Amarillo by Morning

When we still didn't know if Jesse was staying or leaving for work, we decided that I should go ahead and make a trip out to see my family as if he wasn't going to be here. So, I bought tickets to fly to Amarillo, TX to visit my sister and then go to Phoenix from there to visit the rest of my family. In the process of buying tickets, I learned two things...American Airlines now flies out of Fayetteville, with a direct flight to Dallas Fort Worth and they won't allow you to take double strollers or larger strollers through the airport to the gate, but rather make you check them at the ticket counter for no additional cost. Don't they understand that the stroller helps you make your connection?

At least I read about this change to their baggage policy before making the trip. I sympathized with some of the women that were flying with multiple children and carry-ons (as many spouses are still deployed) that had to check the only stroller they brought with them. I opted to leave my larger stroller at home and took the umbrella stroller. If it weren't for this regulation, I might consider flying American more often out of here as it broke up the trip nicely. However, DFW is a large airport and connections aren't all that easy.

On our way to Amarillo, we flew American Eagle for both legs of the trip, so we didn't even need to change terminals. We had time to eat brunch, make a pit stop, and we found a play area for the little man to run off some energy.

Before we knew it, we were in Amarillo! I don't have a picture, but I ran into a teacher I taught with in Germany in the Amarillo airport. I knew she had retired and moved back to Amarillo, and I had contacted her before the trip to see if we could meet up. She spotted me in the airport as I was exiting while she was waiting for her flight to board so she could head to Florida for the weekend. So, we didn't get to spend any great amount of time together, but it was sure nice seeing Dalpha, if only for a few minutes.

Then we went to Amy and Terri's house. The last time I was there was in 2003, the week Jesse and I got engaged. (Now you know why I thought it was time to pay her another visit!) They were in a different house then. They recently moved into this place and have worked many hours updating the interior.

Here's Mommy, Fletcher, and Aunt Amy.

We actually made one stop before getting to her house. It's a local joint similar to Chipotle. Amy is very good friends with the owner, whom we saw 3 times during our five night stay. The food was delicious!

We went back out for dinner. This time we went to Tyler's BBQ so I could have some Texas BBQ.

Tyler happened to be there so we took a picture of Fletcher with the owner.

Amy took a long lunch one day at work. There happens to be a park right across the street from the cancer center, so we had a picnic. She took Fletcher to feed the ducks in the pond. He loved it!

He also played on the playground. Of course he was more interested in playing with the tires on the ground as if they were rocks than the actual playground equipment. Amy did manage to get him down the slide a few times.

We went to another local place, The Pancake Station, for breakfast one morning.

And, one night we went to Joe Taco, which is actually owned by another friend of her's (named Kevin, not Joe). Fletcher had two favorites for the night...queso dip and throwing items in the trash can. The latter activity became an obsession at every restaurant we went to for the three weeks we were gone. Hopefully he'll forget about that game by the next time we go out.

After church on Sunday, we went to the Texas Firehouse for some pizza. It has very good food and looks like a great sports bar to hang out in.

This is Fletcher before and then after church.

We spent a lot of time with Budd, Amy's boyfriend. I also got to meet his two children...who aren't really children, as one is 21 and the other is 18. We spent a lot of time watching The Rangers in The World Series. It's too bad they lost.

Fletcher showed them how much he loves to water the flowers. This was a recent hobby to do with Dad around our house.

He also loved to play with Terri and her dog (I can't believe I don't have a picture of this.) Here he is playing with Budd.

We did even more on this trip, but I'll put all of those things in different posts.