Oklahoma!

James and I paid a little visit to Oklahoma over Mother's Day weekend.

Wow. What a state. Definitely not a place I'd want to live the rest of my life, but charming in its own way regardless.

Before I get into our trip though, here's a little side note on Jamers these days:

Still very little hair on this child's head and his six month molars are just barely coming in (only a year late).

It's okay. I still love him.

He is increasingly hilarious. Every time he gets out of the bathtub he'll say "I'm naked, I'm naked!" I'm still not entirely sure how he learned that one. As mentioned in a previous post, I love the evolution of his language. One of the first things he was good at saying was "Uh-oh" which turned into "Oh no!" which is now "Oh gosh!" Everything is "Oh gosh" these days. Oh, and after months of saying "please" he finally learned "Thank you" and now says it every time he hands me something. I just love this kid!

Okay, back to Oklahoma.

It was home to one of the very best Mexican restaurants I've been to in years. Good Mexican food is important to me. Obviously. Even Jamers finished off an entire bowl of salsa (with a spoon, not chips) all on his own. I couldn't keep him away from the stuff. I could sure go for some of that goodness right now.

Aside from spending quality time with Amy and surprising my parents (who decided to visit Amy that weekend as well), the highlight of the trip for me was definitely visiting the Oklahoma City Memorial.

(Of course I'm not smiling here--it was a sad place!)


Talk about a humbling, reverent experience. I was only 14 years old when the bombing happened and I remember being completely confused about what was going on and why it happened at all. I couldn't fathom why anyone, and American citizens no less, would do something so horrible to our country. Sixteen years later and it still makes no sense.

Upon entering the memorial, I was completely overcome by it all and had to hold back tears, especially when I looked down at my own precious little boy and remembered the images in the news from 16 years ago of a firefighter carrying the body of a little child from the burning building.

Definitely a site I won't soon forget.

To lighten things up, we also paid a visit to the Cowboy Museum. Definitely not as cheezy as I expected it to be. Kinda cool, actually. Kinda cool, that is until all the Mexican food James had been consuming over the last few days came back to bite me. Let's just say as soon as I picked him up from the saddle below, it was no longer a dry saddle. I spent the next 15 minutes in the restroom washing his shorts out.

So I have to brag about my family for a minute. They are all amazing athletes. The morning after my parents arrived, they and Amy ran a 5k. Now a 5k probably doesn't seem like much to anyone who actually runs. But to someone who has never even watched a 5k let alone run one, watching my family run one was an eye opening experience.

After that morning, I've added another goal to my list: run a 5k. As soon as I can get in good enough shape to run a single mile, maybe I'll start training for one.

I was very proud of my parents that day. My mom even came in first place for her age group.

Oh, and James was proud of them all, too! Here he is sporting his grandma's winning medal:

All in all, it was a great trip. Even though James was less than angelic on the flight home, it was worth it just to spend those few precious days with my family.