Texas

Surprise… We Bought a New Truck…

After our incident on January 1st (where coincidentally enough I asked if this was a sign of what the year would bring…) and buying the camper that caused the problem… We started discussing options to keep from having to replace a back window a second time. My husband’s truck was a short bed and while most campers wouldn’t have an issue like that… This is a toy hauler… so the front is different.

Our plans really weren’t to get a new truck for another year or so… and when I say new, new to us, not brand new.

Anyway, we have some plans to start hauling the camper coming up in the very near future and I’m just about sick thinking about that back window.

Hubby went online, just so happened to find the needle in a haystack truck that we’ve been looking for. He contacted the dealership, deals were made over the phone, and BAM at 2 am yesterday we loaded up in the truck to make an almost 6-hour drive, which took us through 3 states (ours and 2 others). They made plans to have everything ready to go at around 10 am so that we could be back out on the road and hopefully not get home too late. 

My mother-in-law went with us. She gets off work at 2 am, came to our house to shower, we all loaded up in the truck, and we were off to Greenville, Texas. I seriously think some days we need our heads examined.

We went through Paris

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Corpus Christi, Texas: North Beach and Fajitaville

What do you do when you are in San Antonio but want to go to the beach? You drive to the closest one. After doing a little bit of research, the Corpus Christi area seemed like the best option. It was all interstate and it was about an hour and a half to two-hour drive.

When we started planning our trip to San Antonio we asked the girls what they wanted to do while we were on vacation. The only thing the little one said was the beach. Well if you haven’t noticed, San Antonio is still kind of in the upper part of Texas. Now, I use the “upper part” loosely because Texas is huge and in comparison, it really isn’t, but what I mean is, San Antonio is more inland bound.

We planned on Friday of our trip to be our beach day. That still gave us a day to mill around San Antonio. Plus we weren’t driving 4 hours (2 hours one way) and then home 11 hours the next. We had that cushion day in there to recoup from the beach.

Hubby, being the researcher he is, really didn’t research where we were going to go once we got to Corpus Christi. We just decided to wing it. As we pulled into the area, we found North Beach. We did a slight bit of research on the road and decided that might not be a bad place to check out, so that’s where we landed. We stopped along the way to get some sand buckets and shovels and plastic cups… who doesn’t use plastic cups to play in the sand? It was all I could find honestly. And we were ready for a day at the beach. (more…)

San Antonio Restaurant Guide

I sometimes think different people have different reasons to travel. In fact, I don’t think, I know. One of my favorite things to do while traveling is to try local cuisine. Sure there are chain restaurants you find everywhere, but I like to stick to the local favorites. I don’t always manage that. And truthfully, there are those “chain” restaurants that we don’t have close to home, so I’ll let them slide into the rada

The concierge at the hotel is a great person to ask where the locals eat. What’s their favorite restaurant? Best thing on the menu, etc. So that first night, that’s just what we did. (more…)

Where to Stay: Double Tree by Hilton Downtown San Antonio

When we decided to go to San Antonio on Vacation, Hubby went to looking for a place to stay. In San Antonio, there are multiple options. Eventually, he settled on a Double Tree by Hilton Downtown San Antonio.

Double Tree by Hilton Downtown San Antonio

502 W Cesar E Chavez

San Antonio, TX 78207

Listening to Siri directions pronounce that street is hilarious! Now, remember, we were coming from the North. Oh. My. Gosh. We came off one Highway into another highway and immediately had to take an exit which caused us to have to cross 4 lanes of traffic almost at a diagonal. CRAZY! I’m glad hubby had to do it the first time, although I got my chance when we came back from Corpus Christi. More on that later.

4 Lanes of traffic at a diagonal during rush hour = stressful! Oy! (more…)

Magnolia Market at the Silos & In-N-Out Burger – Waco, TX

Hello, Monday morning. How was my weekend? Well… I just about broke my right middle finger last night. We had wicked weird weather that blew through. I was trying to open a door in a downpour while carrying the little one and my hand wouldn’t let go of the door handle. My silly hand is sort of swollen and still hurts this morning. Hello Monday.

But let’s focus on the fact that it has been a week since I was on vacation and I totally miss it. I love going on Vacation! This year we chose to go to San Antonio, Texas. We debated and hemmed and hawed quite a bit trying to decide where to go. Hubby really wanted to go to Sea World so our choices had to kind of involve cities that had a Sea World.

Last summer when we spent time down at my aunt and uncle’s house, they got my family hooked on watching Fixer Upper. Of course, the show that decided to go off the air this year in April. Sure… So we got a year of them + reruns. At that time, my aunt wanted us to go to Waco, but we just ran out of time. Truthfully, I had no idea who Chip and Joanna Gaines were so I was like, what’s in Waco? Well, now I know. 🙂

Since Waco is on the way to San Antonio, I asked hubby if we could stop by their market and hopefully eat at their restaurant. We figured being a Monday morning, pulling into the restaurant around 10:30 would work. Um… Hello. NO! The wait was 1 hour 45 minutes and there were NO parking spots. We decided to forgo the restaurant, but that didn’t stop us from going to Magnolia Market at the Silos.

Magnolia Market at the Silo’s

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Where to Stay/Coffee – Denison, Texas

It’s been a week since we got back from vacation. A WEEK. How on earth did time fly so fast? Seriously. So much has happened in this past week. We finally, thank the good Lord, got Rain! We needed it. Our AC went on the fritz and came back again. Don’t know, don’t ask :). Hubby got home with us only to turn around Monday and head back to Boston, more on that later. Tbug started School. My parents left on vacation. It’s just been a whirlwind of things.

p.s. I might have been dragging my feet about packing myself after packing 3 other people for our trip…

The leading up story

Hubby’s work took him out of town to Boston the week before we were to leave on vacation. Our scheduled departure date was Sunday, August 5, 2018. Hubby’s work trip was supposed to bring him home on August 3, 2018. Supposed to…

Hubby was supposed to board a Delta flight in Boston in the evening on Friday, get into Kansas City late, and potentially drive home to be home around Midnight. A storm threatened the Eastern Seaboard and all Delta flights were canceled in a 150-mile radius around Boston, although hubby said no storm ever hit where they were. All of his co-workers who flew on Southwest Airlines, their flight was delayed, but they got out.

His travel partner and he jumped on trying to scurry and find flights home. The earliest they could get home was Sunday. His travel partner wound up getting home around 4 pm into Kansas City on Sunday. He got rerouted finally through Northwest Arkansas and got home around noon on Sunday. No flights were to be found for Saturday. Oy! (more…)

NCHA Hall of Fame

Oh goodness, this month has flown by! Gosh! We’re already at the end of the month and now I’m going to tell you something that happened the first weekend of this month. That was 20 some days ago… But sometimes I get to play catch up and this is one of those things I want on this blog, so that’s what you get… playing catch up.

My uncle has had a goal his whole cutting horse showing career of making the NCHA Hall of Fame. I’m pleased to announce he finally made his goal come true! Woot woot! One of the criteria is for you to win $ 500,000-lifetime earnings. Let’s just say, he made it! And this year he was inducted into the NCHA Non-Pro Hall of Fame.

The awards banquet was held in Grapevine, Texas, the first weekend of June during the NCHA Convention. We loaded up first thing Saturday morning and hit the road for a long 6 hour trip to Grapevine which is just outside of Dallas. We pulled in around 3 pm or so because we actually got on the road earlier than we planned on. What? 6 of us and we got on the road earlier than normal. That’s totally unheard of! Especially for my family… not going to lie. Usually, we get on the road later than planned. (more…)

Ft. Worth 2017

The real start of the Christmas season for me tends to be our trip to Ft. Worth. There have been a few years I haven’t been able to go, but I try to make it down there every year. Sadly, for me this year was a little lackluster. It was fun, don’t get me wrong, but it just didn’t scream Christmas season to me.

Hubby had to go to San Francisco for work the whole week leading up to Ft. Worth. He flew into DFW on Thursday night. We left home Thursday night and drove as far as Denton, Texas. Then from there, Friday morning we drove to the hotel that hubby was at and picked him up.

It seems like every year they change up the schedule for the NCHA Futurity. This year the NonPro and Amateur finals happened Friday night, the Open Semi-finals happened on Saturday, and the finals for the Open happened Sunday evening. Truthfully, that’s how it used to be, then they started changing it. We’re back to basics now.

Ft. Worth Stockyards

No trip to Ft. Worth is complete without a trip to the Stockyards. I have to say, this is probably my favorite place on earth… or at least one of. Hubby though wasn’t in the Holiday spirit so I felt like I was “dragging” him and he pretty well refused to go into the stores with me. One of my favorite things to do is window shop at the stores and I couldn’t hardly budge him into a store with me. I was getting frustrated.

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Ft. Worth Bound!

Ah, the yearly pilgrimage to Ft. Worth, Texas. Every year is different, obviously. This year as I was playing on Facebook during the 7 hour drive I saw where you ask Siri “What are you doing for Christmas?” This was her answer.

If you play in Snapchat any at all I’m sure that you’ve seen you get the ‘Tis the season from the different states you’re in. I should have taken one from Missouri before I left but didn’t think about it. I can also tell you when you get right inside the Texas border, it doesn’t show up yet. So I feel bad for those people… I forget which town I was trying it in. It took getting closer to McKinney before it showed up.

We made great time. Usually we make good time but somehow we made great time. When we got into Ft. Worth we decided to go on and eat. We decided on Hoffbrau’s. YUM!

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#QHNHunt

This last weekend I was in Ft. Worth Texas at our yearly pilgrimage. haha. No, the NCHA Futurity was going on. This is the big time where you go to show 3 year old horses who have never been shown in front of a judge for their debut.

Over in the Trade Show at the Quarter Horse News booth they had a scavenger hunt going on. My dad said I should enter. I went on to Facebook and Instagram to look up the #QHNHunt hastag to see how many people had participated already since it’s been going on since November 15 and there were like 13 responses.

Only 13? That’s madness!

There’s 10 items on this paper. I read the rules and it said that they were going to randomly select people throughout for prizes as well as 2 grand prize winners for completing all 10 items. This was for both the NCHA Futurity and the National Reining Horse World Finals. It was going on from November 15-December 10, 2016. Now maybe, just maybe, I’m the uncool one for participating and if that’s the case, I can deal with that I guess…. but I jumped in and started participating. Although I must admit I felt like an idiot….

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