Fort Worth at Night

A couple of months ago, I bought a Groupon for a photography class. It was an hour a week for four weeks. And then at the end of the class, we would get to go on a nighttime photo shoot at the Fort Worth Stock Yards. Tonight was my night to go and the weather was just perfect. 


Basically all we did was set our cameras up on a tripod and just took a bunch of different pictures to get used to shooting at night without a flash. 

This next one I tried to get the cars trailing lights. I think it turned out okay.

Then I noticed the moon up in the clear sky, so I tried to get a shot of it with the sign. 

Here is the building where I think they hold the rodeos. 

At the end, we walked down this alley/sidewalk area and our teacher had us set our cameras up to capture some "light writing". It was super fun! I have a few more of different words she wrote, but this one turned out the clearest. She wrote that with a small flashlight and since we had our camera set to a slow shutter speed, it picked up her writing. 

Then she set something on fire, and swung it around in a circle. I think she said it was some kind of brillo pad. I won't be trying to do this myself. lol! We captured the "Ring Of Fire" and I think it turned out really cool. 

It was a fun way to spend the evening. And when we first set up on the street, I must of had 25 people ask me what we were shooting. Some guy even asked me if we were Paparazzi! :0)


Thanks for visiting me! 

The Weather Outside: Not So Delightful

Wow, it has been a long time since I blogged. The last time I was so impressed with the fantastic weather we were having the week before Christmas. And for the most part, the weather here has been pretty good. Until this week. 


It all started about 4 am Tuesday morning and hasn't really stopped since. The first round was sleet that was so loud it woke me up at 4am. That lasted a few hours and then changed over to some snow for just a little while. The precipitation was all over at about 10-11am that morning. It really didn't look too bad out there; that was until we realized they don't really clear roads here. We have to wait until it warms up for this stuff to melt. And it still hasn't warmed up yet. 


Our neighborhood has just been covered in ice since then. These next two pics are from that first day. The neighborhood kids were going down their ice coated driveways in laundry baskets. So the boys got all bundled up (thankfully we saved our winter gear from St. Louis) and grabbed a laundry basket. 

Sledding: Texas style. 

So it was all fun and games that first day of the storm. Chris' work closed and everybody was home and happy for a day off. 


Then Wednesday was still so cold, so nothing melted and school was canceled. 


Then Thursday was still so cold, so nothing melted and school was canceled. 


Then Friday, it snowed some more! So nothing melted and school was canceled. Again. 


This was not what I was hoping a Texas winter would be like. This is seriously disappointing. 


Seriously. Disappointing. 


On a different subject, I have been redoing Spencer's bathroom and I am just about done with it. I should have pictures next week to share. I really like how it is turning out! 


Thanks again for visiting me!  

I'M HERE! (In Texas!)

Wow, I haven't blogged in forever! To be honest, I almost thought about not starting it back up, but now that things have settled down here I feel like I will have more time to devote to it.  


Since it has been a few months, I will go back in time for the next few posts to share what we have been up to here in the Lone Star State. 

This is the sign welcoming us to Texas on our drive down. Spencer took that picture for me as we were entering our new state. It was a long drive, but not too bad. 

This is the boys at the new house right after we arrived. They wanted to see the pool right away.  We are having some work done on it right now and I will share more about that in a few days. 

Two weeks after we arrived in Texas, we got to fly to Ohio for a family wedding. Chris' brother Kevin got married to the lovely Megan. It was a gorgeous wedding and we had a great time seeing everyone. And Connor for some reason thinks that he is a hip hop dancer now and poses like this in most pictures if you don't catch him in time. He was very entertaining at the reception with his dance skills. :-0

After we got back from the wedding, the very next morning was the first day of school. School starts very early in the morning here! Even though the boys look like happy, smiley boys ready to start the new year, they actually felt more like this:

Spencer adjusted to his new school great. He goes to an intermediate school that is just 5th and 6th grade. Connor had a more difficult time getting used to everything. I think it was the combination of being the new kid and not having his brother in the same school with him. He is doing great now though! 

I had to get used to no bus service for Connor. I got spoiled back in Missouri where they picked the boys up in front of the house. Luckily, we have lots of kids in the neighborhood, so I now carpool. That means I only have to drive him (and two friends) to school a couple of days a week instead of every day. 

And we also got to celebrate a couple of birthdays since we have been here. 

First up was mine. When we first moved in, one of Chris' co-workers brought us a bundt cake from this company called Nothing Bundt Cakes. It was so good that I requested one for my birthday cake! Yummy, yummy, yummy!!!

And someone turned 7! 

Connor! 

He had a great birthday. His Grandma Linda was visiting us from Kansas City and got to go with me when I brought cupcakes to school for him to share with his class. He asked for a cookie cake for home and got to pick a restaurant for dinner. We need to work on his restaurant choices. I won't name any names, but let's just say it was not good. Blech! But Connor was happy! 

Now that things are settling down, I'm going to try and update this blog on a more regular basis. Next I will post about Halloween and then I think I will have hit the major points since we moved. 

Thanks again for visiting me!!!! 

Our trip to Fort Worth

Last weekend, the boys and me made our first trip down to the Dallas/Forth Worth area. This was our official house-hunting trip. Chris has been looking at houses for us since he went there in April and we set appointments to look at the top 8 that he liked. 

Here are the boys on the plane shopping the Skymall catalog. They found lots of cool stuff! 

We arrived in the afternoon and Chris first took us to his office, which is really nice. Right now he is in an apartment in downtown Fort Worth, so we decided to walk downtown and find a restaurant for dinner. 

Here are the guys downtown. I thought this was a neat building. I only had my little point & shoot camera with me this trip, but I'm really looking forward to taking my Dslr there to take some pics. 

Another shot of that same building. This was a very neat little area of the downtown. I think it is called Sundance Square. 

I thought this building was so cool! It is a performance hall, but I can't remember it's name now. 

We went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant downtown and unfortunately it wasn't very good. The margarita was good, but the food was just so-so. 

On Friday, Chris and I saw 8 houses. It was a very full day! One of the great things about moving to Fort Worth is that I have an aunt who lives here.  She took the boys for us for the day, so we could house hunt! We narrowed our choices down to the top two and made plans to revisit them on Saturday for a 2nd time. 

Sunday was July 4th and Chris made plans for us and my Aunt and cousin from TX, and my other Aunt who was visiting from Colorado to walk to a July 4th festival being held in downtown Fort Worth. Remember his apartment is downtown. 

He said we just had to walk over this bridge and then it was at some ball field there. Here we are in the middle of the bridge. If you can see the building way in the back that kind of looks like an "M", that is Chris office.

So back to our walk to this festival. It was a lot further than we thought it was going to be and when we finally got there, it really wasn't a place we wanted to stay. So we got something to drink and thought let's just head back over the bridge back into downtown and we can watch the fireworks from there. 

We had major problem with that though. When we got back to the bridge, they had shut it down until after the fireworks. Which meant we were stuck. Without any good place to get a drink or use a restroom. 

This is Connor sitting at the end of the bridge. We pretty much all felt this way. lol! It would not have been bad if the fireworks had started on time. We would have only had to sit there 15-20 minutes, but they were late. An hour late. We sat at the end of that bridge for an hour. 

And then finally we saw fireworks. 

There was a large cheer when that first firework went off, because now we had a little crowd of us stuck at the end of the bridge. 

We all decided that this was a learning lesson for us. Next year we will just stay home for the 4th and have a BBQ and lounge in the pool. Did I say pool?

Oh yeah! The house we put a contract on has this! 


Next year we are staying home and watching fireworks on television. Who is with me???!! 


Thanks for visiting me! 

Blog Hiatus

Howdy everyone! I guess I should get used to saying "Howdy", and I'm "fixin" to go do something. I think these are popular words where we are going to. I think they are but I'm just a midwestern girl so I really don't know! 


But in case you haven't heard our news we are moving.


 To:

Yep, we are heading to the Lone Star State. Fort Worth, TX actually. We are excited to live in a new place and one that doesn't have bad winters! 

I will be extremely busy the next few months getting ready for this move which means I probably won't have much blogging time. I hope you guys don't abandon me during this time! I will be back! This time with adventures from Texas! Yee haw!!! 


Thanks for visiting me and please don't judge my efforts to sound southern. :-)