Another two stories and I'll be all caught up!!! Here we go...

#1-Good ol' Hank
The Christmas that I was in the fifth grade we decided to travel up to Ohio to visit my Dad’s family. We hadn’t seen his family in a while, so it was quite an adventure for us. Before we left for the trip, Dad bought all of us water proof winter boots. They were the green rubber and leather ones like LL Bean sales. It should be noted that I thought that these were the coolest boots EVER. Mom and Dad also bought us all new winter coats, seeing how we would be spending a while in the Ohio winter, as opposed to south Florida. We traveled to Ohio in my Mom’s mini van, Justin was in the back and I was in the middle. It was a full two day drive.
*Side note: for those of you who have ever traveled with my father (excluding the past 3 years or so) you no what this must have entailed. For those who haven’t ever traveled with him, well, consider yourself blessed (no offense Dad). See, Daddy, bless his heart, is a bit, shall we say, high strung. When we travel, the level of high strung-ed-ness is raised to the 7th power. We must be out of the house by x time. Not 1 minute after x time. If we were one minute after x time his face would begin to tense. You could literally see his blood pressure rising. His neck would begin to turn red, and it would creep up until his entire face was red. He normally didn’t say much during these times, but you could cut the tension with a knife. No, imagine this for a two day drive. *
To help pass the time in the car, Daddy brought along a couple of books to read aloud. Now, I for one can’t read in the car. It makes me carsick. Daddy on the other hand, can apparently read for hours without one tiny bit of motion sickness, and am I glad for it. Daddy reading to us in the car wasn’t a new thing. Even now, he’ll read on long trips if he has a book. I love to listen to him read. He has such a powerful voice, you wouldn’t think he’d be one to do the voices for characters, but he does. His voice will melodiously change from gruff to stern to dumbfounded to soothing while reading. It’s amazing. The books that he brought along were the first few in a series known as “Hank the Cowdog.” This series features Hand, a cowdog, which is like a cowboy, only in dog form. Hank thinks that he’s just class A, number one on the ranch. Unfortunately, Hank’s not very bright, and this leads to many an adventure.
Daddy reading those books certainly did pass the time on the drive to Ohio.

#2-The Relatives Came (a teaser)

On the note of stories that Daddy used to read, there’s one book that I also really like. It’s called “How the Relatives Came.” It’s a book about a family who has moved away from Appalachia and how their relatives come to visit (shocking I know). Anyway, it’s a really good book. It talks about how the family from Appalachia all pile into a couple of cars, and they drive through the night, and they sleep on the floors in the house and are loud and crazy, and everyone has fun, and then when they leave in a few days, everyone breaths a sigh of relief, but then they miss them. This book reminds me of our visit to Appalachia that winter. I won’t expound too much on our Christmas in Ohio (I need stories for tomorrow), but suffice it to say that it was loud, and crazy, and no one ever seemed to have their teeth in.