Things You Only See in Texas

A BBQ restaurant where you order and pick up your food before you go sit down at a table. You can grab a beer to go with your brisket right out of the cooler by the cash register. (If you are ever in Austin, check out Iron Works Barbecue.)

A golf cart with horns.

The Texas Capitol. It is the largest in gross square footage of all state capitols and is second in total size only to the National Capitol in Washington, D.C. The 1888 Texas Capitol surpasses the National Capitol in height, rising almost 15 feet above its Washington counterpart.

Table side guacamole at the Iron Cactus made with avocado, jalapenos, cilantro, onion, tomato, salt and pepper, lime juice and the secret ingredient...juice from half of an orange. The guacamole was so good that I ate it 3 times while I was in Austin!

Stacked pork enchiladas...A New Mexico style favorite...Pork carnitas stacked on red corn tortillas and layered with green chiles, rajas, and Monterrey jack cheese. Topped with a homemade verde sauce and a fried egg. I did not order this, but Tony said it was very good!

Entire stores devoted to boots. These were just the ones they had in size 9.5!

Me in a skirt and a pair of cowboy boots with my friend, Kimberly, and my new friend, Julie.

98 Years Young

Last night, the twins' school held their annual art show. This year's theme was Got Art Hon? (If you are not from Baltimore, click here for the meaning of the Baltimore Hons) All of the items in the show were related to life in Maryland and specifically in Baltimore. There were painted crab shells, painted brick row houses, painted screens and much, much more.

We are blessed with an amazing art teacher and she rallies the troops unlike any other teacher. Below Is Ms. Kirschnick (blue hair) and some of her helpers.

One of the activity stations at the show was a hon dress-up station. Our 98 year old step-great-grandmother, Francis, attended the art show and went along with getting dressed up. She started off with a pink boa.

Then a leopard headband, glasses, gloves, a pink wrap and some bling and she was good to go.

As Gram and Chris wheeled her through the crowds she did her princess wave. It's a shame she didn't have any fun!

Welcome to Bawlmore, Hon! (Don't you think this would make a great Christmas card?)

Bull and Boots Decorations

We decided to rent the lodge at Oregon Ridge for our Bull and Boots Benefit. The lodge is very rustic--thus, we went with a "rustically chic" theme. There were two heads mounted on the wall in the main room that were just crying to be decorated.

This is the main room where everyone ate and danced the night away. We used the boots from a previous fundraiser and Rutland Beard Florist donated the flowers for the boots (we had to arrange them). We also took mason jars and glued burlap around the jars. We tied the jars with twine and put a candle inside. They were really cute. The icing on the cake was a silver horse shoe that would hang down from the twine....only problem is that I failed to notice that I was ordering them from Turkey and they arrived the Monday after our event!

There were benches that lined the room. Since they were rather stark, we took pillows from our houses and wrapped them in bandanas. (BTW: Walmart has the cheapest bandanas at $1 each!) We tied each corner with twine.

We all gathered buckets, jars, crocks, etc.from our homes and we used them for additional flower arrangements. We used Forsythia, Cherry Blossoms, twigs and grasses that we found along the side of the road...again, at no cost to us!

We also got western playing cards that we had on the table. Our hope was to have a list of games that people could play along with the rules for each game on the tables, but we ran out of time...oh well!

One afternoon after working for hours (We were quite punchy), we looked over and saw Chico sitting in the corner of my office. I pulled out a western shirt, jeans, a bandana and a hat. We decided that all "he" needed was a face. Since our assistant principal, Pat, was unable to attend the event, using her face was only natural. Our plan was to move her all over during the event and take pictures--like Flat Stanley. Flat Pat was born...only she didn't move all night because if you lifted her up, she was likely to lose her jeans and boots! None the less, she was a huge hit and people stopped to take pictures with her all night long!

One of the coolest things that we did was the boot pin raffle. We found wooden boots, decoupaged them with scrapbook paper and then hot-glued pins on the back. We then blinged them up with scrapbooking gems. We sold them for $10 each and everyone who bought a pin, won something of equal or greater value. (some prizes were a total bust, but we had a lot of great gift certificates and gift cards that were upwards of $50 each.) This was the perfect way to use those donated items that didn't fit in with the auction packages. We had 57 pins and we sold out in 28 minutes! It didn't hurt that they were so stinkin' cute!

Our committee minutes before the event started! This is the first committee that I have ever worked with where everyone did what they were supposed to do. It was a true honor to work with each of these awesome women.

You girls rock!

Bull and Boots Class Auction Items

A couple of weeks ago we held an event for the twins' school and we had each class make some of the items that were to be auctioned off at the event. Our event raised over $20,000 for new technology!

Below are some of the items the classes made...

We bought a large beach bag at Lands End and a Kindergarten class put their hand prints all over the bag. We turned the hand prints into fish and added the kids names. We then stuffed the bags with everything that a family would need for a day of fun at the beach!

A third grade class painted their hand prints on white felt and then their teacher turned it into a blanket. Our school colors are green and white.

Oriental Trading sells these photo quilts. Instead of photos, one third grade class did self portraits. They stamped around their portraits. Another third grade class drew their favorite things and decorated around their pictures using fabric markers. We had one of our committee members tie the quilts together and hang them on dowels.

A fourth grade class made these aprons. We made hand print crabs for the principals (Head Chef) and the fourth grade team (Jr. Chefs) and then the baby crabs were made out of the kids fingerprints.

This was my favorite project to do with a class. This was done with a Kindergarten class. I painted the checkerboard table and then another committee member went in and did the bumblebees using the kids fingerprints. Each child wrote his/her name on a checker.

We made mosaic benches with a fifth grade class. The designs were drawn onto the benches and then the kids filled in the designs with the tiles. Then the benches were grouted. If you are looking for a good place to buy tiles (or to learn how to tile), check out Maryland Mosaics in Glyndon. I can't wait to go there for a girls' night out!

Another fifth grade class made this mirror. The room mother painted the mirror white and then the class glued on tiny toys as seen in Family Fun magazine.

One of our committee members made these pillows with her third grade brownie troop. Each of the girls painted fabric that she then turned into the flowers on the pillows. These were beautiful!

A fourth grade class made these mosaic trays that were paired with outdoor entertaining things.

A first grade class made this quilt of their favorite things.

We made this stool with a second grade Brownie Troop. We painted the stool and then the girls painted the petals on the flowers and the designs on the legs using Zig Posterman Markers. We tied on ribbons and wrote the girls' names around the stool.

A first grade class made this stepping stone using a kit that they bought at Michaels. The kids pictures were underneath the glass stones and they used a design that was created by a classmate.

More pictures from the event coming soon!

Wiped Out

And yes, she is sleeping in my sock basket!

Au Revoir Julien!

The Frenchies left this morning. We gave Julien this hat along with a bag of goodies to take to New York. They will spend 2 days in the city and then hopefully, they will be able to fly home on Tuesday. (The Geneva airport is supposed to open tomorrow)

The only shot that I have with Julien. I really wanted to take a family shot, but the entire crew was never around at the same time.

The bus as it pulled up the drive at McDonogh.

Many, many goodbyes...

One last group shot.

Sending them off.

How Many Is Too Many?

I think we figured it out.

Baltimore Traditions

Now that I am done with my fundraiser, I have time to focus on making Julien's trip a memorable one.

On Sunday, we went to the Orioles game with a group of McDonogh students and their french correspondents to see the Orioles play the Toronto Bluejays. The Orioles were kind enough to give the french students the Orioles t-shirts and floppy hats. (Thus, the sea of Orange!)

Someone in the crowd always buys a foam finger....this one made the rounds.

The group doing the wave.

After the game, we had steamed crabs for dinner (finally, something American!) Julien and Charlotte were not too sure about eating them.

We've been eating crabs for so long that we forget how hard it is the first couple of times you pick crabs. They were troopers though and really enjoyed cracking the claws with the mallets.

Today, I brought a car full of french students home and we stopped along the way for a snowball--a true Baltimore tradition. I tried to get them to get marshmallow on top, but no one was willing to give it a try.

More adventures coming soon...

Julien

Our french exchange student, Julien, arrived a week ago Monday. Ammy was very excited to make him feel welcome. We bought balloons and

attached them to our mailbox and to his bed. He is staying in the twins' room for two weeks.

Ammy drew a sign to hang on the door to his room.

The first night Julien was here, we had tacos for dinner. The second night, we went out for sushi. ( My kids have given me a lot of grief about our lack of American food)

We've had a lot of fun so far...there have been trips during the day and parties every night (it makes me tired just typing that!) More pictures to come showing the adventures we have had!