ma, pa & medieval times

sit back and relax because this is a long post with a ton of pictures.

this past weekend we took a little road trip to texas. besides having to drive around in dallas, we had a great time!!! we went to visit my grandparents, ma & pa. the last time we visited was two years ago. here's ma and pa with the kids. seriously how cute are ma & pa???

we around when the officer got off work, which was about 1:30 p.m. did you notice that time? do you know what that time means? it means we hit dallas at 4:30 p.m., right at the beginning of rush hour traffic. good times. after we made it through dallas, we stopped at a cracker barrel for dinner. the kids, of course, had pancakes for dinner. i ate meatloaf. have i told you i love meatloaf, but never make it because of the whole squishing meat thing? well i love meatloaf, especially if it is burnt and dried out. no, i'm serious, i love it burnt and dried out. cracker barrel's meatloaf wasn't like it but i eat meatloaf when i get the opportunity because i don't get it very often. anywho, we got back into the car and headed the rest of the way to ma and pa's house.

we usually stay in ma and pa's house, but this past year they completed their cabin. it's awesome! pa and papa bill (and i'm sure other people i don't know about) built it with their own hands. the lumber was cut from pa's trees. he has a little saw mill that he uses to cut wood. the cabin has a wrap around porch. a literal wrap around porch. it wraps around the entire cabin. each room (living room/kitchen and two bedrooms) has a door that leads to the outside. the kids had a great time running around it.

here is a picture of the cabin and of the kitchen. pa made the kitchen cabinets and the 10 foot island.

we went up to ma and pa's place to eat meals. she makes the best homemade biscuits ever. even though her oven stopped working before we got there, it worked the entire time we were there! she said, "the Lord has been watching out for me!" one of my favorite things is to hear pa pray. i love it when he says with all sincerity, "Lord you been good to us and i thank you for it!"

while we were there we spent a lot of time visiting. pa told the officer about his time in the war (WW II).

we also spent time cracking pecans. pa has several pecan trees in his yard. he goes around and picks up the good ones, puts them in his pocket and takes them to a basket inside. everyone loved picking pecans. the kids figured out how to crack them open and how to find good ones. my daughter found a fool-proof way. after finding several bad ones in a row, she said, "i know how to find the good ones." "how honey?" i asked. "you just go inside and get them out of the pa's basket!"

we (and by "we" i really mean the officer, the kids, and pa) went fishing. the first night only the officer and pa went fishing in the pond in pa's boat. they caught 21 black croppie. they cleaned them out and we (and by "we" i mean everyone else but me and the kids) ate them the next day for lunch!

my daughter and son actually watched them clean the fish. uggg. yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know i would never survive if i was an ingalls!

the officer took the kids fishing the next day. my daughter caught one fish. my son went out of the boat, but he prefered to play around in the mud and water to fishing.

oh i have to mention here that ma and pa have a dog name sunny. my daughter loved this dog. most of what she was doing had something to do with that dog. she was always wanting to know where sunny was, what sunny was doing, yelling "hey flying sausage" or "hey weenie dog" at sunny. here's a picture of sunny and my daughter.

one of sunny's favorite things to do is ride the four wheeler. so when the officer took the kids for a ride, sunny was either riding along or running beside it.

we would take a back dirt road just a short distance from ma and pa's house to the cabin. on the way there the kids were allowed to not wear their seatbelts (shocker) and hang their heads out the window. this was heaven for them! i captured it in my daughter's face!

here's some other random pictures we took.

my kids played a lot on this white fence that circles ma and pa's house. that is until my daughter went over the top of it and hit her chin on the bottom rail.

we had a great time. it was so relaxing. the weather was great. it was in the mid-30s at night and would get up to 70 during the day. every morning when we woke up there would be fog rising on the ponds and frost on the grass. can't get more perfect weather than that!

things i want to remember: cracking pecans with the kids, sitting in pa's huge gazebo talking, my daughter saying a shotgun shell is "red on one end, gold on the other and has lots of babies on the inside, baby guns" (the officer told her there were bbs in the inside), my son being afraid of sunny, but loving a big orange dog, clifford, the officer swinging the kids by their arms while sunny tried to bit at their feet, visiting with ma, her stove working the entire time we were there, my son taking 15 pictures of bird tracks he found in the mud, ma saying, "i think skinning the pig is the funnest part, smelling them is good, but skinning the pig is the funnest part" (WHAT????), and watching the kids run and play outside all day long.

we left sunday morning, stopped back by the cracker barrel to eat breakfast on our way back to dallas. yes the kids ate pancakes again, but this time it was actually breakfast time. we made it to dallas about 2 p.m. and had several hours to kill before we had to be at medieval times. when we planned our trip to texas we had decided to go the medieval times. although it is pricey, we were able to get a good deal online.

we were allowed in an hour before the show started. when we entered, they assigned us a table (a color section, ours was red) and gave us red crowns. we were to cheer for the red knight.

when we were seated our waitress (they called her a wench, but we'll just call her our waitress) told us that we were to cheer for the red knight and boo the green knight. she said how loud we cheers determines which knight can win! that's all the officer and i needed to hear. we were going to make fools of ourselves and really get into it.

oh wait, i need to mention the food here. i don't know if you've ever heard of medieval times, but they put on a show and feed you dinner. you have no silverware. you eat with your fingers. here's their menu: 1)what it was and then 2) what they called it.

tomato bisque soup - dragon tail soup
garlic toast - i think they just called it bread
chicken - falcon
1/2 of a herb roasted potato - dragon's egg
1 spare rib - dragon toe

when they gave us our soup, i really figured i would be the only one to try it. i was wrong. i was pleasantly surprised that everyone in my family liked the tomato bisque, oh sorry, dragon tail soup. my daughter liked dipping the garlic bread in it.

and then our waitress comes over and puts one of these on my plate.

now i had remembered from the time the officer and i had been before (before kids) that we had chicken and we had to eat it with our hands. however, i must have blocked out that it was half a chicken. it sat on my plate untouched until the officer tore some meat off the bird for me and my daughter. i may have recently cut up raw meat, but i'm not quite up to eating the meat off the bone. none of us, except the officer, were too keen on eating it off the bone. well maybe my kids would have, except they literally couldn't hold onto it. it was too big for them.

anyway, the show is about an 1 hour and 40 minutes long. the officer and i were cheering every time we saw the red knight and booing just as loudly every time we saw the green knight.


i'm sure our children were a little embarrassed by their parents. maybe not. they didn't want to cheer or boo for about the first 1/2 of the show.

there were several times the knights were given flowers by the princess to hand out to the ladies/little girls in his section. two times the red knight went past my daughter but said he was coming back. the third time he gave me and my daughter a pink carnation. the fourth time he came to our section, he gave my daughter the "queen of beauty and love" red sash. he had handed it to her via his joust, but she just stared at it. she had no idea what was going on. he told her to take it. i had to take it off the joust for her because she was embarrassed.

the kids thoroughly enjoyed the whole show. i took a ton of pictures but most of them didn't turn out because of the lighting. several portions of the show included the horses prancing about. i don't know what else to call it besides that. there was a man with a falcon. he let the falcon fly all over the room. i was hoping the falcon wouldn't poop on my chicken. the knights fought and jousted. the jousting was my son's favorite. halfway through the show the kids completely got into it.

the red knight did win!!! i am pretty sure it was due to me and the officer's cheering. when the show was finished, we were able to go out and meet the cast. my son had his shield autographed by the red knight. my daughter took her picture with the princess. they both had their pictures taken with green knight (who apparently was still in character when we took the picture) and the red knight.

the kids with their souveniours

it was a great little get away. it was relaxing and fun. thanks for letting us visit ma & pa!!!

i am sure there are spelling mistakes and grammer mistakes through out this entire post, but it's almost midnight now and i'm sleepy so i don't care! thanks for sticking it out this long to read it. :)