West Texas Fair and Rodeo Part 1

It's been a few weeks, and I've only had time to post this now.

We went to the Fair a couple of times.. once to see Judith's winning entries to various categories there, and the second time to do everything else.

It was a pretty day, and still quite warm when we got there.

We went right for the building where Judith's entries were, and we were glad for the air conditioning.

Judith had won something like 20 first place blue ribbons plus best in show and whatnot; it was super impressive.

I was glad for the person who had come up with the idea several years ago, to put a "coloring table" where kids who weren't quite into the exhibits could spend their time and be creative.   We were there so early this year that the pictures had not been colored in at all yet!

That would soon change :)

The antiques section is always interesting,

as are the "everything Texas" ones.

I was a little disappointed that the petting zoo area wasn't open yet, but we still tried to make the best of it.

*to be continued*

Happiness Is...

A much loved camera...

and a cute pencil box for school..

In Your Face.

I didn't even get close to getting any of the good hair genes in my family.  I once went to a hairdresser as a grown woman, and the lady giving me a haircut told me it was like my hair never went through puberty.  I personally, think it never came out of INFANTHOOD.

So when I have a child with a hair like THIS, it leaves me extremely proud and in awe, and THANKFUL he got his dad's hair genes.

The things that you can stick a ™ on.....

I wouldn't have known that you can trademark the words "Church Chair" had the little boy not been messing around with the chairs at church after Bible Class, and I happened to catch what was on the bottom of those chairs...

Like, woah.



I don't think I remember asking the boy to make that face, tho...

The Power of Flora

Happiness is this week's gladiolus,

and hanging dangly potted plants at my kitchen window. ( yes, I need new blinds... )

An outing with the Woods Boys

We went out to the Mile-Long Bridge with Uncle Lin a while back, just to see how much the water level had gone up after all the rain we got in early summer.

Being a little boy who likes to read while we go on drives, you were happily preoccupied with one of the huge Peanut volumes.

It was a pretty drive, especially when we were approaching the bridge.  We hadn't seen the water this high in a loooooong time.

 I think the boys had fun. :)

Coz it sure looked like they did :)

Jaxon got some bonding time in with Uncle Lin.

It also reminded me of the time when we still had Grandad with us and we brought HIM along...

The little boy has grown quite a bit since then. :) 

*awwwwwwwww*

There may be an amphibian loose in the house...

I caught a little frog the other day, with my trusty butterfly net from Dollar Tree.


I don't know what it is, but I can get quite fascinated by frogs.

And, when the opportunity presents itself, I can't help but try to catch and observe them.

It wasn't very big,but I found out that even frogs that size were quite strong and had pretty powerful hind legs,

as evidenced by this rip in the plastic wrap ( with holes poked in it, of course. Doh ).

So now it is either stealthily living in the house somewhere, feeding on various and sundry insects, or it's ended up in one of the dogs' or cats' gullet.

I was quite sad to see it go as I hadn't "observed" it as much as I would have liked to, but a few weeks later, I caught another frog!

This one was much bigger - adult sized, but after a couple of days, I let it go.  I wouldn't want to be trapped like that, and it'd have a longer life being free. MAYBE.

So I made some cream cheese & fruit crescent roll thingies...

I've had this in the family photo archives for a while, and thought I'd post these pretty pictures..

The Gladiolus Series.

I don't normally get cut flowers for inside the house, but HEB had been having a sale on Gladioli, and so we had been getting them for $3.99 a bunch for the last few weeks now, and this past week, for $2.99 a bunch!

They certainly do add a lovely splash of color in the kitchen and can be quite magnificent looking.

Mother Nature unleashed

One thing about living out here in this part of Texas, the geography is pretty monotonous - i.e. FLAT.   You literally can see for miles in some places.

This also makes for the most incredible views... and one of them is watching rain fall in some other part of town while you remain dry..

Chinese Food

A couple of weeks ago, we helped out the folks over at Sunrise with something, and the boss showed his appreciation by giving us a special dumpling treat and picking up our tab.

The dumplings were KHAMAZING! They had shrimp inside, with some sort of paste, and were so soft and juicy and just utterly delicious. Mmm Mmm good.

Another thing that is Mmm Mmm good there? The Singapore Mai Fun. *yum*

I wish I was a good cook so that I could make these at home.. now I gotta go search for the recipe and the right dumpling skin - but I have a feeling I would have to MAKE the dumpling skin.   BLEH.

So this is a thing now?

I am not a big donut fan, but this caught my eye at HEB the other day....

and no, I did not venture to get one.....