Our Trip "Home" to Texas

We just returned from a much anticipated trip back "home" to Texas to visit all the grandparents and cousins.  Adventure Mouse arrived from her visit to Seattle just in time to come along with us.  You can read her story here.

Our first stop in Texas was in Graham, where I grew up.  This picture is of the Brazos River from my family's ranch.  I've always loved the view from this spot.

Our first day there was spent helping my dad "work" cattle - spraying for flies, ear tagging, branding and cutting.  Poor little calves!  I didn't do any of the actual hands on work.  My sister-in-law and I took on the task of trying to run the calves down the chute and taking notes of how many females and how many steers they processed.

Adventure Mouse and an oil pump.

a windmill

Emily's favorite activity in Texas was riding horses.  This is a great old horse named Jasmine.

Ethan's favorite thing to do was shooting pellet guns at aluminum cans.  Surprisingly, he's a very good shot.

Oh yeah, he really, really liked driving the pick up truck as well!

Ethan always enjoys fishing.

He was so excited when he caught a big mouth bass.  We let the poor guy go after releasing him from the hook.

view of the "fishing hole"

pretty flowers

Emily and Jasmine

This is my mother's grave.  She died 7 years ago from ovarian cancer.  She wanted to be buried out at the ranch under a live oak tree and we found the perfect spot.  She loved the ranch so much!  I miss her terribly.

This is my dad's mother - my grandmother.

This is my mom's mother on the left and her "cousin" on the right.  She's actually her niece but they are basically the same age and so are more like cousins.

My dad remarried a couple of years after my mom died.  He married my mom's cousin.  The other two boys in the picture are my nephews.

After a super short visit to Graham, we drove down to Louise to visit my husband's family.  We were behind this truck for a while and thought his bumper stickers were funny.

We stopped for a brief visit in Austin to see his grandparents.

And then drove on down to Louise to visit his parents.  They also have a ranch and so have lots of fun things to do there as well.

4 -wheel riding

RTV riding with cousins

RTV driving

"cool tool" chain sawing

swimming with cousins

burying each other in the huge sand pile

some of the cousins

I was mesmerized with the barred owls in the yard.  They'd come swooping down every evening hunting for food and would sit in the trees and screech.  I was surprised that I could get really close to them before they'd fly off.  Although, because of the evening lighting, none of the pictures turned out very well.

The armadillos are fun to follow around as well.  They're such silly looking animals, but very cool.

After leaving Louise, we stopped in Austin again to visit some more cousins before heading back to the airport.

It was a whirlwind vacation but it was so good to see everyone again and to get to do all the fun things that Texas ranches have to offer.

If you are ever in the area of Graham, you can stay out at our ranch in the bed and breakfast house like we did.  Lots of fun!  Especially sitting out on the front porch in the rocking chairs enjoying the awesome breeze.  Come, relax and enjoy!   Click here for more information.

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