Misc. doings

While we were still parked at Plowman campground, we did a few day trips into the Dallas/Fort Worth area. A few days before Christmas we went to Cabela's and picked up our last few stocking stuffers. The kids liked all of the mounts... Cabela's had several different 'scenes' full of animals...





and then a large room filled with animals found in Texas...
(there are actually quite a few 'exotics' farms here.)

It was nice, but not nearly as cool as Scheels!

On the Sunday before Christmas, we attended a little Baptist church in Lakeside. On our way through town, we couldn't help but think of Aunt Gayle and Uncle Clay when we saw this great BBQ...The Sunday after Christmas, we decided to attend...

For us, used to conservative worship, well, it was an experience! hehehe!!! I can say that they had a great band! -Only it wasn't like a charismatic worship team - kinda hard to explain. Beth had carried Molly in and sat there the entire music time covering Molly's ears, and scowling (Beth doesn't care for country music)-that girl needs to lighten up! Anyway, the rest of us enjoyed the morning! The music was mostly original, and the words were up on screens if you wanted to join in. The mornings message was basically 'it's our job to get them the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ, it's God's job to clean them up'! And that church was full of the nicest, servant-hearted, mission-minded people! We probably would have gone there again if we had stayed in the area, but it is time to move on...

We would like to find a theme song to play as we pull out, but we can't find a medley of On the Road Again by Willie Nelson, and Moving Right Along by the Muppet's! :)

Civil War Museum

Being so close to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit the...

We girls spent most of our time in the Victorian dresses exhibit...

Some of the dresses were so beautiful!

I'm posting a few pictures for y'all back home - heard tell yu're havin a Civil War ball in March... Seeing all these exquisite gowns made us want to jet home to start sewing dresses for it!

This one was my personal favorite (below) - though the picture really doesn't show the detail.

As bizarre as it may sound, I would love to dress like that every day; as long as I had servants too, and could just sit and sew or watch the little ones playing - while drinking sweet tea of course! Speaking of sweet tea, I feel so at home here in TX! At home, I seldom drank iced tea as I only like it with a TON of sugar; really, so much sugar that you almost can't make it all dissolve! (I can hear my friends at home gagging! hehehe!) No-one else drinks it that way, so I just never bothered to make it.

Down here - they make 'sweet tea' by the gallons, and it is liquid perfection! Apparently it is a 'Southern Thing' - and I feel quite at home around these sugar-lovin' kindred spirits (well, at least when it comes to tea).
Anyway...

The guys didn't show much interest in the fashion of the day, and they spent their time in the battlefield sections. There were exhibits where you could press buttons to hear the different drum rolls or the distinguishing bugle calls that signified calls to action to the enlisted men.

Greg has been a gun fanatic for as long as I can remember - he prefers to view these highly intriguing articles at his own pace, and we all know where to find him when the rest of us are ready to leave....

Eli, while he does like guns (and was dismayed to find out that Texas will only sell hand-guns to Texans), he prefers the swords. He was thrilled to be able to check out the sword that Ulysses S. Grant was presented with by the people of Kentucky to show their great faith in his leadership.

A statue of General Robert E Lee in the entrance to the museum.

The Civil War Museum was cool - it also featured an informative film about the war. We found it interesting. One thing that we do love about Texas is the independent spirit that is rampant here, and it is evident that it has been around for a long time. I hope that it continues!

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas...

Christmas lights down here take on a different flavor than back home...

And just for the record, I was really NOT wishing for a white Christmas, the kids were; they spent Christmas eve morning singing "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas" - Randy Travis style. And in the afternoon...


We all spent the day inside making treats...

we make almond-bark covered pretzels every year...

it is just one of those traditions that we couldn't give up, even in our close quarters...

but, we were careful to NOT share any of the pretzels that came off of Savanna's corner of the table... The big girls made the cookies - this year we cheated by using packaged cookie dough and pre-made frosting (thank you Betty Crocker!)...

but we all sure had fun making and delivering Christmas treats...

The park hosts say that this is pretty unusual weather even for the end of December,

and the weatherman for Burleson said that it hasn't snowed here on Christmas since 1926!

but we did indeed have a White Christmas...

Our little tree - we have NEVER had a fake tree before. Lots of things were done differently this year because of our limited space, but I think that we had the best Christmas ever!

We still did Christmas Eve jammies - and they were actually a surprise this year; the kids didn't expect them for once!

Our traditional Christmas Eve jammies picture...

Molly is almost 4 months old already! Her favorite part of Christmas was the wrapping paper...

We didn't bring stockings along, so everyone got their 'stocking gifts' in Rubbermaid containers, hint, hint, hint... do you think that they will take the hint and keep all their new treasures organized? Hmmm....

we did lots of flashlights and headlamps...

and lots of dollies! This was Molly's first 'gifting' holiday, and she received 4 dollies... ;)

This shirt was SO Greg... 'If we shouldn't eat animals, how come they're made of Meat?'

Vaughn's favorite gift was a Garmin Nuvi - a road-map GPS thing. We are, however, considering returning it as he likes to play with his new toy when he is supposed to be driving...
(plus she is kinda bossy)

Thomas, Daniel, and Joel received Jr. Ranger vests.

I.O.U.?

FOR CHRISTMAS?

Hannah, Eli, and Beth got I.O.U.s for Christmas! We had not been camping in one spot long enough to have our mail forwarded. Jodi has been so sweet to pick it up for us (and receive a few packages via UPS for us), but we weren't staying anywhere long enough to wait for forwarded packages, so the kids got I.O.Us.

Anyway, it is the thought that counts, right? They were good sports about it, and FedEx should deliver their colored e-readers on Monday... (thanks for mailing them Aunt Gayle)

The other kids got Greg a Patrick McManus book - he started reading it before he'd unwrapped all his gifts. It drives the other kids crazy to hear him laughing hysterically - they always want him to read it aloud.
The boys got Nerf swords, so they went out to conquer the campground as soon as we were finished with gifts. :)

While we did have a White Christmas, the snow had melted by noon. The storm had blown off a lot of pecans, and it was nice enough to go out and pick pecans...

We had a wonderful Christmas! A few months ago, we would have never believed that we would be spending Christmas in Texas! Life is Good!