We put The Adams Family on a plane back to Virginia this past Wednesday after a wonderful 10 day visit with them. Jeff had originally been planning on going back earlier, but was able to extend his stay and depart with the rest of the family. It was an immense treat to get to spend the time with them. While I didn’t get to show off this beautiful part of Texas as much as my inner tour guide would have liked, we greatly enjoyed the chance to catch up with these dear people before they leave for Uganda later this year.

Some highlights:

• Playing Balderdash, initially for points, and later for laughs.
• A trip to Schlitterbahn. True to Texas weather form, the day started out beautifully. Then, around 2:00, there was a huge clap of thunder, and the rain began. We took shelter in an arcade, and watched the rain turn to torrents. Then, amid the thunder, we started to hear sharper sounds of impact, and soon saw marble-sized hail plummeting earthward. While we expected it to escalate to plagues of frogs, the wave pool turning to blood, and locust next, it instead let up and turned beautiful and sunny again by 3:00pm, but not before a nearby tuber had been struck by lightning. (He was fine, thanks to some quick resuscitation on the part of the Schlitterbahn staff.)
• Bleary-eyed, late night, far reaching discussions over politics, the state of the Episcopal church, college friends, parenting, history, family, and more.
• Trips to the lovely, crystalline San Marcos river.