our waitress turned out to be from Princeton. She said that she normally takes the train from Dallas to Austin.

We order chocolate cake for G — it was really good. (I steal bites of their desserts to the betterment of my children’s nutrition). Ellie had a Guinness vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup — it was really good too. (No wonder they are so skinny and I am so, ah, comfortable plushy). Bestest Sealy called about G’s cake.

Cindy allowed that the corruption to our children by eating in a bar at 5 pm was probably correctable. We went back to the Element and headed towards Dallas.

After forever, we arrived at South Padre Island Saturday night. We ate at Scampi’s which was nice but ouch it was expensive. I had fresh Red Snapper which was the expensive part. D had a fruit and cheese tray which was a better deal. G had a Pizza which she is still eating on 2 days later.

The next day we went to the beach trusting D to put on her own sunscreen. At the beach, we let the waves beat us up for 2 hours and then went back to the house for lunch. G and D were both given plastic turtles by their grandmother. G named hers “Smarty Pants” and D named hers “Shelly”. For the whole long drive down, both girls had been promising their turtle that it would get to go in the ocean. As soon as we got to the beach, they took the turtles into the ocean. Within 5 minutes, everyone’s turtle had been knocked out of their hands and we were frantically searching the Atlantic Ocean for 2 small plastic turtles. Somehow we found them and I banished the turtles to dry land and fresh water.

After our 2 hour morning beating, we went back and had lunch and then went back to the beach. Back into the waves and even more digging. Under the sun, D made a sand cave for her turtle and G used shells to decorate the sand castle she and Cindy had built.

After Dinner, D started crying. Her back was lobster red. I walked to the Blue Marlin to get her some gel for the burn. She must have sprayed the sun screen over her shoulder and completely missed her back.

10 minutes into the trip things got even worse when D started documenting the dissolution of G’s emotional state in her summer journal. G can’t stand it when she drops a piece of something in the car and can’t reach it. “PULL OVER, STOP THE CAR, …. NOW! …. NOW!!!” Cindy had just jammed on the brakes when a small car jumped in front of us and Gemma’s pieces had flown out of her lap.

The typical family response to our youngest demands in this case is for D and Cindy to start telling her how she is being unreasonable and then all the girls and Cindy talk, talk and talk about it. After that, they …. talk about it. After a while, I usually yell, “EVERYONE STOP TALKING ABOUT IT.” Gosh, I wonder where G gets it from.

Things got better quickly after that.

Now we are in Austin listening to the rumbling of 10 Harley Davidson Motorcycles in the parking lot and D and G fighting in bed. G is tired and hyper and D is jabbering continuously. Currently, D is in the closet talking about how she is trying to read without a light. G is in the girls’ bed worrying that if she talks at all the people next door will call security to kick her out of the hotel. (Cindy can be pretty convincing with so called natural consequences).