You Sank My

Oh, come on! I had to!

That is the Battleship Texas, from WWII. We did not get on it; we opted to take a couple of photos, marvel at the hideous-ity of "battleship gray", condemn the mosquito population to a quick and painful death, and then leave.

They were terrible, those mosquitoes. Biting through shirts and jeans, no less.

I mean, seriously!


Here is another terrible thing: the sweetness, it shall kill me.

We actually came here first. Where? The San Jacinto Monument. It is Texas's version of the Washington Monument, though much larger (imagine that). It is located where the battle of San Jacinto took place, which was a defining battle in the Texas revolution.


It looks huge. It is only about twelve feet taller than the Washington Monument, but due to the geography and lack of buildings nearby, it looks much larger than the one in D.C.

Inside the base is a museum that covers about 400 years of Texas history. The museum is small, which was good because both Papa Jim and Grandma read every single word in the place. Every. Single. Word. Thankfully Perpetual Motion was happy to be somewhere new to explore...at least for the first few minutes. After that, it was a tad bit more difficult to keep her quiet in there.


Visitors can take an elevator to the top of the obelisk and catch some impressive views of the port area as well as the marsh. There were quite a few ships out there minding their business.


Look strangely familiar, anyone? Yet another reason the San Jacinto Monument is always compared to the Washington Monument. Pretty, even without Lincoln at the other end.


Finally, a photo of me and the girl-child. We are just about done dodging the mosquitoes and discussing the fabulous color of the ship.

By the way, she now calls me Ama. Like, Sister Mary Ama (why it makes me think that, I have no clue, but there you are). Apparently she enjoys leaving off the first M, and so now I am Ama. There could certainly be worse names...

New Park!

One of our friends had a birthday party at a park that was new to us. The park itself is excellent. There are plenty of tables and benches for eating, all of which are under a sun shade. There are also many swing sets, some of which are also under sun shades. Papa Jim spent over half of our time at the park pushing Perpetual Motion in the swing.

Can you tell that she enjoyed herself?


There were two large play structures, one for smaller children and one for larger. Of course, Miss Thang saw all of her friends on the larger of the two and decided that she should be over there as well. The slides were a big hit.


After some playing, we all sat down and had snacks and cupcakes. We sang Happy Birthday and then dove right in. Perpetual Motion managed to pick up the cupcake at one point, rip off the top, get the icing all over her hands and then (of course) wipe them off.

Oh, yes. She wiped them onto her shirt. Chocolate. On white. It was awesome.

Tomorrow I'll show you Texas's version of the Washington Monument.

We All Scream for Ice-Cream!

After the highs and lows of the miniature horse farm, we piled into the car one more time and headed over the the Bluebell Creamery.

Are you salivating? 'Cause you should be!


We decided not to take the tour, and instead spent our time wandering around the grounds and letting ourselves be entertained by Perpetual Motion and the hat.


She had so much fun putting it on and taking it off and (as you can see above) saying "hat" all the while.


Then came the ice-cream samples, which are more like a scoop and a half (for $1). Being on the cusp of utensil independence as she is, Perpetual Motion insisted on doing much of the spoon-to-mouth motions herself. This led to a few dribbles:


Thankfully, there are many tiny napkins at the ready and we all cleaned up nicely. Once we'd had our fill of the ice-cream, we headed out front to check out the cow.

This photo? Perfect example of the day being long and tiring and of little children being D-O-N-E done with it all! We packed up and went home! Tomorrow I'll fill you in on a birthday party we attended while everyone was in town.

Prepare Yourself for the Cuteness

I warned you:

The miniature horses were very friendly. This one especially liked Perpetual Motion and had no worries about her shouting or dancing around from excitement. As you can see, it even gave her little kisses when she first greeted it.


This boosted Perpetual Motion's confidence so that she was eager to give the horse a hug. She hugged and hugged. Another horse came up and lil' miss tried to hug it too, but no way was that going to happen. So she went back to horse number one and hugged away.


All of this was terribly cute. And then the above occurred. Can you tell what is really going on in that photo?

Oh, yeah.

That horse? It liked Perpetual Motion so much it thought it would be a great idea to give her a love nibble.

Perpetual Motion did NOT appreciate it, not one bit.

Oh, the travesty. Oh, the indecency. Oh, the insanity that followed.

Eventually she calmed down and even pet some other horses, but man oh man was she mad at that horse. I can't really blame her; she was being loving and did not expect the horse's version to be painful.

What can I say? That song had it right: love hurts.

Roses And More

Grandma's fourth day here in Houston was a busy one for everyone. Perpetual Motion didn't have school, so we decided to drive up to Brenham, Texas and see a few things. We mainly went for the Bluebell Creamery, but since we were already up that way we decided to see some other places as well.


We began at the Antique Rose Emporium. This place has every kind of rose bush you could possibly be looking for. They also decorate their different areas with some really strange items, like the above bottle tree. Most items of this nature are for sale as well, so if you see something you like, you can take it home.


Among the gardens is a butterfly section. There were many of them twittering here and there; Perpetual Motion was fascinated. The one shown above had rather pretty colors we thought.


This fountain was a big hit since it had water. Apparently Perpetual Motion is like her aunt R-Shelly because the both of them are slightly obsessed with fountains. R-Shelly contains her excitement a little better than the itty one, but not by much!


I had to show you this photo as their expressions are hilarious. Methinks they are done with the photo-taking portion of the morning...


Um, yeah. Want a bed frame in your garden? Here's how to do it!

Tomorrow: Miniature Horses of a Nibbly Sort