"Water"fall walk

In starting my new photography journey, I'm on the lookout for new interesting locations to take photo shoots. I had a teacher friend from my school tell me about a secret waterfall that hardly anyone knows about in River Oaks. I did some research online. No wonder no one knows about it. There's no signs, no parking lot, and you never even know that it's there. It's really close to the Air Force Base here in town.

My niece is about to get her braces off and I want to take her senior pictures to celebrate! So we went to scope it out in the triple digit heat. I didn't say it was the best planning.

Here's the so-called waterfall. I guess that's what you get when it's been dry as a bone for a month now with no rain. It was pretty even without the water but I bet it's just gorgeous with the water flowing.

So maybe the Spring would be a better time to scope this waterfall out. The boys thought it was pretty cool to be standing in the middle of a waterfall.

Once again, I don't know what I'd do without Madison this summer. She's helped me out a ton with watching the kids during the summer when I've had appointments or just needed some help when we go swimming.

We were only there about 15-20 minutes because that's all we could tolerate with the heat. But I wanted to snap a few pictures because it seems like I've neglected taking pictures of my little ones since this new photography journey has begun and we can't have that!

And Campbell was going his best to help me look for water for our waterfall.

 

We all needed baths and showers from our short little hike. It doesn't take much here in Texas. 

 

We had about all we could take and it was time to take Madison back to the farm. Campbell was beyond excited about seeing the horses but I've figured out he talks a big game. This is as close as we could get him to the pony who was seriously the tiniest pony ever.

 

Nolan loved it and he's not even our big horse lover.

Landry sat for about 3 seconds on him, but that's 3 seconds longer than Campbell did. You know, our son that wants to grow up to be a jockey but won't go near a horse.

I loved that my boys love the farm and even though they're city kids through and through, they have a love for getting dirty.

Stock Show 2012

When I went to England in high school for a handbell choir trip (yes you read that right), the families that we stayed with thought that since we lived in Texas, that we rode horses to work and school. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Texas, but I'm a city girl through and through.

My sister, Tonya, moved to the country with her girls and I can't believe it but those girls are as country as they come. I'm talking showing pigs, horses in the barn kind of country. My boys absolutely love going out there and playing on the farm. So every year when the Stock Show comes to Cowtown, we act like we're country folk and check it out. We brought my niece, Madison, to make us look more authentic since she knows what she's doing when it comes to this country stuff.

Sadly, with trying to figure out this whole "family of 5" thing, we didn't get to the Stock Show until they were nearly closed. It was a serious sprint in and out of the barns trying to see all the animals.

For some city folk, my boys sure do love some farm animals.

 

 And it's not a stock show without a few scary carnival rides. I remember wanting to ride all of those rides so desperately when I was little, but now that I'm a mom, all I can see is their germ infestation and lack of safety. Does that officially make me OCD?

After all the talk about rides, the carousel was the only thing we could talk Campbell into riding.

Nolan gladly took his remaining tickets. 

 We went to the Stock Show back at the end of January (yes, I know it's April and I'm finally getting around to posting these pictures) and the boys are STILL asking when we're going back. Good thing we live in Cowtown.

More Flags, More Fun

I'm a firm believer that laughter is the best medicine. It absolutely warms the soul and heals the body. We headed for Six Flags on the hottest day of the year because that's how we do things around here in Texas. My assignment (self-assigned) was to make sure that everyone was laughing and having fun even if our clothes were wet from sweat. It was Tonya's idea to just go have fun before the start of her chemo this week. She had her first chemo treatment this week, by the way, and all went well!

Sidenote: Tonya had an MRI done last week to make sure the cancer had not spread to her brain and it came back clear! Praise God for this first bit of good news since this journey started!

Tonya took Nolan and went to the small rides. Madison took off with a friend, and so I hung out with my two youngest nieces and got to ride real rides! There is something so therapeutic about screaming and you better believe that all three of us girls screamed our heads off.

I was so exhausted that night and could hardly make it to church the next morning but it was worth all the sweat and all the exhaustion. Because I saw for one moment that we're not going to let cancer stop us from being a family and doing fun things.