county fair.....

this past weekend we brought the boys to their first county fair. Going to the county fair and carnival is one of my favorite things to do(is there anything better than people watching at the carnival?), unfortunately i haven't been in several years. the boys are at the perfect age to start going and enjoying all that goes on at the fair and what a great way to start getting familiar with the activities in a new town. we watched the lamb show for a while and the pigs, they seemed to enjoy it for the few minutes they sat still. of course they loved the petting zoo, we went in it 4 times! I hope one day they love going and the atmosphere as much as i do. i will have to admit though...the carnival is stinking expensive! on Saturday i charged my batteries, packed a big purse my 2 fav lenses and camera, got to the fair and did not have my camera card. on Sunday, i made sure before we left to go back, that i put the card in my camera. well before we left i took a few pictures of the boys in the bath tib, loaded them in the computer and left it. so of course we get 17 miles away from the house and had to stop at walmart to get yet another card. i have 5 cards, 3 of them have been bought for the same reason, i have got to stop doing that.....

gazzillion.....

i think that is how many stars we can see now that we are out of the city. when it is clear out, it is just the most amazing thing i have ever seen. being from the city(well close to it), we were lucky to see maybe 5 on any given night. now it is just surreal when you look up into the sky and there are more stars than sky...

this is my very first attempt at photographing the stars....i have a lot practice ahead of me, but it wasn't a total bust for my first time. first thing i need to do different is make sure there are not power lines above me:)!!!
this one was 30 sec exposure....

this one is almost a 5 min exposure.....


now keep in mind that i did not take an extreme measures for composition(hence the power lines) or focus, i just wanted see if i could actually get stars to show up..i was very surprised.

scenery.....

just two of the scenery pictures i have take....



these are not even a good example of what make this area so beautiful. There are what amounts to me as mountains, but are actually huge hills everywhere. Tons of rocks, i am actaully not sure if there is much top soil here...everything is rocks. we found out it is impossible to dig a hole more that 2 inches! i just can't even begin to describe...i willhave to start taking pictures.....

Zion.....

one of the hardest decision we had to make with the move was putting the kids in the care of someone other than my sister. the thought of putting them in school(daycare, but saying school makes me feel so much better) just made me sick and i almost decided to stay in Houston, But i finally realized it would be really good for them. Zion children's center, part of the Zion Lutheran Church, came with really good recommendations from several people. My friend here has two of her children there and knows all of the staff so i felt comfortable. the first several weeks were hard on me, but i kept reminding myself they will benefit so i got over it. K LOVED it from the first day, but T on the other hand is JUST NOW getting use to it. last week he finally started to participated and be more social.. I am really so proud of them and look forward to their smiling faces and excited hugs when i pick them up! T has actually not been at school all this week because he woke up with the flu monday morning...poor baby! I am sure monday morning is not going to be fun.....

a picture of the boys on the first day of school

hooked up.....

finally after a month and a half of no Internet service, i got hooked up this morning and couldn't wait to blog!!! I doubt anyone is even attempting to keep up with this blog, but if anyone is, we moved to the hill country(near Kerrville) on labor day weekend. We moved a lot sooner than we thought, but the boys and i could not handle living apart from scott any longer, so we made the decision to let the house sell on its own and get on with our new lives here. We are currently renting a place on 10+ wooded acres, the kids have started school for the first time and are adjusting well, I am getting the hang of being in a new lab after 12 years being in the same one in houston, and scott...well scott gets to see deer EVERDAY so we all know he is in his own kind of heaven. We go hiking in the woods often and the boys love it, T has had to come to terms with all the stickers(cactus) and K begs to go scorpion hunting. We are always driving around because it is just so damn beautiful around here and i just can't get enough(it is sometimes hard to believe we have been blessed with the chance to be somewhere so beautiful) I have not gotten use to driving on the hills nor have i gotten un-car sick...bummer! I have also, as unbelievable as it is, not had my camera out much. I do have a few pictures to share and hopefully soon I will make more of an effort to get some landscape shots of a place i find so great.
the view out of our backdoor

also out of our backdoor

thing we are having to get use to


the boys playing in the dry creek that runs through our place, it rained for about 3 days straight, so water ran through it for a few hours



T meeting the neighbor goat on one of our walks

one of our neighbors...thats a whole other blog post(if you look closely you can see his pistol and quick re-loads on his belt. one of my fav pictures of all time....

the boys feeding the deer, a daily ritual now