Tonight after work Bob invited James and the kids over to give them his personally created trip souvenirs. He spent several evenings last weekend designing cool personalized trip T shirts for himself and his fellow travelers. His design includes pictures (harvested online) of a whale shark, the actual baby and mama pandas they saw at the Atlanta zoo, and Whoppy the giant alligator who is king of the Honey Island Swap tour. The words "Atlanta Trip, 2007" tie the shirts to time and place. KK thanked Bob profusely, and commented several times that these five shirts are the only ones like them in the world. Danny - sweet heart that he is, expressed concern that I didn't have a shirt, but accepted that they are only for people who went on the trip.

After dinner Bob got the idea to go down to Town Lake and watch the largest urban bat colony come out to feed. Conditions seemed perfect, some cloud cover to simulate an early darkfall, and August, when the baby bats start coming out to feed. However, the bats were disappointing - not many surfacing before it got too dark. Walking by Town Lake - seeing parent swans with three gawky adolescent cygnets, hearing Danny correctly name great blue herons, watching snowy egrets play in the marsh and seeing them later overhead - all of this on a lovely summer evening with the kids was great.

I'm looking forward to the beach next week. The kids are a great age for adventures - still interested in us and what we have to offer and old enough to help out and understand instruction.

I'm not looking forward to the start of the new school year - too soon. After the beach week Bob has to go back down for a Monday start - but he will have two weeks before the kids come. Summer has been too short. On the other hand, I do look forward to the adventure of this school year.