Sam frantically looking for eggs
catching baby goats
coaxing baby goats
going to feed the baby goats
Sam, Madee and Mason looking for tadpoles in the cistern
reaching for the prize
Cowboy Sam
Cowgirl Lili
Every year since the kids have been around we have gone to Mason, TX to Aunt Carol and Uncle Bob Al's ranch. It is a beautiful and rough landscape strewn with mequite scrub and Come Here bush. The bush with thorns that don't let you go so it is called "Come Here" bush. We have a huge family meal that always has orangello and spatzle, two Carpenter Family dishes that are present at every family gathering. There are always hugs and good conversation.
We started with Samuel and now have Madee, Lili, Mason, Hayden, Abigail, Warren, Blixen ( yes that really is her name) and the newest member of our family , hopefully forever, Christian. Rob, David's cousin and his wife Shannon are hoping to adopt him soon. It is so fun to see how the children have grown since we saw them last on Thanksgiving. They are so sweet and kind and all of them are beautiful. At the end of the Great Feast a few of the adults sneak out of the house and hide the Easter eggs. There are always a ridiculous amount of eggs to be hidden and you can imagine this takes quite a while to do. When the door finally opens, the kids poor out the door, running to the nearest egg. Abigail went on her first Easter Egg hunt this year and as soon as she realized what was in those eggs her little legs took off and she grabbed every egg in sight. The kids always have about 376 to each basket and I am always cringing at the amount of candy that they devour. God please protect their teeth. Oh well, Easter comes but once a year. You know what? We say that aboout Christmas, Valentine's and any other holiday that happens to pop up during the year.
The kids always get to hold baby goats that run as fast as they can away from them as they see the children approaching the fence. Poor things. They also get to ride Chip the wonder horse. They feel like real cowboys. Uncle Bob Al is about as close as you can get to a cowboy so maybe They become cowboy's by association.
There were also brand new baby kittens that were living in an old metal water cistern. They got to see an unusual breed of dog called a Wippet, named Snuggles. If you saw this dog you would wonder why in the world they named it Snuggles. Love is blind.
In everyway I love our trips to Mason. There is such a peace out there. You feel like you have gone back in time and that the world just got a little slower paced. You sit on the front porch and drink sweet tea. You watch the sun dip lower in the sky and the children running. Every year they run a little faster.
