Favorite things

To wrap up the Texas coverage, a few more pics of the kids' favorite things to do when over there. The Dude enjoyed the horse-riding, too (though in an infinitely more subdued manner than his sister):

And he LOVED climbing trees: 

He liked brooms. Truly. Somehow, he has developed an inexplicable fondness for cleaning things - which the Daddy blames on the Mommy's German-alles-in-Ordnung background, and the Mommy blames on the Daddy's long-overcome-but-in-his-childhood-quite-prominent OCD tendencies:

And, once the cleaning was done, he enjoyed hanging out on the porch with everyone, having a party:

 He took naps listening to Papas lullabies (ok, Papas Johnny Cash songs...): 

And at least once a day, he would approach the Papa about riding trains. After which, the two of them would disappear into the train room and all that could be heard the next half hour was their bugging each other: "Papa, I am faster! I'm gonna beat you, Papa! I will take a shortcut! Ha, I AM faster!"

   

And his sister? She has this weird cleaning thing, too: 

But she immediately abandons any task, chore or activity when she finds someone to play with her. Especially if this game involves pink cowboy hats and her favorite sort-of-cousin Emila:

The Nanny

The kids just had a wonderful time with their Nanny when visiting Texas. This was partly due to the fact that she is simply a truly lovely person. It was also partly due to the fact that she took her prerogative as a grandmother to spoil them rotten and cater to their every whim quite seriously... So the kids always had someone to push their swings:

 Or read them books:

Or put bird feed out for the squirrels to steal:  

But it was not all one-sided. Very occasionally, the Nanny managed to harness that bond into something useful - especially when she needed someone to help her with the gardening!