Happy Trails

This is one happy cowpoke. He has been wanting to ride a horse since he was about seven-years-old, but every time we try, something seems to get in the way.

This year for Spring Break, we booked three nights at the Mayan Ranch in Bandera, Texas. It's a 300 acre dude ranch run by the Hicks family where the food and the horses are the main attraction. We got to go on trail rides twice a day. My bum was sore by the end of the first day, but Brendan just had to ride, and he wanted me with him (one of the rare times anymore), so I sucked it up and rode.

People from around the world come to the ranch for that "true cowboy experience" - and they dress in funny boots and hats, too. There were people from Germany and a family from Japan there during our stay. Even in the winter/spring, before things really green up, the countryside is beautiful. The ranch is bordered by the Medina river which is great for tubing in the hot summer, and when you ride, you get to go all around the ranch, up the hills, through the trees, etc... You get to see wild deer, turkeys and peacocks. We stayed in a rustic cabin, took a hayride to an outdoor cowboy breakfast, and toasted marshmallows over a bonfire at night. We fished in the river and played tennis on the new courts right outside our cabin.

The food was excellent - bbq brisket, sausage, steak, chicken with all the fixings. We were always entertained with authentic western music and old cowboy tunes. We missed Mexican night, with margaritas and mariachis, which really bummed me out, but we couldn't stay the whole week.

Each afternoon, there were snacks and entertainment. We had a trick roper, who cracked a mean bullwhip, and a man who brought out two young bison. There was a magician for the kids and a man who told Wild West stories and passed around replica guns.

I was a little disappointed that there weren't more organized things to do during the day. Perhaps that was intentional so there would be some down time. It was too cold to swim and the kids ran a little wild. They had one horseshoe pitch, which was broken, one ping-pong table and one shuffle board. And there was only one bbgun to go around for 30 kids in the bbgun shoot. I found out they weren't running a full week-long schedule, like they do in the summer. According to the website, there should have been archery and a talent show. Perhaps that happened on the weekend, when we weren't there.

Overall, we had a great time. Brendan couldn't get enough of the horses, and we were only ten minutes away from my folks. Who knew such a gem was hiding in the hills on the other side of town. Yee haw!

Zorro!

I've had substitute teaching positions for the last four out of six days. I've taught Spanish, Math and Science. You should have seen my trying to help the pre-Algebra class. It was a riot. I looked at the problem thoughtfully and said, "Who can show us how to solve for X?"

I'm really enjoying it, but I've decided that they leave the most gawd-awful assignments for the subs. No wonder kids hate having a sub. For instance, the Spanish teacher had an emergency, and had to leave quickly, which is why I was called in. She said she never lets the kids watch videos so this would be a big treat. Cool! Easy for me.

The movie was The Mark of Zorro - not the one with Antonio Banderas, much to the female students dismay. It starred Tyrone Power and was in black and white. The only thing it had to do with Spanish class was that they threw a few Senors and Senoritas in the script to make it more authentic. It actually wasn't so bad. The writing was rather witty. The kids had questions to answer, so they paid attention. But, by the end of the day, I'd seen the first 55 minutes of Zorro five times!

The teacher requested me again on Monday, presumably because I knew the routine now. Okay, I though, today we'll see the end of Zorro five times.

But NO! The school has A and B days. So I got to see the beginning of Zorro, again, FIVE times. Just to have closure, I stayed in the classroom at lunchtime and finished the movie, just to be sure Zorro didn't get caught, the badguy got what he deserved and they all lived happily ever after.

After that, I started bringing a book!

BTW - Zorro means "sly fox" in Spanish. That was one of the movie questions.

Hospitals, Hospitals, Everywhere!

Thank goodness we're only visiting...

We haven't seen the inside of a hospital in many years, and suddenly, in the past four months, we have had three major incidents. They come in threes right? So we've had our quota for the year! Bill, bless his heart, has put in the most hours. And I have to say, he has a gentle bedside manner that is so unexpected, reassuring and disarming. I think he missed his calling.

The first incident happened with Bill's aunt in September, which I've already written about. The second happened the day before school started back after the holidays. Brendan broke his wrist, which I've already mentioned, too. Just yesterday, he finally got his camoflage fiberglass cast, which is all he wanted out of this ordeal. He thinks it is WAY cool. But it is extremely rough. We wrapped a blanket around it last night so he wouldn't accidently rub off half of his face if he brushed past it.

The last incident was with Bill's dad who was told that he could take his time and pick the best date to have a heart valve replaced...oh and by the way, one artery was pretty blocked, so while they were in there, they'd do a bypass. All of this is hopefully pre-empting worse heart complications as he gets older and will improve his quality of life. So he checked in at 5 AM on Tuesday morning, with Bill and his mom in tow, and spent eight hours on the table with his chest wide open and his heart not beating. But believe it or not, today they removed all of the tubes, except his IV and had him up and walking so that he can go home in the next few days! And I thought they kicked you out of the hosital too fast after child birth!

Dad has improved by leaps and bounds over the past two days. Hopefully, he will continue to heal at that pace. He still can use all the prayers and well-wishes you care to send his way. And while you're praying, pray that Bill stays out of hospitals from now on, as a visitor or a patient. His poor heart has had enough, too.