Seventeen months. Until last weekend, that’s how long it had been since I had seen my two daughters and my five grandkids. In fact, I had never met my youngest grandson, Jameson, who will turn a year old next month (four days after my birthday).

Seventeen months is way too long to go without seeing my family, but with the pandemic and a couple of other logistical challenges, we weren’t able to connect until Labor Day weekend.

It was a whirlwind trip to Houston to see the kiddos, but it was still very gratifying. I woke up at 3 o’clock Saturday morning and drove to Oklahoma City to catch a 5:30 a.m. flight. Flying sure beats driving to Houston, which can take up to 10 hours, and I sure don’t have the time (nor the patience) these days to put up with Texas traffic. Between the endless highway construction and aggressive drivers, road trips across the Red River can raise a guy’s blood pressure. Thankfully, I was in an SUV with my oldest daughter, Randa, and her three kids, Aysnn, Aydnn and Avery (aka the A team) by 8:30 a.m.

Randa drove us to see my youngest daughter, Katrina, who lives about 55 miles southwest of Houston, and that gave us some time to get caught up. I was immediately taken aback by Aysnn’s deep voice. He’s no longer a little kid…he’ll turn 14 in a few weeks. He just started running on his school’s cross-country team and is doing very well. Aydnn, who is now 10, told me all about his Cub Scout adventures and reminded his mom several times during our drive that she needed to enroll him in soccer that evening. Nine-year-old Avery told me that she attended a cheer camp over the summer and had ambitions of being a cheerleader. Yikes! All three of them had grown considerably since I last saw them, which made me feel proud and old at the same time.

We arrived at Katrina’s house at about 9:30 and I expected her two boys, Ollie and Jameson, to jump right into my arms, but that didn’t happen. Even though I’ve had multiple video chats with the boys, I guess I looked differently in person than I do on a tiny phone screen. Neither one of them warmed up to me until the next day.

By noon, we had a houseful of people, because we were celebrating Ollie’s second birthday (his actual birthday was Friday, September 10). He didn’t really seem to care about all the gifts and attention he was getting, until they broke out the cake and ice cream. That made him pretty happy.

When the crowd thinned out, I crashed on the couch for a couple of hours then we all went out for some Texas barbecue. A guitarist/singer was providing live entertainment at the BBQ joint, and he was taking requests from the audience. I had only one request for him: tune your guitar. His “B” string was flat, which was causing me to grind my teeth a bit.

I spent the night at Katrina’s house, and when Ollie woke up, he spotted me lying on an air mattress in the bedroom across from his. He went and got his dad and as they came down the hall, Ollie began pointing at me and saying, “look,” as if to say I didn’t belong there. I’m glad he has a good sense of stranger danger.

By mid-morning both boys had decided I was an okay guy and began to come around. Jameson crawled up to me and held his arms up, so I put him in my lap as he finished his morning bottle. Shortly after that, Ollie tattooed my left arm with shark stickers, clapping and smiling after he applied each one. Both were sweet moments for this grandpa, or “Pa,” as they call me.

After a delicious lunch at a Mexican restaurant, it was time to head back to the airport. As I sat at the gate waiting to board the plane, I heard a familiar voice. It turns out that Sam Adkisson and his son, Adam, were on the same flight so I had some good company on the way home.

By 7 p.m. Sunday, I was back in Okieland and was in my recliner shortly after 9 o’clock. Yessir, I was plumb tuckered out from my whirlwind trip, but it was worth it. Every single minute of it.

I’ll have to plan another trip soon because, guess what? Grand baby #6 will be here before the end of the year, and I’m not going to wait until she’s nearly a year old to meet her. Life’s too short to not enjoy precious moments, even if it means waking up in the middle of the night to catch a flight at the crack of dawn.