Lawton is OK by me.

Good friends of ours from our Salt Lake days have ended up in Oklahoma. Yay! That's a manageable visit! We took off last weekend to go see them for a long needed change of scenery.
We left on Friday evening. Is this a tangent story? Yes. I'm VERY good at those. It was dark, we were somewhere near the northern Texas border, and we needed gasoline. We pulled into a gas station so the gals could use the restroom and Jake could fillerup. No gas. A gas station out of gas. So, we went along to the next one. A couple of the pumps were covered up, and I began to believe I was in the middle of a horror movie. No offense, small town Texas, but something about you creeped me out.....and then a chance of being stranded.... One of the papers over the pump read, "Regular Don't Work". I had a good laugh and wished we would have taken a picture, but remembered we seriously needed fuel. Tessa kept informing us that we were lost. Don't worry. The next gas station had some, and we safely arrived at our destination. There's your anticlimactic story for the day.
Okay, so, back to our trip:
On Saturday morning we went driving around on a nearby wildlife preserve to see buffalo, Texas longhorn cattle, and the lakes and mountains. Prairie dogs were also on the agenda.
Here is Gabe trying to coerce one back out of his hole. No idea why this approach didn't work. :)
We drove through a town called Medicine Park. Weeeeeeird. Any place settle by hippies is going to have, ahem, ....personality. I loved it. It needs a blog post all on its own. (Next time, Melissa, next time.)
We drove over to Meers, OK to a very famous burger joint. We were warned about the "ambiance" ahead of time, but a place doesn't stay open for a hundred years unless the food is worthy of it, even if the dog and cat kennels are what greet you on the way into a place. (Leaving your pets in the car while you eat = not an option!) The place raises their own Longhorn beef, and it has had the same owner for about 50+ years. I believe that owner started decorating/leaving garage sale purchases around when he moved in and has never stopped. Featured below would be the "Seismic Buger". One pound of meat. Yes, we shared with spouses, and yes, we still packed away a half a pound of hamburger apeice. Yum.

This is the inviting entryway to the restaurant:

And then in the next picture, behind us the stairs lead up to the cashier. Past that is where the actual eating takes place.

We had such a great and fun weekend. Good company is the best.

gaining momentum

on the weight thing. That's good news! Cole gained 6 oz. in two weeks. ....or if we go from what the pediatrician had, he's gained 11oz in the last two weeks. We think we can, we think we can, we think we can....

He gives awesomely slobbery kisses, clicks his tongue, is amused when he pats/smacks surfaces, and is starting to sit up for several seconds before he gets tired and slumps his long self over like in the above picture. And now, as I watch her climb onto his walker while he is in it, he also puts up with his sister way better than I would.

Speaking of the sister, Tessa started her dance class last week. Talk about excited. She is the smallest one in there. I'm certainly not used to that. She marched right into class and started chatting right away about her leotard. She is not shy.

She took the directions to stand on the star very seriously.

Today was her second class. I had to keep moving away from the window because she would turn and start performing for me. She dances in between the teaching, which makes me laugh. She flits and hops around like a little bird the whole time.