It's Not Much Yet But It's OURS!

It's pretty funky now, but it will (by mid-October) be the coolest place in town. Behold! The Shop Downtown-Coffee and Vintage Charm:

Front room-coffee bar + vintage retail goodness:

Middle room-more vintage retail goodness, 'reading' and general hang out spot:

Middle room, another angle:
Back room-office, eBay space, eventually retail space:

Back room, another angle:

Funky yuck planter in the front window-this will be covered up for a proper display window:

After a few hours of cleaning-those tables in the corner will be put on a platform and beadboarded for a coffee counter and check out spot:

The big, beautiful, nearly clean front window:

That slate leaning against the wall is from a vintage pool table and will be made into tables for the outside space. It weighs a ton!

Lots of work to do, but it feels so good to see it all coming together!

Back to School...Already...

The Girl: "Hurry, get out of the car! MOVE IT! Before she follows us in with that camera!"

"We've almost made it, just don't look at her!"

Me: "Don't come home stooooopid!" The littlest one: "We won't!"

Frio!

The Frio river is beautiful-it's clean and clear and cold! This was our first time to go and we will definitely go back~

The awesomeness of a rope swing:

Good Geo-crap:

Garner State Park

Garner State Park is a beautiful place a little west of San Antonio. We hiked a few miles of it's rugged trails and found some lovely artwork:

It was a nice morning for a walk-everyone started out pretty stinkin' excited. About 10 minutes in, we realized this was not going to be a leasurely stroll. Miss Thing decided this place was NOT for sissies and since she definitely WAS a sissy, it'd be better for her to just go back. We let her rest a minute: It was a perilous climb but we all made it to the top. This was our reward:
At all the good stopping points along the way, I kept seeing cigarette butts. I am a reformed smoker and could not even imagine someone climbing up these hills and thinking it was a good idea to stop for a smoke! That's one hard-core, dedicated smoker! Some smart alec must have found a strange joy in painting happy faces everywhere-it didn't really put a smile on my face. I was too busy trying to breath-smiling wasn't on the agenda:

We climbed and climbed and were treated to being really near to eye-level with some F-16's.

Before we came across the planes, the kids were happy and impressed enough to be 'higher than the buzzards'.

Look closely-it reads GO LEFT, OR DIE! Guess which way we went...RIGHT...and almost died~

Good thing that man I married was a Ranger!

Every night during the summer the park has a dance.

We teased kid #3, telling him that if he wore his Texas A&M shirt he'd definitely get a dance. We weren't there 5 minutes before a sweet little girl asked him to dance!

Can't wait to go back next year!

Fun Around Town

@ the festival...

The 'Charlies'

'bout to be sick...

Aren't these the cutest boys ever?!!

I love a midway

Rodeo!

Gratuitous Cuteness:

The parade comes right in front of the house:

"Psst. Hey. Brother...I'll give you a buck if you knock over that clown and take his bike..."

Just kidding-they're very nice boys~
Unless you're their sister! We waited hours to spray the girl-that's the great thing about living on the parade route-we have the power of the water hose:

These cheerleaders are not sissies-they fought back:

This poor fella was another target we waited hours to hit-he sacrificed himself to save his buddies (or wait, did they kick him off because they knew he was the target?):

Galveston

A beach is one of my favorite places to be. It's hot and sticky. There are things that want to bite and sting and it never fails-I always get 'attacked' by a small fish or crab! I wind up with sand in places that, well, places it's just not good to have sand, but I LOVE a beach. The smell, the hot, the sand, the freedom. I am lucky to live within a couple hours drive of the Gulf. Texas beaches may not be the most beautiful in the world, but it's what I have and I am grateful for it!

There's not many things better than a day trip to Galveston on a hot July day. The kids found and captured a tiny jelly fish and were studying it in the bucket:

Hurricane Ike decimated Galveston not even 2 short years ago. Did you know that? Texans have an unsinkable spirit and Galveston was up and running not very long after Ike came to visit. There are few signs of the destruction Ike left.

The kids love going to LA Kings candy store on the Strand. They have all that old time candy-things like WAX LIPS!! This is one of the places hit hard by Ike, but it is re-opened and is still full of charm and sweetness: