A visit to the Rodgers' house!

The very first person I met when moving to Texas was Missie Rodgers, who taught fourth grade across the hall from me.  I'll never forget...I'm schlepping my classroom stuff in and there is Missie with her two kids, one of them a girl in the same grade as Kendra!  We hit it off instantly and even went to lunch together that first day!  We taught together for three years, then she moved down to first grade.  I thought she was a traitor then...but then her husband (who I also adore) decided to get a really cool job four hours south of here and they up and moved!  They have earned SERIOUS traitor status now.  To say that we miss them is an understatement.  And I know it is only four hours, but let's face it...in the busy, crazy school year, it might as well be four days. 

So, after returning from our Michigan trip, we turned around two days later and drove down to stay with our traitor friends for a few days.  They live in New Braunfels, which is about 30 minutes north of San Antonio and in Texas Hill Country.  We arrived on Monday and headed right out to hang out on the Guadalupe River.  They have some great tubes, and the kids rode the rapids a bit and had a lot of fun searching for critters while Missie and I did what we do best....hung out in chairs with our feet in the water and talked!

Isn't that gorgeous!!!!

Monday night they took us to a rustic burger joint in town where I enjoyed a delicious bacon cheeseburger and shared fried mushrooms with Randy, and Kendra was in heaven with her "BL"--Bacon and Lettuce sandwich with two inches thick stack of bacon!  :-)

Tuesday we went to Schlitterbahn, a HUMONGOUS water park a few minutes from their place.  The Rodgers' were ultra generous and insisted on paying for our tickets...wow.  Maybe I should move them off traitor status?  Nah.  :-)  The park has a zillion water slides and it is NO place for a camera, so you'll have to take my word for the greatness it was.  Kendra was a bit of a chicken...I don't know what happened but she was afraid to go on a lot of rides, and she has been to places like Great Wolf Lodge and had a blast on slides.  It was rather frustrating, especially since our tickets were paid for by our friends to enjoy this amazing place.  But they were ever-so-gracious about it and we had a ton of fun even within the limits Kendra set due to her fear factor.

After an exhausting day there, Missie and I took the girls to a quaint little town called Greune.  They had awesome little "small town" shops--the best was the General Store where they had an old fashioned soda counter and a huge selection of jellies, apple butters, and salsas with sample crackers to try them all!  Then we had dinner at a cool corner restaurant that looked to be about six feet wide but then went on for DAYS long.  Missie and I had the "grown up grilled cheese"--gouda cheese, tomato, spinach on foccacia bread--can you say HEAVENLY?  Kendra said they had the best french fries she's ever had, too! 

Love these besties!

 Wednesday we slept in and went to their pool in their apartment complex--Missie and I assumed our poolside/conversation positions again.  :-)  The kids were worn out from the previous day, so the pool was short-lived.  We showered up, we packed up and made a trip to the famous Buc-ees on the way out of town.  This is a famous GAS STATION.  Yep.  Gas station.  They have something like three million gas pumps, and the store is enormous.  They have gifts, souvenir t-shirts (Kendra and I both bought a Buc-ees shirt), lots of food and snack items, a great deli (apparently their chicken salad is amazing!), a huge wall of soda fountains and a zillion Icee flavors.  Kendra and I each filled up an Icee cup for the road, said goodbye to our good friends, and hit the road. 

Reagan, Kendra and Buc-ee!

Well, we can't say we are at all happy that the Rodgers' have moved, but they did move somewhere fun to visit, so we may forgive them a TINY bit.  Love you guys!