We Eat What We Can And Sell The Rest

There are several Texas truths that make this a unique and awesome place to live:

• An unexplainable pride and love for the state by its residents.  So much so that at toddler story hour at the public library, we sing an altered version of Bingo that hails this great land.  And I don't even find it strange.

• No state income tax.  That excites us so much that while overseas, we let our Kentucky drivers licenses expire so we wouldn't have to renew a KY permanent address.  That inevitably led to me taking a drivers test and parallel parking while pregnant to maintain my status as a bone fide Texan.  It wasn't pretty but it was worth it.

• And the one of the greatest contributions Texas has made to the world needs no words by way of introduction...

To fully appreciate the greatness that is Blue Bell, we took a tour of the factory in Brenham when Chris & Sarah were in town.  It might seem like crazy idea to take five children on such a tour but it ended up being genius.  For every ticket you purchase, you get a free scoop of ice cream.  Since all five of our kids' tickets were free, that meant the adults got five additional scoops to enjoy.  Sure, Micah, Jonathan, and Sam had their fair share, but Nora and Hudson didn't object too much that we demolished theirs.

Certain members of our family wouldn't even take a break from ice cream to take a picture.

And certain other members of our family did laps around the parlor after consuming so much ice cream.  Was it a sugar high or just his frenetic personality?

With full bellies, we went to explore the rest of the grounds.

Note to self: babies do not always appreciate being stuck in buckets.

Despite the fact that Jonathan puked in the car on the way back to Austin, our Blue Bell tour was still a big hit among the Peek clan.  The KY Peeks departed a few days later, thus ending our week o' family.  But thankfully, it wasn't our final goodbye.  Thanks to a slew of frequent flier miles, we get to make one more trip to Louisville in August.  This will be good practice flying with our posse to prepare for the leap over the great pond we'll hopefully be making in September!