Christmas pic's

Well, finally I got a chance to upload Christmas pictures. Braxton had been begging for a shave kit, when he saw it at WalMart with his daddy, he begged him - told him if he'd buy it for him he would act surprized when he opened it. Instead Santa brought it to mema and papa's house - he was so excited and surprized. He immediately went to the bathroom to shave. Brittny pulled out a pencil out of her stocking from Santa that had "3rd Grader" wrote on it. She showed it to papa and said "look, Santa knows what grade I'm in". Lindsay was showing off her cowgirl shirt and jeans along with new boots. It was so good to have Jordan there for Christmas. I just love Christmas morning!!!!

Blessed Christmas

What a Blessed Christmas Day to be able to praise our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, on the day of his birth with family and friends. The day started off very early when our phone rang at 6am. As soon as I answered it all I heard was Braxton, Brittny and Lindsay on the other end wishing Papa and I a Merry Christmas, then they began by telling us what Santa had left them. We all ended up at Shane and Amanda's for Christmas dinner. Jordan, along with his girlfriend, Faith and her mother, Lisa, came from Mineral Wells. I was so excited that he got to come, he hasn't been for Christmas in several years. Michael had to work so he and his friend James wasn't able to be there. The house was "full" with both Shane and Amanda's family. When time for dinner, Shane said Grace so very elloquently, I was so very proud of him.
(Well I'm not able to download pictures tonight, so wil try later.)
We hope that all had a Very Merry Christmas, and A New and Prosperous Year!

Lousiana Trip

We all loaded up Friday and headed to DeRidder, Louisana for the weekend. Most all of Billy's family lives there - and it was Sam (Billy's youngest brother) and his wife, Connie's 25th wedding annaversary on Saturday. Their kids had put together a party for them. We had such a good time seeing family we hadn't seen in several years. It's always better when you get to see family and friends when it's a joyous occasion and not a funeral. Only problem is the weekend went by way too fast.

family and friends

It's been a few days since I last blogged. Since then Thanksgiving as come and gone. What a great time we had with family and friends. Later that afternoon after Thanksgiving dinner was over, away to the deer lease we went, one more one!!! Billy and I got up before dawn on Friday and headed to the deer stand. One lonely doe came out just after daybreak and ate for a while. At about 8:30am I happened to look up from reading a book and there walked out a mule deer (look at them ears!). When I looked through the binoculars I saw that it was a spike buck. Since we have never seen any mule deer on our lease the past 2 years and there are only 2 weeks of mule deer hunting season allowed in Texas, I took a shot at him.

Fun Times

What a "Great" weekend this has been. It started on Friday, there wasn't enough patients scheduled at work for all 3 of us so I stayed home. Brittny and Lindsay are staying with me this weekend while everybody else goes to the deer lease. I picked up the girls after school and we headed to Joshua to watch Jordan (#24) play basketball. Wow, it's a long way there!!! He plays for Mineral Wells High School, the Ram's. It was such a good close game. We won 47-41. In the last 2 minutes of the game Joshua was returning with a vengeance. Jordan was fouled a couple of times there close to the end of the game and made all 0f his free throws helping win the game. Good playing Jordan!!!

The girls and I got up Saturday and headed to the Gaylord Texan Hotel in Grapevine to see the Christmas Ice Exhibit. It was so cool, well actually it was VERY cold! They give you big heavy coats to wear over your own coats because it is about 9 degrees in there, guess they don't want all that ice from melting. They girls absolutely loved it.

nice 9 point buck!!

Shane and Braxton went to the deer lease with us this weekend. I went with Shane and Braxton went with his Papa on Saturday morningto the deer stands. Shane and I only saw a very young 6 point. Think he's the son off "big 6" that Shane shot last year. He had height but not many points, doesn't really matter when mainly we're shooting for meat in the deep freeze anyway. About 9 am we heard a shot and called William on the walkie talkie, he said he had shot at a nice deer. After waiting 15-30 minutes he and Braxton went looking to see if he had made a hit. He called back and told us to bring the 4-wheeler so I knew he'd hit him. Wow what a deer, 9 point with lots of mass at the base. Even though it's a very nice set of antlers, still didn't beat mine from last year, sorry honey!!!!

hunting season under way!!

Saturday was the first day of "gun" season. William and I went up to our hunting camp on Friday evening. Braxton had a make-up football game early Saturday morning, so they didn't get there until time for evening hunt on Saturday. William and I accidently slept in Saturday morning so we didn't have time to get the 4 wheeler ready to get to our deer blind before the sun would be up, so we walked to Shane's. All we saw was 2 moma doe's along with thier twin babies. That evening we took Braxton and Brittny with us. We saw an mightly ugly coyote (didn't get a chance to shoot), 1 whitetail doe, 1 mule deer doe and 2 very young 8 point bucks (oh well you can't really see the bucks antlers in that pic). So needless to say we didn't shoot a thing on the first day. Was way too hot anyway if we had of shot something, really want to wait until the weather gets a little colder. Anyway, they say the "BIG ONE's" are shot in the next few weeks during the "rut".

Another week gone

Wow, where does the time go!!! It seems that each week seems to go by faster and faster. The weekends are full with family events, football, cheerleading and getting ready for hunting season. Last weekend Braxton's game didn't get started until late and then we all headed to the deer lease. Suprise to me when we stopped at Texas Road House for my birthday. Saturday morning we got up and retreived the memory cards from the game cameras and headed to Wal-Mart in Childress. Lots of pictures to go through, there were 2700 pic's on our camera and 1250 on Shane's. Couple of good 8 point "young" bucks, several does and babies and an inceasing number of pigs. How cool is the picture that came from Shane's game camera. These 2 doe look like they were poising for the camera.

Menagerie

Sunday evening we added a bobcat to our Menagerie of wildlife in our home. William shot the bobcat last hunting season and we took it to a taxidermist back in December. I have him laying on fireplace hearth. Every time I happen to galnce that way I think one of my cats has sneaked into the house again, except he's just a little bigger!. He also shot a pheasant but we haven't gotten it back yet. When we get it we'll add it to the bobcat,1 mule deer, 2 whitetail, turkey feathers, havalina hog and of course MY european mounted whitetail, the BIGGEST!!! Maybe you'll get the big one this year William!

Fast Moving Weekends

Man the weekends sure go by quickly these days. Yesterday was a fun day, sad day and then finished on a happy note. Saturday began at Braxton's football game, Thank goodness it was in the morning and not too hot yet!!! Braxton (#44) played very good, catching 3 ball returns. He was very excited that he got to run with the ball, even though they lost the game, again! It's not weather you win or lose, course winning is always more fun, it's learning sportsman ship. After the football game I then attended a Memorial Service for a very dear friend . Then finished the day at a Wedding. Braxton came home with us, we all got this morning and went to church. Even though the weekends seem to fly by I cherish each and every one, especially when the grandkids are here.

What a Great Day

Brittny and Lindsay came home with me Friday evening after Amanda worked on my hair. We always have fun together when they come over. They fished for a while, only catching a big ole sun perch. After fishing the girls wanted to go swimming and wanted me to come swim with them, but when I stuck my foot in the water it was too cold for me. After they played in the water for a while we went in and baked some sugar cookies with "sprinkles" on top, in which I ate way TOO many!!!! What a Great Day we had together. I hope that when my grand kids are all grown up they will have wonderful memories of spending time at Mema and Papa's.

Cooler Weather Ahead!!!

Oh boy, it's beginning to feel like football weather! The rain last week and also on Saturday was much needed. I just love sitting outside on my swing watching the sun go down. Every evening offers a new experience. The sun is already moving back to it's winter spot on the water. With the rain we received last week, the lake level is rising some. Hopefully we'll get some more those fall rains to put more water in the lake.

Elliott

The kids found "Elliott" on Memorial weekend. He was lying on the side of the road covered in fireants, the mother was no where to be found. He was so small and frail. They got some goat milk, a bottle and began feeding him. After a while he was running around playing with their dog "Henry" who was about the same size as Elliott! When they came to the house, Elliott came also. He thought he was one of the family He would chase the kids around. Looked out one day as the kids were swimming and there went Elliott out into the water. He swam out to the kids, made a circle around them and swam back to the shore. A couple of weeks ago Elliott died. We love and miss you Elliott!!!

FOOTBALL SEASON!!!

Today was the first game for the PeeWee "Bridgeport Bulls" football team. Shane is one of the assistant coaches, Braxton is #44 and Brittny cheers from the sideline. The "Bulls" played the "Alvord Bulldogs". The "Dawgs" made the first touchdown, but the "Bulls" came back strong and came within 2 ft of the goal line of making a touchdown, but those darn "Dawgs" held us off. Then the Alvord team made 2 more touchdowns to win the game. All the boys had a good time today, even though they didn't win. Maybe next time!!!!!

This is Brittny's first year to be a cheerleader. She is so shy when she gets in public, but hopefully before the season is over she will be yelling her lungs out. Amanda and the Cheer coach decided today to make a "Spirit Stick" to give a girl each week who shows the most spirit during the week at practice and at the next game. The "Spirit Stick" will be filled with all kinds of goodies each week.

Lindsay's not old enough to be a cheerleader this year. So she hung out with mema and papa.

Dove season starts!!!

Finally, dove season started!!!! Started out as a nice cool morning, but not only was the doves flying, so was the mosquitos again. After tons of mosquito spray we began shooting at doves. Shane, Amanda and the kids came up on Sunday to be there for opening morning. Braxton and his Papa decided to walk in the field for a bit to see if they could scare up some doves. Papa (William) loves teaching Braxton all about hunting and Braxton loves to hunt with his daddy and Papa. Us girls also shot at a few doves, Amanda did better than me, my arm began to hurt too bad to continue. By the time we got home I had a nice bruise on my shoulder.

After several hours of shooting and it getting VERY hot and humid, we decided to pack up at go home. I think between us we ended up with 15 dove. Everyone had a great time. It's always a great time when we're with family!!!

Deer lease - opening dove season

William and I came to the deer lease on Friday. I'm not quite sure why we had to come so early, you see dove season doesn't even start until Monday Sept 1st, but we did so here we are. We did get our deer blind back standing upright. You see it blew over back in June when a tornado came thru up here. It stands about 15ft off the ground and took us all day and alot of yelling at each other, but we got it back up!!! After that was finished we took the memory card out of the game camera and took it to WalMart - there were 1764 pictures, mostly doe and babies, a couple of pigs and different 3 bucks, all in velvet. This doe has it figured out, if no corn on the ground, then just eat straight out of the bucket!!! Isn't this buck "nice", even though he's young he should grow up to have a nice set of horns one day. Something else big arould here is the moquitos, man they are like camacazi pilots, going in for the kill. Can't put enough mosquito spray on, they act like it's just candy. Oh well, the joys of hunting!

bright sunny and "hot" Saturday morning

Today started off rather nice this morning - while sitting outside a flock of Canadian Geese swam up - I had seen them earlier in the year when it was 2 adults and 8 fuzzy babies - the babies are now grown - we had put out some cat food and they came up and started feeding. When they got fininshed feeding they started "honking" and flew off.

Here we go - new to blogging!!!

Here we go!!!! Thought this would be fun to be able to blog about my wonderful family from time to time. I have the greatest husband, Billy, but I usually call him William - you know at our age "Billy" sounds so young! I also have 2 sons, Chris and Shane, and 6 of the BEST grandkids from the age of 6-20 (3 girls & 3 boys).

Our grandkids are the light of our life, we have the best time with them. We live on a lake and everybody has fun fishing, swimming and jet skiing. Can't see him too well, but William is sitting on the dock fishing. He did't catch anything, but I caught this beautiful sunset.

Michael James, my oldest grandson, has flown the nest. He recently started a new job in Denton and has moved in with a friend there to be closer to work. Even though I am very proud of him as he grows and matures, I sure do miss him being around. He has the most electric laugh.

Well the picture at the top of the page is Jordan and Ciara, they are Michael's brother and sister. Jordan lives in Mineral Wells with his other grand mother. He is 17 yrs old and will be a Senior this year. He's 6'2" and loves to play basketball. Ciara lives in Oregon with her father. She is 13 yrs old and looks more like her mother everyday.

Maybe once I get used to this bloggin stuff, I'll learn how to put the pictures where I want them or at least be able to move or delete them and try over. Oh well, not bad for my first time!!!