God Bless Texas!

I'm a little behind on my blog lately, but for good reason.  Besides my school, which has been taking up every waking moment I am not at work, we went on a vacation to Texas.  Dallas/Ft. Worth area to be exact.  

All of Billy's family live there, as well as my little sister, Valerie.  It was also Parker's (my nephew) baptism, and my parents would be there too.  So we figured it was a good time to go.  

We flew into DFW airport on Sunday, June 5th and Valerie picked us up.  The plan was to stay with Valerie that first night and visit with her family and my parents.  

For this post I am only detailing our first day there.  I took many photos so please bear with me as I tell the story by the photos I post.  

On Monday morning we got up bright and early, did a little shopping and then stopped by one of Valerie's and my parents favorite restaurant, The Prairie House, for lunch.  

Billy, Me, Dad, Parker, Mom

Here is all of us (except Valerie who is playing photographer) in front of The Prairie House Restaurant. We had an excellent lunch of 1/2 price steak (the Monday special).  

After lunch we drove into Ft. Worth to go to the Water Gardens and the Stock Yards.  After living in a small rural town for so long I forgot what a city's skyline can look like, so I had to capture it.  

Ft. Worth Skyline

Here is my cute sister, Valerie.  I am so blessed to have such a fun, creative and talented sister in my life.  She was the perfect hostess and I thank her for putting up with us during the week.  

Valerie

When we left Bozeman it was maybe 55 degrees.  When we got to Dallas it was around 100 degrees plus the humidity.  So as you can imagine I just about died of heat and sweat this first day. I did acclimate to the temps pretty quickly after the first day.  In fact I really began to enjoy the heat of the sun and the feeling of summer because we haven't even seen much of spring in Bozeman.  

Parker - My cute nephew

This would be "cool" me in my new sunhat.  

Moi

And here are the flags of the United States of America and of the United States of Texas! 

The flags

Dear Hubby

The hubs and I

Two of my favorite ladies -

Valerie and Mom

And Parker being silly!

Parker

Just us again!

Ohhhh It's my beautiful mommy!  

Mommy

And these are Cyprus trees.  I have never seen them before.  They grow interesting.

After the Water Gardens, we drove over to the Ft. Worth Stockyards to watch them drive a herd of Texas Long Horn cattle down the streets of town.  While waiting, we shopped and I took a bunch of photos.  

I just had to... sorry folks!

John & I

Again, I just had to because this one struck me as funny!

Rodeo Please!

Cow Boy and Girl

Live Stock Exchange Building

This is my favorite picture of the day.  Grandma and Parker sitting on the curb waiting for the Long Horns.  

Hmmm.. I wonder what they are talking about???

Here they come......

I don't know how they hold their heads up.  

Those horns have got to be heavy!

And they are gone...

C'Ya!

After our trip into Ft. Worth, Valerie drove Billy and I over to his parents home where we stayed for a couple days.  Thank you Valerie for the fun day we had today.  What wonderful memories made.

The rest of my Texas trip will be posted soon so stay tuned for that plus some BIG news I need to share with ya'll!

I hope you are all having a wonderful start to your summer.