Texas report

We had a wonderful time in the Dallas area, visiting family for American Thanksgiving.  Our hotel was near a little town called Grapevine.

We were also just down the road from the Gaylord Texan resort, so we went in there to see it all dressed up for Christmas.  Oh my word!






I loved these shotgun shell Christmas lights!

It was great to be with family.  My Aunt June loved the Christmas wreath that I made for her.  I almost didn't do it, because I was so busy with work in the days leading up to our trip, plus I felt so guilty for working on something besides all the bee blocks I have in arrears.  But I'm so glad I did it - it made her so happy to have something made by her late sister.  Within the last four years, my aunt has lost her husband and the younger of her two sons - both of pancreatic cancer - and her sister (my mother).  She up and left everything in Tennessee - too many memories - and moved to be near her son in Texas.  I was thrilled to hear that she has been keeping company with a gentleman, a rancher who wears cowboy boots, of course!  My cousin's eldest son had just been married, so we got to welcome his lovely bride into the family.  We did puzzles, played Scrabble, watched Dallas lose to New Orleans, and ate loads of delicious food.

We got lost just about everywhere we went.  My husband says it's because the roads weren't signposted particularly well, but I wonder if we are just getting older and more decrepit.  Next time we are definitely getting a GPS unit with our rental car.  However, one place we did not get lost was the Grapevine Mills Mall, which was right across the parking lot from our hotel.  Eve and I decided we would participate in the great American tradition known as Black Friday by hitting the stores at midnight on Friday morning. It was deadly, trying to stay awake when we were stuffed full of turkey, but once we got there, we perked right up.  We shopped until about 3am.  It was pretty busy!  But the mood was fun and festive - I couldn't see any of the desperation that you hear about with pushing and shoving to get bargains.  I wasn't really shopping for anything - paying duty and overweight luggage surcharges act as a counterbalance to all but the most astounding Black Friday deals.  However, my daughter certainly did quite well.  Nevertheless, we both agreed that we were glad we had done it, but that it doesn't bear repeating!

We also went to the Stockyards in Ft. Worth and dined at Cattlemen's Steakhouse before taking in the rodeo!  We peeked into the bar at the Stockyards Hotel, but we were in too big a hurry to take advantage of the bucket of Buffalo Butt Beer.

This handsome fellow is Elvis, and he was the mount of the current Miss Fort Worth Championship Rodeo.  He had an important job to do at the beginning of the rodeo as the crowd sang the national anthem.


The events at the rodeo included bull riding, calf roping, barrel riding, and a crazed event where hundreds of children chased a sheep around the ring, trying to remove a tag from its tail in order to claim a prize.

These guys are so much bigger in real life than they seem on television!

I never figured myself for a girl who goes for cowboys, but some of these guys......!

And they start young!  My pal Jennifer clued me in that the letters on his sleeve probably stand for Professional Bull Riding instead of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which is what I thought!

These fellows had to stay on the bull for 8 seconds in order to get on the scoreboard.  It doesn't seem like much time, but most of them didn't qualify.  Those bulls were pretty angry!



Barrel riding was the women's event.  These women had to race their horses around each of three barrels and back to end of the ring.  The best times of the evening were less than 15 seconds.


It was an exciting evening!  A glimpse into another world - far from the university where I spend most of my time, for sure!

I did make it to a small quilt shop in Carrollton, TX, but I will tell you about that in another post.  For now, I will leave you with this video of bull riding!