Happy Halloween!

See ya'll in the church parking lot tonight!

1 Day!

Bring your kids to the First Baptist Maypearl parking lot tomorrow night for candy and bounce houses! (That might not be a great combination.)

2...

..days till Trunk or Treat in the FBC Maypearl parking lot!

3...

Here is a special cartoon just for Aunt Sue, and anyone else who enjoys the hobby.

4...Days Till Trunk or Treat

And if you need help check out www.pumpkincarving101.com.

5...

Since today is Hillary Clinton's 60th birthday, I guess I should have put a picture of a witch up today. I guess a couple of old bats will have to do.

6...

7 Days Till Trunk or Treat!

Bring the kids to the First Baptist Church parking lot in Maypearl next Wednesday night for Trunk or Treat!

8... and Happy Birthday!

Lynne cooked birthday dinner for GrandPa the other night. We celebrated GranPa's, my OLDER Sister's, and my Youngest Niece's birthdays. And for Aunt Sissy, her is Aunt Sue eating the crusty part of the dressing.
Lynne made GranPa a lemon cake with white icing. It was very good.

GranPa blew out his candles and we all enjoyed.

And tonight GranPa is in my backyard trying out the flood lights on his new tractor.

9...

10 Days Till Halloween

It's 10 days till the Trunk or Treat in the First Baptist Maypearl parking lot. We got some cartoons from PaPa so I thought I would share them in a countdown to the big day. I arranged them so that the ones I think are funniest will come last. Enjoy!

Our Day at The Great State Fair of Texas

Everyone sing! "Our State Fair is a great State Fair..." OK, that's enough. After the failed attempt at attending the fair on Columbus day I pulled Lynne and the boys out of school and we went on a Thursday. It was alot less crowded but it was senior citizen day. Will got his foot run over by a little old lady in her electric scooter. She never even slowed down, it was funny.

The sand castle exhibit was interesting. How do they get that sand to stay in place so they can carve it? I guess they pack it while it's wet.

The new Texas Skyway was up and running. We didn't ride, I still remember what happened to the last one. The gate we entered the park thru was under one of the stations.

This is the first animal we saw when we went into the petting zoo. They had alot of exotic animal there as well as the barnyard variety.

Here are the boys petting an American Bison (aka: Buffalo).

Then the boys got hungry. Here they are eating lunch. Oh wait, that's the wrong picture. See the post "Together at the State Fair" below for that picture.

Here is the view up the Esplanade looking toward the Texas Hall of State. The picture isn't fuzzy, those are the water drops from the fountains at the front of the pond.

I think Jesse found his car!

The Amazing Acrobats of Africa were performing in front of the African American Museum. How low can you go?

And of course the entire day we're making a big loop around the Cotton Bowl. You can see the Skyway again in this picture.

We went to the bird show again this year. It was fun as usual.

If you look real close you can see them releasing an eagle out of the gold car on the Texas Star Ferris wheel. It glided down and landed on the guys arm on stage. It's an eagle from Africa but it looks kinda like a Bald Eagle.

Here is an owl taking flight. Look at those talons!

One more shot of Big Tex. In the background you can see the Tower Building (I wonder why they call it that), the Cotton Bowl, and the Texas Star.

And of course I had to include this picture. There was a garden railroad around the base of Big Tex! We decided that we are just going to pull the boys out of school every year to go to the State Fair. It is alot less crowded and much more enjoyable during the week. And there were alot of other parents and kids there who had done the same thing!

Together at the State Fair

Of course, when you go to the State Fair of Texas you have to have a corny dog.

The Dog Show at the State Fair

I think the kids favorite part of the State Fair was the dog show. It was a little too dark for photography, but the video worked on the camera. It had a little trouble focusing but I think the videos came out OK. The first video is from the weave pole race.

This next dog reminded me of Barker (GranPa's dog). A pole got in the way but yes, he did catch the last one.

Last video. The dog was going for distance. I believe the world record was over 31 feet. This dog didn't quite make it.

More Arboretum Pictures

Monday at the Arboretum

Monday we headed to Dallas to take the kids to the State Fair. After spending an hour and a half in traffic and not finding a parking place within 10 blocks of Fair Park, we decided not to go to the fair. So I took Lynne to the Dallas Arboretum instead.
The boys weren't that thrilled about it but they'll get over it. We even toured the house. The picture below is the courtyard outside the master bedroom and bath.

This was everyone's favorite room, the library. The guide called it their "wow" room because that's what everyone says when they walk in.

There is so much to photograph it's hard to know where to point the camera. There were pretty flowers and alot of colorful foliage.

Jesse really liked the plant below. I asked him to read the tag to see what it was. He said it was gigantus something.

There were pumpkins floating in one of the fountains. Jess tried to push them all back into the middle of the pond. And you shouldn't pick up pumpkins and throw them into the water because they might hit the bottom and break. Or so I've heard.

There were many interesting water features at the garden. We ran into a lady here with a camera that made mine look like it came out of a cereal box. The lens was about 2 feet long.

Andy had to pose for his fans.

There is a Texas area set up for educational tours with different types of structures. Below is the sod house they built.

They even had Agave there Uncle Alan!

I just wondered how many man hours it takes to keep this place looking so good. I have enough trouble keeping the yard mowed. As for the State Fair? I think I'll pull the kids out of school and go on a Thursday.