Hanging Out With The Cows

My daughter went to hang out/play with some friends yesterday afternoon. They have cows. And horses. And more cows. And a few more horses. But mostly a lot of cows.

She's never gone to a friends' house with cows. Or horses. What a treat!!!

I let her take a camera to capture the experience. Unfortunately, the camera took two pictures and then totally stopped functioning.

A Blog Sabbatical

http://aholyexperience.com/2008/10/under-masks.html

Read and listen. The music moves you along with the writing.

Parade Oddities

Small town or large town, seems there is always some part of a parade that makes you go "Huh!?!?" Wanna see ours?

Football? Yam? De-headed turkey? A UFO? You decide. Whatever it is, it is doing a good job of "smashing the gator"!

And how about this fella...

I love it! It was a motorized LSU cooler. He went the length of the parade on this little scooter and was a big hit! I'm thinking of all the folks that could get one of these for Christmas....

The Parade

Marching band and girls with pom-poms

These aren't cheerleaders, but they are peppy.

So what are they called exactly?

I think these are the Junior High cheerleaders?

Highschool cheerleaders

Highschool football team, currently #1 in the state (4A)...

or so my husband tells me

Even the Catholic school in town gets invited to "represent" in the parade. That's nice. Never seen other schools invited to a homecoming parade before.

I realized that during the parade is not only the best time to go to Walmart because it would be EMPTY, but I was also hoping that nothing caught on fire since every fire truck was in use for the parade.

Homecoming In Small-Town America

This week has been homecoming for our local highschool. It's a BIG deal. We aren't involved since the kids homeschool, but we did make plans to watch the parade yesterday afternoon. The next few posts will be pictures/thoughts from the big parade in this small town.

Seems like the whole town showed up to watch the parade. Would've been a really good time to be in Walmart.....

I'm So Proud Of Them

My husband is a good dad.

He started running and then saw an opportunity to teach the kids how to run. Now they run together at least 3 mornings a week. It's our routine (ok, THEIR routine but I like to feel a part of things). Father and son go running first, then they circle back through and go for the father and daughter run time. They cover a lot of topics while running~ books they are reading, how school is going, what happened lately with their friends, etc. It's usually a fantastic time together.

On the morning I took these pictures, my son completed his first 10K running distance!! That's 6.2 miles. We were all proud of that accomplishment! My husband decided to go an extra mile before picking up my daughter, so they stood out there and looked for him...waiting to see him round the corner.

She's in the "ready" stance. She also wanted to let you know that she does NOT have gray legs...those are her leggings because it was a cool morning here.

Then they take off. They'll be back after about 1.5 miles.

Totals~

Dad~ 9.1 miles

Son~ 6.2 miles

Daughter~ 1.5 miles

"I Got Friends In High Places...."

Not really, but now you'll be humming that tune the rest of the day!

We finished up a unit study in Social Studies about the President and the election process way back at the end of August. Part of that work included writing a letter to the President (and sending it)! We waited anxiously and checked the mail frequently to see if there would be any response....for all of 2 weeks, then we gave up.

Sure enough, in yesterday's mail it arrived!

Yes, I did make her go stand outside to take the picture so we could keep things real here with the whole "out my back door" theme. She says this is the "Presidential" look.

Then we came inside and used the scissors to open the envelope so things wouldn't get torn up.

The response~ "Look Mom! It's a fake letter with a fake signature from the President...along with a picture and another fake autograph...."

Utter disappointment, but she did smile like I told her to as I took the picture.

Wonder who is harder to please~ a scrutinizing 10 year old or the entire United Nations....

(I did try to explain that the President does have a LOT to do, so he can't actually write or sign every letter that goes out of his office. She understood that, but thought he could have personalized HERS.)

It's Good To Be Home

Back to some familiar scenes out my back door~

The Borders Are Secure

Having recently visited Canada, we can declare that the border between the US and Canada is secure...unless you want to swim in some fast-moving, really cold water!

The St. Claire River

Picture taken from the Canadian side looking over to our homeland

The Canadian shores of Lake Huron

The shores of the United States on the edge of Lake Huron

Yesterday and Today

London, Ontario

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm.

Our family made an overnight trip to Canada. We were pretty excited to pull out the passports and make it to a foreign country. As we have found in our Michigan travels, people are basically the same around the country, but there are noticeable differences from our corner of Acadiana.

The speed limit~ of course it is in kilometers and not miles!

The above sign was right in front of the church below~ St. Paul's Church in London, Ontario

I'm sure the service could be great. I'm a big U2 fan, but it seemed a misfit in front of this 150 year old church.

The squirrels in London were black. That's new to me! We have regular grey squirrels in Florida and Louisiana. This one wanted to be my best friend at the park.

This isn't a black squirrel (although I thought it was). My husband told me it's one of the national symbols of Canada~ the beaver.

The STRANGEST thing we saw all day long was this (yes, I know her)~

A Day On The Apple Farm (with pumpkins too)

Hmmm....tough choice. There are some seriously good donuts and apple cider up here.

Check Out Northern Cows

They sure don't have cows like that down south!

Debunking The Myth Of "Unfriendly Northerners"

Some place in Northern Indiana...

"We're Not In Kansas Anymore...." (or Louisiana)

How to tell when I am WAY WAY WAY out my back door~

This ain't Tiger territory!

That wasn't Tiger territory either.

Rolling hills and rocks. Quite a change from our cajun prarie.

Good shakes. Decent food. Far from home.

A Borrowed Blog

I'm in the midst of packing for a trip up north. When I say north, I mean way north...Michigan. I'll have blogs to post from up there, I'm sure. We always have lots of fun when the cousins get together!

In the mean time, I'll leave my faithful readers (all 4.7 of you) with this link to another blogger from Louisiana~ he happens to be family!

Enjoy.

http://dpulling.wordpress.com/

Any Willie Nelson Fans Out My Back Door?

There aren't any Willie Nelson fans inside the house here, and we don't have any big country music fans in the house either. This was just interesting enough (in an odd sort of way) to get a picture. I'm not sure what all of this is or where the vehicles are going. Do you think these folks are really big Willie Nelson fans or perhaps he is actually somehow involved personally?

I took these pictures on a recent trip to Walmart. Now Walmart~ I'm a big fan. I don't enjoy going to the store, but I can typically find everything I'm looking for in that one spot. Ends up that Walmart is also a pretty good place to find some interesting pictures for a blog...