I wrote this post about wheelbarrows a couple of weeks ago. I ended by saying that the last photo would deserve it’s own post.
We moved to our farm in the summer of1999 and these photos were taken in the spring of 2000, That is Katie and her friends painting the cart that was to become The Chariot in preparation for the 6th grade Roman Days.
That’s Katie in front and good friends, Camilla and Morgan, with younger brother Chris in the background.
This will be interesting for any of you who know the farm. That barn in the background is the old barn that is where the lambing area is now–between the current big red barn and the stall barn. The yellow building to the left of the old barn is the concrete part of the ram pen that is now behind the big red barn and covered by the shade.
The girls practiced their chariot race in front of my mom’s house which was across the street from the high school where the activities would be held.
Chariots lined up and ready to go.
Camilla was to ride in the chariot and is dressed in her finery. I don’t know who the boys in front are, but they show up in some of the next photos.
It looks like Katie and one of the boys took the role of the horses for at least one run.
This photo shows two of the boys pulling the chariot. I suppose there weren’t enough chariots to go around and they shared.
Fast forward 24 years. Here is the chariot in its current state. Dan uses it to hold tools when he needs to take them from the garage to somewhere else. We have plenty of old bicycles around from which to steal parts. Too bad that he removed one of the best additions to the chariot before I took this photo. For a couple of years there was a pink flamingo mounted somewhere on it, but I it got wobbly and Dan took it off. If it reappears I’ll take another photo.
Matt brought his drone.
The sheep have been in the barn and corral area for the last month because the pasture is soggy and I’m waiting for the grass to get some growth, but I set up the fence to let them out onto part of it for the day.
The drone gives us a great view of the property. There is a video taken with the drone on 
We opened gifts. I bought Dan a series of used books that are by author Stan Lynde. Our last name is unusual and we had found a book by this author on our most recent road trip. Dan got about half way into it and found that pages 140-180 were repeated and 180 to 120 were missing. When I looked into replacing the book I found that the author was dead, his publishing company no longer existed, and that there were about 7 or 8 books in the series. So I hunted them all down and wrapped up the Stan Lynde books for Dan Lynde.
Dan made DIL, Meryl, a marker for her parking spot to reflect her new job as an Orange Theory coach. 
My daughter sent us all aprons embellished by the grandkids. 
Time for getting dinner in the oven. Chris, mac and cheese lover that he is, has become a cream sauce expert.
While dinner was cooking we went out for another drone session…
…and a family photo. 
Dinner on the table.
We may have started a new tradition with a game from Santa. It’s a card game based on the old computer game, The Oregon Trail, that my kids loved to play years ago. 
You can play with up to six players so we created teams so that all 11 of us could play. We may study the rules between now and the next time we play. Our wagon team eventually all died–there may be better strategy than we used. 
After pies (pumpkin and apple) we moved onto a game my niece has on her phone. 
Trying to get my brother to guess Valley Girl.
A lively time was had by all.
And to all a good night.
Kasen was about 21 months.
Kirby is was four and a little bit.
I think that I would have loved to have a trampoline when I was a kid.
We visited the pumpkin patch to choose pumpkins and try to get a family portrait.
First, a chicken picture.
I don’t think it was possible to get everyone looking in the same direction at the same time. But a beautiful family nevertheless.
On the fifth day of our visit we took a field trip to Cabella’s. There is plenty of entertainment even if you don’t go for the shopping. We started with the aquarium.
There are rooms full of animals.
There are spectacular horns on these and other sheep. By the time we finished eating and shopping it was getting dark and we headed to Wimberly for the Trail of Lights.
Dozens of local businesses and families light and decorate the gardens of the 12-acre EmilyAnn Theater & Garden. This is an annual event and a major fundraiser for the theater.
Containing him worked a little better.
We had the truck loaded and I 
About 10 am. Dan and Matt and I got in the truck and headed for Big Bend National Park, about seven hours away.
Here the Chisos Mountains rise out of the desert. The park entrance is at an elevation of 2848′ and the peaks rise to over 7800′. Our camp the first night was at 5400′ which meant that there was still snow from the storm which had come through.
We got there towards dusk and found a campsite just as it was getting dark.
Kasen slept while…
Kirby helped make pink pancakes.
Then the big kids went for a run. Two of them tried the baby jogger but that wasn’t going to work. Instead they took the real kids in the jogger.
The trail continues around the pool behind those rocks.
Public access is restricted by use permit from June through September.
I can imagine what a popular site this would be in the summer and being only about 20 miles from Austin.
This is the view looking out over the pool. 
Water drips from the ledge above. 
Someone didn’t read the sign.
I remember well that as nice as it is to get out and see beautiful country it’s not exactly relaxing when you are keeping track of a toddler.
When we got back to the parking lot they both still had plenty of energy to burn off.
Back home having dinner.
Meridian Jacobs' Blog 