Meet the Ostrich

Fossil Ridge Wildlife Center

Yesterday the boys and I picked up my sister Julie and headed out to Fossil Ridge Wildlife Center in Glen Rose, TX.  It's a drive through wildlife preserve.  They give you one bag of food and you have to use it wisely, or you will run out.  Ha ha.  We headed in, and soon had an ostrich head in our car.  We proceeded on and found Blackbuck, Addax, Axis Deer, Gemstock, Thompson's Gazelle.  I think it reminded Julie and I strongly of the Wild Animal Park in San Diego, and seeing all those animals on the plain when you ride the Monorail.  We climbed a ridge and when we came down the other side, we found the valley with the giraffes and zebras. We were so excited to feed the giraffes, but none would come to the car.  Then after we drove past we saw one walk over to the next car.  We were bummed.  However we proceeded on. Soon we were climbing another ridge and found Aoudads, which are kind of like African big horned sheep.  The boys were loving feeding all the animals and thought it was hilarious when they would stick their heads in the car.  We drove past the cheetahs, which were caged, as were the rhinos.  We found a herd of wildebeest, but they didn't come up to the car.  The drive probably took a couple hours.  We came to the exit gate, and there was a little side road that took you back to the start of the tour.  I looked at my sister, and she looked at me, and we said, let's go again!  So, off we went for a second tour, and this time we saw Emus and Bongos, which we hadn't seen the first time around.  When we got back to the giraffes, we were excited to see one was up by the cars taking food from everybody, then all of sudden two cars in front of us, it stopped.  Well, the two cars drove on, and there we were, and I held out some food anyway, and it came over and ate it!  We were so excited.  Everyone was shoving their hands out my window. We finally drove on and ended up in a pack of zebras.  I was watching one outside the passenger window when I turned and found a zebra sticking it's head in my window!  It caught me off guard.  Ha ha.  Then it had a good time looking in my mirror.  We finished the tour for a second time with our final visitor being an ostrich, just like our very first visitor.  This time I did take the exit.  We drove back to my sister's and hit a horrible storm.  The rain was so bad you could hardly see and lightening was striking everywhere.  I'm so glad that didn't hit while we were at the park.  We all got home safely and we all had a great time.  What an awesome place.

The Gardens of The American Rose Center

On Saturday April 25th, Justin, Jacob and Myself drove over to Shreveport, LA to visit The Gardens of The American Rose Center.  It's a little over three hours to get to Shreveport.  It a gorgeous drive.  About fifty miles out of Dallas as you get into East Texas the terrain changes to rolling hills thickly forested in pine.  It's been six years since I've been to the gardens. Justin was a six week old baby the last time we went. The gardens cover 42 acres. They are set into different little gardens with a path that intersects them all. All this is set amongst the towering pines. It's quite lovely. The boys enjoyed the little play ground we found. It had a real see saw, something you just don't see anymore. We all had a lot of fun playing on that. It was pretty warm and the humidity is definitely higher in Louisiana, but we had a great time.

Painting

Well, after almost seven years in this house, I decided it was finally time to paint what would be our formal dining room, but for us it's the boys playroom.  After much debate I picked the colors and headed to Home Depot to buy paint.  

Before

On a Wednesday morning I tackled the top portion of the wall.  
On Thursday afternoon, I let the boys help with the bottom...
Here it is finished.  Now I need to find some art...  Greg and I are thinking of going with some pieces from the impressionist period.  We went to an Impressionist exhibit last fall and were very impressed.  Something along the line of Monet possibly.

Spring...

We've been having really pleasant weather the past month or so.  A few storms now and again, but mostly it's been hanging around the 70's and 80's.  I've been really making an effort to spend time outside before it gets unbearably hot for the summer.  The boys and I have been going on a lot of bike rides, I've been doing a lot of gardening, and just sitting outside reading has been nice.  A couple weeks ago Jacob and I went out hiking at our local nature preserve. We stumbled upon a copperhead sunning itself on the trail.  I've never seen one in the wild.  After some debate, we skirted behind it, which was probably stupid, since later I talked to a lady who had seen it at the same time as us, but stayed to take some pictures.  She told me it suddenly whipped around and slithered into the grass, and that she had never seen anything move so quick.  Anyway, we continued on our hike into the wetlands section of the preserve.  We saw countless turtles out sunning themselves on the logs, and a few watersnakes as well.  We even saw a gar fish swim by.  We also found a visiting Canadian goose.  

Canadian Goose
A Turtle sunbathing
The Copperhead on the Trail

Back to the gardening, this is a bouquet of one of my roses called Cherry Parfait.  It had so many blooms the poor bush was just drooping.  So, I cut them all and brought them in the house.  I love my spring roses, it's when the do the best.  They bloom every six weeks, but the blooms just don't do as well in the summer heat.