Dayton place

In November, Joe and a buddy of his, bought 57 acres of land near Dayton.  They wanted a place to be able to hunt deer, ride 4-wheelers and just generally mess around.  I finally got around to taking pictures of the place, but I only ended up photographing the front part of the property.  The property was two parcels- the front was mostly cleared in a big field, then behind that big field is a large area that fill dirt was sold out of for many years.  Right now, that part of the property is kind of a mess.  The back area, is beautiful, it is forested with a pond and beautiful trees everywhere.  This is where they plan to hunt.

 

In the very front of the property are a couple of magnolia trees.

 There is also a dumpy shed.

 A view of the large field in the front.

 This is to the right when you enter the property.  The magnolia trees are to your right and the shed is to your left.

 Joe and his buddy felt that this mule was a necessity for the property.  The kids have a blast driving this (much faster than they should) all around the place.

 The front of the shed.  It's massive inside, but not as strong as it could be.

 There is also this little "office" on the property.  It has one room and a bathroom (which doesn't work).  This is where they sold dirt out of it when they were selling the dirt.

The field behind the little office.  Adam was mowing and Joe was off to move dirt around and make 4-wheel paths. 

Looking down the road from the field toward the mud pits.

 In the front of the property is a pond.  Its pretty, and fairly large.

 Another view from the road.

 Looking up the road from the pond.

 Looking down into one of the dirt pits.  You can see Joe in the background working on the pits.  The pits are fun to make trails in and drive the 4-wheelers over the hills. 

 This is the only place in this area that actually has elevation that you can see: a little hill!

 Another view of the elevation.  It ain't pretty.

 At the back of the dirt pits, there is standing water.  That water is just from rainfall.  Joe plans to drain it soon and then use a bull dozer to flatten out the land a bit.

 More pics of the cesspool.

Just beyond this is the really pretty part of the land.  It is at the top, no dirt was sold out of here, and it is heavily forested.  It has a couple of trails through it, but mostly it is unused.  I will have to post pictrues another time, as I didn't get pictures this past weekend.

Crawfish Boil

 One of Texan's favorite things to do is boil up crawfish and get together and eat it.  Our culdesac had a crawfish boil on Saturday, it was a lot of fun.  The kids had a great time playing with the crawfish before they went into the stockpot.  They each had to hold one and put them in a bowl of water and see if they would fight each other.

 Nate and his friend Cole.  Cole is in the same kindergarten class as him.

 Some of the kids gathered around a bowl of crawfish, they are playing with.

This is what the crawfish boil looks like, right after it comes out of the big boiling pot.  Our neighbors seasoned it up so well, with garlic and artichokes and creole seasonings.  In case you were wondering, to eat a crawfish, you rip the head off- and if you are adventurous, you suck the juice out of the head, then you peel the shell off the tail and eat the meat from the tail.  It is spicy and yummy.  Just to let you know, we ate 3 or 4 batches of this much crawfish, as well as a bunch of side dishes that others brought.

Since we were having a block party, we rented a big bouncy house and the kids had a great time jumping on it and sliding down it.

Even Joe got to feel the crawfish (in his hair).

 Before they poured the crawfish out, they laid the newspaper out over the table, and Michael found the comics and started reading.  He slipped away with that part of the paper.

 I sure hope we do it again next year, it was super fun!

Happy Easter

 My kids have become increasingly hard to photograph.  I thought it would be easier when they were older and could understand when to smile for the camera.  Instead they horse around the whole time. Or look at each other horsing around.  Of course, it isn't much different than the rest of the time around them, they are always horsing around.

We had a culdesac party the day before Easter, so the kids got to hunt eggs in our front yards. 

Here are most of the bigger kids.  By the end of the summer, there will be 30 kids on our street, right now there are 27.  Adam is one of the oldest- most of them are Ellie and Nate's age.

The Easter bunny started hiding baskets at our house a couple of years ago.  Nate's ended up hidden on the fan.  Surprisingly, it was not the first basket found.

Michael's Field Trip

Michael's class got to go to the Sam Houston museum for their field trip.  It is a fun place- they have a couple of the houses that Sam Houston lived in when he was alive and they are furnished like they would have been then.  They also have people in period clothing that talk to you about what it was like back then.  It is all set in the actual land that he used to own, and it is beautiful, with a creek and large trees on the property. 

The most interesting part was the kitchen, which is separate from the house in a barn, and they showed us how they cooked over a fire with a dutch oven.  She even cooked us popcorn using lard as the butter.  It was yummy!

 

I love this silly kid!

The Zoo

Pretty much the only way to get my husband to go with me to the zoo is to have it be a work event.  His work had a "picnic" day at the zoo, so we went.  It was a beautiful day, with perfect weather for the zoo.

 Me kissing my love:

 We all got matching t-shirts.  Its much easier to find your family if they match you.

 This guy just wanted to sleep- but people kept calling his name so he kept having to look up to see what they wanted.  Finally he took his towel and went to the back of the exhibit.

 They did a good job with the cute shirts this year.

Bluebonnets

The kids think they are too old to take bluebonnet pictures. 

I don't think so.  They would be better pictures if it wasn't the middle of the day with the sun shining down, but in order to even get them, this is what we had to do.

And to prove you are never too old for bluebonnet pictures:- although, from the perspective you see, these might be more train and bluebonnet pictures!