Riding Breeze!

 Janine, our German UT friend, wanted to see the western aspect of Texas, and we thought it might be a good idea to get Lydia on a horse for a few minutes before their one hour trail ride in NM, so Caleb set a wonderful day up with his coworker Jennifer.  We dressed up western for church, then picked up Janine, had Freebirds, then headed to Rockin B Stables where Ranger, Breeze and a ton of other horse live.

 It got warm so Lydia changed into a T-shirt.  Meeting the horses.

 Loving the horses.

 Girls pic.

 Lydia rode over to the arena, then Gloria, Janine and I had a turn. Jennifer let us adults control her so we did a lot of standing around saying Ride On Breeze :)  But we also got to walk the barrels.   Caleb passed because it was so warm and he will be doing it next week...

 Janine got to experience the Wild West

 then Lydia got to ride Breeze back up to the stables, where we did some loving and brushing and browning eating.  Such a fun day!

(and now I am caught up so we'll be ready for our Albuquerque trip!!

Honor Roll

 Lydia's first all A honor rol1!  Her class

with Amber and Mia

Gig'em aggies

Ready for a walk down memory lane?  Caleb and I dropped the girls off in Salado and went to College Station (my first time back since 2005 and first time to walk around in a super long time)!  The weather was awesome, nice drive, we stopped at the mall tent because I needed a maroon shirt.  There was music, lots of people happily searching for the same thing and everyone was young-I felt like my dad when he would come to CS-young and alive :)
We had lunch with Lari Jo and friends then to campus.

We parked on west campus and walked by Weiner where I spent many hours for my business classes…the first guy we saw said Howdy….

lots of self-portraits or as the young'uns say-Selfies….

Northside, I peeked in Lechner, looks the same...

but Fish Pond has been MOVED.  Sibias dinning hall is where Caleb and I would have breakfast before Biology our freshman year...

His Wildlife and Fisheries building, there were lots of new buildings, walkways, garages, statues….

and MSC has totally been redone, including this aquarium.  Caleb re-inacted sleeping everywhere on campus…we met up with Lari Jo & unexpected ran into Amy & James from Austin

went to the quad for the march in...

there were a few people on campus...

then the football game, we were on the top row of the Zone, good exercise, and comfty seats with backrest and extra leg room...

This was our view, you can see Johnny Football if you squint.  After the Aggies won, we walked back to the car and drove back to Austin!

Halloween Day

 Lydia's school did a book character parade and her class was Winnie the Pooh and Tigger!  Gloria and I enjoyed watching all the kiddos walk by dressed up.

 The neighborhood gang.  Summer, Amber, Dharion, TJ, Lydia, Ethan (Amber's brother) Mia & Gloria

 Sweeties asking for sweets.  We did about 4x as much as we usually do, it was crowded and dark and lots of fun.   Lydia was the American Girl Saige and Gloria a 'regular' princess

Nana & Grandpa (Mickey Mouse) came to hand out candy and be a part of the fun.  Inspecting the loot!

Pre-Halloween

The week of Halloween there were lots of fun activities and times to dress up.  Matching sisters with their candy corn skirts worn to school on Tues.

Ninja Gloria for Ballet.   Gloria went through many changes for what she wanted to dress up like this year.  first a zombie (bought the make up) then a ninja, fine change by us (bought the swords) then out of the blue a princess.  We said okay you can be whatever you want as long as we already have the dress up costume.

Lydia wore a beautiful ballet costume and Harvest french braided her hair.

Wednesday night our church had a Fall Festival after regular dinner.  Rontrail and Keandre came, we raided our costumes to outfit boys and they had the choices of police man, cowboy or King Tut.

With friends at dinner.

Anakin and princess (this will go into their wedding montage if needed) then Gloria decided that the dress wasn't comfy for running around and she changed back to her pumpkin t-shirt.

Rontrail also went back to his Darth Varder hoodie.  It sprinkled so it was good it was in the garage.

Face paint by the jumpy.

Petting zoo, the girls' favorite.  There were games with candy prizes and we let them eat as much as they wanted-which resulted in Lydia having a stomach ache on the drive home!

Pumpkins

 Gloria set up the artful photo above.  We enjoyed having the neighbors over to carve our pumpkins this year.  Gloria wanted flame eyes-yay for Caleb's manual dexterity!  Lydia felt proud to use the knife too!

Camping!

 We spent another beautiful weekend camping, really the weather could not have been nicer.  We went to the South Llano River State park which is where the hill country meet West Texas.  We got there in time to sleep the first night.  And we forgot pillows-but the air mattresses sure are nice!   The first night was pretty cold but then they were a little warmer and it sprinkled on Saturday night.

 Then a morning hike to the overlook.

 The turkeys were roosting so we could only go to the river from 10-3, but once it warmed up we went to wade and fish.

 Gloria is always excited to play with the fish Daddy catches.

 Afternoon slow time, art, playing with bugs (this pic got tons of likes and comments on Facebook), and just hanging out.

 Dinner and marshmallows by the fire.  We went to the interpretive program of videos of creepy creatures of Texas.

Lari Jo and girls arrived late the evening, the next morning we headed to the river for more fishing and climbing around.  Big sisters Taylor and Lydia hang off a cliff!

 This afternoon we made animals masks at the headquarters and played with hula hoops.

 Little sisters Gloria and Samantha enjoy their s'mores!  Lydia and I went to the turkey program (good thing she was learning since she skipped school on Friday!)

 Sunday morning we had a quick trip to the small lake, and for some pictures on a huge old log.  Then we rushed home to meet Mom & a piano before taking the girls to church for choir, Awana and we met friends for dinner!