Dinosaur Valley Park Trip

We had SO much fun! We took the kids to the Dinosaur Valley Park two weeks ago. It was awesome. The park is beautiful, full of hiking and walking trails and even biking and horse trails too. There is camping and fishing and a playground, and of course, the fossilized footprints in the riverbed! The kids were fascinated by it all. I was in heaven! I'm such a huge dino nerd!

Kevin and I paked a cooler with lunch meats and snacks and drinks and we had a great picnic lunch at the park. Then the kids played on the playground for a bit before we hiked through the park and made our way down to the riverbed. The kids had so much fun finding all the footprints

in the riverbed. We also spotted some little bitty frogs along the river and the kids chased them into the river. We hiked all the way down the riverbed and hunted tracks and the kids talked about how they thought they got there or what the dinosaurs thought about the mud squishing between their toes! :P It was pretty hot though!

We were all feeling the heat of the day once we got down on that dry riverbed. I really want to go back again too! There is this place right before you get to the park...it's a huge building with tons of life sized dinosaur replicas. We wanted to go there but we were all so tired. So I think this fall we might go back just to go to this place (and maybe a quick walk at the park). It's called "DinoWorld"...HAHA! I can't wait to go back! Now I'll rap this up by posting a couple of pics of the prints and things...OH! and we stopped at my PapPa and MeeMaw's house on the way home (since they live right off the highway to get to the park), and took them out to dinner.

They were so surprised, and I was very happy to spend some time with them. The place we went to eat was an old gas station/convenicnce store that was converted inside. It was CRAZY. The outside looked like a run down gas station, and then you walk in and it's a WHOLE different world. It was really nice inside, the costomer service was great and the food was insanely good! I love going to see my MeeMaw and PapPa. When we fist got there they weren't home, so I was afraid we'd missed them or something.

So we got out and walked around to stretch our legs. We went and pet the horses and the mules, saw a few new baby horses and mules in the pasture with their mommas. And then saw the peacocks and chickens, the pigs and the ratty 'ol dog that my grandparent still have out on the front porch. I love going to their house. It's an oasis to me. A peaceful country home. It's a special place to me. I spent a lot of my childhood out there. Finally we ended up back in the car after walking around and then just as we were about to pull out of the long driveway...here comes my MeeMaw and PapPa up the drive! We helped them unload a new recliner for my PapPa and put that together then we headed to town for dinner.

My MeeMaw was so thrilled to see us, and we talked up a storm during dinner. She told me something so cool too! We all know that my great-granny (my MeeMaw's mother) was half Native American, but she has one sister (My great Aunt Ann- sorta the black sheep of the family and a racist bitch), denies it, and hates the idea of her mom being a "half-breed" as she disgustingly puts it! Well my MeeMaw and some of her brothers are having my Great Granny's DNA tested. Her mother (my great-great grandmother was Comanche Indian). And my Great Aunt Ann is having a COW over it! I'm excited! I love learning about my family history.

We are hoping that through DNA we can find my Great-Granny's relatives and family from her mother's side because we know nothing about her mother, other than that she was a Native American (probably Comanche Indian) and that she had 5 children before she died and her husband remarried. She died in child birth with her youngest son, and he died with her. My Great-Granny was 2 at the time of her death and her father remarried an Irish woman shortly afterwards. My Great-Granny's father was Scottish, as was my Great-Papa (my Great-Granny's Husband). My family is mostly Scottish, some Irish, and I would love to learn more about my Great-great granny! This was a cool thing to learn about so I'm really glad we stopped to visit with my MeeMaw and PapPa. :)

~Jaesus

Crazy crazy

Oh wow...I've not updated my blog in a long long time. I'm sorry about that. I've been so busy with the kids this summer and all the crazy things that's happened. Okay where to start. Well let's finish up May. We spent a ton of time at my bff's house. Nicole and Bob have been going through a lot. They've done a lot of fertility treatments trying to have a baby, and it's been so difficult for them. May was a hectic month for them. The medications and shots and doctor appointments 5 hours away in San Antonio, and on top of that, she's also a Yorkie and Pomeranian breeder. So she had two litters of puppies while all this was going on. I was there at her house all the time helping w/the puppies and then taking care of them while she was out of town for doctor visits. In late May she had to spend two weeks in San Antonio to prepare for her first IVF treatment and so I was caring for a litter of puppies and her adult dogs while she was gone. One of her puppies (named Ethan) started looking sick and lethargic. Poor baby. His condition started to worry me, so I brought him over to my house to stay w/me over night. The next day he was worse so I took him to Nicole's vet and they said he was having trouble with hypoglycemia. I got him started on a calorie booster and we tried different foods. He perked up really good. I was giving him the calorie booster every 2 hours and an antibiotic every 4hours. It was a rough week, up every two hours to give meds and offer foods, but little Ethan pulled through. :) He bounced back and made a full

recovery. Such a sweet baby. Laney was so happy to have a puppy in the house and begged her daddy relentlessly to keep him. Nicole was very grateful for my help, and offered me a future discount price on a puppy. :) I'll definitely think about it. Maybe with a male yorkie or a male yorkeranian (a mix of the yorkie and Pomeranian). Ethan is a mix. He was such a cutie, and I was so glad he pulled through. He was the runt of the litter. So sweet, and cuddly and I think even Kevin learned to really love him. Ethan sure loved Kevin and I think that helped melt his heart a bit. haha. Evil I know but I am so ready to start my own breeding program. I will be breeding Havanese (and eventually Coton de Telear). Well...one day right? *sigh* At the moment 4 dogs is about all this little house can handle. In June several things went down. 1st my dad went through his second back surgery and then some dental work. He works SO hard and I wish he would slow down a bit, but that's just not in the "Shaw DNA". He's a hard working good 'ol boy and will be till the end. He was back at work 2 weeks after surgery, which I found amazing! He's my hero, always will be. I am such a daddy's girl. I never was as a teenager, but being grown up and living life sure changes your views on things. He is a strong and caring man, someone who I know that I can always depend on and who will always be there for me. Around the first part of June my grandmother went through some dental surgery as well. My grandmother is a tough tough lady. 80 years old and just as feisty as can be! LOL I love my grandmother's no nonsense attitude, and tell-it-like-it-is way of speaking. She's tough as nails, but a dear sweet woman at the same time. Her health is declining, and it saddens me terribly so, but I know that she's lived a fabulously long life and is such a great person. I am SO grateful that she is still here, in my life and the lives of my children! It's not many people that can say they knew their great-grandmother well, but my kids are lucky enough to be able to say it. In mid June we went to my Family reunion, (my dad's side of the family). We had a BLAST! The kids swam all day and we visited and had our family auction (to raise funds for next year) and then had great BBQ.



My PapPa, Great Aunt Ann, Great Aunt Mary Alice, and my MeeMaw.

It was great to see all my family again. It had been such a long time since I got to see everyone. Kevin was overseas last year so we didn't get to go to the reunion like I wanted to. It's so difficult to travel with 4 kiddos by myself. The boys got to see some of their favorite cousins again and the little ones got to meet some new baby cousins and Laney was over the moon about that. She just loves babies! The 4th of July was pretty anticlimactic. They didn't shoot the fireworks up high enough so people that weren't parked RIGHT on the lake couldn't see them. It sucked....big ones! We left half way through because the kids just didn't seem interested. Instead, we went to the store and got ice cream, popcorn, some candy, sodas and a ton of rented movies and had a movie night all night long! We put out sleeping bags on the living room floor and just camped out all night together. It was awesome! I'll rap this up now. I've got two more posts to put up to update you to the present. :) One on our trip to the Dinosaur Valley Park, and another about a health concern for me that some people on FS are asking me about but I've yet to answer. People I'm closest to  on FS know what's going on, but I've never really answered direct questions so I've been getting this curious question due to some of my vague answers on other questions. okay well....hope all is well with everyone and everyone is enjoying the last few weeks of their summer. :) 

-Jaesus

The Poker Game.

So every now and then me, Shaggy and our good friend Mcclenny get together to shoot the shit, drink some beer and play some poker. :) It's always fun. I'm usually at the

the top of my game, but alas this night I was not. Shags wiped the floor with me and Mcclenny was absolutely no help whatsoever! I had the best hand of the night...so I thought. I bet high and kept my cool. Watching as Shags eyes shifted back to his cards then to his chips. I was thinking..."I GOT THIS!", but it turned out that Shags was being a little sneaky ninja and he pulled out the big guns!

He clobbered me, took most of my chips, including my "lucky ante" (the one with the cute little hole in the middle). I was sad. :*( And after that came my downfall! I couldn't win a hand at all. I caught no break. I would get ahead and then *WHAM* Shags would knock me down again, or Mcclenny would run a sneak attack and capture a huge pot of chips. It was so bad I had to start using runts candies as substitute chips! *hangs head in shame*- I will never live this one down. I'm usually the card shark, but not this night! WOE IS ME! I got my ass beat by a bunch of amateurs! Oh the humiliations of it all! Oh the shame!

After Shags cleaned me out I watched as he and Mcclenny battled it out. Back and forth the stacks would go and I thought for sure we'd have a rematch, but in the end Mcclenny finally managed to break Shags' winning streak and he cleaned him out! Total time to victory: 3 hours! And so we toasted to the next round! May we meet again soon and may I gut you boys to death the next time! ARGH! :)

Jaesus.