Texas Blue Bonnets

It is quite typical for Houstonians to head out to Brenham and Chappel Hill, Texas this time of year to see the beautiful sea of blue bonnets. Unfortunately this year, due to lack of rain, there were very few flowers. We still enjoyed finding a few and of course stopping in at the Blue Bell Ice Cream Factory for a large scoop of, I have to say, the best ice cream in the United States!

Typically, this is what a blue bonnet field looks like this time of year... all you can see for miles is a sea of beautiful blue!

As you will see in the pictures towards the end of this post, the fields were green and dry. There were hardly any flowers this year. The flowers we did find were almost lavender in color.

Cute little Tipper legs!

Give the teenagers each a camera and away they go! The girls took some of these photos on the blog post. I am really impressed with their abilities. Nice job ladies!

There were no fields of blue bonnets this year...just dry cracked land for miles and miles.

Tiffany's Field Trip to the Nursery

Tiffany's Preschool class is learning about plants and bugs this week. They had their field trip at a local nursery. The kids enjoyed learning how seeds became plants and viewing a lot of fruit and vegetables plants. At the end of the tour, each child got to plant a watermelon seed. (which I must add, Tiffany's finally sprouted yesterday! Talk about a happy gal!) After planting the seed, the tour guide opened a bag of lady bugs for the children to see and to put a few on their plants. Holy moly, was that a bad idea! Lady bugs, lady bugs everywhere and lots of little girls saying "EW! EW!". The lady bugs were in the kid's hair, shirts, shorts, shoes, arm pits, etc. It was great fun!

Our tree hugger...

Standing by the orange trees.

Learning about mint leaves.

Watermelon seed planted and ready to go home!

Victoria's Freshman Year Shotput and Discus Varsity Season

Victoria was placed on Varsity about mid-season. She was SO excited! At the beginning of the season she had set a goal to throw far enough to make it onto Varsity. We were all thrilled for her when she came home with her great news! She went to Districts and did not place but beat her Personal Best Records! What a great way to end the season. Way to go Tori.

Click to enlarge...see the shotput mid-air in the pic? And in the next pic too? (Nice photos Ron!)

Did I mention those shots are 8 lbs each?

Victoria's Art

Victoria worked on a few Texan piece of art this year. This one was one of my favorites. It was done on a scratch board. I liked this piece. Notice the shooting star at the top?

The flash was obviously picked up on the cow. Do your best to enjoy!

Ron's Birthday!

For Ron's birthday this year we had chicken instead of red velvet cake. Only kidding, he requested peach pie (or was it blueberry honey?). However, I thought it would be tasty to try a new peach cobbler recipe. Unfortunately, it was awful. Next year I think we will just stick with cake. All of us thought the cobbler looked like chicken breasts... Ron and his little women. HAPPY BIRTHDAY RON! We love you! xoxo

The Rodeo & Go Texan Day...

"Go Texan Day" is a BIG day in Texas. (Then again, what isn't BIG in Texas?) At any given moment you can see people in the grocery store or even at work, dressed from head to toe in true Texan attire. You hear folks talking about how excited they are to go to the rodeo that week or go see their favorite performer on stage after the rodeo. The week approaching the rodeo, you see a lot of the Trail Riders honkey-tonkin' down the feeder roads next to the freeways. It seems, almost every year I have lived in this town, I have been stuck behind the Trail Riders. It use to be bad when the highway in town was a two lane highway (yes, we have lived here that long-- 249 was once a two lane highway with thick forests on each side and deer crossing.), now, that would really back up the traffic. But, now that we have a major freeway with feeder roads it's not so bad! Of course Tiffany's Preschool and at all the other public schools, people dress up on this special day! Here are a few pics of Tiffany's fun Go Texan day...

How many States in the USA do you know of that take such pride in their statehood heritage? Possibly Utah. But sadly, Texas has Utah beat hands down!

Tiffany went to the park with some of her friends and had such a fun time! Thanks for playing!