Lovin' North Carolina

Sunset and storm clouds on the lake.

Rich and Aaron at Grandfather Mountain.

Richard and I at Grandfather Mountain with the mile high swinging bridge...a little scary to cross, but not to bad.

a view of Short-Off Mountain from the lake

Aaron at the lake.

Andrew, Jonathan(my nephew), Jarrett (my cousin) and Aaron at Mt Mitchell State Park

Andrew with his souvenir from gem mining in the mountains

Richard helping Aaron mining for gems in the mountains.

Our dog, Zoey, cooling her belly after a hike in the mountains to a beautiful waterfall.

my niece Ashton, Andrew, Aaron and Levi climbing to the bottom of the falls.

I know I haven't been on here in a great while, but I'm back. I just wanted to update you all on the goings on of "Me and My Gang." Well, where to start...

My husband is getting ready to go back to Iraq for a 2nd tour with the National Guard. This time it's the Texas Nat'l Guard. I am very proud of him that he serves his country the way he does. Not that I want him to go back, but I am proud that he's a soldier and serves his country in any compacity. To make a long story short, since he's going to Iraq, I opted to return to North Carolina for the year he's gone. I wanted to be surrounded by my loving family that is my support system, not to mention the boys really miss their grandparents.

We left Texas on Aug 2nd and it took us two days to get to North Carolina. My husband will be with us until August 26th when he returns to TX to finish work and start preparing for his tour in Iraq. Since we've been home, we've been having a great time. We've been spending lots of time in the mountains and on the beautiful lake (thankyou Daddy for buying a boat!).

Austin City Limits

Austin is BEAUTIFUL! It has rolling hills and TREES!!!!! I miss trees. Well, trees that are taller than my car. Anyhoo, We had a great weekend. I ended up not going to the breifings with Richard because there were none for me, but that's okay. Igot a little much needed down time for me! I hung out in the hotel room, which was downtown and about two blocks from the Capitol building, and then did some sight-seeing.

Here's the hotel we stayed in, The Sheraton, very NICE, compliments of the TX Army National Guard.

Here's the view from our room. We were on the 10th floor and couldn't get a good picture until I went for a walk. Apparently Austin has done a River-Walk thing down town kinda like San Antonio and although I never saw anything about it, I think this was part of it.

This is an old church I saw while walking to the Capital building. I 'm fascinated how old buildings and churches like this are right in the middle of a modern city. They look so out of place, but I think it adds to the beauty of the structure itself. I really love old churches anyway, especially ones with architecture like this one.

This is inside the Capitol building. When you look up into the dome, you'll see this spiral staircase. I was intrigued by it. I was way up at the top way above where the public can go. How cool is it though?

This is what you see when you look straight up into the dome. I had to zoom in on a zoomed in picture to see the letters around the star. Very cool and breath-taking.

This is the floor in the middle of the building. You obviously have to go up a few floors to get a picture. If you stand on the star in the middle and look up you'll be looking at the interior of the dome. The entire building was awesome. Richard and I were just taken aback by the architecture and the thought of the history that has happened there. The staircases were massive and the windows were huge. You just really have to see it with your own eyes to appreciate it.

Before Richard and I went to the Capitol building, I went to the visitors center while i was walking to get information of tours and things. Even the Visitors Center was a historical building. It was 30 years older than the capitol. I didn't get a picture of it, unfortunately. This is the view of the capitol from the visitors center.

What an awesome weekend getaway. I wish we had a little more time to see more of the city. maybe next time.

Road Trip!!!!

Yeah!!! Richard and I are going on a road trip! He's got drill with the National Guard this weekend, but instead of going to a regular drill, he's been invited to attend a conference type event in Austin , TX for potential OCS (Officer Candidate School). I'm so very proud of him. The great thing is, I was invited to go as well. Apparently they are suppposed to have briefings for the spouses as well. So after scrambling to find babysitters, which is a challenge in itself since I only have as many friends here as I do fingers on one hand, we're going on a road trip to Austin. I hear it's a beautiful city so I hope to bring back lots of pictures and stuff to talk about. Wish us safe travel and I'll see ya later...

King Ranch

(This barn is rumored to have been used in a Ford and Toby Keith commercial.Supposedly, the Running W was removed and the Ford Oval was placed on the barn. )

On Friday after Christmas, we went to the King Ranch in Kingsville. It was really a great day trip and well worth the drive, at least we thought it was. They offer a couple of different tours, one of which was the historical tour which is what we did. the other tour is a nature and wildlife tour, but we saw plenty of wildlife on the tour we took so no need to pay for the other tour unless you are interested in birding. Anyhoo, the tour was on a 20 or so passenger bus/van and was very comfortable. The driver/tour guide was very knowledgeable and friendly. On the first part of the tour we saw the quarter horses. We saw breed mares in the pasture, stallions in another, your horses near the stables. What beautiful creatures. Does anyone know why they are called Quarter Horses? Take the tour for the answer!

We also saw two different breds of cattle, the two the ranch are known for, the Santa Cruz and the Santa Gertrudis. I forget the specs of the the two, but I know one was larger with bigger bone structure, and the other was darker in color which came from one cow named Monkey. I'm not sure which is which or which one is in this picture, but I thought it was neat that you can see the King Ranch Running W brand on this cow. There are a couple of stories as to how they came up with the Running W brand. One says it resembles a rattlesnake, another was that the people Capt King bought the either the ranch from or the cows from used a Running M and he just turned it over to make it a W, the last was that it represented the Rio Grande River on which Capt King was the captain of a riverboat.

We also saw long horns. Typically the ranch doesn't bred them for profit. They are more for novelty, and are just really cool to see. I know that since we moved to Texas I've been wanting to see some up close. I got better pictures of the front and faces of some but this one just had really massive horns. As I mentioned earlier we also saw our share of wildlife. We saw lots of deeer, does and bucks, we saw a scrawny little fox, some turkey vultures, and several osprey. Oh yeah, some wild turkeys, too. All-in-all it was a great day and a pretty good tour. The highlight for most of the guests on the tour was the Big House, the King Family home. I wasn't able to get any good pictures of it but you can visit the King Ranch website to see more and learn more about the ranch and the tours that are offered.

Mamo's Here!

Just wanted to give a quick, Reader's Digest version of what all we've done while Karleene's been here. This way I won't forget anything.

Friday.. Karleene arrived approx 9:00 PM so we didn't do much that evening; just rested and visited.
Saturday..Another lazy day. We watched Christmas movies and the boys did theit gingerbread project for this year, which by-the-way was Santa's sleigh
Sunday..Church, lunch at Chili's, and grocery shopping.
Monday..Yet another lazy day.
Tuesday..library, Dr's appointment for me, to the dreaded mall to visit the Build-a-Bear workshop, then home to rest.
Wednesday..Christmas Eve. Baking and watching Christmas movies.
Thursday..Christmas Day. Santa presents in early morning. Daddy had to work today, so we did the rest of Christmas presents in PM. Then Christmas Dinner and rest while kids played with new toys.
Friday..We went to Kingsville to visit the historic King Ranch. On the way home we stopped at the outlet mall to shop.
Saturday.. Karleene and Richard went to shooting range and to do some shopping, then in PM Richard and I had DATE NIGHT! YEAH!!!
Sunday..started off as a lazy day. Then in afternoon we went on a riverboat tour of the Rio Grande River near where we live. Then out to eat at Cracker Barrel.
Monday.. Karleene leaves in the morning around 10:30 or so. Wish her safe travel back home to NC. I only wish we were getting to go home with her to visit.

Sue the Dinosaur

Today we went to see Sue the T-Rex. She's the largest, most complete t-rex skeleton ever found. She was found in south Dakota i think and her actual bones are in chicago. the display we saw today was a replica of the actual skeleton, well at least we think it is. I can't imagine the actual skeleton being on a traveling display. So anyway, Andrew was so excited to see it and aaron was more excited to play with the displays that were interactive. all-in-all we had a good time.

uss lexinGton part3

We ended our day at the beach before finding a nice ocean front place to eat. there was beach access right next to the entrance to the Lex so we took advantage of not having to walk anymore than we had to since that's all we had been doing today.


This was really a great musuem and i know i didn't share all the photos i took simply b/c there are way too many. There was a nice movie theatre on board and Richard and Andrew got to watch most of a movie about fighter pilots.Aaron was too restless and tired to sit through it so he and i went to find the mess hall for a snack. Our next visit to Corpus Christi will take us to the aquarium.

HopE everyone had a great easter...

uSS lexington part2

From the flight deck, we ventured up even more steppy-steps to the bridge. this was Aaron's favorite room. It was closed in (windows) which meant he could see out and there was no wind blowing in his face, and it was a lot warmer than it was outside. Here he is in the captains chair.
Apparently, I didn't load these pictures in any particular order b/c now we're back on the main floor. This flag was probably one of the biggest i've ever seen. look how small Aaron is standing in front of it. no matter how big or small, I love the flag, don;t you?
Here we are trying another cockpit. Richard actually got in this one. this is one of the Blue Angles Cock pits. Aaron is impatiently waiting his turn.
This is probably 4 or 5 decks below the main deck and this was the display of the bunks the sailors slept in. By this Point, Aaron was so tired he wanted to take a nap. Anything we came accross that he thought would make a nice bed, he'd lay on it and say, "this looks comfortable." Poor baby.
How did this get in here...This is the end of the day when we visited the gift shop and aaron found this Army hat that he had to have...yes, we bought it for him and he is still wearing it around.

USS Lexington part1

While Andrew was on spring break, Richard actually had a day off so we took advantage of this and went on a road trip to Corpus Christi, Tx. What a beautiful place. Of course, anything coastal to me is beautiful. We had several things

on out agenda, but only made it to one thing, the USS Lexington. The boys, and i do mean all 3 of them had a great time. It was a little chilly that day and we didn't take jackets, but we soldier-ed on, or should that be sailor-ed on and had a great day. On board, there were alot of mock-cockpits to try out. Andrew had to try everyone of them. It's amazing that grown men fit in these same cockpits because Andrew almost filled them up and he's just a kid. I think we may have sparked a new passion for him.
Here the guys are looking off the top deck out into the Gulf of Mexico. Except for the wind, it was a beautiful day, but i think i already said that. These steps that they are at the top of are blocked off so they didn't go any
where from here. But the restrooms were down on the third level, and of course with Aaron we had to go several times. It was too cute, i told him once that the steps were really steep and from then on he called them steppy-steps.
i don;t know if you can see this well enough to make it out, but this is Senator John McClains plane. it's here on the Lexington as well as some things that belonged to George Bush Sr. There was a really nice display dedicated to him.
Here's Andrew trying to walk against the wind going from one end of the flight-deck to the other.

That's all for part one...

Gramma's visit to South Texas

It occured to me that i never put anything on here to tell you about my visit with my mom and Jonathan. We had a great two weeks, and even though we didn't do a lot, we did see some cool things and had a great time.

We went armadillo chasing! Literally! we went to a park that has a large open field and it was full of armadillo's. we were trying to get close enough to at least one to get a good picture and ended up chasing several. We laughed and had a great time doing it. i'm just glad the park rangers didn't see us.

Then Richard took us to see this really cool tree that he found on one of his patrols. it's over 900 years old. It's not real tall but it's really big around. Andrew, of course, tried to climb it, but it's not as easy to climb as the tree in front of Clinchfield Baptist.

And of course we had to go to South Padre island! This is my favorite part of being where we are. it's only a little over and hour to get to the beach. The kids had a great time even though the water was cold. Aaron played in the sand and got a little wet, and Jonathan and Andrew ventured out in the waves and had a great time. Mom and i just kicked back on the beach and relaxed. i have to tell this story though. Jonathan is going to kill me. He forgot to take his wallet out of his pocket before he got in the ocean, so needless to say, he made a donation to the "save a whale foundation of S Padre Island"!!!

By the way, this was the best was to spend New Years Eve .

A Historical Visit

i'm catching up on a few things...

Remember the Alamo!
Just incase you forgot, here it is. When karleene was here, one of the things she wanted to do was see some historical things. so on Thanksgiving day, we rented the newest version of The Alamo movie (it had Billy Bob Thorton, Dennis Quaid in it). it was very good. Even Andrew enjoyed it, then on Friday we (karleene, the boys and myself) drove north to San Antonio and visited the Alamo. It was very interesting to see it especially after just watching the movie and having the information fresh on your mind. I think it definitely made an impression on Andrew. Aaron could've cared less. He was more interested in the loose change that people have been throwing in the original irrigation system that is still there. He even told me, "to take my clothes off and go in that water and get me that money." Never mind that it was 40 degrees that day and snowing in Dallas. I don;t think so Aaron!

Another cool thing we saw, completely by accident was the Iwo Jima memorial.















There is a Marine Military school in Harlingen that we saw as we were taking Karleene to the airport to leave for home.
There was a sign for the memorial and as Richard looked to his left he saw the huge statue. so decided to go check it out. Turns out this is the ORIGINAL Iwo Jima memorial statue. whatever material it was made out of wasn't going to withstand the elements in Washington, DC so a bronze cast was made of this one and placed in DC. the original was moved to Harlingen, TX. HOw cool is that. Let me tell you, this thing is huge, but very overwhelming and awesome.

I know these are two things we will definitely be visiting again, especially when my dad comes to visit !