Family

  • Family

    The Egg Hunt

    A few of my favorites from Easter, I took tons so I picked a few to share. If you are friends with me on FB the rest of the album is over there. Zoe had a blast looking for eggs, is now smart enough to organize and separated the plastic ones from the hard boiled ones, even sometimes eschewing the hard boiled ones for the plastic because she knew candy was inside. She even said one of the hardboiled ones was ugly and didn’t pick it up! It was brown on one side and yellow on the other so I flipped it over to the yellow and managed to get…

  • Art,  Creative,  Family

    Where the 20 & 30 year olds have as much fun as the 2.5 year old.

    We should’ve used a wax pencil but instead went with tape. Chris did the Z, I did the AT symbol. Mom had the best idea of buying a tablecloth to put down instead of splashing newspapers everywhere. Worked well, too, because I knocked a bowl of coloring over and so did Zoe. Zoe had a ton of fun! Stephanie, her mom and my SIL, said that the adults were having too much fun and it was supposed to be for the kid. I hadn’t done this in, oh, maybe 20 years, maybe less, so it was a blast revisiting a childhood craft. Curt had a lot of fun in between…

  • Family,  Gardening

    Gayle’s Roses

    My mother in law has beautiful roses and they are always blooming like crazy. She has some in the ground in the back yard but she also has these gigantic tubs of them in her driveway. One side of her driveway is lined in roses and the other in tomatoes. It’s a pretty neat way to drive into your garage! I’m a sucker for roses anyway. I would often go home from my grandmother’s house with a rose or two to stick in water at home. She had a great green thumb and it’s too bad she can’t get out and garden these days. Enjoy these Friday roses!

  • Creative,  Family,  Gardening,  Photography

    Moosie’s Garden & Dad’s Yard

    My mom usually handles the flower beds and my dad is the yard guy. He’s the one who keeps it green, mows it regularly and had my brother and I, in the 100* summers of Texas, moving the sprinkler for spot to spot while we were at home. There’s nothing like running barefoot through the St. Augustine. Now the name Moosie formed for my mom back in high school. Somehow “mom” morphed to “moo moo” and then to Moosie. 🙂 Initially she thought she might use Moosie as her grandma name but she didn’t stick with it and went with Mimi. I’ve been weeding and planting and we’ve got the…

  • Family,  Hiking,  Outdoors,  Texas,  Travel & Places

    Cross Timbers Trail at Lake Texoma

    This past weekend my brother, my dad, Chris and I went to the Cross Timbers Trail at Lake Texoma to do a short backpacking weekend. My brother and dad have gone here many times with the Boy Scouts and my first trip here was in October 2008. I’ve wanted to go back ever since and funnily enough my brother had been wanting to go as well and mentioned it when we returned from the Florida Trail. We had to do some convincing for my dad since he wasn’t feel as in shape as he should be but my brother managed to twist his arm enough. We set off on Friday…

  • Family,  Food,  Gardening

    Gayle’s Garden

    After a year without a garden Chris and I now have two. Kinda. Our parents are kindly letting us help them with their garden, but I think they are rather enjoying the free labor. Ok, I suppose it is our due since we are enjoying room and board at each of their homes, but at least it is a pleasurable form of labor. Of course all of it is just making me wish I had an acre or two to plant a gigantic kitchen garden, build a greenhouse to grow all of the tropicals we used to, and to grow all sorts of interesting natives and bulbs. Until then we…

  • Family,  Friends

    MS = Someone Who Doesn’t Deserve It

    Meet one of my best friends Michelle. We go back to some point in time during the summer of 1998 while cruising in the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean. Then we went to college together for a couple of years, weathered some weird patches, and now she’s married with a nearly three year old girl in east Texas. Two years ago after the birth of Kylen she started having some vision problems in addition to some other health issues that lead to a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. MS is a disease affecting the central nervous system which means it can affect movement and the use of all sorts of…

  • Family,  Gardening,  Pets

    Sprouting

    I went by the plot today to check on how things were going. The last we’d seen were that the carrots were up and the potatoes were thriving. This is the shed where anyone in the garden can use tools and organic fertilizers and pesticides. It is super organized with printed recipes for making the pesticides or fertilizers, too. My mom’s onions have been up for awhile and are doing great. We’ve got five tomato plants that we bought from the store. Chris got a bit overzealous with some orange oil for bug prevention and the next day two tomatoes looked to bite the dust. So, he replaced them a…

  • Family

    Zooing with Zoe

    Wee little Zoe loves the zoo and we love taking her! We went out for a little adventure last week with Mimi and Uncle Chris so she could see all the animals. Her favorites included the elephants, giraffes, penguins, alligators and crocodiles. An elephant enjoying a dirt bath! Enamored with the crocodiles! I’m kinda surprised she likes them so much! Sharing a drink with Mimi. Spring is coming!! Looking at the gazelle’s. We initially walked by them and then she got excited and had to go back and check them out. I didn’t take a lot of photos and was much more in the moment instead. I’m just amazed at…

  • Family

    A Conversation

    First off, it should be said that since we have come home from the Florida Trail Zoe has been much more interested in Uncle Chris than before we left. I am pretty sure this is because he plys her with sugar. Alas, she has taken to wanting to do everything with “Both you guys!” Or rather “Bofh you guys!” Last week sometime I was sprawled out on the floor of my parents living room, Chris was at the kitchen table working on some fishing lures and Zoe was standing next to the glass door to the back yard wanting us to go outside. She’d just said she wanted to outside…