We Woke Up in Central Texas

We drove through the night without internet, cell phones or Starbucks. As we drove, the time change made it even later. We arrived at Mary's ranch around 3:30 am, and set up the trailer tent as quickly as we could, transferring all of the kids into beds and laying down to sleep by 4 am.

We woke up in Central Texas on a beautiful summer day.

Central Texas Summer Day

Our Trailer All Set Up

The ranch was so peaceful. Mary is a midwife and had set off to deliver a baby only hours after we arrived, so we were alone out in the country. Alone except for seven dogs, as many horses and donkeys, and a rambunctious cat named Hermes. We were so happy to be somewhere relaxing and homey that we just lay around most of the day and unwound a bit.

Dogs and Children Everywhere

Mama Working On the Blog

Dada At Work

Say Cheese Hannah, Whose Taking All These Pictures?

Rolling Around On the Floor

It's Good To Do Nothing Sometimes

Our Intrepid Photographer's Shadow

In the afternoon we hung out with Mary in her pool to cool down from the heat. Later the kids got to meet Mary's horses. We stayed close to the ranch and didn't bother going exploring until the next day.

When we finally did go into Austin we brought our friends Mary and Priscilla with us.

Priscilla

Mary

We ate lunch at Stubb's BBQ and then went to the The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum where we learned all sorts of things about the state of Texas. Primarily we learned that Texas has everything a little boy could ever want, cowboys, buffalo, battle, swords, great music, cars, airplanes, and space travel. We spent several hours wandering from exhibit to exhibit.

The Whole Family In Front of the Giant Texas Star At the Museum

When we left the museum it had started to rain. We are getting used to that now, it seems to rain every other day where ever we are. Mary needed to check on the new baby, so we went out to dinner with Priscilla and her husband in a little town called New Braunfels, which is not that far from Mary's ranch. We ate classic central Texas style food at the Grist Mill. On the way out of the restaurant you have to pass by the Gruene Hall which has been a bar and music venue since the 1870s, supposedly the oldest dance hall in Texas, and is considered an important place to play if you want to make it in the Austin music scene. We could see the band playing through the windows. It was a rock-a-billy band called Two Ton Tuesday. Izzy made us stop and watch for a few songs while he danced outside on the sidewalk.

On the way home we were a little worried because we had left all the windows open in the trailer and we wondered if the rain had gotten in. We were pretty lucky that nothing was really very wet.

The next morning was another beautiful day.

This Is How They Mow the Lawn in Central Texas

These Are Mary's Miniature Horses, They Are So Cute!

Texas Princess Warrior

Shot You!

"I Capture You!"

We got ready to pack everything up and hit the road, but first we hung out with the horses a bit more and had breakfast with Mary.

Goodbye To Mary's Beautiful Ranch