Wanna Ride A Horsey

"Wanna ride a horsey!" came out of Mae's mouth last week. We told her we would ride a horsey once it got cooler outside. She continued to repeat her desire to ride a horsey, and followed it up with some good crying! We told her, we'd find a horsey for her to ride soon. Over the next few days she would mention riding a horsey and it would fade. We got on the internet to research places to ride horses in the area. We are in Texas afterall. We looked in our city, and there were a few places that gave lessons, but we were more or less looking for a place where Mae could get on a horsey, ride for a while and we could leave. I continued looking for places over the next few days when I thought about checking out the Stockyards in Fort Worth. BINGO! They had 20 minute rides for all ages! Sweet, this is the place! So, today rolled around and we asked Mae if she wanted to go ride a horsey. She sure did. Not just any horsey....a BIG horsey! We headed down to the stockyards, and it was pretty busy down there. We located the arena that was suppose to offer the rides. It took us a few minutes to figure out where everything was. We told the workers that Mae wanted to ride, and they found the horse that would be right for her. His name was 2-10. I was hoping for a cuter name, but I guess it worked. Mae was led around on the horse for 20 minutes and enjoyed every moment of it. To my surprise she was okay with getting off the horse and going to find something to drink. We went over the love shack for some beverages. A good ol' Arnold Palmer (tea and lemonade mixed together) sure hits the spot on a hot Texas summer day. Mae opted for a Root beer from the tap. We relaxed, and enjoyed the live music that the restaurant had. I'm sure this wasn't our last trip to "Ride a horsey" in the stockyards. We're just glad she enjoyed it so much!

Technology is Not our friend

Technology has not been our friend lately. First our Laptop has decided that it can no longer keep a charge for longer than 5 milliseconds, second to go - our desktop computer decides to become a giant paperweight and refuses to boot up, third to give us fits is our trusty GPS - the car charger has dissembled itself and rendered it useless. But now, the most important digital item we own has gone to the graveyard - Our digital Camera, now we are lost in thought and wondering, did a time ever exist where we didn’t have digital photography? Instant gratification? The ability to take tons of pictures without wondering how close you were to your allotted 24 exposures? Over the last month our little Sony camera has been slowly fading. It’s been living on scotch tape hospice for a few weeks now, but as of last night it flat lined! While trying to get a picture of Mae the camera was dropped to the floor. Now we are on a mission to find a new, better camera!

We got our current camera during our pregnancy with Mae. We were able to keep track of weekly belly shots and pictures of the nursery as it was put together. It caught the first moments of Mae’s beautiful life and has probably taken a picture of her every day since then. We imagine that we got, at the very least, 20,000 photos out of it. Here are some of the shots.

Now on to bigger and better cameras! Our wish list for this new camera consist of high zoom capabilities and a camera that takes a picture when I push the button. I don’t want to wait 10 seconds before it misses the moment! From "experts" that we have spoken to, we have narrowed the search to 2 cameras, both DSLR's, the Nikon D40 or the Canon EOS Rebel XS. Both have what we are looking for, but still need to get each camera in our hands to see which one we like better. Updates to come...

3 Day Weekend

Our weekend started on Friday morning with Mae waking up to mommy making breakfast, and obviously already had our day planned out for us. She was already chanting "Paw Paw's Pool" and "Pool with Me"? Lets take a quick detour from the weekend recap to learn about Mae's vocabulary. Mae has acquired a pretty good vocabulary, most of which are things she likes to do. In fact, the only words that she says that are not in her favor are "NO", "Nope" & "huh!"

Here are a few of her favorite sayings.

"Paw Paw's Pool" This means that no matter what we are doing or where we are at, that we should drop everything and head to Grandpa's swimming pool. Notice, it's not Grandma's pool. Just Grandpa's. She adamant about that!
"Play with Me?" when she wants you to play with her.
"Two More" as in 2 more cookies, m&m's, etc...,
"Ride, ride, ride" could mean ride daddy, go to six flags, drive her car, etc.
"My Momma" or "My Daddy" when she's staking her claim

"Watch Wubbzy?" which is her favorite show

So off we went to Paw Paw's Pool for some early morning swimming. Mae loves to swim! She also loves to be thrown up in the air! Grandpa also has a motorized scooter that will pull you around the pool. Mae has just recently started using it, and has been doing great.

We purchased a new amplifier and new strings for my guitar over the weekend and I could not wait to introduce it to Mae, who took to it and is going to pick up musical instruments where I left off many years ago! Next step is to bring our Piano back to the house and start lessons.

Lulu came to pick up Mae around 3 on Friday so that we could go out. We first went to Uncle Julio's for Happy Hour and then to our friends house for some more pool fun.

Saturday was spent 100% of our time at our house. The only chore that was accomplished was a much needed one. The power line that connects our house to the Pole was being weighed down by several overgrown tree branches. I used a electric pole chain saw and a tall ladder to carefully remove the branches. What looked like a small job turned into a large one and when I had finished with the cuts, I noticed that the electrical Line was now resting on our roof!!! I guess the weight of the branches had stretched the cable. So a quick 10 minute call to my TXU rep on the other side of the world, we had the repair man at our house to tighten the cable.

Sunday was pretty relaxing, and of course it included some swimming at Paw Paw's Pool. On the way home from the pool Mae started saying "I want to ride a horsey mama!" She had mentioned this a couple of days earlier, so I guess she really wants to do this. When we told her "not today" she started crying. I think we will be finding a place to ride a horsey very soon!

Who's afraid of a few thorns?

This past weekend the family headed out to partake in some blackberry picking. Ashton's grandparents have many wild blackberry bushes on their land. Picking berries is a past time that Ashton enjoyed growing up, and this year we decided to go up and get us some berries. Berry picking sounds like a lot of fun until you realize that these particular blackberries have thorns!! You have to cover your body from head to toe to protect from these nasty boogers! We dressed accordingly even though it was going to be a 100 degree day! Lovely!

We (Me, Ashton, Grandad and Lulu) loaded up in the little gator and headed thru the pasture to find us some berries.

We had some company on the way down there and she ended up ahead of us.

It didn't take much to find tons of beautiful berries, so we started picking. Mae quickly grew tired of the berry picking and even the berry picking. Her great aunt came and rescued her on a four wheeler. Mae loves riding on any type of vehicle, so she was having a blast!

We ended up picking well over an hour and ended up with three gallons of beautiful berries!! And this is after we ate at least half the berries. "Pick one....eat one...and so on."

The only thing running through my mind was "what wonderful things will I make with these berries!! When I got home I decided to make two berry cobblers. They turned out great, and so delicious. The following day I tried my hand at jam making. It was a foreign area for me, but it turned out delicious! I think I will bake a couple more cobblers to freeze for the future.

Even though it was so hot outside we were able to sit out in Ashton's grandparent's lawn and it was very comfortable. It's nice to go up there and enjoy being in the country.

The whole time we picked, we were chatting and there were no cell phones ringing. How could it be any better? Of course, we didn't walk away without battle wounds. We all had our share of scratches, thorns stuck in our hands and stains on our clothes, but it was well worth it! Berry picking is a fun family activity and I look forward to it being a tradition that Mae will grow up with.

Meet The Family

Welcome to our families' blog! Our family began in May of 2003 when Ashton & Meredith got married.

A year later the welcomed Shiner into the family. Shiner is a Beagle/Bassett Hound mix that we saved from the pound. He's mama's little guy.

A couple of years later we added Bella to the mix. She is a crazy Basset Hound that always keeps us on our toes. Let's call her Ashton's dog.

Finally, and most importantly we welcomed our baby girl Mae Carolyne into our lives in March of 2007.

We are just your typical family that enjoys being together and tries to have fun whenever possible. The purpose of this blog is to just share what we have going on with our friends and family. Let's see where this adventure takes us!