A few weeks ago, I was inspired to make the goal of taking all 3 kids to all 95 Texas State Parks by the time Ashlyn was 17. Ten years from now. Crazy goal? Kind of. Doable? Definitely! With 10 down in the last 2 years, I would only need to bump up my average to 7-9/yr to make up the other 85! 👍🏻
Here’s where we stand right now. (In no particular order)
1. San Jacinto Battleground & Monument SP
2. Battleship Texas State Historical Site
3. Palmetto SP
4. Mother Neff SP
5. Daingerfield SP
6. Garner SP
7. Tyler SP
8. Sea Rim SP
9. Sheldon Lake SP
10. Galveston Island SP

Number 9 and 10 I gave myself due to my personal knowledge that the parks didn’t offer anything more than what we witnessed on countless visits to Galveston and Lake Houston. I know, cheater, cheater.

After today, we now have number 11, Mission Tejas SP! We took advantage of the 30 minute day trip from mom’s house and thoroughly enjoyed our 3 hrs in this Piney Woods State Park located along the historical El Camino Real.

The kids got to check out the replicated architecture of a 1690’s Spanish Mission and that of a restored 1820’s log home. We walked the actual site of El Camino Real where I geeked out pretty good.

Some fun facts about El Camino Real that, in my opinion, credits it with Texas’ very existence. As far back as the 1400s, The Caddo Indians “blazed” primitive trails for the purpose of travel between neighboring villages. One trail in particular ran north east through Texas into Louisiana. In the late 1600’s when the Spaniards set out from Mexico to settle farther east into the piney woods of Texas, they found and used this very trail. Which then led them to encounter the Caddo. The natives greeted the Spaniards with a word that sounded like “tayshas” which meant “friends”, but the Spaniards thought they were being told a location name and recorded the area as Tejas. Which we all know turns into Texas.

This particular mission in this area didn’t make it (a whopping 4 years before the Indians ran them off for bringing disease).

Many other missions held their ground along El Camino Real evolving the trail into a roadway for settlers in the 1800’s. Davy Crockett being one!

paparazzi mom made the kids “head west” like Davy Crockett did.😉 I thoroughly enjoyed standing on some of the oldest travelled land in Texas and the kids couldn’t fathom coming through the “middle of nowhere to find a place to live” like that.

-Lindsay

I’m going to chat about chicken shenanigans today because I have nothing good to say about the house buying process right now. 30 days to pull paper work together is stupid. 45 days is just being lazy and pathetic. We may not close until September 6th now and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

We’re up to 2 laying hens now! I hope we never stop being this excited to collect eggs!

Since the girls have moved to East Texas, we’ve had them in what we called “the dollhouse” coop set up on Mom’s back porch. The dollhouse is of course a Pinterest inspired repurpose of Archer’s old LittleTykes playhouse! They are in there overnight between 8pm and 7am. Then they are released to “the tractor”! I have no idea why it’s called this, but that is what Pinterest calls them and, of course, is where I got the idea. Because it’s pvc construction, it’s fairly easy to drag around the yard giving them variety and keeping Mom’s yard intact. Between the two enclosures, we’ve had good luck keeping them safe from predators out here and with a little trial and error have a good system for the interim.

What’s been fun in the last 2 weeks is accommodating the demands of a laying hen. They can be a little on the diva side! When Sasquatch started laying, we would just find eggs on the ground in the tractor. Legit yard egg, right!? When Pearl decided to get in on the action, we soon figured out how particular hens can be about their nest box! NOW we look for her start her neurotic pacing in the tractor late in the morning. Everyone gets let out to free range while she marches her fluffy butt to the coop bawking all the way. She gets settled in, gets quiet and about 5 minutes later emerges bawking a little more. Sure enough, there’s a warm little egg in there! 

She doesn’t even mind a little paparazzi while she’s doing her thing 😄 Sasquatch, in the meantime, is still content to just drop hers whenever and wherever she gets the notion. I certainly hope when the other 2 join the laying ranks, they are laid back like her. One diva chicken is enough!

All in all, it has been a pain in the butt moving these chickens.😜I’m glad we pushed through and that Mom has been so accommating with these yahoos all over her yard. They’re surviving and so are we. I’m glad we didn’t start over at the new house and have to put ANOTHER 6 months in before getting eggs. I REALLY like not buying eggs at $7/dozen anymore! And speaking of store bought eggs, check this out…

Which one is not like the others? We had one store bought egg left and when I cracked it in with our farm eggs one morning, I  was blown away! In case yall are wondering, dark yellow is loaded with way more of the good stuff. 👍🏻

Well, it’s been lovely talking chickens instead of thinking about the amazing house that we are so close to getting  while at the mercy of a dawdling corporation. 😒 Next post will be me telling y’all that they pulled they’re heads out and got us in BEFORE Labor Day weekend.

-Lindsay

Well, 80% of our belongings now reside in East Texas! In the time span of 24hrs, Nathan put in 2 hrs at work Saturday am, loaded all of our furniture in his truck and a trailer with the help of my dad, drove up to Jacksonville (where our storage unit is), then he and I unloaded it all Sunday morning. Moving is SO fun! 😐

^All loaded up and ready to depart Atascocita. So glad my dad still has mad skills from all the those years of moving his family!

^Delivered all intact! Nathan really man-handled this fiasco! No way I would’ve driven that load 3 hrs on my own.

All in all we saved thousands of dollars by not hiring movers or even a moving truck. Sure, it rained on this particular weekend after a 2 month dry spell annnndd a foot to our couch may or may not have gotten busted clean off….Moving is SO FUN! 🙄

I have to say it is so nice sitting on the other side of this weekend now. Getting that chunk of our stuff up here has been stressing me out as much as getting a final closing  date nailed down for our new house! Now we get to focus this week on making sure the mortgage and title companies quit pointing fingers at one another long enough to do what we’re paying them to! MOVING IS SO FUN. 😒

It’s so worth it, though.

Right? 😉

-Lindsay