September 29, 2010 by Tinka.

Jenelle, my sister, is into genealogy.  She has information on our grandfather’s ancestors and is now looking up our grandmother’s ancestors.  When grandmother was about 90 years old she went to Lexington, TX and found her grandfather’s grave site.  This cemetery is located in a pasture.  Since Jenelle and John were coming to Dallas, Texas for the OSU /TCU  football game, Jenelle decided that she and I could go on a trip to Lexington (near Austin, TX) and find the cemetery and take pictures of the grave site.  Jenelle knew what highway it was on and about how far it was from town.

Here is a sign on the highway.

This is the entrance to the  pasture you must drive in to arrive at the cemetery.  We chose to park our car on the side of the road and walk even though we didn’t know how far we would have to walk.  I grabbed a bottle of water and my camera and off we went.

We walked about 1/2 mile and saw the cemetery.  The gate was tied with rope so we chose to climb over it, a skill  we learned growing up on the farm.

The cemetery was not real large so we decided to divide up the cemetery between the 2 of us to look for the grave site.  I went to the end on one side and Jenelle went to the  other side.  We were looking for the last name of Barnhill, my grandmother’s maiden name. It was about 100 degrees so we walked fairly fast going down the rows of graves.

I found it after going down 4 rows of graves.

This was the grave we had driven to Lexington, TX to find.  It read Wm Barnhill died Feb 20, 1894 Aged 75 years.  (Click Photo to enlarge.)

Right next to it was another grave that read Joseph, son of TJ and M F Barnhill, Born Sept 7, 1892, Died Dec 23, 1893.  This was our Grandmother’s little brother who lived almost a year and half.

With the temperature over 100 degree we were hot and ready to get back in the air conditioned car.  Bringing the drinking water turned out to be a great idea!  As we were getting ready to climb over the fence we noticed a small gate close to the grave sites.

Look it opens!!!!!!!!  No more climbing over fences looking for dead bodies!!!!.

Grandmother found these grave sites when she was about 90 years old.  We could just see Grandmother doing the same thing  we did as she was a very spunky lady.

Posted in Texas Other, Texas | Print | 1 Comment »

September 25, 2010 by Tinka.

On a recent trip to the Dallas area we met up with Tinka’s sister, Jenelle, and her husband, John from British Columbia, Canada.  John is a die hard Oregon State Beaver fan and he sprung for some fantastic seats to the TCU - OSU pre-season opener.   We arrived early and John, Jenelle, and Tinka try out their seats.

The game was held at the fantastic Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.   This night shot shows off the glass and lighting effects. (You can learn more about the stadium by clicking here.)

The huge TV monitor (160 feet long) is back-lit by the closed roof.

At game time they played the Star Spangled Banner and opened the roof, which stayed opened throughout the game.

The Oregon State visitors show their patriotism.

By kickoff time, some 45,000 fans were in attendance.

Even with our great seats, I found it easier to watch the action on the large screen TV.

Going even to a college game can put a hole in your wallet.  Seats - $150 each, Parking - $30.00, Beer - $8.00 EACH - Bottled Water - $5.00, etc.  You get the picture.

We got off a bit easy because our son Lance, who works at the stadium, fixed us up with a parking pass and shuttled us from the car to the stadium in a golf cart.  Thanks, Lance.

We had a wonderful time.  Less wonderful for the OSU fans,  but they still enjoyed it.

Posted in TX Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas | Print | 2 Comments »

September 21, 2010 by Tinka.

Marc took Maddi to tackle her first day of school.   It looks like she already has an admirer.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

September 18, 2010 by Tinka.

We apologize for the lack of reports recently.  We have a few new entries that are almost ready to publish.

Unfortunately,  Rick has been in the hospital for the past couple of weeks and that has thrown us off our stride.

Posted in TX Rio Grande Valley, Texas | Print | 1 Comment »

September 1, 2010 by Tinka.

Several days ago we decided to head over to South Padre Island where Tinka could try out her dysfunctional umbrella.

But that is not the real story.  On the way to the island, we were surprised to find that Hwy 107 was closed due to flooding.

About a half mile of the road was missing.

It turns out that this is leftover flooding from Hurricane Alex back in June.   To alleviate flooding, levies were constructed and a planned “floodway” was constructed.  For the first time in over twenty years, the use of the floodway was activated to protect the upstream dams on the Rio Grande.

The flooded area shown below is normally a sod farm.

Earlier I showed you a picture of Hwy 107 flooded.  The picture below was taken from the same spot last week.  The road is now opened, mud plowed away and dry.

The crops didn’t fare very well over the two months of inundation.

The agriculture damage is unbelievable, but the residential areas have been spared.

Posted in TX Rio Grande Valley, Texas Coast, Texas | Print | No Comments »