And so it begins…

We’re now 968 miles from home. We’ve traveled more than that, however. We made a pit stop in Oklahoma to visit my sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew and their kids. I hadn’t seen their houses or community at all since they all moved “up north” at he beginning of the pandemic. (I obviously haven’t blogged about the pandemic, but that’s another story for another day.) (Trying to come up with topics here.) We had so much fun exploring the community and seeing all of the sites. I introduced my sister to Geocaching (Geocaching.com). I made it to my 300th find and Sister made it to 25 as a newb. Good job sister!

After that we left, drove past Some state lines and finally made it to our Airbnb in the Queen City last night. Today we’re looking at exploring the city and treating Oda Mae to some authentic Cincinnati Chili from Skyline. I’m hoping they don’t disappoint. I’ve been making my one for more than 20 years. Yes, for those of you who know I’m whole food, plant based (WFPB) now, I’m making an exception this week. (That’s another blog post right there!)

Time to get busy, more updates later.

The Beginning...

And so it begins. The end of the school year has come upon us. Alli is officially a senior in high school. Brenda will be moving to Cincinnati in less than a month and we begin our adventures.

Adventure #1: Finding a place to live. 

A few years ago, I moved to Cincinnati. Yep...lived in Cincinnati for about 6 months all by my lonesome. I actually started a masters degree in music at the University of Cincinnati: Collage-Conservatory of Music. I distinctly remember my first day, sitting in a lecture hall, listening to someone say that many of us would not graduate. I also remember thinking, "not me". Six months later I was back in Texas. Life has a way of messing with you. I wasn't happy in The Queen City for many reasons. Hind site being 20/20 and all, I was already burned out. I was done practicing and living for a career in music. That actually happened prior to moving to Ohio, but that's another story. What I did learn from moving temporarily up north was that I love Cincinnati Chili! I learned how to make it, and I've been making it for my family for 24 years.

Yes, it's mostly cheese and you can't really see the chili and it's on a pile of spaghetti, but don't knock it 'til you've tried it. I'm looking forward to sampling some of the real thing once again. So much so that our 1st Airbnb is just a few steps from Skyline.

We'll spend our first few days in Ohio staying in a small loft a few blocks away from Music Hall. It's a nice little place that has been decorated in a trendy fashion and is centrally located. 20-some-odd years ago the first place I stayed in Cincinnati was in a sketchy hotel right off the highway, but it was cheap. College students need cheap. I have to admit, it's nice not having to worry about paying for a place to stay this time around. Our first experience with the CSO/CPO will be the Red, White and Boom concert on July 4th. I can't think of a better way to start an adventure. After that, Brenda will move into a more permanent location just a short walk from Music Hall. Safety was one of our biggest concerns. You know what they say..."location, location, location". While of course I won't disclose her location online I'll say it exceeds our expectations for what we had hoped. We are all set up to rent for the next year and a bit longer if needed. Brenda will be moving out of our 1st Airbnb on her birthday. Technically, she'll be homeless for a couple of days then she'll move here...

It's a small price to pay.

Don't worry, she has a quilt to cover up with and it's still summer time. No worries...

On to adventure #2.

Attention!!!

Dear Friends and Family, Many of you have not noticed that just a couple of days ago, I started blogging again. My resurgence comes at a time of change for my family. I mentioned in my previous blog post that I had some big news. Here it is...

Brenda has accepted the position of Director of Orchestra Personnel for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops Orchestra! I cannot even begin to express how proud I am. Brenda has always been a very humble and content person in regards to her work position, but I'll say it how it is. Brenda is the most organized, hardworking, caring and detail oriented person in her field. She has been able to manage the day-to-day operations of orchestra musicians for 20 years with incredible grace, compassion and professionalism. I truly believe that the CSO/CPO is happy to have Brenda join their team as evidenced by their announcement to musicians and staff as well as conversations Brenda has had with them in recent days. However...they really have no idea what they have gotten. I believe that Brenda is at the top of her profession not only in the U.S., but in the world. Cincinnati, I have one request of you. Take care of her; you do not want to lose her! Brenda will be an employee that you will want to fight tooth and nail to keep should another orchestra ever try to snag her away.

With this announcement comes something very bittersweet for me and Oda Mae (Alli). We are so happy for Brenda's new position that will begin at the end of June, though very sad at the thought that we will be separated for the next year until Alli graduates from high school here in Texas. Alli is currently planning on attending college in Texas after graduation. At that point, if all goes as planned, I'll join Brenda in Ohio. Of course, we'll be visiting often, but it will be difficult at times. I have no doubt her choice to advance in her career is the best for our family so a temporary situation like this will be well worth it in the end.

Much more to come...

11 Years

So, here we are; eleven years later. What has become of Oda Daddy, Oda Momma and of course Oda Mae? I'm not sure why I stopped blogging 11 years ago. Things seemed to be going well. Oda Mae had a field day, last you all heard. I look at the pics I posted and I think how cute she was. Good lord...she was in kindergarten back then. Well, today, Oda Mae is about to finish her junior year of high school. Yep, she'll be a senior in just a few short days. A lot of things go through my mind when I think of that...but mostly, where did all the time go. I restart the blog today because it somehow seems appropriate. Oda Mae will be finishing her last year of high school. Our lives are different now and we have new stories to tell. I'm not sure if I'll continue to blog after this next year, but we'll see. It is a pretty cool hobby. In the meantime we have some catching up to do with a lot of excitement to come. In the next couple of days or so, I'll have a big announcement for my readers. ...Wait.....do I still have readers? Comment below if you are still following! I'd love to know. Either way, I'll chronicle Oda Mae's last year in high school and our upcoming big adventures. Until next time. -Oda Daddy

Field Day!

So I’ve just completed my fourth semester of nursing school. I’ve got the summer off and then I’ll finish up next fall. However, that’s not what this post is about. Today was Oda Mae’s first “Field Day” at school. Brenda and I had the privilege of going up there this morning and watching some of the goings on. After lunch I went back and stayed for the rest of the day. All I have to say is that I am pretty sure this day was set up to try and wear out every kindergartner at that school. I got tired just watching. Fortunately, I was able to take several pictures to post here on the blog. Oda Mae and her friends had a great time shooting hoops, playing tug-of-war, freeze tag, chicken run, and relay races. At the end of the day she said her favorite thing was playing on the "first grader's playground". I have to admit, it's way cooler than the kindergarten playground. Allison was a great sport in all of the activities and she had a really good time. Without hesitation, however, after watching her all day it is painfully obvious that she inherited her athletic ability from both of her parents who joined the band so we wouldn't have to go to PE. :)

-Oda Daddy

Tug-of-War

The girls win!
Having a good time!
There were many bunny ears today.
Looks like she's going to make it doesn't it? :)

Here's the first grader's playground.

Good friends.

Something fun must have just happened.

Starting to wear out a little.

They forgot to say the Pledge of Allegiance before school, so they said it at the end of the day.

Bah, humbug.

A few months ago I decided not to put up any Christmas lights this year. Not gonna do Thanksgiving at my house this year either. The holiday season is upon me now and I'm up to my gills in work. I knew then that things would be busy and sure enough, I've got a paper due on Tuesday, a cardiovascular exam in a couple of weeks followed by a comprehensive final that will cover all of the body systems, related health problems, medications, nursing processes, etc. I really need to do well on the next two exams. I'm not sure what happened to the 98's I was making in A&P and Chemistry, but no such luck on the nursing exams. On top all of that, my piano instructor asked me yesterday if I would be interested in performing on the student recital in two weeks (yes, the same week as my next exam.) I'm thinking probably not. I have far exceeded my performance requirements in the musical arts.

All that being said, Allison wrote a letter to Santa a few days ago...

"Dere Satua
I HOP ThAT
YOU GIV Me
LOTS UV PReSiSiS
I AM SARee
ThAT I WOT
HAV Mi KRiSMiS
LiTS UP

Love AlliSoN"

(sigh)

and this just in from our neighborhood association....

"Holiday Yard of the Month begins next Month!
The church was filled with residents and members expressing concerns and voting for change in the neighborhood. The submitted logo passed and will appear on all Riverbend publicity materials. After some discussion a vote to change the meeting time from 6:30pm to 7:00pm passed. A kind donation from James Toal will fund a
Holiday Yard of the Month program for two years. The holidays included in the program are Christmas, Easter, 4th of July, and Halloween. Beginning this month
and ending Dec. 13th judges will vote on homes decorated for Christmas. Prizes include: $25 cash, Holiday YOM sign, and a picture in the newsletter."


OKAY, FINE! I'll put up Christmas lights. I'm not promising 30,000+ but I better win that cash AND Father of the Year.

-JT

Gratitude

1. My sister walked her first "Race for the Cure" as a survivor. She is an inspiration!
2. I passed my Neuro/Musculoskeletal exam on Monday.
3. My wife loves me.
4. My daughter is going on a field trip tomorrow to the farm. (It'll be her first ride on a school bus.)
5. Met some great couples from our church for dinner last night. We had a good time.
6. God provided queso for my wife at previously mentioned dinner.
7. People still read my blog.
8. Music is not my life anymore, but a wonderful part of it.
9. Going to see old friends this weekend.
10. Pumpkin Pie & Pumpkin Cupcakes.

:)

1 school day down, 2,339 more to go.

Day one of kindergarten was a success. Oda Mae woke up this morning ready to hit the ground running. We had back-to-school kolaches for breakfast, yum! After breakfast, she got dressed in her purple outfit, packed her lunch, strapped on a backpack and went to school. She was pretty excited about the whole thing until she realized that mom and dad weren’t going to hang out with her all day at kindergarten. She gave us a tight hug and was able to find a place to sit with some other very frightened little 5-year-old girls.

After I got home I was able to get some housework done as well as start working on some reading fornext week. I was pretty busy for about 30 minutes when I had to call Oda Momma and tell her that I was wondering if Oda Mae was having a good time at school. All day those thoughts were going through my head….I wonder what she’s doing now. Did she make any friends? I hope those friends aren’t a bad influence. Does she know what to do if there is a fire alarm? She won’t get lost on the way to the restroom, will she? I have to admit I don’t understand why, with today’s technology, can’t there be an hourly update on what my child is doing in school? I’m going to have to set up a parent-teacher conference to discuss possibilities: IM, Blogging, Twitter….come on lady step into the 21st century. Oda Momma promptly reminded me that if the kindergarten teacher were blogging all day, she wouldn’t be teaching our daughter. Hmmmmmmmm isn’t that why they need teacher assistants or classroom dads or something?

However….I was able to get parts of the story after we picked up Oda Mae from school this afternoon. During recess she was building a castle out of rocks under the play ground when two girls came over to play with her. After a few minutes the other girls ran away because they had to go. Oda Mae told us that she realized a little later that they ran away because it was time to go inside. She said, “My class almost left me outside! I had to run to get in line.” This story was particularly funny when she told us about the next thing they did. Oda Mae really enjoyed the “Who’s Missing” game. They all got in a circle, closed their eyes and one of them would get up and hide. When the other students opened their eyes they had to guess who was missing. Sounds like a good learn your classmate’s name game. Oda Mae said that she was able to go first in this game. I’m just glad she wasn’t really missing and playing all by herself out on the playground. 

She met three friends today. “Two girl friends and one boy friend,” she said. Tonight she said that her “boyfriend” had the same drink bottle that she did. Apparently they met during lunch today when he sat down on the green tape next to the pink tape that she was sitting on. I’m not sure what that was all about. I’m going to have to have a talk with this “boyfriend” and make sure that if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay away from my daughter. It ought to be pretty easy to put the fear of a dad into a five-year-old, shouldn’t it?









All-in-all we had a good day. Hopefully, tomorrow will go smoothly as well.

DV,

Oda Daddy

Hello...hello....hello....echo...echo....echo.....

Good Lord, somebody blow the dust off of this blog. Let's see, four blog posts in seven months? I think that's a record for me. It seems that since I've started back to school, my blogging life has gone down hill a bit. I have finished my second semester of nursing and I've got seven weeks off. That will be the longest break I've had since A&P I. I am really enjoying nursing school, but I still find myself thinking, "What the hell have I done?" on occasion.

I have three more semesters left and I'll be all registered and stuff. For now however I'm on vacation! Tomorrow morning we leave for a few days to visit some family. Yesterday we went out to a place called "Splash Kingdom". We had a great day. Oda Mae was so tired, she actually slept an hour late this morning. Speaking of Oda Mae here's a recent photo...

Yep, she lost a tooth a while back. She's got another one loose now. BTW, she's headed to kindergarten in the fall. We are making the most of our dog day's of summer. We've taken her out of her parent's day out and we are spending time doing lots of cool stuff. We make it over to the library almost everyday. She's reading really well and will be ahead of most of her little pals come this fall. Today we went to see a movie: "Furry Vengeance". It was pretty silly. I can't wait for the rest of the summer. We are looking forward to some quality time before school starts.

I'll try to update on some other happenings later.

-Oda Daddy

Freaking Tired of Snow

Okay, so a couple of days of snowfall here in TX is kind of cool. You know...the novelty of the whole thing, but enough is enough. The weather forecast for next week calls for more snow. There are several reasons I moved back to TX from Ohio and the snow is one of them. I'm tired of being cold in my house, my shoes are always wet, can't take Oda Mae to the park, the city shuts down....I could go on.

Okay, I'm done. (Can you tell I'm ready for the spring and summer?)

Oda Mae went to her allergy/asthma specialist again this week. She has had a chronic cough since last May. After seeing her regular pediatrician and this specialist several times she finally gets an x-ray. Diagnosis..............Chronic Sinus Infection. She was apparently completely blocked up. Treatment..............antibiotics for the next 20 days. I sure hope this works, otherwise I'm going to have to go in there myself and pull some stuff out. I can do it you know, I'm a professional nursing student.

On Thursday I was able to observe a tracheostomy procedure. It was very interesting to watch. (No, I did not pass out.) Also, I helped with some physical therapy and took the glucose levels of a couple of patients. See, I am learning something. Funny thing about learning how to be a nurse...the more I learn and the more information that I am able to put into my brain, the more I realize how completely incompetent I am. There are people who have been in health care their entire lives and are still learning. As a "non-traditional student" I am somewhat saddened by the fact that I didn't make this choice several years ago. C'est la vie.

I am having some issues however. Having a degree in education has made me somewhat of a "teaching snob". I've had many classes and lessons with people who are great teachers but poor performers in their "art". I've also had sessions with people who are great performers, but can't teach their way out of a paper bag. That is my issue right now. What do you do if you your instructor doesn't have a clue what to tell you, but they can do their job just fine? It's not like you can just go up to them and tell them that they are sucking things up for you. I do remember telling a certain teacher of mine that he wasn't cutting it for me. Eventually I trained him pretty good and got an excellent education from him. :) I wonder if that could happen again in a shorter period of time? I'll give it some more thought.

-DV

Yes, I'm THAT guy.

Second week of nursing school behind me as of today. I've been insanely busy as Oda Momma and Oda Mae can tell you. I am averaging around 7 hrs a day studying (outside of class time), and I'm only slightly behind. I've been playing gigs as well these two weeks. I'm out of town now until late Saturday evening. The good thing is that I don't have any rehearsals until 7 tomorrow night. That gives me the entire day to try and get caught up. After two weeks of somewhat intense study I can say now that I am really enjoying what I am doing. The new information that I am learning is incredibly refreshing and is truly fascinating to me. With all that said, I'm 99.9% sure that I have made a good decision with my career change. However, there are some things I'll have to work on....

For example: Foley Catheters.

I show up to clinical at 7am this morning. Today we began the day watching some skills videos. Last week we watched videos on safe patient handling and infection control. Today, we ended the week with "Elimination Needs". Yes, it is exactly what you think it is. Now, if you know me, you know that I really like to watch all of those surgery shows when they show the inside of the skull, autopsy's, guts...you get the idea. I'm generally not too squeamish. You have to imagine though a fairly small computer lab (about 25 stations) filled with 40 nursing students and 2-5 faculty members. It's pretty cozy. Of course the heat is on because it's winter. Things get kind of warm. So I'm setting in the back surrounded by my peers when we get to the video, "Removing Indwelling Catheters". A 3 minute video that lasted about 2 1/2 minutes too long for me. These videos are produced for nursing students using real nurses and "patients" who apparently are REALLY desperate actors. Yep they do it for real, people. I was doing okay until they actually removed the tubing from the male patient. The next thing I remember are 39 student nurses and 5 faculty nurses fanning me and asking me if I hurt my head when I fell out of my chair onto the floor. Fainting. Blackout. Syncope. Unconsciousness. What ever you want to call it. I am pleased to announce to the readers of The Famfare that I will forever be known as "that guy who fainted during the elimination videos".

Yes, I'm fine.

On a more lively note. Oda Mae had the opportunity to go to school today in her PJ's for Pajama/Pancake day. She ate 4 pancakes, 2 slices of ham, lots of grapes and some apple slices. Oh, to be four years old again.

Time to go desensitize myself to various issues concerning "Elimination Needs".

-OD (Student Nurse)

My Last 48 Hours

Alas, the time has finally come. I have about 48 more hours left as a free man. I plan on spending them with my family. Today is my nephew's birthday and we're going to my sister's house for some good food. Last night Oda Momma and I sent Oda Mae to her Aunt Sis' house early so we could go see a movie. We went to the only $1 movie left in town and saw "2012". If you're into disaster movies, this one is worth about what we paid for it. ($4.00 total) Glad we didn't see it at the regular theater.

Today I've got to finish one more chapter for clinicals on Tuesday and read through the student handbook. I originally had big plans for Oda Mae and I tomorrow. We were going to the library and the museum, BUT the library is closed for MLK and there is no free parking for the museum in Cowtown, because of, well....cows. The Ft. Worth Stock Show and Rodeo have taken over the arts district for the next couple of weeks. We're gonna have to find something to do tomorrow. STAT!

Speaking of "stat", I got my stethoscope in the mail on Friday. Yes, I played with it! and No, I don't know what I'm doing. Yet.

Note to family.....I WILL be practicing on all of you when we get together the next time, so just prepare for it!

That is all for now.

DV

-Oda Daddy

2010

Whoa!!!! Only 8 blog posts in 2009. Is there anybody still here? Guess I've been busy. Facebook kind of took over, but there's not much substance there. Here I can complain and it doesn't matter who I offend. :)

Let's see.....since July..........

I got into nursing school and I start in two weeks. Did anyone here know I was going into nursing? Yeah, that happened sometime last year.
Oda Mae starts going to parents day out four days a week. (She starts kindergarten next fall...talk about scary)
We've been combating sickness around here for about two months (or longer).
My sister is an official cancer survivor!!!! Yea Sis!
We are almost debt free!!!
Got the Christmas lights up this year.
Got to take them down now...bummer.
Lost about 40 lbs in 2009
Gained 10 lbs during the holidays.
Gonna lose about 20-25 more starting today.

Well, that's it for now. Promise I'll be back before this summer.

-OD

Eat Mor Chikin!

Today I took my family out for a nice lunch. It was free. Of course we all had to dress up like cows, but hey, FREE LUNCH!

Oda Mae and I worked on our costumes for about 40 minutes this morning. There were a lot of spots to tape on.

If you want a free meal as well...head on over to Chick-fil-a dressed up like a cow and have at it.

We had a very good time.

It was a rocky start...

Well here we are, the beginning of July and I made it through a 6 week crash course in Microbiology. I have to say that I REALLY enjoyed the class as far as the science goes. Does that officially make me a nerd? The lab has been my favorite so far. We were able to grow some really cool (aka disgusting) stuff. And NO, I didn't contaminate myself with anything. I have to admit though, I won't ever take another science course during a six week summer term if I can help it. TMI in TLT!

Now the bad part...I believe my instructor had MPD. Good Lord! This lady had about 5 different personalities that were completely random. During the 1st week, I would have rather gouged my eyeballs out than to have to listen to this lady lecture. After that, I think she backed off a bit. Either that or I was desensitized at that point. Either way I'm done now and can look back and reflect. I have to admit, I made the lowest grade on the first test that I've made since my return to school last September. I made a 70! The test wasn't at all what I had expected and I didn't study properly. After that I made a b-line for the nearest library and practically lived there until last night. By the end, I had approximately 900 note cards that covered EVERYTHING we had covered in class. I am happy to announce that I received my final grade today of ......drum roll please........

"A"

granted, it's actually an A- (91 average), but I'll take it!

I really wish I had taken this course during a long semester. I would have enjoyed taking a little more time to really learn the material, but life doesn't always work out that way.

My next adventure....Psychology (Transitions Throughout the Lifespan). It's a FOUR week course. Starts on Monday....wish me luck.

On August 1st, I will be applying for nursing school. I hope I get in!

In the mean time....the family and I will be partying at CITG tonight and celebrating the 4th. Hot Dogs, Bean Salad, Grapes, Cookies, Pound Cake, Fireworks! Looking forward to it.

-OD

Project

This afternoon, Oda Mae and I came up with a pretty fun project...

Summer Reading

Well, here we are again. Bet you thought it would be another couple of months, huh? I still have things to blog about, so we'll continue with Oda Mae's education today.

A few weeks ago we finished going through all the letters of the alphabet. We learned sounds that went with all of the letters and practiced writing them as well. Every week we checked out books from the library that would reinforce the letter of the "week". If any of you parents out there are interested in teaching your kids how to read there are a couple of websites I used to help us along. The first one is Brightly Beaming Resources There is a wealth of information from a mother who home schools her children. We followed her preparatory curriculum followed by her letter of the week. We also used http://www.starfall.com/ for Oda Mae to play computer games while learning letters and sounds. We will continue to use these websites. They have been extremely valuable.

After we finished the letter of the week curriculum I checked out books for her at the library. They have several pages of single syllable words with the occasional two syllable word. So far, Oda Mae has read four of them to me so far. She knows how to sound out the words and doesn't need Daddys help! I'm pretty sure she'll be smarter than me someday.

Today we went to the library downtown for the annual Summer Reading Kickoff Extravaganza Super-duper Mega Party and we were the first ones to show up. There are perks for showing up first like hobnobbing with Mayer Mike and being used for "Photo Ops". We'll be checking out the local paper to see what shows up. See...
Then of course, there were crafts... And face painting...

Followed by story time...

Oda Mae got a little scared of the witch from "Piggy Pie" She was the farmer.

Afterwords, we were hungry AND tired. So we checked out a book, came home, ate a sandwich and fell asleep. We are both looking forward to this summer when Oda Mae can start reading books on her own for the Summer Reading Program. Yeah!

Dominus Vobiscum,

Oda Daddy

Oda Mae's Recital

Monday I had 4 final exams, so I figured I needed a couple days rest before I got back to blogging....


We'll start with the most recent event. On Sunday, yes Mother's Day, Oda Mae had her first "ballet recital". Since January I've been taking her to ballet lessons once a week. She loves to dance around the house so we figured we'd give ballet a try. I found a school near the house that offered a class during a time I could take her. It started out simple enough. We had to invest a little, you know, ballet slippers, tights, leotards, tuition, etc. We definitely wanted to see her perform in the spring performance so we paid for the costume and performance fee as well. As you can imagine all of this was starting to add up. Of course, we just paid 'cause it was our little girl.

I finally got used to setting in the lobby area with all of the other "mothers" who brought their little ones to class. I won't even go into some of the conversations I heard there. I just brought a book every week and got some reading done during the 45 minute class. Parents weren't allowed in the studio, but we could hear everything that was going on while sitting in the lobby. I have to admit I was never really comfortable with the instruction that went on. Only a couple of basic positions were taught and the rest of the class time was spent preparing for "the performance". Now, I work in the arts. I know what it takes to put on a good show, but we're talking about a class of 3 and 4 yr olds. All they want to do is have fun. By the end of the semester I had to MAKE Oda Mae go to class. A couple of times I thought about letting her stay home. She really wasn't having fun in the class. Typically, once she got out of the class, she was fine, but she should want to go. I'm pretty sure the instructor hadn't worked with kids very much. She was pretty negative when they we not doing what they needed to do. It was very rare that I heard words of encouragement to any of the students.

"The Performance"
Now, I'll admit, the performance was done very well. Very professional. A two hour production of Alice in Wonderland at a major hall with all of the students (young and old) from this particular ballet school. Frankly, I just wanted to see Oda Mae dance around with a bunch of other kids her age. The good seats in the auditorium were reserved for alumni of the school, we had to pay for the program that had her name and picture, and photographs and video were not allowed during the performance. COME ON PEOPLE! I was able to get pics and video at the dress rehearsal, so that's good.

All in all we made it through and Oda Mae got to dance on stage for 3 minutes, but I think we might be looking at other options for this summer and next fall. She was super cute mind you, but maybe we'll put swimming, soccer and chess on the list of things to try next. :)

Here's the video from the dress.



Here are some pics from the dress.

Some more pics

Yesterday we went out to the museum district and took some "fairy" shots. Today we went to the library and the FREE Family Fun Day at the Texas Cowgirl Museum/Museum of Natural Science and History.

There are a few more pics on my Facebook page as well.

Had a photo shoot today...

Allison and I had a photo shoot today. She actually had "school" pictures done today as well. I decided last week to have a photo shoot with her this week so that I wouldn't be tempted to spend thousands of dollars on some pretty average pictures. We went out to the garden today after I picked her up and we had a blast. Here is one of my favorites. I'll post some more over the next day or two.