This past weekend was spent in Dallas for nine of those of us on Raider Awakening Leadership for RA37. Excuse me, eight, Corie wasn’t able to go with us at the last minute because of a family emergency, so prayers for her family, definitely. It was a great whirlwind of a weekend getting into Highland Village, where my parents live, just before 11pm Friday night and leaving after Mass and picking up lunch on Sunday at about 12:15pm. Here’s a little recap of the weekend:

Friday: We all met up at the Student Center at 5pm. We got everyone squared away and headed to Wendy’s for a to-go order before heading out of town. Conveniently for us they only had one grill going so we didn’t get out of there until almost 6pm. It was ok, I got a Frosty Float and got to see a mohawk and tattoo sleeves on some random guy, so it wasn’t a total loss. We listened to a healthy dose of 80’s music, Katie took pictures of Khris while he was sleeping, and I obliterated a rabbit that thought it might be a good idea to tangle with the Rodeo. We got to my parents house just before 11pm while Alex continued on down 35E to drop Abby off at her brother’s house (she got a ride with us because her brother and sister-in-law were having a baby this past weekend). My Mom had a fresh batch of Rice Krispie treats waiting for us, we conversed for a bit and then hit the hay in preparation for the long, but fun-filled, day ahead.

Saturday: We were awoken to my Mom making all of us a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bananas, juice, and cinnamon banana bread muffins (made by Katie) which we all enjoyed while sitting out in the backyard on the deck. Katie and Alex made us sub sandwiches for lunch and we headed out to the park arriving to Six Flags Over Texas just after 10am for a full day of roller coaster fun. We hit nearly every ride of substantial note at the park (in no particular order): Aquaman Splashdown, Batman The Ride, Mr. Freeze, Superman: Tower of Power, Conquistador, El Aserradero, Flashback, Judge Roy Scream, The Runaway Mine Train, Runaway Mountain, Shockwave, Texas Giant, The Gunslinger, and Titan. The day of coasters was broken in half when we went to the Rangers/Astros game at the Ballpark in Arlington for 2:55pm first pitch. We walked to the ticket counter, purchased $6 tickets for the super nosebleed seats in the upper deck and watched the first three innings there. After Jamey Wright no-hit the ’stros the sun was nearly in our faces so we switched sides of the stadium and sat with some old friends who were already there, Stephanie Drawe and Bridget Daresh. From there we watched the 3 run 5th and 4 run 8th innings for the Rangers giving them the 7-2 win in the end, it was pretty sweet. Then we finished the day at Six Flags on the aforementioned coasters. On the way home my parents ordered us some pizza and we grubbed on that before going to bed.

Sunday: It was in the early morning hours when everyone was still showering and going to bed after the long Saturday when Alex woke me up with a concerned look on his face saying he couldn’t get the shower to work right. He then showed me downstairs where there was a nice rain shower coming from the ceiling. Apparently the shower drain pipe burst and while water was running through it then the water was going right through the floor to the ceiling and all over one of my parents leather chairs! Yikes. We stopped using the shower immediately, woke my parents up, we cleaned everything and Alex was forced to use my parents shower in the morning, crisis averted. A little after 8am my Mom woke me up as it was time to take my parents to the airport to send them off to Idaho for a week of horseback riding and dude-ranch’ing. After dropping them off it was time for everyone to head to St. Ann’s in Coppell for 10am Mass before heading out of town. Abby got dropped off at St. Ann’s when we got out of Mass after having spent the weekend with her family and the newest addition to the Bergman clan. We got a to-go order of lunch at Quizno’s and hit the road on the way back to Lubbock via 114. The ride back was pretty entertaining, I decided that Jared and Khris are like an old married couple the way they bicker at each other so much. Alex Sanchez levied a challenge to see who could get back to Lubbock quicker from the half way point of Seymour and we accepted. He had been driving right at or under the speed limit the entire trip so we figured it would be a piece of cake considering we were already miles ahead of him when he challenged us. Well, out of nowhere he just flies by us and then through several devious tactics kept us behind him with no chance of passing him. It turns out that we got the last laugh when we barely passed him just outside of Lorenzo or Ralls and successfully used the other cars on the road as rolling picks. We hit the Lubbock City Limit sign, rolled the windows down, stuck our arms out the windows in victory and celebrated the whole way back to the Student Center.