The Winter so far...

The winter so far has been an up and down sort of thing.  Some days it feels like summer, other days it feels like Montana.  But overall, it's been fairly mild and mostly beautiful.  The boys have been enjoying themselves, as always.  Paul is probably half way done with first grade, Adam is the goofball he's always been, and Nolan keeps us all entertained on a daily basis.  Here are the phone pics we've taken so far from Fall into Winter...

 

Made the Honor Roll.

Grew some... tomatoes?

Looked fabulous.

Fought off bucket-head zombies.

Used a stick.

 

Led the charge. 

 

Went for a swim. 

Had a Texas-sized waffle.

Met a new cousin in Missouri.

Hung out with the Sellers and Millers.

Lounged around.

Made some holiday cookies.

Didn't clean our faces.

Got a dog. 

Swam in toys.

Annoyed the dog.

Lived in the driveway.

Cleaned up.

Got dirty again.

Played around.

Enjoyed the weather.

Acted like six year olds.

Got a Christmas wreath.

Wore our Christmas jammies.

Built some Legos... a lot of Legos.

Bounced ourselves half to death.

Rocked the chair.

Pretended we were really cats.

Strapped our boots on.

Got a haircut... weren't too happy about it.

It's been eventful, and there will be more to come before spring arrives, we're sure of it!

Folf it Up

I had a debate a few years ago with some friends about what this game was called.  They were convinced it was referred to as Frolf.  Notice the "r" that makes the word hard to say.  I told them they were wrong, this game is called Folf.  That obviously sounds much better, and that's what they called it on the world famous Blue Mountain Folf Course in Missoula, Montana.  We're not in Montana anymore, but this definitely brought back some good memories of playing this game with friends, losing discs and being literally eaten alive by mosquitoes.  Paul and I went to this course in Ingleside, Texas weeks ago and were again attacked by those winged demons and stabbed to death by the world's most annoying prickly seed death devices.  You couldn't walk more than a few feet without slapping off a dozen of those worthless insects and getting those spiked seed things stuck in your socks and shoes.  And let me tell you, if you try to take those prickles off with your fingers, you will end up in tears.  So needless to say, it was SO MUCH FUN!! But for some reason, we decided to try it again in December.  Thankfully, mosquitoes die painfully slow deaths in the cold, so they were gone, and only the dog was annoyed by the prickly seeds this time.  Here's the fun we had:   

Folf Champion Paul

There he is in action!

Even the smaller sons got in on the action

Staying warm, though the sun made for a beautiful day

The last basket, and a successful day on the course!

Watch out! He's got a stick!

The oaks made the course a pretty nice walk, though their twisting branches enjoyed knocking my folf disc to the ground on every hole.  Everyone had a good time, so we'll have to be sure to go back before the winter goes away and before another onslaught of mosquitoes hits the coast.

Fight for Independence!

One thing Becky thought she was getting away from when we moved off the east coast was the almost unlimited supply of battlefields to visit.  Oh, but little did she know about the Texas Revolution and the Mexican War.  For quite some time, Texas was a continuous fighting ground between invading settlers from the United States and a recently independent nation of Mexico.  Lucky for Becky, I didn't know much about either of these conflicts either... but I'm learning now!  It's not quite as historically important (for people outside of Texas) as the Civil War or Revolutionary War was, but down here they take all things "Texas" very seriously.  So our first stop in this new journey was the little town of Goliad, Texas.  It wasn't nearly as big or impressive as some of the past battlefields we'd been to, but it was interesting.  After the Texans were all killed at the Alamo (hopefully next on our list to see), the Mexicans marched across and caught up to more rebels outside of Goliad where they pinned them down and had a shoot out.  When the Texans ran out of water, they surrendered, expecting to be held as prisoners and eventually released.  Turns out, Santa Anna wasn't a nice guy, and ordered them all to be executed.  They have this monument up there where basically three hundred Texans were shot and piled up.  Pretty nice story.  But the Texans got their revenge eventually, slaughtering the Mexican army up near Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto.  Up there they built the world's tallest memorial column (it's Texas, they do everything big here) to commemorate Texas independence.  I'm sure photos of that will appear on this blog in the future... 

Not their first battlefield experience.  Adam, strike a pose.  Nolan, look aghast.  Paul, look unamused.  Good, take the photo.

Get 'em, Nolan!

 And there's the newest addition, Farrah the Dog.

Nolan enjoys trying to "pet" the dog.  I don't think she enjoys it as much.

But they get along just fine, here going for a stroll.

Almost time for a hair cut.  Almost.

Adam Michael, enjoying the beautiful winter day in Texas.

Nice smile, Paul. 

 Taking a break.

Such a beautiful day in the park.

Yeah, we've done that before.  

Just a hug for the little brother.

Gotta love that smile.

It's still warm enough to splash!

Either way, it had been a while since we'd been to a nice park, and I'm always up for a history lesson.  One of these days the boys are probably going to be into that sort of stuff too... and then Becky's really going to have a good time.  Oh, she knows she loves it.

Another Holiday Season!

It's that time of year again, you know, the most wonderful time of year!  The sleigh bells are ringing, the snow flakes are falling (somewhere, maybe), and Santa Claus will soon be here... actually I saw him at the mall just the other day.  The boys got dressed in their best Christmas sweaters and we attempted to get some good photos... though Nolan was not about it on this day.  Anyway, here are the best of what we got...

There's the new house, for those who haven't seen it.

There's got to be a Christmas card in there somewhere...

Just a little bit cold down by the water...

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and as always, a Happy New Year from South Texas!