Yep

Took a road trip with Wayne to see the Texas Rangers rip the Houston Astros a new one. And that they did. The game started at 3 and since we live in the DFW area, we had to leave a little early. I left the apartment around 7am, swung by Waynes place and we hit the road. It was a pretty uneventful ride, which is good. We beat the Memorial Day traffic (I guess) cause we didn’t really hit any traffic till we got down to the Woodlands – Houston area. But it wasn’t really bad at all. So we got there before the gates opened which gave us some time to walk around Minute Maid Park. It looks bigger on the outside than it does on the inside.

We got to see the Rangers do some batting practice.

Then a few of the guys came over to sign some autographs.

Josh Hamilton was walking over to do some signing and a group of kids kept screaming his name. He finally looked over at them and told them to calm down that he would make it over there to sign their stuff.

And here’s Wayne getting his ball signed by Josh.

Let’s play some ball!

Between innings there’s a chick that wonders around and does the giveaways and contest. She made it over to our area and did a contest with a mother and daughter couple. I don’t remember what their question was but they got it wrong and lost a chance at a vacation.

Then we noticed Nolan Ryan. He had been sitting behind home plate. He was there with Tom Hicks since he’s working for the Rangers organization. And of course he used to play with the Astros in his younger days. I’m not sure, but I think that’s Jim Sundberg in the red shirt.

And as usual, if you would like to see a few more shots from the game, please check out my Flickr page.

For my birthday this year I decided that I wanted to go to Scarborough Renaissance Festival. I had been a few years ago and it was ok, so since I wanted to do something outside, I thought that going out there might be fun. But when we planned on going, we didn’t know about all the rain we would end up getting a couple of days before. It stopped raining Friday afternoon but come Saturday morning, the fair grounds were still very muddy. Luckily must of us wore some old shoes. But it was hard to find a spot to sit down at cause all the benches were either wet/damp or muddy from people trying to clean their shoes off.
This was the first time my parents and sister and her family had ever been out there. It was funny to see some of their faces when we first walked in the gates. They immediately saw everybody in costume and people greeting you in the old Kings English and all had big wide smiles on their face. The only person in our group who dressed up was Madison. She had on her Princess dress and got a few kind comments from other people at the festival.
This is the first guy you see when you walk in the gate. He’s knows as the Nubian Guard. As you can see, nobody messes with him and it looks like he even takes lunch money from the unsuspecting visitors, judging from the dollars attached to his arms…

They had an elephant out there that you could ride for a couple of bucks, or you could just stand next to the fence and risk it grabbing ahold of you and stomping you to death.

One of the first things we did when we got there was go to the Jousting show. It was pretty funny. They worked a little blue and laughed at their own dumb jokes, but it ended up just being a training type of show. They didn’t really do any jousting, just a skills competition. The real jousting was later that day. But we missed it cause we wanted to check out all the other shows.

Jackson was even knighted and given a sword.

Which he quickly used to stab his mom in the stomach with…

This mime was really good. Wish I had taken a few more pics of him. He had this rock that kept “floating” away and it was very believable looking.

Around 1 o’clock there was a parade of the people who dressed up. Not sure if it was just people who worked there or also included just the random festival goer.

The King and Queen

After getting a bite to eat…

… we went to see Don Juan and Miguel.

Don Juan:

Miguel:

Then we saw this waiter…

And then I got lost. But realized where I was when I saw this sign. I could have been anywhere…

While making our way around the last bend we came across the turtle races. We weren’t sure what exactly it was so we stood outside the seating area to watch it. Apparently the old fart who was running the show didn’t like us standing there and told us to either come in and sit in the stands or leave. I was all for leaving but Wayne turned to go into the seating area so I just followed him in. That’s when the old guy decided he wanted me to be part of the act…I had to go up there on stage and hold a stress squeeze toy, hold onto a shield and wear something stupid. My roll was to get down close to the turtles and squeeze the toy and shout Oga Oga real loud if the turtles didn’t move. I even had to practice on a fake turtle to make sure I got it right… I never had to scream at the turtles, they knew their roll and did just what they were supposed to do. Oh, and I think the old guy was drunk…

There was a guy there who looked exactly like Captain Jack Sparrow. He sounded like him, walked like him and all his gestures were exactly like what Captain Jack made. If you had told me he was Johnny Depp, I would have believed you.
Jackson was excited to see him and ran up onto the stage where he was and immediately got freaked out. He just stopped dead in his tracks and didn’t move a muscle. It was so funny. The only thing moving was Jackson’s eyes. It wasn’t until Captain Jack picked up Jackson’s sword that Jackson decided it was a good time to run. It was the highlight of the day. He had everybody around us rolling.

Then a fight broke out

But they called a truce before anybody was killed and they all lived happily ever after.

And here are a few random pics.

And of course if you would like to see more pictures, please check out my Flickr page.

We did Easter this year at my sisters. It had been raining hard all night and half the day with it finally letting up just after noon. We started out the day at my sisters church, Lake House Church, for a nice Easter service and then went on to Rebekah’s house for lunch and to watch the kids do their easter egg hunt. It was a little wet but not to bad.
When that was all over dad and I went back to his house and I helped him hook up a newer dvd player to his living room entertainment center since his old DVD player gave up on him. It just stopped working in the middle of watching a movie. But it was easy to switch them out, only a few mins and then I had to leave to get to the Walmart Pharmacy before they closed at 6. And I did get there, but the stupid pharmacy was closed today since it was Easter Sunday. So that’s another day that I’m going without my antibiotics for my toe surgery that I’m having on Wednesday. I had the dr call a prescription in on Friday but I couldn’t make it over there to pick it up, so I tried on Saturday thinking they would be open till 7… nope, they close at 6 and I had gotten there at 6:12… Thought I could pick it up today but they were of course closed…
Oh well, that’s what I get I guess. At least that’s what’s about normal for me…

So here are a few pictures from the Easter Egg Hunt and stuff. We also played Cranium (which Trisha didn’t want to play anymore since the Lawrences’ were winning ), and also played outburst, which we also won, but the camera was in the bag for those games.

And in case you were wondering what the guy behind the camera looks like, this is him. It’s a rare pic for obvious reasons….

And if you would like to see more from this set, please see my Flickr page.

Woke up this morning with the only plans for the day being to watch Hell Boy 2. Having knocked that out of the way by 11am, the rest of the day was pretty much open for anything. Since I’ve been on a walking/nature/photography kick lately, I hopped on the internet and looked up Fort Worth Parks and came across the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge. I had never even heard of the place but it looked like it would be pretty neat. I called a few friends and family to see if anybody wanted to go but since it was short notice, everybody already had plans for the day, so I headed out by myself. After gassing up the car I headed out of town around 1:30pm and was at the Nature Center by 2 o’clock. I drove up to the gate, paid my $4 to get it and headed to the farthest place on the map which happened to be the boardwalks along the marsh. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see any wildlife besides a few different types of birds. There are supposed to be bison roaming around but I didn’t see any. Heck, I hardly even saw any people there. It did get pretty windy with gust up to 40mph, could be why people were avoiding it today. I did see a sign that said alligators had been spotted in the marshes and to be careful and to avoid interaction with them. Didn’t see any alligator tracks but did see what looked like raccoon tracks in the mud going out to the water.
Right now the park is still under Winter hours and is only open till 5pm every night. On May 1st they switch to Summer hours and will be open till 7. If you get out there when they open you’ll certainly have more time to see the place and walk the many miles of trails they have. I didn’t get to see near half of what I wanted to. Next time I’ll certainly show up earlier.

To see more photo’s please click on over to my Flickr site.