O'Rourke

A few good pictures from this year's dance recital.

and while posting them, I came across a bunch from last year that I never posted..

Click the pics to go see the albums.

Still sorting through all the stuff that came home at the end of the year. Here's a nice mosaic self-portrait Allison did with construction paper & glue.

Updated: with pictures. And click on the picture to the right to check out the rest of the pics.

For the weekend before Thanksgiving, we took off to Garner State Park, out in central Texas. It's about 5-6 hours drive and Cheryl was working Friday, so we left Saturday morning and arrived in plenty of time to set up camp and have a look around. It was pretty overcast and damp enough that it felt like it was going to rain, but we never got anything more than some drizzle on the windshield and no rain once we got there. We brought the bikes on the bike rack, so we took a spin around our section of the park. They have some really nice cabins there. A good option if we try to bring along some of our less out-doorsey friends next time. The first night was a little cold. I think it may have gotten down to the low 40's.We had the girls in 2 layers of PJs and 2 sleeping bags each, complete with hats and socks. Some of those little bodies don't hold heat too well. Cheryl & I stayed up and played cards by the lantern. Sunday, we did some hiking in the morning and drove around the rest of the camp on our way south to Uvalde. The kids & Cheryl got a decent nap on the ride, and we stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up a few things we forgot and headed back to camp. Not much to do in Uvalde.

Sunday night was warmer, but the card-playing was interrupted by a very persistent family of skunks. I guess they either know the end-of-weekend routine,

or sensed a big dropoff in camp activity level and decided the left-over feast was on. The girls were in the tent and we were playing cards at the picnick table and heard something behind us. I shined a flashlight over at the water faucet about 10 feet away and there were 2 skunks digging the the rock basin scrounging for post-dishwashing scraps.

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