Old Time Fredericksburg Weekend

We went to Fredericksburg last weekend. Ever since we moved to Houston last summer, we've taken lots of last minute trips to the homeland. I always brace myself a little because I get heartsick for the hill country.

This weekend just happened to be the county fair and the fair parade.

The fair parade was Friday morning. I hadn't been to this parade in over a decade. It's everything you'd want a small town parade to be. Tractors and miniature cars and more tractors and people riding horses and two seater tractors and ostentatious floats and county fair queens with their affected hand waves. Jake loved it. Multiple times since that day he's made me stop everything I'm doing so I can watch him reenact the marching band. Ms. Texas rode by in an open convertible. I didn't know there was such a thing as "Ms. Texas," so I asked my dad if it meant she was married? or something? and he said: "Divorced." A fact which he knew because he - wait for it - delivered her. As in Dr. Dad caught the squirmy little baby that would grow up to be Ms. Texas.

I left the kiddos for the entire afternoon on Friday to go watch one of my oldest friends get married. She wore a flower crown and got married on the steps of the courthouse. I had my first (and last) Michelada at this affair. Color me pansy, but I'll take my beer without tabasco sauce and all my cocktails with extra simple syrup.

Saturday was a slow day at my parents' house. Jake got to ride with my dad in the tractor. I got to follow the crawling baby around while chatting with my mother and overloading on Nespresso. Jacob went to my grandmother's to change a lightbulb for her, and returned approximately three Cribbage games later.

We spent some quality time with my Dad's observation beehive. My parents' turned my brother's old room into a a little bee theater. The observation hive sits in the back corner with a pipe leading out the window that the bees use to enter and exit the hive. The hive is tall with a long glass panel, so you can see the bees at work. For the first time on Saturday, Jacob and I got to see the queen. As she moves around the hive, a little halo of bees moves with her. Carressing her. Cleaning her. Let's hope she's not an introvert.

We went to the fair and the horseraces Saturday afternoon; Nana June came with us because that woman's got some luck. Jake was just big enough to ride the purple motorcycle. We saw the prize produce and managed to avoid buying a funnel cake despite the sweet sweet smell that tempted us all afternoon.

On Sunday we went out to a friend's ranch that has some restored buildings on it, and now Jacob has decided his dream job would be restoring century-old farmhouses. So the next house we buy might be in even worse shape.

So that was our weekend. Nothing like a good weekend update I always say.