Yee haw and greetings from Fort Worth! We've been blessed with some incredible weather the last few days. Couple that with the fact that Gpapa has had 2 vacation days from the saltmines and you've got a recipe for fun.

Monday, Gmama & Gpapa gave Mike and I the old "see ya later" and took Abby out for lunch and a day at the zoo. They were gone so long that I was beginning to wonder if the zoo didn't capture them and put them in the monkey exhibit. Upon return back to base camp, Mike and I listened to countless stories of animals antics. It was nice to hear they had such a great time because Mike and I were carrying out far less interesting tasks like work, laundry, grocery shopping and the like. Later on that evening we all ate dinner in the living room (gasp!) and watched Charlotte's Web (the OLD one, not the new!). La dee dah.




Today was another beautiful day - that temperature gauge was reaching all day long to touch that 80 mark and finally did later in the afternoon. Mike was able to finish work a little early so we headed out to the Fort Worth Stockyards. There is alot of history behind the Stockyards - it was the last major stop for South Texas drovers herding cattle up to the railheads in Kansas. When the railroad finally arrived in 1876, Fort Worth became a major shipping point for livestock. These days, although there is still plenty of livestock around, it's filled with shopping and dining attractions, a rodeo, a human maze and other fun frivolities. Every day at 11:30 and 4pm they have a "cattle drive" right down the middle of the main street!


This wasn't the first time Mike and I had visited the stockyards, but it was Abby's first time. As soon as we got out of the car, she was already petting a horse! We mosied around for awhile checking out the attractions and then headed for dinner at Risky's Steakhouse. Although an order of "calf fries" was very tempting, we "steered" clear and "herded" ourselves over to the steak menu. Everyone enjoyed steak, except for Abby who went with the the chicken fingers...

By the way, Risky's has the 2nd best peach cobbler ever . The 1st best honor goes to my Aunt Bonnie whose peach cobbler won my heart so many years ago before I could comprehend how fattening it was to add 2 sticks of butter to one pan.

Oh yeah, an interesting tidbit - on our way to the stockyards, we witnessed (and were literally 2 feet from getting hit by) a high speed car chase on the I-35!! It was a VERY scary moment... The car being chased was the one that almost hit us, then not far behind was the cop chasing him. If Mike had started his lane change one second earlier, I would probably not be writing this post right now!!

Well, that's all for now...we enjoyed our day at the yards and are hoping to go back and catch a rodeo before we leave. Yee haw... One more thing - you can see more pictures of zoo day and stockyards at the Dropshots site - just click here.

love & calf fries,
k