A few minutes to burn...

After swimming and eating dinner at WhataBurger on the bay we had a few minutes to burn before the Main Event...I drove to the Corpus Christi WaterGarden, we had never been and it was pretty close to where we were going for the evening....You couldn't see the Water fountain from where we parked because of a huge grass embankment...Michael was NOT happy! As we had passed the place where we were going for the evening and he doesn't understand time and being way to early for something...So when I told him we were going somewhere to burn up some time and he saw this Huge Bison Statue on a grass embankment, he was really Not a happy camper....That was until he climbed to the top and Saw the HUGE Water fountain, lol....Then he was like WOW!!!

Awesome Mom!

My attempt at merging photos, lol....this is what wide angle lens are for!

Corpus Christi Watergarden

I was laughing as I knew this was going to happen...He just couldn't help but stick his hand in the water...

And once again the hand in the water....sigh!! It's inevitable!

But wait he's found something else that would be more fun.....



Chasing Seagulls and Pigeons...

Michael checking out the Longhorn Statue, lol...I told him if that had been a real one he would have got his head kicked in...OUCH!

Now off to the main event of the evening and the real purpose for our trip to Corpus.....YEEHAW!!

Corpus Christi or Bust!

Our little Mini-vacation (Adventure) was heading to Corpus Christi and spending 24 hrs there, Whew! We packed a lot into that 24 hrs too...

The first few hours were spent finding the parking garage, getting checked into the Hotel, taking photos of the view and Swimming!! Oh did I forget to mention that Michael just wanted to stay in the room and watch Cartoons!! NOT happening!!

View from the room! Not the view I was expecting but it was the one we got, sigh!! I still had fun with the camera, especially at night time with the big city lights!

They had an indoor/outdoor pool and Michael was enjoying himself!!

In the midst of taking photos of Michael swimming I noticed this really nice mural on the pool side wall, sweet!

Michael is getting better and better at swimming and I love it!

He makes me laugh! He does this fists in the air and yells "Yes!" Everytime he accomplishes something, lol...

And of course it wouldn't be a photo session without that Blasted tongue!

That was our first few hours in Corpus...The main event photos will be up in the next few days...(I hope)....Busy day Saturday as our great-niece is celebrating her 1st birthday! I hope y'all have a good weekend :o)

OH MY!!!

Oh MY!

OH MY!!!

Oh Goodness Michael and I had the BEST time ever!!! It was a real mini-vacation but we packed a lot into it and it was GREAT!!

As you can see we are back and I am exhausted, lol...Lots and Lots of photos to go through...They are still on the Memory cards as I spent this evening/night watching tv with my husband!! But we've looked the photos over several times and get big smiles on our faces everytime we see them! I had both cameras going and even have some videos too!!

I'm so excited and can't wait to share our adventures!!

Below is one teaser photo I took, lol...You can probably figure out where we went or at least what one of the things we did was....and it was probably the best out of the whole trip!

Michael really enjoyed himself...

We are definitely doing this AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN!!

Hope to be back tomorrow with photos!!

And we are off.....

Michael and I are off for a mini-two day vacation...YEA! We are going to see something he has never seen before and he is bouncing off the walls he is so excited!! Yikes!

I thought I'd leave you with a few photos that I've taken in the past few days...

The deer are really skinny and browsing closer to the house...I think they are eye-balling what grass we have, lol...Can't say as I blame them! Might be time to get them some corn?

This photo was taken from Michael's bedroom window...

Thank goodness the trees are still green if nothing else they'll eat the leaves.

I went outside and was standing about 30ft from her and she knew it and didn't seem to care either....Hunger makes animals desperate and I also think our landlord is feeding them.

This one's belly was rounded and she might possibly be pregnant...that or tape worms, ewww...There were just the two does and this morning when I fed Julie one of them came up to within 10ft of me, ekk...I threw her some horse feed and she ate it...Definitely not afraid of me!


The other night we had storms off to the West of us....I kept going outside and looking at the clouds...You might have to click on these photos to get a better look...But I've never seen this before...iridescent clouds at the top of a Thunderhead...it was beautiful! I told Fred it looks like a rainbow exploded! The photos don't do it justice but I tried :o)

I know it was moisture and the light was hitting it just right but it was still awesome!

I've still been taking my Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects class at JessicaSprague.com...

Lesson 2 was working with Brushes in PhotoShop.

I didn't like what I had done to the photo above but I was following the lesson and that is what I came up with and I ran out of time to do something different!

Todays Lesson 3 was giving your photos a vintage hand painted look...

Not sure why but I have never been in to the Vintage look...I did the lesson and tried but they look pasty to me...sigh!! Give me COLOR!! LOL...Bright Vivid Living Color!

I am sure when we return I'll have some Bright Vivid Colors for y'all....

Have a good rest of your week and thanks for stopping by.....

July 4th Celebration

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When the Naranjo's get together there is never a dull moment...Fred's brother, Peter, decided to have a little get together at a Reservoir near us and Oh my did we have FUN and plenty of laughs thanks to Bernice!

Michael swimming with his cousins, he was having a Blast!

The newest member of the family, Romo! I fell in love, he's such a sweet heart!

A view of the beach area...do you see those tires? See the first one buried in grass? When I first brought Michael down here to fish 4.5 years ago that tire was under water...that shows you how bad our drought is...

Tia (aunt) Diana and Michael enjoying the WaveRunner.

Fred and I tried to enjoy it too...but we ran out of gas and waited and prayed for 20 minutes that someone would come along and rescue us, lol...Finally some other Jet skiers came along and pulled us back to the beach....Whew!!

Our Niece Miranda, and her Boyfriend, Gary enjoying the Kayaks.

Cindy and Trey are off for a little Kayaking...I wore shorts and a shirt because I didn't plan on getting wet, Wrong!

Peter said he didn't like the Kayaks it wasn't fun...so I dumped him, Ekkk!
I know how to have fun with Kayaks, when it gets hot or boring just dump it!

Fred helping Michael get in a Kayak.

We had a bit of a dilemma with our Niece and another young girl. They went in the Kayaks and then ended up to far out in the main part of the lake and got blown away by the wind...We weren't able to get to them right away and when we finally managed to get over there they were in a mess of seaweed, ugh! Seaweed and boatmotors don't go well together and neither do WaveRunners. We had two young Kayakers in trouble and in the process of getting to them one WaveRunner got tangled in a rope and two other WaveRunners broke down in the same area...It was a Fiasco but all ended well...I think the girls learned a lesson too, keep Kayaks out of the wind!

Michael posing for me on an Oak Limb!

Now here is my Sister in Law Bernice trying to pose on the same Oak Limb Michael is posing on....except she is NOT 5 yrs old and no one is willing to help her...But we all were having fun sitting back and laughing at her antics....Sorry for the jiggly video I was having problems laughing and trying not to pee my pants!

Bernice finally got her photo taken, YEA!!

We had a really good day. It was long but we had a lot of fun! They even had a really nice firework display at the lake and then behind it we also saw the City of Victoria's firework display...All the photos that were taken were with the Powershot S3IS so I didn't even attempt photos of the firework display, it's a good camera but it's just not my Rebel...We were all so exhausted we didn't even stay to see the end of it...

Thank you Peter and Bernice for a wonderful day!

The rest of the photos are at my flickr site....

I learned something new today...

I am going to attempt to take an online course on Photo Editing:Frame Ups & Special Effects by Jessica Sprague. Below is our first assignment.....

Ms. Cheyanne, who I am sure will grow up to be very Sassy, lol.

I also learned something new about saving a photo for the web and how to use my scroll wheel on my mouse to move in or out on a PhotoShop Elements project...too sweet!

Digi layout ~ 4th of July Parade

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I think this layout turned out well...It took me most of the day working in between everything else that needed doing and interruptions...Gotta love 5 year olds, they never STop!

And I know Jen will be asking me where are your credits so here they are....

Celebrate Liberty Elements and Papers designed by Rina Kroes/Scrapbook Elements
NotForgotten kit designed by SusyQ Scraps

Let Freedom Ring kit designed by Amy Stoffel

BlewSky Paper designed by Jen at www.jencropable.com

Template ScrapSnap2-page 3 designed by CSchneider/Peppermint Creative

Yea Jen I did it, lol...Thank you for that little kick in the rear :o)

4th of July ~ Bike Parade

We started the 4th of July off with a breakfast of pancakes and bacon at home and then we were off to Victoria to the local grocery store for their first annual Independence Day Parade, YEA!

Michael being silly!

Now he's being serious...He was excited but not like you could tell. This was his first parade.

He thinks he is just HOT stuff, lol...

Since this was the first parade the grocery store had done and it was the first year for it, it was very-very small but I love small parades. They also just toured the parking lot, which was really nice. We could see the whole parade from one vantage point, lol....

Here comes the children on their bikes...They were all so cute and so excited!

The color guard with our Flag!

There was also a Hummer, a firetruck, a police car, and the store mascot in a pick up truck, lol...(I said it was short, lol) Fred said "Short and Sweet"!

Michael did not win a trophy but he did receive a goody bag for participating and these "Star" glasses were in it, LMBO!!

Thank you HEB for helping the children celebrate the 4th!

Right before we left I had a good chuckle when I saw this...

Too Cute! (Maybe we should have brought Jake?)

Now that all happened before 10am...

The rest of the story of our 4th to follow...

Which includes,

Swimming, WaveRunners, Kayaks, Water rescues, and silly people doing stupid things :o)

I'm here...

Sorry about that little lapse in blog posting...We got a bit busy!

Fred woke up Thursday morning and was fine, thank goodness.

He came home Thursday and when he is home it is NON-stop running!

Friday we were out running the roads and I was watching this HUGE brush fire near Victoria. I found out later it burned 700 acres and was caused from a bearing, on a stock trailer, burning up...No houses or structures were damaged but it took them quiet a while to get the fire under control and put out. You could see the smoke for miles.

Later on the day Friday I checked on the Wren nest. We have two babies. 2 eggs disappeared and one egg doesn't look as if it is any good. 2 babies out of 5 eggs isn't good odds but maybe these 2 babies will have a better chance of making it. Not to sure my plant is going to make it as I can not water it.

As of this morning (Monday) the babies are still alive and Mom is sitting on them while Dad brings in food.

We had a pretty good 4th of July. I'm working on photos at the moment and will be back in a bit to post those.