Quick trip for Music, Antiquing and Friends

It's August ALREADY! I'm still trying to catch up with all the goings on.  July was another fun time. Which I'm about to share as much as I can on this post.  Warning Photo overload.

 This is how we started July.  LOL The girls having fun and playing.
Pamela had to work 4th of July.
 And then there are times when the girls are down right good and so pretty. Of course all it takes is the tease of a treat.











I came out on the patio one morning to find Jerry having a good ole time with a bucket we had left in his pen. He is such a mess.



Here I thought we were taking a serious picture. I didn't realize she was making a face until she sent me the picture. Little Rat. Gotta Love her.








Brenham, Texas has this summer concert series on Saturdays in July that we like to attend. They set up a band on the town square. We generally see a band out of Austin called Suede and that's who we saw this time. One year we listened to a different band but can't remember the name now. Anyway the concert is free. All you have to do is bring your lawn chairs and set up around the square to listen. This year we took an ice chest to hold a few beverages.
We always stay at the historic Ant Street Inn. It's one block off main.  This year our friends Kevin and Pam from Austin joined us for the fun and heat. LOL
The rooms are comfortable and very pretty. We went down a day earlier and staying in a room with a king bed which obviously doesn't fit the era but that's okay. Breakfast at the restaurant downstairs is free. And best part is .... They have free blue bell cups in the fridge down the hall and free sodas and coffee. Nice! The only not so great thing is there is no elevator so you walk the long stairs up and down. I'm not fond of stairs but for Ant Street Inn I'll make allowances.

 Friday 7/12:  David and I spent the day our Antiquing. We went out 290 past Brenham to go to this strip of shops in Carmine. I managed to find some crockery bowls.  Something that I started collecting when my Step-Mother passed. I was buying her a new bowl every year for Christmas. I had one bought early for her Christmas the year she passed. It's been 4 years now.
I kept the bowl obviously and started my own collection. I think I'm out of room now so I may have to stop. Or else find a new place to display then. Hmmmm not sure where that would be right now.

Currently I have them in my China Cabinet and on a built in shelf in my kitchen. 
The crystal bowl on top in this picture was my Great Grandmothers. It's over a 100 years old. I have another one that's not pictured.  I mean my collection isn't huge but they take up space.
I was always looking for Wooden sewing spools but I've even ran out of  room for that collection. I've used the bigger spools to hold my excess binding strips or other scraps of fabric.

I've got jars of wooden spools with and without thread on them.  These days all the thread comes on plastic spools. And in the last year I seem to have collected several pin cushions. There's a few more around my sewing room.


Okay enough about my various collections.

Back to shopping


On our Antiquing spree we stopped at Burts Birdhouses to buy a Martin House. Normally this guy only makes them with red or green roofs but he made this one with an Aggie Maroon roof. His dad told him it would never sell.  Wrong! It came home with us. I need to either find a decal or tack on the little wooden ATM letters on the empty space on front.

 David's got to set up a pole to put it on. We'll see how many birds we have move in to the Aggie Inn.  Can't wait.




Burt had some really cool houses inside using all kinds of decorative pieces of metals, utensils and knobs.



That evening we went to Home Sweet Farm to listen to some music for a while and then we turned in for the night. The heat of the day took it out of us.



Saturday we went back to Carmine because there were still a couple of shops we wanted to check out.
We've been looking for a new top for my  old sewing machine base but nothing seemed right. It has had a piece of glass sitting on top of it just waiting to be knocked off and broken.

It was never attached.  But today was the day. David went into this one corner of the shop and picked up a black serving tray. It was perfect.  Not sure that I'm going to repaint it or sand it. I like the look it has now with the roughed up edges.  David has to attach it to the base so it won't get knocked off.

I really like how this looks. It sits in our Vintage Guest Bedroom. It's called Vintage because why else the items in it are old..




Saturday we got moved to a different room because I called to book Friday in the same room but couldn't because it had already been booked and hotel said they had another room for Friday but we'd have to move to the we booked for Saturday on Saturday.  Too Funny the room we got to stay in Friday was booked to our friends Pam and Kevin.
Not a big deal. We packed light. Our new room had the view of the Brenham water tower and the outdoor garden that they sometimes have weddings in.

We shopped until about 3. Pam and Kevin had arrived at the hotel so back we went. They wanted to rest up before going to dinner and heading up to the music.  I wasn't going to argue. I was hot and tired.
David had to actually wake me. They were out in the meeting hall talking and having a drink.

We went to a restaurant called Los American. It's Cuban based food.  Sooo good. I had the street tacos. Wow.
Pam had a shrimp dish that looked really good. She said it was.

We got our chairs and headed to the square for some music. It was warm but we found a spot that was shaded and the breeze would come and go making it bearable. About an hour into the music it started to lightly rain. The band stopped abruptly and apologized that they had to shut down because of the rain. Well Damn.

Hardly 10 minutes went bad and it was over but the band had
already started covering and taking down all their equipment.
So we grabbed out chairs went back to the hotel. Put the chairs back in our cars and grabbed some drinks out of the ice chest and sat out on the back patio deck. We sat in front of our room so our talking disturbed no one.

Sunday (7/14) we all meet downstairs for breakfast. The food is really good. I got pancakes that morning. We talked about what everyone was going to do after we finished eating. David and I were heading to the Antique Rose Emporium to see what they had to offer and ideas. Pam and Kevin decided to join us.
I had brought the quilt for my great nephew along in case I found some photo opts for it and I did. But I can't share the pictures because that nephew hasn't received it yet and just in case I don't want to post until he receives it.  I hope to have it to him before August is over. So stay turned on a future post for pictures.

But I can post pictures of the Rose Garden. The gardens are really pretty and were just asking for pictures to be taken.

We some different plants and ideas but right then we couldn't/wouldn't buy because the flower beds aren't ready. Keeping plants alive in those little black buckets are a bitch. They're like little ovens for the plant roots. Maybe next spring we can go back when even more stuff is blooming. At least today there is a good breeze that kept it bearable. And it was cloudy. A church on the property. It was locked so looking.
No clue what some of the plants were but they were pretty. I want both of these bushes at
 the Rock'n K

 
Great Models.

Look a mushroom tree. Actually it's trumpet vines going up  lots of rebar poles.                                   This vine was hanging down over a walkway.

Love these tiny pink sweet roses.  We might need some of these somewhere on the Rock'n K.

Look at the size of the mallow hibiscus. I had David put his hand next to it for size comparison. Love the color too.

Cute Little metal bird and garden castle

David took my picture. He goes you're never in the picture because you're always behind the camera.

We said our goodbyes and Pam and Kevin headed off to Texas A&M.  Pam wanted to go see how much the campus had changed.  We were headed to Pamela's to pick up Lilley when they texted saying they were at the Dixie Chicken. I had never been so I was game. It's A landmark in College Station. Aggies walk through the door for a cold beer of good burger.  It recently celebrated it's 45th anniversary. Pam and Kevin actually met at the Dixie Chicken. It sits across from the campus and the area is called Northgate. 

Thanks for reading and following along.

Until next Blog....A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.~ Leo Buscaglia

King for the Day & Weekend Fun

Just when I think I'll get caught up on my blogging something stops and/or distracts me. Oh well at least I'm moving somewhere somehow.
Friday the 14th we got the cutest Thank You Note from my Nephew Tyler and at that time his Bride to Be Andrea. Pamela had posted a picture of a pork chop dinner from HEB we make and Tyler thought it looked really good. So Pamela and I decided we'd make them a basket with the recipe and the fixins short of the meat but added a bottle of wine.
We took the basket with us when we went to Missouri and had to leave it with my Sister Barb to hang on to until she saw Tyler and Andrea.

Then a little over a week later they sent the picture of their dinner. Love it and so did they.
Father's day treatment began Friday.
I think we did good meaning, Pamela and I. We wined (maybe beer was involved too) and dined David all weekend.
Friday night June 14th David and I went to Smitty K's in College Station  for our first time. And who better to see than Max Stallings with his beautiful wife

and Fiddle player Heather. We love it when we get to see them play together. They had most of the band with them but they were missing their drummer but it didn't matter. They were great. Since we'd never been to Smitty K's we didn't know what to expect but we were pleasantly surprised and the weather played nice. Smitty K's had an outdoor stage set up with a few picnic tables. Just outside the building was a big patio space. People stood up there to listen and I saw a few folks dancing. Folks either sat at the tables around the stage area, brought their own chairs and some sat on the turf grass from Bryan HS, It had been hot most of the day but that evening there was a great breeze. It was very comfortable. We sat just off the patio at the top of the small hill looking down on the stage. Now it could get hot watching a band because there was no relief from the sun but like I said that night was perfect.
Pamela had to work Father's Day so we made plans to take him out and about on Saturday. So Saturday we got up and left the house for the girls to hold down the fort.  We were headed to the Salado Beer Festival.
We took a leisurely drive down the back roads, Our first stop was the historic Sugar Loaf Mountain and Bridge. The Bridge is no longer in use but you can walk out on it. The Mountain we couldn't figure out at first where it was yet it said were were there.  We had drove on down the road past the bridge and Siri kept saying turn around. We turned around and as we got back to the bridge we looked up and there it was.
Apparently you used to be able to get to the top but the new property owner has made it so all you can do is view it from the road.




The sign for the bridge is hard to read but I'm posting it anyway.

 
 The water on the Little River was moving along. Hard to see in a picture but it was. It was pretty out there.

 A good family outing.
We were exploring our new country side and David was relaxed


  Cool old Bridge

 

We stopped off at a BBQ place when we exited for lunch.
After we got our tummies full we stopped at the

Salado Winery Company & Salado   in Salado 

 They had a wine bottle garden in front. Found a wine or two we liked. Imagine that. Before hit the beer festival we stop at an Antique mall.

So many cool things to see. I walked out with a picture for the vintage guest room. I'll be making a video of each room to share in a future blog post. So stay tuned. LOL





Give my man some beer! LOL The festival is right off the Salado Creek at the Barrow Brewing Co.. It looked very cool and inviting. I could see myself falling in but there was plenty of people enjoying the water and the beer. Beer is not something that I love to drink but I do have certain beers I like. There were several food trucks, live music and several different breweries had tents set up to serve beer.

It was nice and HOT but the shade and the beer made it bearable.  At one point we sat down at a Table just outside the Brewery with a couple of people already there. We all got to talking. What are the odds we'd sit at a table full of people who didn't know each other and find out that they are all but one was a nurse. LOL.







 Father - Daughter Bonding time over a beer.


 We could only drink so much beer and it was getting late so we decided to go to another Winery called Axis. David made a new little furry friend. The owner had her Yorkie pup there. That pup loved David and David was having fun with her while Pamela and I did a wine tasting and then we all had a glass of wine. After this we headed over to Johnny's Steak and BBQ.  Food was pretty dang good but they got slammed in another section of the building and we waited for our food for over an hour. That part wasn't so good.
Time to head home after a good day.

The next day I made David a nice breakfast and that night I took him out for Mexican Food. He even relaxed on Father's day. A whole weekend of enjoying his family and us him.  That evening we got our last rain we'd see for a while. We knew that day would be coming. Pam ended up getting to come up to go to dinner with us and left right before this rain hit. Thank goodness.
And we haven't seen any rain since. Just a sprinkle here or there. Things are getting dry at the Rock'n K.
The girls and or Jerry tend to provide unending entertainment.  I had a house full of pups while Pamela entertained company on 6/21 weekend. They helped keep me company in the sewing room and talked with Jerry.

Lilley and Sophie seem to prefer to lay in front of my sewing closet and shelf.
Tic Tac Toe 3 in a row.


Pamela took some great shots of Jerry being his usual charming self and the girls
. 
  Brianna rarely lays down. She's always on the move, Sophie the pillow princess actually came out to the fence to visit with Jerry.

Lilley lays down and takes it easy.
 Check out these crazy pictures of Bri. If we want to wear her butt out all we have to do is turn on the hose and move it around. The other day I had to close the blinds in the den because she was whining. David had turned on the water sprinkler. Crazy pup.

 
And this is what she looks like after chasing the hose. LOL

The other day I had to close the blinds in the den because she was whining. David had turned on the water sprinkler. Crazy pup.

After a weekend and week at the farm it was time for the girls to get groomed.

The Groomer Misty said the fastest way to get their attention was to eat a banana in front of them.

Lilley was finished first  She was one cool chic. 
And here comes Sophie                           And Bri she was nonchalant.
  

Have to share a picture of my plates and dinner I made for David. Are you Drooling?

It’s what’s for dinner. Seared salmon, sauteed yellow squash & onions. Both seasoned with Adams Reserve called ‘Just Right Burger spice..   Just add wine from KC WineCo called Vidal Blanc. Served on my new plates from the Pioneer Woman's Mercantile. 

Aren't the plates pretty. Even David likes them.  They were very well priced.

Friday the 28th I had lots of visitors. It was great. 

Former co-worker Genesis road up with Samara and her daughters to come visit on there Friday off. I was worried about them coming up when I woke and saw all the fog.  I can't even see my neighbors house. But by the time they headed up Thank goodness the fog had burned off.  

Of course everyone had to go out to visit with Jerry. L-R: Genesis, Addy, Samara, & Marina

 and before heading into Bryan we took pictures out front of the house. Love these girls.

 Samara and her beautiful girls.  Me and the girls
 Group Photo. Addy took the selfie of all of us. Good Job.

We drove into Bryan and picked up Pamela. She thought we should go to Peach Creek Winery.

The owner took Addy and Marina out to feed the goats and the Guinea Hens. He was entertaining them while we had some wine.

Found out this was the first winery that Genesis had ever been too. Wine is not her beverage of choice.  Next time we'll take her to the Craft Beer Brewery. The rest of us enjoyed the wine. Samara found one she liked.

 And this was how I ended June. Well that and spending time with David over the weekend when he wasn't out sweating and working hard outside. He won't stop.

Until next blog....A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. Lois Wyse