Crazy is the New Normal: A Very Waco Fourth

Since the Fourth of July this year happened to fall on a Thursday, We took a quick trip to Waco since its Christiaan's days off. We hadn't been since spring break! We were super excited to get to see his family and hang out with them. Unfortunately we missed the big family cookout the weekend before, but his aunt and uncle had said we could hang out at their house and swim on the fourth even though they would be out of town.

As per usual, there had to be some sort of drama with the trip, first of all, Carter had started coughing pretty badly the night before from allergy drainage, and pretty much coughed the entire ride there. By the time we hit Hillsboro I told Christiaan that after we unloaded I was taking him straight to the urgent care in town. And speaking of Hillsboro, shortly after driving through there, we started getting passed by sheriffs and police. After the 5th or 6th one drove by, lights flashing and all, we started wondering what was going on, figuring they were after someone. We turned on Christiaan's dispatch app and started listening to the Hill County dispatch channel, trying to figure out what was going on. The further we went, the more we realized that they were radioing in mile markers and exit numbers that were pretty much one or two away from where we were. But when they said something about laying out spike strips, Christiaan said he was getting in the right hand lane in case he needed to get out of the way quickly. And I kid you not, it wasn't 5 seconds after he switched lanes that one radioed in something about being in the right hand lane! Oh my god, are they chasing us??? We had yet to catch a vehicle description, so we weren't sure what they were after. They conversation continued to intensify the further south we drove, and as we topped the hill going down into Bellmead just before Waco, we came upon I don't even know how many police vehicles blocking an entrance ramp, with officers walking around, and some laying spike strips on the service road. Christiaan slowed down in respect for the officers pulled over, and one came walking around the front of a car carrying a freaking RIFLE and waving us on like a mad man!!! We realized that the bad guy was behind us! Like literally a few seconds probably. Apparently he turned around just prior to that road block and went back up north briefly before pulling over and surrendering. We saw later on the news that he had robbed a bank in Hillsboro just before we came through! It was exciting, but really crazy!

We finally made it, and after unloading the car and dropping Christiaan off to get some sleep, I took the kids to urgent care where once again I had correctly diagnosed my child with a sinus infection. After waiting more than twice the anticipated time for his medicine at Target, and almost going off on some crazy woman who thought it was a good idea to cut in line in front of a woman with two screaming children, we spent the afternoon at Jason and Edna's watching the kids play.