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Each year the Texas Renaissance Festival (click at your own risk. . .video and loud bagpipe music ahead) is attended by thousands. . .literally. There are die hards who live for it, make costumes for it, plan for it.
The day we went there were 32,000 there and that was just one day of one weekend. The kids and I had never been, Tony hadn’t been in years, and I can tell you right now that Thad will NOT be going as a teenaged boy. The wench costumes and chain-mail slave costumes are NOT for those with hormones surging. As it stood, he was only interested in his wooden sword this year. I’m not really a festival kind of gal, but it was a gorgeous fall day, and the kids had a good time with Tony’s parents and us too. The entire thing is 54 acres. We saw about 10. Here are some of the sights. . .
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- Can you BELIEVE this boy’s eyelashes????
My life is. . .
East
West
Neighborly
In Texas, there are FM roads. It stands for “Farm to Market” and harkens from days gone by. I used to live off of FM 1960–which is now a 6 lane road with a turn lane down the middle lined with all manner of capitalism run amok–and several Sonics.
Where I live now, there are also several FM roads, but my FAVORITE to drive is FM 362. It is about 5 miles longer than my normal route but, on days when I have the time or just want to, I take that way home. It’s 18 miles of curves and hills and pastures and beautiful Texas country vistas.
Once you get to the road I need to turn down to get home, it’s becomes woods again, but if you go the additional 10 miles to the end, you start getting into the very, very beginnings of the Texas hill country. It is worth the drive. So, on Saturday evening, I took my little camera and set off to photograph some sights. . .but discovered that I can simply hold my camera and click, click, click away as it focuses on the yellow line (as did I for those of you worriers) to get shots of the drive–not necessarily what I set out to get, but it made me happy. I took about 300 shots, but I won’t put them all here. You’re welcome.
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- Just Past the turn home.
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- Hill Country Ahead
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- Windows down, music up.
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- Approaching White Hall
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- Little barn
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- FM 362 North
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- Fun
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- Funx2
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- NOT in the road.
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- Hill country-ish
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- Highly recommend the Kia Rondo
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- GORGEOUS. Oh. My. Goodness.
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- Pretty
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- Moo
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- Fun again
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- Fun x 1 million
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- Texas
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- FM 362 South
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- More woods
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- Shade
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- Lone Star–also not in road.
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- Some of you may know this place.
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- Their very own road.
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- More shade
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- Texas 2
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- Curvy
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- Nearly Home
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- Take a right.
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- Baptist Church near the corner
There was a running joke with Tony’s students at Arnold. They always tried to get him to smile. He DOES smile but not very often–and it takes some doin’. So today he’s splitting wood, and I’m taking pictures, and he’s picking up logs and throwing them over to the splitter and he catches me taking “My Man In Action” photos. And he grins. He grins the grin that is like fireworks going off in my heart. He grins the, “My wife is a silly, silly woman but I love her” grin and I fall in love with him All. Over. Again. I love his smiles. And this one is my favorite.
Though I’m also kind of partial to these too.
So. I am not the most graceful person around. I make no apologies OR excuses. But, today I bought a bike.
I LIVED on my bike when I was a kid. . .I had a light blue banana seat to start with, then moved up to a red Schwinn cruiser when I was in jr. high. I rode up the hill to my friend’s house, around the yard, along a trail in the woods, and to the convenience store at the end of the road. I. was. on. that. bike. But I haven’t touched one since I got out of college pretty much. Now that we have a lovely circular bike track. . .I mean driveway. . .and a black-topped road with VERY little traffic, Tony and I decided we wanted to ride bikes with the kids.
These bikes will not win any awards for snazziness or speed, but boy, oh boy, did we EVER have some fun riding them this afternoon. Mine is sort of a cerulean blue. . .lovely. . .but she needs a name. And a basket. I’ll take a picture of our very own Cruisers soon, but I borrowed someone else’s picture to show you what they look like.
These belong to somebody else, but they are what ours look like.
Galveston Island
On Tuesday of last week, I had a mini nervous breakdown of sorts. I found out that the last door (of which I am aware) to a job in the district closest to our new home was slammed in my face much like the nanny-hiring scene of Mary Poppins. That being the case, I am still very much employed. And I am thankful. But my current/old district wants me to take three days of training this week to do something I don’t really want to do, therefore, as of tonight when I go to bed, my summer is pretty much over.
So I fell apart. Then I developed a plan of action. Then we went to Galveston. My in-laws have a little house about a block off the seawall–nothing fancy but handy as all get out with it’s kitchen and bathroom and beds and all. It also has an air conditioner which they declined to use (they were there too) as the breeze was “so cool” (at the end of July in Texas) and they were doing some work inside.
*Ahem.*
So day one was hot, but good. . .we all got a little sunburned but not horribly so. The morning of day two with it’s “cool” breeze dawned hot and humid, so we set off to the beach again. And that is when I tripped over a brick that had become dislodged in the walkway of the house, and fell, and really, truly, totally messed up my ankle. And skinned my knee. I had to sit for a moment to make sure the ankle was not broken. I determined that it was not, and would have sat longer, but the fire ants that came to check on me gave me some encouragement to get up quickly. The rest of the weekend was spent with my ankle propped up being lovingly iced by a bag of frozen peas on top and a bag of frozen corn underneath. I am still limping.
In an amongst all of the sweating and icing and breeze enjoying, we played dominoes, went to eat at Tortuga’s, rode the ferry to the Bolivar peninsula and back, drove down to the west side of the island, went to happy hour at Sonic twice, ate popcorn and generally had a fun time.
AND I turned 40. I’ve had several people ask how I feel about that, and the true, honest answer is that I don’t care one single bit. It was another day to love on my family and laugh at the funny things they say and do. The only thing I found ironic was that I turned 40 with a skinned knee, and that is SO par for any course I’m on. That sort of brings the 4 decades of my life into sharp focus. As long as I get to enjoy it with these monkeys, I’ll take the clumsiness any day.
Pretty to look at--painful to comb out.
Pink cheeks. . .beach hair. . .ready to run errands with Mommy.
The girl was exhausted after day one in the waves.
Thad on the front porch
Just got home from the dedication of a new park in Small Town, Texas. There was free watermelon–water slide moonwalks–no less than THREE prayers offered–a color guard made up of veterans from three wars–Johnny Lee sang the national anthem (then took off to the bar down the highway to sing “Lookin’ for Love” 1,000 times I guess)–saw a few beers but no one was drunk–only heard one curse word and that was from a teenaged boy–no one honked their horns in frustration as all 1,000 or so of us waited our turn to get onto the two lane road with one lane going east and the other west–and the only thing I saw on the ground in the way of trash were some watermelon rinds. The fireworks were beautiful. I cried as the color guard posted the colors. Hats were removed for the pledge and EVERYONE said it. Happy Independence Day to you.
I have told you before that Tony is an Eagle Scout. This is, aside from siring his children and being elligible for his University of Houston class ring, one of the most important, tangible things he’s accomplished in his lifetime.
Thad became a Tiger Cub this year. He is very proud of what he’s accomplished as are we all. He’s had a great time, and scouts is just a good thing. Tonight he and Tony participated in the Father Son Cake Bake. Traditionally the cakes have been sold as a fund raiser, but Thad’s particular pack decided to donate the cakes to community leaders this year.
As luck would have it, we live down the road from a Sheriff’s Deputy, so we called to offer him Thad’s cake. He was at a community board meeting tonight at the volunteer fire station, so all of the community leaders–a police officer, a couple of firemen, the fire chief’s wife, and some other people we couldn’t identify–got to eat cake.
Thad with some community leaders: a nurse, Deputy Gary, and Fireman Grady
Thad won the golden spoon trophy for “Tiger Cub Best in Theme.” (The theme was Jurassic Park.)
Thad and the Golden Spoon for Best in Theme Tiger Cub
It was a family effort. He and his Daddy really DID bake the cake together. I took stuff to make icing to school today and whipped up some cream cheese frosting in Tony’s science classroom (he has counters and sinks) during my planning time, then helped Thad to decorate the cake after school. Thad really got into using the grass tip. He did the stars for the dino’s body with some guidance–went a little amok with the grass tip with some guidance–but the clouds were all his own.
Thad's Cake
This morning was our first official pot-luck dinner where we are now going to church. I took meatballs and gravy, rice, and a lemon cake. But, I was out of lemon juice with which to make the lemon drizzle icing, so after Tony and Thad went to class, I ran over to the local grocery store to get some lemon juice.
While traversing the aisles looking for a pair of tweezers (’cause mine got lost somewhere in the move and I finally remembered to get some), I heard the following advertisement piped in with the the music.
“Brookshire Brothers has a wide variety of Hy-Top cheese to meet all of your cheese needs.”
I have, in my life time, eaten my fair share of cheese–probably MORE than my fair share, but just the phrase “cheese needs” nearly sent me into hysterics. Cheese needs, indeed.
And now for some photos. The first two are my dirty kitchen. My kitchen was very, very clean for the first two weeks in our home. . .and it’s been clean since. . .but it looks like this right now. I held the camera up very, very high so you could look DOWN upon the dirtiness.
This is Thad playing Pirate Legos while I was making a lemon cake and getting the kitchen dirty.
And, finally, Carolyn–this one is for you. You can tell Jeff that he did NOT haul the lamp to Houston in vain. We have no curtains–it doesn’t really matter as the only people who can see us are the deer. There are no street lights, so it’s black as pitch. I do hope to someday have curtains–but for now we enjoy the view.
Four prescriptions from the dr. yesterday to get my lungs BACK in the game. Oxygen is a good thing.
Principal called this evening–ready to offer us the jobs BUT must wait until next week after meeting with central office.
Folks have accepted our counter–signing a contract tomorrow–they have 10 days to inspect the house, then we will close on the 15th if all goes well.
Spring has sprung in Houston–there will be more cold weather–but the trees are budding–the birds are SINGING for all they are worth.
My cup runneth over.
