Happy Birthday, Ashley Anne!!

Happy Birthday to a wonderful daughter! So many wonderful things have happened since your first birthday! Look how cautious you were with your cake. You have gotten brave enough to start your own business. I wish you a very happy birthday and a fabulous year! Love you, MOM

Texas Food

Dale and I are foodies and it's an important part of our travel. We research ahead looking for local eateries that are landmarks or favorites. Of course we always focus on the specialties of the area. This trip we got lots of Tex Mex and BBQ and it was very good. This is a photo of Dale enjoying the big bacon cheeseburger at Kincaids in Ft. Worth. This was a very unique stop with a great story behind the business. We even got fried okra. You certainly don't get that in Iowa

Joe T. Garcia's was amazingly good food in a beautiful setting. The food was just incredible. We even got cloth napkins!! As much as Dale and I love good food we often hit the diners, drive-ins and dives when we are exploring and love those places also.

We spent part of a morning at the Dallas Farmers Market. We were quite impressed with the beautiful displays of produce. We had thought it would be more of an event, like the Des Moines Farmer's Market but this one was much more about the produce and less about entertainment and atmosphere. We didn't buy any vegetables but we had lots of samples. We also ate lots of ice cream on vacation after we discovered Braum's.
Their ice cream was so good that it may be worth a trip South.

This was a very interesting stop in Oklahoma! The huge sign says just "Fried Pies." The woman at the rest stop insisted that we must stop at exit 151 so we did! It was a very unique experience and well worth the calories. I had the chicken vegetable which was like a very good pot pie then the blackberry for dessert. This place was as local as it could be!

All this food and chili tamales, ball park hot dogs, sausage, brisket and more made for a good eating trip. It was my hope to not gain any weight on this twelve day vacation. I was thrilled to succeed! I was not as thrilled to find out that Dale lost six pounds on vacation. WHAT? How could that happen? OK, so I was happy for him but really? He lost six pounds!!

Congratulations, Molly!

On Sunday I headed to Mason City for my niece, Molly's graduation party! Molly is the youngest child of my youngest sister. Our family is growing up very quickly. It was fun to celebrate with Molly and see lots of family. I am excited that Molly is going to UNI and will be living in Cedar Falls. It's a great town.
I got to town early and met Jay and Briana for a walk in East Park. It's a gorgeous park where I spent time as a child and lots of time with my children when they were little also. The park has been improved and well cared for over the years. It is a gem in Mason City!

Waterloo Weekend

I had a great weekend visiting Ashley and Mowgli in Waterloo this weekend. Travis was gone for a motorcycle weekend so I didn't get to see him but it was a fun weekend anyway. We went for lots of walks and Mowgli was happy to go with us. We also ate great food and got to go some of my favorite places; Brown Bottle and Pablos. I got to see a couple very good friends, Linda and Larry. I love the opportunity to catch up with my Cedar Falls friends!

Linda gave us rhubarb from her yard. Ashley had mentioned strawberry rhubarb pie recently so we found a recipe and made a yummy pie for dessert and breakfast the next day! It was so fun to hang out with Ashley, walking, eating, talking and just lounging around together! Mowgli cried when I left. . . how sad. I will be back soon!

Hiking and a Hotdog

I had a great Mother's Day!

The kids were not here but they will all be down in two weeks and I look forward to that.
Dale and I went hiking at Ledges State Park in the morning and went to an I-Cubs game in the afternoon. How great is that? Hiking in the woods and a ball park hot dog for lunch?


I hope to get to a good hiking spot often this summer. It is great exercise and much more pleasant than a treadmill at the gym. The trails were quite steep and we did make it up to the crow's nest lookout. It was a good workout. I love that the creek weaves through the park with the waters running over the roads in several places. We didn't get to all the trails so I hope to get back to Ledges again soon. The I-Cubs won today too. It was a good day. Now I look forward to seeing Jay, Ashley, Travis and Briana in a couple of weeks.

I Love Being a Mom!

I am very grateful for the privilege of being a mom to Jay and Ashley. It was wonderful to have them in my life as babies, children, teens and adults! Mother's Day is a reminder of that wonderful blessing.

On rare occaision when they were little one of them would call me Linda. I would remind them that everybody calls me that but only they got to call me Mom. I thank God that I get to be their Mom!!

Farmer's Market Season Openers

My favorite farmer's markets
opened for the season this week.
I always love the event; the music, sights, sounds, smells and the people. On Thursday Dale and I got some amazing flax seed bread and some very fresh asparagus at the Farmer's Market in Valley Junction. Those purchases created this wonderful Saturday lunch along with some fresh mozzarella from Graziano's, one of my new favorite markets.

Last Saturday Ashley, Travis and Mowgli went with us to the Downtown Farmer's Market along with thousands of other people. I love the market and the music. We got some very tasty things but the crowd made it hard to move around. It was opening day and the weather was perfect so lots of people came. I took this photo when we took a short walk downtown to get a break from the crowds at the farmer's market. It was fun to take Ashley and Travis to the farmer's market and it fit in well with our dog friendly weekend.

Texas Events

In Texas we saw some great events.

I have enjoyed visits to Major League Baseball Parks throughout the country on my travels. When I met Dale I found out that he did the same thing with Nascar tracks. On this trip to Texas we were able to include one race, two baseball games and a rodeo.


Minute Maid Park in Houston was a fun ball park. The train high over the outfield was a great way to mark the home team home runs. That was the most unique thing about that ball park. Houston Astros played a good game against Florida. It was a beautiful evening so the roof was open and I enjoyed the game as I watched the sun set over the city. We didn't see much of Houston, this was our only stop in that city.

We saw the Texas Rangers play a great game against the Detroit Tigers. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington was more enclosed on the sides than many of the parks that I have seen. There wasn't a view of the city but it didn't matter because it was a very interesting game. We even stayed for the fireworks after the game. I think we will have good memories of both ballparks.

Our trip timing was based on the Nascar race held at Texas Motor Speedway. The forecast did not look good and we ended up experiencing our first rain delay. We traveled to the track on Saturday and spent a couple of hours under the bleachers due to a continual rain. The race was postponed to the next day so we found some fun in Ft. Worth, then headed back to the track to see the race on Monday.

I was very excited to see a real Texas Rodeo. We got lucky to find that the Real Texas Festival was being held in conjunction with the Mesquite Rodeo while we were in Texas. Dale and I had been to several rodeos in Iowa and were pleased to see that the Texas rodeo was very similar. It was a fun evening in Texas and we were pleased to see that Rodeo is good in Iowa or in Texas.

I still have some more vacation photos and plan to post them soon, probably mixed with current posts also!

My Photographer

Sunday morning Ashley and I did a mini photo shoot to TRY to get a good photo of me. When she requested the session, I was game. I had certainly put her through many photo sessions and taken thousands and thousands of photos.

We didn't find the perfect lighting and I didn't have time to color my gray roots, but we got a photo! Jay didn't like my old facebook profile picture, so this one will work better and is more up to date. I have aged a couple of years since the old shot was taken. I wasn't her easiest subject. I laughed and looked goofy lots but it was fun to play around with it.

Ashley takes lots of portraits and is doing very well with her photography. You can check out her work on her blog or on her website.

Weekend with Mowgli

It's been a very fun weekend and there is still one more day to enjoy! Travis and Ashley brought Mowgli with them for a visit. The weather was perfect and we have enjoyed many fun outdoor activities. This is a shot of Mowgli joining us at Snookies for his first "puppy cone." We also took him to the farmers market and the dog park as well as a picnic with our favorite B & B deli sandwiches. It was a perfect weekend to find outdoor activities. I just love being outside in this weather and Mowgli adds to the fun!

Texas Wildflowers

One of the things that Texans seem to be very proud of are their wildflowers. We hit the season perfectly and found roadsides covered with wildflowers of every color. We pulled over several times to stretch our legs and photograph the flowers. Bluebonnets seem to be the favorite for good reason. They are very striking. We were very fortunate to visit the state during bluebonnet season!