Happy Birthday, Jaran!

Happy 27^th Birthday to one of my sweet and dear friends, Jaran Brodhead Walz!!!

 

I love Jaran to pieces and think the world of her. She and I can always have a good time when we are together. I just wish we were able to see each other more!

 

Jaran, I hope you have a wonderful birthday and are spoiled by your sweet hubbie, Michael. I hope you know how much I appreciate and value our friendship  and love you so very much!

 

Happy Birthday, Mrs. Walz!!

Spring Storms

It looks as if the spring weather is making its entrance into the Dallas Fort Worth area.

 

Last night some surrounding areas were hit pretty heavily by high winds and damaging hail.

There were reports of hail the size of baseball sized hail in Keller which is northeast of Fort Worth. We did not have any hail up in Aubrey, but we did have 50+ mph winds and some rain.

 

I love spring storms. It’s always a reminder that summer is just around the corner. Let’s just hope our RV ‘Fred’ can make some trips this spring!

Hog Trap?

This is what happens when you set your hog trap and one of your
calve's decides to go check it out...

Go Bears Go

Baylor Men’s Basketball has made it to the Final FOUR of the NIT tournament! I am so stinkin’ excited for the boys!

 

 

If only I could join them in New York for the games!

 

Go Bears Go!!!

Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Over the weekend Travis and I had the opportunity to attend the Houston Rodeo. It was such a treat! We love going to rodeos especially when you get to go with wonderful folks like Stacy and Kellye Brown (Travis’ cousin and  her husband).

 

We headed up to Reliant stadium around noon on Saturday to watch the FFA kids show off their prized cows they have been training for months on end. The Grand Champion steer sold for a measly $300,000. The neat thing about this auction is that the proceeds go to scholarship funds for high school aged kids. The kid who was the owner of the Grand Champion gets $85,000 of the money that he can use for college someday. How cool is that?

 

That afternoon we headed over to the main part of the arena where the actual rodeo was. There we were exposed to all of the normal rodeo events: bull riding, barrel racing, team roping, bronc riding, muttin’ bustin, and the calf scramble. It was a great rodeo, but of course the muttin’ bustin’ is my favorite event! I love seeing those kiddos hold on for dear life. It is so cute!

 

After the rodeo they moved a round stage on to the red dirt rodeo floor and we were able to listen to the wonderfully talented Josh Turner. If you have not heard him, I encourage you to look him on iTunes. He has a wonderful bass voice and can sing so well! He is even a Christian and his wife is the keyboardist and back up vocalist for his band. He sounds just as good live as he does on his CDs, which is pretty rare to find these days.

 

After the rodeo and concert, we walked around the fair grounds and looked at the various types of fried foods that were offered: fried oreos, fried twinkies, ding dongs, fried m &ms, chicken fried bacon, and the list goes on. Travis and I succumbed to a corn dog (me) and a turkey leg (travis). The corn dog was fabulous and helped me to re-live all my child hood dreams and Travis said the turkey leg was marginal, but nothing to write home about.

 

It wasn’t the most romantic way to spend our first anniversary, but I would not have it any other way. I just love being able to spend  time with my Travis—he’s pretty special to me J

 

 

One year later

March 15, 2008 is a date that I will never forget.

Bridal portrait at Bass Hall

It is the day that all my dreams and wishes as a little girl came true...I had the honor of marrying my best friend in front of all of my friends and family. It was a perfect day. Travis and I are so very fortunate to have such wonderful parents who allowed us to have such an amazing wedding and fabulous honeymoon.

Flowers Travis had sent to me on the wedding day

Richard doing final touch-ups to the hair.

Travis and I made the decision to see each other before the wedding and it was the BEST decision we ever made. I was waiting at the front of the church facing the choir loft as Travis walked down the aisle. He was about 15 feet behind me when he stopped and called my name, I turned around and that was our first look at each other. We had the chance to pray and just get the emotions out before the ceremony began.

When we first saw each other

The ceremony was held at the beautiful Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth where my parents are members.

Our wonderful wedding party

The reception was held at the famous Fort Worth Club in downtown Fort Worth. They know how to throw a great party and treat their customers. I could not have imagined better service.

The bling on a napkin


During one of our many dances

Our wonderful wedding would not have happened without the assistance of my mom and dad. I could not have done it without them, especially with mom and all of her planning and amazing organization skills. Thank you for making this day so special and something we will never forget.

Rusty and Judi- Thank you for hosting such a delicious Rehearsal Dinner and sending Travis and I on a once in a lifetime honeymoon to St. Lucia. We are so appreciative of everything you provided for us.

We love you both very much!

Here is to many more years of happiness :)

Taking a walk down memory lane

As I was organizing our pictures the other night, I came across these that I just felt like sharing. The quality is not that great since I had to scan these oldies in, but I thought they were pretty cute.

Trent and Nat circa 1985

Sound asleep in my Grandaddy's lap. If you look closely, you will notice I have a bar going across my feet. Apparently I once was pigeoned toed and my parents and doctor wanted to correct that, so i had to wear that fancy contraption. In case you are wondering: I am no longer pigeoned toed, so I guess the bar worked!

Below is a picture of my brother being sweet and holding me on a very ugly couch.

Family picture circa 1983. I think i'm starting to look a lot like my sweet mommy!

Happy Birthday Lucy!

Travis and I have definitely not reached the point of adding children to our family, but our animals are like our own version of kids.

Our sweet little filly, Lucy, turned one on March 1, 2009. I guess you could say she was an 'oops' for us. Travis bought a new roping horse for himself in July of 2007. He bought a beautiful red roan that we named Sloan and have grown to love. At that same time we were also the owners of a donkey named, Steve. Steve was a man's man and had not been fixed . We began to wonder if Steve was going to have the hots for Sloan and produce a mule, so we decided to put him in our pen so that he and Sloan could not have any alone time together.

Travis' horse, Sloan

Fast forward a few months and we notice that Sloan's stomach is getting rather large. Especially with it being during the winter months we grew concerned and took Sloan to the vet. He confirmed our worst fear: Sloan was knocked up. We were dreading the thought that Travis' very skilled and talented roping horse was going to produce a mule and be out of commission for a while.

Travis and I went out of town for a wedding the first weekend of March (2008) and when we were pulling in the driveway we noticed something laying in the front pasture. We didn't pay much attention to it, just assuming one of the dogs got out or some debris had blown in our yard. As we drove closer, we noticed that it was no dog and definitely NOT trash...it was a beautiful baby horse. We immediately stopped the car and looked her over and over and realized she was definitely no mule, but infact 100% horse! We were thrilled, but at the very same time a bit puzzled.

Sloan and Lucy (1 day old)

Lucy(1 day old)

You see when Travis purchased the horse from one of his fellow roping buddies, he mentioned that he had been trying to breed Sloan for the past 3 years, but it had never 'stuck'. He even had her vet checked before selling her to us and the vet said she was not in foal. This pregnancy test was clearly wrong and what a great surprise for us (2 for 1 horses).

So here we are one year later with a beautiful girl! She has quite the personality and can be a bit moody, but she has already accomplished so much at her young age. We have her halter and lead rope trained, she tolerates a saddle on her, she will walk up to you if you call her name, she will let you brush her hair and pet her head.

In 6 months we will really be able to begin more serious training and be abletoride her. People have driven by and pulled in to our place asking if she is 'for sale' but they are turned away. We LOVE our little Lucy and plan on keeping her for quite a while. We can only hope that she turns into the roping horse that her mom is!

Lucy (1year old). Isn't she cute?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LUCY!!!