And bingo was our name-o

My in-laws live in one of the numerous senior citizen communities spread around the McAllen/Mission area of Texas. They're no longer just winter-Texans, they stay year round; getting back up to MN in the summers is too hard on them physically right now. It's interesting to walk around the neighborhood and see all the license plates; most of them are from MN, WI, MI, IA.

The main gathering ground is the club house next to the pool. They have a lot of different activities, and last night we partook of one of the main weekly events: card bingo. The kids love doing this every year we come down. They play 16 hands---15 of them are a dime ante, the last big jackpot is a quarter ante. We cleaned up. Each of us won one round, and grandma won 3 times, including the quarter jackpot. The excitement level was almost to much for me.

Today we drove over to Donna TX and walked around a huge flea market. We bought a few TX t-shirts, Hannah got a beautiful little fan, and JR got himself a novelty fake poop pile. (grandpa got a kick out of that, he wanted it to bring to their friend's homes that have dogs)

One more day in Mission; tomorrow, we're off to South Padre Island. JR is dying to get to the beach. Mocha-momma loves to spend time with her parents, she misses them quite terribly throughout the year; so it's nice just hanging out with them for the time we can. The kids have averaged probably 5 hours a day in the pool; but the pool can't match the ocean waves. We're also planning on going to the Schlitterbahn Water Park when we're on Padre. I think that's suppose to be one of the best outdoor water parks in the country.

This might be my last post until we get back on Sunday; unless the hotel has a computer I can get on. So, in the words of that great hollywood giant, Arnold the Terminator: Hasta La Vista, Baby.

Grandma teaching Hannah-bear how to make homemade OJ.
Can you pick JR out of this line-up?