The Solis Casa: The Story of Texas and a catch up of pictures

A few weeks ago when Ali was visiting, we spent the Saturday in Austin. We went to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. It was really neat. While we were a little irritated on the first floor at the number of children and noisiness, we really enjoyed reading about the Story of Texas. It was 'free' Saturday so it was pretty good deal. The museum has 3 floors: the 1st is titled 'Encounters on the Land' and it tells all about the land before it was called Texas - early settlers, Native Americans, etc. The 2nd floor tells how Texas became an independent nations - called 'Building the Lone Star Identity'. And then the 3rd floor, 'Creating Opportunity', talks about ways of life in Texas. It tells about ranching, the different conditions of land and how oil changed Texas. It is on this floor that Ali and I found a murual of the Ellis County Courthouse. It was pretty cool. We really enjoyed it and the first words our of my mouth when we left were: Papa would love this place :)

We couldn't take pictures inside but I took a picture of the Lone Star outside of the building. If you have time, you should visit this place - very interesting.

Before we went to the Texas Museum, we visited the Co-op to stock up on some burnt orange. We came in the back door of the store and in the back parking lot is this huge Bevo so of course, I made Ali take a picture. It was really sunny - that's why her face is scrunchy :)

This lady had her dog posing with Bevo - and you know I LOVED IT! :)

Just another shot of Bevo:

We had a great time while she was here - the weekend's are just too short!

Back in January, Brian and I were in Hachie for the weekend and we all went up to eat dinner with Ali and see her new apartment (which is great!)

She took us to see her office building (aka a mansion). She works at city hall and it's a beautiful place. It was dark so I couldn't get the awesome-ness of it but it is pretty awesome :) There is a creek in the back with a bridge over it - very picture-esque.

We went to eat at a Cajun seafood/steak place and it was really good. I only post these pictures to show you that it is so hard for me to get decent pictures of my family. In my post last week, I had a great picture of my parents but those are far and few between. They are always together so it's not like I don't have the opportunity but when I click the shutter button, my mom is always talking and dad has a problem with keeping his eyes open. Actually, we kind of all have this problem because our eyes squinch when we smile so it's hard to keep them open while smiling for pictures :)

And this one, I just don't even know. Ali, I think, didn't want her picture taken and Brian didn' think he was in the picture.

And this is my plate of crawfish - just because I wanted to share. They were so yummy!

Back in January, we also went to our nephew's 2nd birthday party and while this isn't the greatest, it's the best picture that I got of the two of them. Chaz gets shy so he didn't want to smile for the camera :)