Happy Mardi Gras?

I am not sure why these were made in August but, does it really matter? It is so stinkin cute!

Day Tripping - Luling - A little slice of nice

This Sunday we headed out to Luling.  Luling you say?  Why?  What is there to see or do.  Well my friends, there isn't much but it was calling my name.  My roadside geology books did not have anything going on this way, it pretty much starts getting flat going west but, a quick search on the web told me that oil was found here and that those oil pump things could be found everywhere.  So, if you need a reason why we went to Luling, we went to see oil pumps.  Just look at them, they are so cute!

Luling is known for their watermelon crops and they have a huge festival every year and since I am in a phase of not wanting to deal with crowds we settled for the farmers market.  We bought a jar of jelly and of course a watermelon.

The farmer told us to check to see if a watermelon is good, you have to thump it.  If it sounds hollow and vibrates, it is good.  If it is a dull thump with no vibrations, it is bad.

 We also stopped at an old mill that is right on the San Marcos river.  It is a place to enter the river and there is a free museum.  From what I gather it used to be a mill for cotton and corn.  Molly really runs through these type of things so I didn't do much reading but it was fun to wonder through the building, especially because we had the place to ourselves.  There is also this building that you can rent out and I think it would be a perfect place to have Molly's quinceanera.  You know I am planner, I should start now.



San Marcos River



We ended our trip with some BBQ.  This place was rated as one of the best to go to in Texas.  We agreed that Llano was better.  It was okay, cheaper than Llano that was for sure but not as good.

My book of questions came along and I asked Raymond - "If starting now you could have $500 a day until you next touched me, how long do you think you would avoid physical contact? "

I will start off by saying that Raymond is a toucher.  He would really have to concentrate.  His response was that he couldn't do it if it involved Molly because she doesn't understand and it is important that she have physical contact.  With me he thought if he tried real hard he could do it for 2 weeks BUT only if I knew what was going on.  He thought it would be too hard if I didn't know what was going on and didn't know how long he could go without a touching.

Pretty nice huh?

Best Weekend EVER!

We had a very good weekend.  It was fun and productive....can those two words be used together? 

Friday after work Molly and I went to the Children's Museum.  There is a lot to do here but all Molly was interested in was carrying around these two golf balls in a shopping basket.  Older kids kept taking them from her and of course this made her want them all the more.  Every where we went, the basket with balls went with us and at one point she stopped wanting to use them in displays because she didn't want to lose them.  With this said there wasn't very much picture taking.  There really are only so many pictures you can take of Molly walking around with a basket of balls.

After all of this fun we had dinner and went to the park and we ran into a few of the cows on parade.  Not sure if everyone knows what this is but artists decorate these cows that are then displayed all over the city, then they are auctioned off and the money goes to a charity.  So of course we had to stop and take a few pictures.  I am curious to see how many we can find over the next few weeks.  Here are three of them.

What is funny to me, is the Molly wanted to kiss all the cows and then milk them.?? 

 

After this we headed to the hillside theater to watch a play, Footloose.  A co-worker of mine, wife was in the play so it made it a bit more special and she got us front row seating, YEAH!  Molly lasted until intermission and I should have known this was going to happen.  It really is a long day for her and I even avoid Friday night hockey games because of this.  So, I have unfinished business and will try again in a few weeks.  I will say that the first half was awesome and I can't wait to see the rest.

Saturday my plan was to get up and head to Fort Hood so that we could visit daddy at the fire station but, Molly was so content to be playing by herself.  It was delicious.  She just wanted to play in her PJ's and who am I to deny this?  So we stayed at home, all day, in our PJ's. This also allowed me to get some things done for a sale I was preparing for.  I ended up staying up until 3 a.m. to finish since I had to drop it off on Sunday.

Sunday we headed out on another day trip, details to follow in the next post.  All in all it was just a good weekend a mix of staying busy and a mix of nothingness.

A Saturday Night Treat

A donut with carmel, bananas, and pecans. Yes, it was VERY sinful.

Don't Take Away His Man Card - he is just a daddy!

I swear, she can get him to do ANYTHING.

Day Trippin - Llano, TX - The Way Texas Used To Be

A new project I started was that in order to get out of the house so that we could bask in each other's company and explore our little state we are are going to start day trippin on the weekends.  I have done some research and have some pretty good ideas for the months to come, so hold on to your cowboy hats we are going on an adventure!

I am using the following as resources (if any of you are interested):

*Roadside Geology of Texas - Darwin Spearing

*Geo-Texas: A Guide to the Earth Sciences - Eric R. Swanson

*www.roadsideamerica.com

*The Day Tripper - PBS TV Program

*The Book of Questions - Gregory Stock PhD

*The Book of Questions: Love & Sex - Gregory Stock

Why Llano, you ask?  Well it is one hour and thirty minutes from our house AND the best part......you can find llanite here!  At one time during one of my former lives I thought I was going to be a geology major so I tend to gravitate towards these types of attractions.  Llanite is a igneous rock found only in the Llano region. Out on one of the highways they cut through a dike of llanite so it is easily seen right from the highway.  I convinced by loving husband that we needed to get out and take a look and that I needed a piece.

It is a very hard rock so it was not very easy but he managed to get me a good size hunk.  The uniqueness about this rock is that it has small pieces of blue quartz in it.  This section of the road also had other recognizable rocks such as gneiss and granite.  I don't have a real good picture so that you can see what I am talking about but here is one in case the suspense is killing you.

Llanite boulder

On the way we found this little historical marker:

It was locked and you couldn't go in.  It is probably too creepy to look around anyways but, you just never know what you will find on these historical markers.



Tin Lizard Bottle Tree

It wasn't all about rocks we also made a side trip to the "Tin Lizard Bottle Trees".  This husband and wife team make these tree like stands and decorate them with glass.  It is all over their front yard.  They also do mosaics.  They respectfully ask that you do not take pictures and for whatever reason I decided to honor their wishes so I took this from the Roadside America website.

We strolled the streets of downtown Llano but, because it was Sunday morning and the part of the bible belt only one shop was open which, was probably a good thing.



Llano County Courthouse.

I like butter.  I am not sure what they do here but, I hope it is butter.

Veterans Memorial in front of courthouse.

Time is running out!



After watching an episode of "The Day Tripper" on PBS I thought we needed to treat our self to some BBQ and in the show they said it was a must.  We must then.  We ate at Cooper's Pit Bar-B-Que.  You had to wait in line outside of the building if the line was long we did not have to wait long (church wasn't over yet).  You get your meat off the grills that are on the outside of the building, take it in the building where the butchers cut, weigh, and take your money.  I am not a big meat eater but I thought it was good.  I don't know if I thought it was $50.00 good but, good.  The best thing.....the peach cobbler.  Yummy!  We had enough to take home so we had two meals out of it.  I guess that is okay and Molly ate a lot of chicken which it has been super hard to get her to eat any mean and/or vegetables lately.

After lunch we headed home and that is where the "Book of Questions" come in.  I thought when we had adult talk time I could ask Raymond some question and write it down in my journal to share with Molly.  If the response is too personal I will just keep that little nugget to myself but if it is funny or something you should know, I am going to share it.  Raymond said I needed to leave some space so that he could respond to my response or tell you what he was really thinking.  I will just clear that up now; in my mind Raymond is always thinking of a three things: money, real estate, and how to tell me to shut up.

Question: What would you do if  you found out this morning that you and your partner were pregnant?

Raymond: Money, money, money. 

I summarized.  He didn't ask me what I would do.  He was probably scared of what I would say. 



I'm Back!

After a year break, I decided to continue journaling here. Why? Well, I stopped because I thought this would be a journal for Molly to get to know who I was but then I wasn't really posting any of my real thoughts and history because I didn't want anyone else to see it.
Then I found this website that takes your blog and makes it into a book. That changed it for me. That book chronicled everything we had been doing, It was awesome a baby book and scrapbook all in one. So, I decided I would write my more personal thoughts in my bedside journal and write about what we are up to here.
So...what have we been doing this past year? That would take WAY to much time and WAAAY to much thought. I'll start from here forward.
This summer has been the hottest on record with no rain. We have spent most of our minutes in or near the water. Here are a few pictures:

We were lucky enough to take a short vacation to the Bahamas in June.



At our local pool, she is posing for me so that I can show daddy her new princess bathing suit and that she is wearing her goggles because she wouldn't for the longest time and her eyes would be bloodshot for days.

 

Lately, she does not like it when I have a camera in my hand.

If I catch a good photo of her it is because she is not aware the camera is in my hand.

Doesn't this look like the neatest splash pad? I like it because there is room to run and for the most part I can avoid a bucket of water being dropped on my head.