HAPPY BIRTHDAY, T.S.!!

T.S. celebrates his 7th birthday today.  Here's a picture with his birthday crown on and our new puppy, Elsie.  We picked her up today--Sadie wants to be clear that it is OUR dog and we just happened to pick her up on T.S.'s birthday.

Seven things about T.S.:
1.  He is adventurous--ask him about being a "good blind driver".
2.  He is kind-hearted.
3.  He makes all of us laugh--a lot.
4.  He loves to play golf with his daddy.  He can hardly wait for Robby to be his caddy this summer.

5.  He'll still hug his mama.

6.  He even likes his sister, although he'd never admit it.

7.  He makes great sound effects with his vehicles--especially in church.

Houston 2011

Sadie and Nugget

Craig feels Nugget to decide what to feed.

The Coach and the team watch Alisa in the ring.

We had another fun stockshow experience--somehow I didn't do a very good job of documenting it.  Sadie and Nugget didn't do too well, but we were pleased that our cousin Sandy and her neighbor came down to watch.  We enjoyed dinner at Sandy and Jan's that evening--it certainly was a treat after a few days of food on a stick.

We enjoyed a relaxing time at Jennifer's.  The cousins, certainly do have fun together.  We made time in our trip for a few brief stops through Abbott.  Sissy and Albert should think of opening a bed and breakfast.  We were also thrilled to get to travel to Morgan Mill to see Randy and his family.  Once again, the cousins had a ball and we were thrilled to get to see the new Bow home and love on Evan, Meda and Mabry.

Sorry for the lack of pictures after the stockshow--I left the camera in Craig's pickup and no one thought it was worth it to drive back into Houston for it.

San Antonio 2011

Feeding and drenching in Childress.  We got some interesting looks in all of the parking lots we stopped to drench in.

Sadie placed sixth in the Junior Sheep Skillathon. 

Proud members of the TalleyBow Show Team.

Sadie and Stitches before their class.

They ended up placing tenth.

Members (and future members) of the Maultsby Club Lamb Show Team

Sadie got GeGe to try the vibrating foot massagers.

The Two Musketeers. 

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksmas (early Christmas) and Thanksgiving with family then headed to Aledo for Bow Thanksgiving.  The cousins had a ball building their clubhouse in the woods.  We all enjoyed meeting Evan--I'm sure he was thrilled to be held by all of us for so long.

The Clubhouse has a special sign in desk.

The girls pause for a photo during their grand tour of the clubhouse.

T.S. is definitely smitten with Evan.



Sadie and Evan



More from Mission San Jose

The last picture is the outside of the huge granary. I had to take a picture of the "flying buttress," it reminded me of Mrs. McDowell and her teaching about cathedrals.

Mission San Jose

True to my upbringing, I made sure that we did something "educational" while we were at the stockshow. (I would argue that the stockshow is plenty educational. I could go on for hours about the exhibit barn that featured Texas products and many educational displays by the extension service; not to mentioned the Farm Bureau barn that had educational displays about the importance of agriculture. But, I won't.)

Last year, we visited the Alamo and took the riverboat tour. This year we visited Mission San Jose. We chose it because it was actually built in San Antonio. Some of the missions originated elsewhere in Texas and were moved to San Antonio for one reason or another. Mission San Jose has been restored--the church still has the original wooden doors. We also chose it because it has a restored grist mill. We actually got to see how they would have ground the wheat at the mission. It was interesting that they grew and ground wheat rather than corn.

The kids were really impressed with everything. T.S. thought the holes for guns and cannons in the walls and above the gate were very cool. Sadie was shocked that the ovens were actually outside. It took the kids awhile to figure out what the igloo-looking things were for. I was impressed with the granary as well as the carving on the church doors and the front of the church. the statues carved on the front and around the doors were used to teach the Indians about the Christian faith.

I'll post more pictures later.

Austin

On the way to San Antonio, the kids and I detoured through Austin for a quick trip to the capitol. I was quite proud that I got us there without getting lost. The kids were very impressed with the architecture. T.S. liked the cannons out front, too.