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Photos in the Beautyberries
Two years ago we started taking photos at a particular spot in Sam Houston National Forest. We were a few weeks later than usual this year but we finally made it out to take photos. I like the progression: Before Forest Two weeks after that first photo Last year’s photo And this year! One thing I do notice from being out there and in the photos is that the area needs to be burned again, there’s quite a bit of undergrowth and it doesn’t look as nice as it did those first two times. I’m also annoyed with the painting on some of the trees, I’m guessing to mark trees…
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Famous Trees of Texas | The Goose Island Oak (Tree 171)
Our first stop on our vacation trip was to the ‘Big Tree’ at Goose Island State Park to get one of the Famous Trees of Texas. You may recall last year we stopped in Rockport to nab one but didn’t stop and grab this one. I had sights on getting another tree in Corpus Christi while we were on this trip but we never made it up to get it. We’d just missed a rainstorm when we arrived at the tree and thankfully it was overcast so it wasn’t too hot but the mosquitoes were out. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve hung out with that many mosquitoes—it was pretty…
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Transitions
The seasonal transition is starting, the inching towards fall and all of the wonderful parts that come with it; pumpkin everything, the wonderful autumn light, cooler weather, a new gardening season. I was thinking back to myself two years ago, with a fresh baby. There I was sitting at home spending most of the time nursing or changing a diaper and watching autumn come and slowly fade into winter. I missed my favorite season. Sure, I attempted to get out and enjoy it when I could but there was no savoring of that season in the usual sense. Does part of me wish there was a little baby to hold…
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Sunday Reads and Listens
Happy Sunday y’all! Mid September already? I put out my fall decor over the weekend. It’s not much, mostly ceramic pumpkins I’ve picked up over the years but I got a few other fall pieces at Hobby Lobby last month that included an owl and some fabric pumpkins. I’m holding off on the Halloween items until October but honestly? I think I like the generic ‘fall’ decor because I can keep it up through November! Here’s a few few reads and listens for your Sunday! Reads +Stop Asking for Permission from Maris Mohi in regards to blogging or really, just about anything. Just “do what you want to do”. I…
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Beach Scenes
For our vacation, since we were on North Padre already, we opted to drive down to Padre Island National Seashore for all of our beach visits. I think this was mostly spurred because the first night we were there we drove down after dinner and it was quite peaceful with just a few cars on the beach. Even though we spent about 20 minutes driving down there, being able to drive on the beach eliminated the need to haul our gear across the street to the beach that was directly across from our hotel. There are definitely good and bad things about being able to drive on Texas beaches. One…
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Sea Turtles at Packery Channel
The second afternoon of our vacation we popped down to the Packery Channel jetties to walk along them (they have a sidewalk on top) and to look for sea turtles as we had done six years ago when it was just Chris and me. We were looking to kill a little time before dinner and it was very hot walking along the jetties in the late afternoon sunshine. It didn’t take long for us to find a sea turtle and then we continued to find them all along the jetties, inside Packery Channel and along the beach. Forest was in his stroller for the ride so I don’t know how…
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Birthday Fun at the Texas State Aquarium
For Forest’s birthday we spent most of the morning at the Texas State Aquarium. I hadn’t been since I was a teenager, about 20 years ago, and during that time period went two or three times. I had vague memories of it but couldn’t quite recall everything about it. It appeared based on the website that the aquarium had more attractions but it was also working on an upgrade to the facilities. When we actually arrived to the aquarium I began remembering more about it, recalling that I had been to some of the features before and that definitely some of it was new. They are working to upgrade to…
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Forest Turns Two
We chose to take a short vacation to North Padre Island for Forest’s second birthday instead of having a party. While part of me still wished for that party, I’m very glad we opted to go on a vacation and spend some time at the beach because Forest loved it so much! We kept it pretty simple, chosing to find a hotel that had a kitchenette so we could cook some meals in our room and for the most part we just stuck to heading for the beach with one excursion on Forest’s birthday into Corpus Christi to go to the Texas State Aquarium. Compared to last year this was…